Giftchild

by Janci Patterson

  I knew I couldn't.

  "Let's talk about something else," Mom said. "How's school?"

  Mom always got really interested in my life right after she lost a child, like she needed to remember that she was actually a mother, even if she wanted more kids than just the two of us. It bugged Athena when Mom did that; Athena just wanted Mom to butt out. But I didn't mind.

  I leaned back, trying to think of a good story to tell her. "We have a physiology test tomorrow," I said. "Facial respiratory anatomy." That wasn't a brilliant tale, but it was on my mind.

  Mom nodded, slowly. "Are you ready?"

  "I'm nervous about it."

  "Did you study?"

  "Yeah. But it all blurs together after a while."

  "I'm sure you'll do fine. You always do."

  "I'll pass," I said. "But Rodney will do better."

  "You'll beat him one of these days."

  "Not likely."

  "It'll happen. But there's got to be something more interesting going on in your life than that."

  "Well, my mother lost a baby," I said.

  Mom gave the swing a hard shove with her feet. "Something that doesn't involve your mother, maybe?"

  "Okay," I said. "Here's some real drama. My friend Kara's boyfriend just dumped her over a text message."

  "Ugh," Mom said, making a pained face. "Dating used to be hard enough. I'm so glad I married your father before the invention of the text."

  I remembered when Mom dated Dad—I was six, and Athena was eight. Mom liked him because he was a gentleman. He called ahead for dates, and even paid for her babysitter, so she could go out without having it add to her single-mom financial stress. That had been the biggest four years in my family's life—year one: dating, year two: marriage, year three: adoption of Athena and me. And then year four, the year I turned ten. The first pregnancy.

  Things hadn't changed much since then.

  "Dad wouldn't have dumped anyone over a text message," I said. "Then or now."

  "Not as an adult. Maybe in high school. Boys that young just aren't capable of commitment."

  Mom would know. My biological father split when I was just a baby. "Yeah," I said. "Kara's a mess."

  "How long had she been dating this guy?"

  "A year."

  Mom groaned again.

  "Yeah. She sobbed for three days, and then she saw him making out with some freshman in the quad."

  Mom turned to me. "And that made her cry less?"

  "It made her angry, which is an improvement over weepy."

  Mom gave a sharp nod. "That's what I need," Mom said. "Someone to be angry at."

  "Lily," I said. The name was out of my mouth before I realized it was an inappropriate thing to say.

  "No," Mom said. "I can't be mad at her for loving her baby."

  Mom would have let her love Anna. That's what the open adoption was for. "Well, I think she's crazy for not wanting you to be Anna's mom."

  "You have to say that," Mom said. "You're my daughter."

  I stabbed a finger in the air. "Not true. Most people at school hate their mothers."

  "Ah, right," Mom said. "Maybe you should try that. Tell me you hate me. Be a normal teenager for once."

  "Nah," I said. "I'll save that for a text message."

  For a moment, I thought Mom might smile. The corners of her mouth twitched upward, but then they wilted down again. "We should both go to bed," she said. "I'm exhausted, and you have that test tomorrow."

  "Okay," I said. We kept swinging for a moment longer. I tried to think of the perfect thing to say—something that would really make her feel better. There were no perfect words. I already knew that. We'd been through this before.

  "You are the best mom ever," I said.

  I sounded like a greeting card, but Mom didn't care. She wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into her shoulder. "Love you," she said.

  And I knew that didn't make everything better, but it certainly didn't make it worse.

  We climbed the stairs together, and when Mom opened the door to her bedroom, I could see that Dad still had the light on. Mom closed the door behind her and their voices talked in quiet murmurs; I couldn't hear what they were saying.

  I went into the bathroom, and closed the door behind me, leaning against it in the dark. The latch rattled against the door frame.

  My family couldn't do this anymore. We'd all had enough of believing that this next time would be the right one, that Mom would finally get to have more kids. She'd had Athena when she was my age, married her high school boyfriend, and then had me two years later. They'd lived in his parents' basement until he'd left her, and then she'd spent five years as a single parent, doing daycare to pay the bills. Mom thought when she married Dad that she'd finally get to have the big family she always wanted, but that didn't work out, not through fertility treatments or adoption.

  We couldn't let another birth mom into our home. I couldn't pretend that one more girl my age was supposed to be like a sister to me. I couldn't watch Mom try to open her heart to another one, like she was her daughter.

  I was already her daughter. And if I were pregnant right now, I'd choose Mom and Dad to parent that baby in a second.

  I flipped on the light and looked at myself in the mirror. Lily was only six months older than me, so she'd been younger than me when she got pregnant. If she'd given Mom the baby, she could have done anything she wanted after.

  Mom needed a pregnant girl who didn't want to keep her baby. She needed someone who loved her enough to make her a mother again, since she and Dad couldn't. And if love for a baby was that strong—if someone who liked us as much as Lily did couldn't make the sacrifice—then Mom needed someone who loved her so much that she could.

  Someone just like me.

  My fingers trembled. I couldn't do that, could I?

  But in my mind, I heard the things I learned in sex-ed. You can get pregnant, even the first time.

  The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. There was no one in the world better to be the daughter Mom needed than me.

  The daughter she already had.

  Chapter Three

  Week One

  I didn't remember falling asleep that night, but I did remember waking up knowing that I was losing my mind. I'd fallen asleep with my knees curled up under me, still thinking about the possibility of getting pregnant for Mom. As if that were a thing I could even think about doing. That was crazy, right? It had to be.

  I stretched my arms above my head and tried to forget about it, like any sane person would.

  Then I heard Mom's voice in the hall.

  "I don't see why we can't try again," she said.

  Dad's voice was weary. "It's just so much money."

  I hugged my knees. My door was still closed, and my alarm clock wasn't due to go off for another half an hour. It was never a good sign for them to get started this early in the morning, and it was an even worse sign for them to be arguing so soon after a loss.

  "I could get a job," Mom said.

  I didn't have to see Dad to know the look on his face, lips pursed, like he was trying to hold in the things he really wanted to say. They'd gone into debt to afford the first set of fertilized eggs, and the medical treatment that went with implanting them. But now they'd lost all of those babies, and even if the doctor would do it, they couldn't afford to try again.

  They couldn't afford adoption, either. But Mom kept pushing.

  Mom didn't give up. "We could borrow against the house. We have the equity."

  I couldn't hear Dad's sigh, but I knew it was there. I tried to bury my head in my pillow, but my stomach twisted. There was no way I was going back to sleep. Instead, I rolled out of bed, opened a dresser drawer, and slammed it closed again. Sometimes, if they knew I could hear them, they'd cool down before things really got going.

  Footsteps moved past my door and downstairs. I hadn't ended the argument, just relocated it.

  That should have made me fee
l better, but it didn't. If I couldn't hear them, who knew how upset they might be getting? I wavered. If I followed them downstairs, they might stop. Or one of them might turn on me, and then I'd be in the middle of it. I didn't want Dad to storm off to work—that would just stress Mom out more.

  I moved across the hall to the bathroom and climbed into the shower, trying to get rid of the queasy sensation, but the longer they were out of earshot, the more my stomach tightened. Who knew what they might be saying to each other when I couldn't hear?

  I turned up the heat of the water until it nearly scorched my skin, and let it slowly drain lukewarm as the hot water ran out.

  Breathe, I told myself. Breathe.

  The answer to all of this couldn't be for me to get pregnant.

  But.

  But.

  The possibilities swirled in my mind. If I were pregnant, Mom and Dad wouldn't have to pay nearly as much as they did for adoption, or infertility treatments. There would be doctor's bills, sure, but they paid Lily's, and she wasn't even covered by our insurance.

  I stood with my face under the water, holding my breath.

  I couldn't really do that. Of course I couldn't. If I wanted to get pregnant I needed to have sex, and Rodney and I didn't do that. Sure, we'd made out more than a few times, but we both thought it was stupid to be in a committed relationship that would inevitably lead to a breakup. I couldn't stand the idea of losing Rodney. If we weren't officially together, our relationship could ebb and flow naturally, instead of needing labels that might inspire us to split over text message. I'd always figured I'd date Rodney eventually, like when we were both in college and old enough to make serious decisions about our lives.

  Like having a baby.

  I turned off the water and stood in the steamy tub, dripping. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to wring out the thoughts, to let them run down the drain with the water.

  My heart beat faster. I climbed out of the shower and ran my fingers across the mirror, revealing my striped reflection. The thoughts were still there, spinning at the back of my mind.

  And the worst part was, they made a crazy kind of sense.

  When I turned off the bathroom fan, I could hear Mom and Dad's voices downstairs. I got dressed as quickly as I could, and then stood on the stairs, gripping the banister.

  "What is one more payment?" Mom asked. "When compared with a child?"

  My hair dripped onto my shirt, soaking my shoulders. If it took them this long to arrive there, they must be arguing in circles.

  "Nothing," Dad said. "But it never happens. We spend the money, and something goes wrong."

  I gripped my hair, wringing water onto the carpet. Dad was right, but he still shouldn't say that. Not when this new loss was so fresh.

  Mom's voice shook, like she was hanging on to hope by a thread, and Dad was threatening to cut it. "Don't be a pessimist."

  Dad's voice softened. "I'm talking about reality."

  Mom's edged toward hysterical. "You're talking about money."

  "I'm really not," Dad said.

  I sucked in my breath. The argument paused for a heartbeat. Don't, I thought.

  "What, then?" Mom asked.

  "I can't watch you go through this again," Dad said. "I can't. And Penny can't, either. I swear she's going to move into that dorm with Athena."

  I bit down on my lip. It wasn't fair for Dad to use me as an excuse.

  But he also wasn't wrong. I'd had that thought, too. Repeatedly.

  Jeez. What kind of a daughter was I? Did I really want what was best for Mom, or not?

  I heard Mom sniffle. "I'm sorry," Dad said.

  Mom didn't respond. Dad wouldn't push her any further; he'd only said what he did because Mom dragged it out of him. I wished he'd held back even then, though. Mom might stew on it for days before she asked me if that was true, and then I'd have to tell her that it wasn't. Of course we'd stand by her again. Of course. That's what families did.

  But a voice nagged at the back of my mind: families help each other. Aren't you willing to do everything you can?

  I heard one of my parents sink onto a couch. "I'm sorry," Dad said again. "I didn't mean . . ."

  I took a deep breath. At least the fight was over, for now. I crept downstairs and into Dad's office as quietly as I could, and sat down at his computer.

  I still had ten minutes before I was even supposed to be awake, and unless I wanted to run into Mom while she was crying, I needed to lie low. I pulled up a photo I was editing—a picture I'd taken while lying down in the roots of a redwood with the top of my head against the trunk. I'd focused on a felty strip of bark halfway up the tree, with the branches and the rest of the trunk in fuzzy focus on either side.

  A minute later, I heard the front door close. I figured Dad had gone to work, but then the office door opened behind me, and Dad stood in the doorway. He hadn't even gotten dressed yet. "I'm sorry you had to hear that," he said. "Are you okay?"

  I guess I didn't sneak downstairs as quietly as I'd thought. "I'm fine," I said. "What about Mom?"

  "Not okay," Dad said. He hesitated. "That's my fault. I shouldn't have said those things."

  I understood. Sometimes it was hard not to. "Where did she go?"

  He waved a hand toward the front door. "I think she just needs some space."

  Space was good when she came back better, but sometimes she came back worse. "I could talk to her if you want."

  Dad shook his head. "Let's both let it go, unless she brings it up again, okay?"

  I squirmed. "You're still going to have to decide what to do though, aren't you? About the future?"

  Dad leaned against the door frame, like the weight was too heavy to carry. "We will," he said.

  We both looked down at the floor. There were no easy answers, I guessed. Dad would never suggest that I should have a baby for Mom. He'd never even think it.

  And if I told him about it, he'd tell me that I shouldn't be thinking it, either.

  "What are you working on?" Dad asked.

  I leaned back so Dad could see the photo.

  "Is it finished?"

  "Not started, actually," I said. "I'm about to correct the colors." Since the tree provided too much shade, I needed to adjust the white balance and the exposure, to bring out the green in the needles and the burgundy brown in the trunk.

  "You're still thinking of studying this in college?"

  I shrugged. Stressing about money always got him asking about my educational plans. Neither he nor Mom had college degrees, and he always blamed that whenever they couldn't afford things, as if people with college degrees never had money problems. "Probably," I said.

  "Doesn't pay well, does it?"

  "I think it depends on what you do with it."

  Dad gave me a sharp nod. "You better find out before you start."

  "I will," I said. "Don't worry."

  "I'll worry all I want," he said. But he was already walking up the stairs to get ready for work.

  Athena was majoring in English teaching, which meant that even with a college degree, she'd never make more than Dad did. Dad kept hoping she'd change her mind, but Athena wasn't the mind-changing type.

  I saw his point, though. If photography and editing wouldn't make money, I'd find something else to major in. Then Dad could quit stressing about it.

  I was upstairs drying my hair when Dad knocked on the bathroom door. I turned off the blow-dryer.

  "I'm leaving," he said. "Your mom isn't back yet. Do you need a ride to school?"

  "Rodney's picking me up," I called.

  "Great. Have a good day."

  As his footsteps plunked down the stairs, I heard him mutter, "Someone should."

  I turned the blow-dryer back on, to muffle anything else he might have said.

  If ever there was a morning I wanted to rush off to school, this was it, but I finished getting ready with time to spare. I went back down to his computer, where I'd left my photo. I selected the tree bark and toyed with
the colors, pushing them from yellow to blue and then back again. My fingers trembled, and I had to use the keyboard to move the slider, to be sure I found a happy equilibrium.

  By the time Rodney arrived, I'd been pacing back and forth in the living room for twenty minutes. In our four-year friendship, I'd never been nervous around Rodney. This was ridiculous. There was nothing to be nervous about anyway. He'd never agree to have a baby with me, would he? I mean, given his opinion of taking pictures of kids, I knew he wasn't interested in being a father.

  But that was kind of the point, wasn't it? He wouldn't be the baby's father. That was the point of adoption: he wouldn't have any responsibility to the baby.

  I paced faster.

  When I heard his car door slam, I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of orange juice, trying not to look like I'd been waiting. Rodney knocked on the door and then just opened it. He walked right through the living room to find me in the kitchen.

  "Hey," he said. "Can I have some of that?"

  I nudged the carton of orange juice his way, and he opened the cabinet and pulled down his own glass. I tried to relax. Any guy who knew where to find the glasses in my kitchen was not a guy to be nervous around.

  "How's your mom?" he asked.

  "I don't know," I said. "She left the house this morning before I got up."

  "That's good, right?"

  The first time Mom lost a baby, she stayed in bed for four days. "It's better. But she left because she and Dad had a fight."

  "Ugh. Not good. Sorry." Rodney guzzled his orange juice down in a series of gulps. I stood against the counter, trying to decide what to do with my hands.

  The last time Rodney and I made out was a month ago, on the last weekend of summer break. We'd driven over the hill to the Santa Cruz boardwalk and wandered around. After three spins through the bumper cars, we walked down to the water and Rodney scooped me off my feet and dunked me into the waves. My breath flew right out of me when the icy water hit my skin, and when I caught it again, I screamed. Rodney stood above me, waves washing up to his thighs, laughing and laughing.

  When the seventh wave came, I rolled right into him and knocked him onto his butt. His arms circled over his head like a drowning man trying to do a butterfly stroke, and then the wave bowled me right over him, tangling us together, and that's when he kissed me.