“It’s common to change majors,” she says. “But this list of schools. Are they really…”
She trails off because they’re not bad schools. But they aren’t special either. I chose them because they have strong libraries and good services for students struggling with homelessness or financial issues. Oh, and climbing options nearby.
“They have all the amenities that are important to me.”
Not that I knew how to find any of that. Mr. Brooks helped me compile the list at the library. He came in after the questioning and sat with me until Mom got back from the hospital. Before landing on librarian, he’d been a coffee shop manager, a vocalist in a jazz band, and a pastry chef. I figure given his path, I should be fine taking some time to figure it out.
“A librarian,” Dad repeats with a laugh. “Do you even read?”
“I read plenty. I’m just not interested in financial reports.”
“Point taken,” Dad says.
“Point taken?” Mom’s face tightens. “Don’t tell me you’re fine with this?”
“What do you want me to do, force him into investment banking?”
“I want you to press for an appropriate college.”
Dad points his fork at me. “Are you going to a four-year college?”
Aunt Jan clears her throat. “I hate to add a bee to this bonnet, but I’ve done quite well on my two-year degree.”
I bite back a grin. Jan is an executive chef and quite well is an understatement. Dad once said between cookbook sales, restaurant consultations, and celebrity guest judge appearances, Jan could probably rival his take-home pay, and that’s before you add in her restaurant salary.
“Jan, you’re not helping,” Mom says.
Dad reaches for another roll. “She does have a point. Did you see her pies?”
Mom grips her silverware harder, so I reach over Allison to touch her hand. “I’m still planning on college.”
Dad claps loudly. “Good enough. We’ll figure out the rest after I have pie.”
I grin, feeling lighter than I have in months. Conversation and forks pick back up, and the snooze button is officially hit on this subject. I’m half sure I’ll float out of my chair, but then Mom quietly excuses herself from the table. The balloons in my chest fill with lead.
I find her in the kitchen, faucet on but ignored as she stares out the window.
“Mom?”
I can only see her profile, and she’s not crying, but she’s close. When she turns, the faucet is still running, so I turn it off for her.
“Is it a bad life?” she asks.
“What? No.”
She sighs. “Your dad says we should have seen the writing on the wall, but I think I missed something.”
“You didn’t miss anything.”
“But I did.” Her eyes are thick with tears. “If I did it right, you wouldn’t hate it here. Your home should feel right.”
I put my hand over hers and feel certain for the first time in months about what I’ll say next. Because I get it now. Why this town feels strange. Why Mallory got to me in the first place. Why I’m so desperate to do something that matters more than moving stocks around. And maybe I understand why my mom is so desperate to give me everything too.
“I’ve always felt right with you and Dad,” I say. “That’s part of it, Mom. Some part of me knows I could have ended up with any family. It’s a miracle I ended up with you.”
“You are my son. Mine. I knew it the instant I looked in your eyes, Spencer. I can’t imagine any version of my life where you are not with us.”
I squeeze her hand, chuckling. “I believe you. But other kids don’t get this. I could have landed anywhere, Mom. You gave me an incredible life. I want to live it in a way that matters. But I’m afraid of what you’ll think when I pick a life you wouldn’t choose.”
“If it matters to you, it will matter to me.”
“Well, you say that now.”
“Try me. I’ll argue, because I’m your mom. But I usually come around,” she says.
“Usually? You mean after years of begging and convincing. Flowcharts and slideshows.”
“Always the joker,” she says. “Spencer, you do have one thing dead wrong in all of this.”
“What’s that?”
“We didn’t do anything for you. We aren’t heroes.” She reaches for me, brushing my hair off my forehead like she did when I was little. “You were the miracle.”
• • •
My phone rings two minutes before halftime on the football game we’re watching. I pull it out of my pocket, but don’t recognize the number on my screen.
“Hello?”
“Spencer Keller? I’m calling from the National Knitting Association.”
I feel my smile bloom from the center of my chest. “I’m sorry, I only accept calls from the Crochet Cadets.”
It’s been a handful of words, but I already love Mallory’s voice on the other end of a phone line. And her voice has nothing on her laugh.
“I’m glad you called,” I tell her. “How’s the concussion?”
“We’re friends. I named him Vincent.”
“Ha ha. Are you in the hospital?”
“Released earlier today and…there’s a lot that’s happened. Things are getting better.”
“Good. Tell me everything.”
“I can’t. Not yet. But…I wanted you to have my new number. For yarn emergencies.”
I can’t stop smiling. “When can I see you? How about now? Or maybe now? Does now work for you?”
She laughs again and I close my eyes, imagining her pretty green eyes and the mischief in her smile. Then she sighs, and it’s like the first time I touched her fingers. Electric.
“Not now, but maybe later? I still don’t know how it’s all going to work.”
“Later is good,” I say, and I don’t ask for the specifics.
Specifics can come later. Right now, the sound of her voice in my ear is enough.
Mallory
Thursday, November 23, 6:04 p.m.
Lana holds my hand, but I still feel shaky in the elevator. I watch the numbers on the lighted panel glow floor by floor. One. Two. Three. Four.
Ding!
The doors whoosh open, and my knees turn to water. Lana’s grip tightens as I sag, and then another hand—small, rough, and warm—squeezes my free fingers. Lana’s mother, Maria.
“I am going to be right here,” she says.
“Okay.”
“This is hard, and you’ve done many hard things. But in my family, women stick together, and that’s what you are now. You hear me, mija?”
“Yes.” My voice is shriveled, and my next breath tastes like disinfectant and…baby lotion?
Lana’s mom gives my hand another shake. “I am going to keep calling that worker. We will figure out some visits. Some dinners. You need good food.”
I blink back tears and wonder why I didn’t tell her the truth sooner, why I couldn’t see she was a person I could trust.
“Thank you,” I say.
I hear a distant high-pitched cry and take a steadying breath. I approach the nurses’ station, where they take my name and call my mother’s room. I tense. For all I know, he could be back there. He could come out here.
And you’ll deal with it if he does.
“You want to go in alone?” Lana asks. “Or should I come with?”
“They’ll only let me in. It’s a NICU thing.”
Lana’s untangles her hand, and we exchange a hug. Maria is in the waiting chair closest to the nurses’ station and the door back to the unit. She looks up at me above a People magazine, her eyes dark and knowing. “If that man gives you any trouble, I will be right here.”
“Okay.”
Charlie is nowhere in sight; it is my mother w
ho comes to the door. She’s in a bathrobe and moving slow. I hug her gently in the hallway, letting my embrace linger. I missed her. Her hair smells like hospital soap, and she’s crying into my neck, and in that moment, I feel a million emotions all at once: anger, sadness, relief, even hope. The way I feel about my mother is a tangled, messy knot. Maybe it always will be.
“Your head? Are you okay?” Her fingers feather over my bandage, barely a graze against the gauze, but enough to make me wince.
“I’m okay. It’s better. Will they let me see her? The baby?”
“Of course. I just need to go in first.”
She links her thin arm with mine, and we start down the hall in the same rhythm. In this moment, it is like before. I remember Sundays at the Suds and Fluff and singing into hairbrushes. Even now, even after everything, there is still good mixed into the bad.
Mom stops at the NICU door, rubbing her hands with the sanitizer outside the door. “They say she’s very strong. They might release her to the regular nursery tonight.”
“That’s great.”
“I’ll go give them your information and then they’ll wave you in. It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”
“Take your time.”
She slips inside, and I’m left in the hallway with the soft burble of conversation from the nurses’ station and the muted sounds of a television in a patient’s room. I relax my shoulders, staring through the sliver of window in the doorway. I can see my mom near a plastic incubator. There are rows of them, but I can only see the tops. The window in the door is too high to reveal the babies inside.
I squeeze my hands together at my fluttering stomach, my nerves giving way to excitement. Something close to giddiness. All the way here I worried about seeing Charlie. I didn’t think she’d convince him to give us time, so I went over it a million times in my head. What I would say, how I would act. I almost forgot about the baby, but now she’s all I can think about. I wonder if she has brown hair like me or long fingers like my mom. Maybe she’ll—
“Mallory.”
I whirl at the sound of his voice, the hair on the back of my neck rising. Charlie. I don’t say his name. I’m not sure I could get the word out.
“I knew you’d come back.” His voice is poisoned candy. The flutter in my stomach tightens into a breath-stealing clench of muscle. “I told you, didn’t I?”
“I’m not back.” I hate how panicky I sound, how I can feel the sweat prickle at the palms of my hands. The way I shrink under his look.
He steps closer. I back up, my shoulder blades hitting the hospital wall. “Don’t think you’re going in there until I say so.”
There’s nothing sugary about his voice anymore. It’s a honey-dipped scorpion. And there’s something new too. His fists. They’re clenched at his sides, his knuckles tight and white.
I think of Billie in the car. Is this how the end started for her? Did his control slip into clenched fists? What comes after that? A car accident for Billie. Was he there? Was he driving?
It doesn’t matter because I can’t prove it.
And I know it wouldn’t matter if I could.
“Who sees her is up to my mom,” I say, surrendering to it. It’s always her choice. And she might choose to be with this man forever.
“Nothing is up to your Mom. This newest stunt of yours. Living in a group home. Emancipation.” He says it like it’s a filthy word. “You think I’ll let that happen?”
“I don’t think you get to decide.”
“Who do you think decides for this family? Her?” He jerks his head toward the door with a hard laugh. His control is slipping. He’s red. Mottled. Stepping too close. “She doesn’t have the stomach for it. She leaves me to make the hard choices.”
My heart pounds. I look through the glass where Mom still has her back turned. Down the hall, nurses chatter. I could get help if I need it. I could scream and run. Or I could stand here and take it until my mother lets me through that door so I can meet my sister.
What I can’t do is argue with him, because he’s right. She does leave him to make the decisions, and it will always make this harder.
Charlie leans in until I can smell his aftershave, until I am trapped between his dark threats and the wall against my back. “You remember, I’ll always be here. I’ll always be watching you.”
“Excuse me.” The voice that interrupts us is unfamiliar and female. And impatient.
A flash of white sleeve catches my eye, and I step back automatically. Because it’s a hospital, and white means doctor. Charlie does not respond so quickly.
“Sir! Excuse me.” The doctor is slim and tall and not in the mood to be ignored.
Charlie finally stumbles back, looking uncertain and annoyed in equal parts as she brushes past, marching fast toward a room.
“Miss!” he barks after her. “Hey, miss!”
Neither the doctor or the two nurses trailing her spare him a backward glance. Charlie’s jaw twitches in distress, hands clenching and releasing. Clenching and releasing. A strange feeling comes over me, seeing him like this. Helpless and forgotten, just another faceless, annoying jerk standing in their way.
It is the first time he has ever looked small to me.
And once is enough.
Charlie takes a breath, all the distressed pieces of his face returning to his careful mask of control. But it’s too late to fool me. The game has changed. It’s his turn to catch up.
The door to the NICU swings open before he can speak, and a nurse with dark eyes and a tired smile looks at us.
“Mallory, are you ready to meet your sister?”
“I’ll be coming in too,” Charlie says.
“Sorry, only two at a time,” she says brightly. “You can come in next. Just use some of that antibacterial gel, Mallory. You don’t have a cough or a fever?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Okay, great.”
The nurse holds the door open and I pause, watching the quiet fury roll over Charlie’s face.
“Hey Charlie,” I say, my voice honey dipped like his. “I’ll always be here too. Always.”
To anyone standing nearby, this would be endearing. A sweet, loving sister promising devotion to her family. Which is exactly why I lean in a little closer, dropping my voice so no one can hear when I tell him, “And I will always be watching you.”
Inside the NICU, I follow the nurse to my mother who tells me to sit, sit, sit. I stare into the plexiglass box, but there’s nothing but tubes and monitors and tiny pink feet in the one closest to the rocking chair I’m in.
“They take such good care of her,” Mom says. “They tell her she’s beautiful all the time.”
“Because she is beautiful,” one nurse says as she opens the plastic incubator. She swaddles the baby, tucking and wrapping and moving cords like it’s muscle memory.
The nurse turns to me, and then I realize she’s offering the baby to me. Some part of me freezes, a thousand terrified objections crowding into my mouth. But before I can put voice to them, she puts that bundle of baby into my arms. She weighs next to nothing.
I peer at her, finding a pink face with round cheeks and a button nose, one small tube disappearing into her left nostril. My nervousness vanishes, and a mix of awe and affection takes its place. Beautiful is the right word. It might be the only word.
I curl my arms around her and take her in. This is my sister, a brand-new human, warm and breathing in my arms.
“She’s perfect,” I say.
“She really is.” Mom sighs and then bites her lip. “Charlie thinks she looks like you.”
I look up, not surprised she would bring him up, but surprised it would not shake me. But it doesn’t. The power has been stripped from his name, and I am free.
Mom looks at me, like she knows the spell is broken. “He asked me how long y
ou would be at Mulberry Manor.”
“I’m seeking early emancipation,” I say, still rocking, my gaze latched onto the baby’s perfect skin, the soft rise and fall of her tiny chest. “I think they already talked to you about this. You can sign it or we can go to court and do it all there.”
“I’m going to sign it,” Mom says. “I already told him.”
I stop rocking and look at her.
Mom’s fingers graze the baby’s cheek, and then they touch the back of my hand. “I know you wanted me to leave with you. Maybe someday I will, but I’m not ready.”
“It’s okay.” I’m surprised that I actually mean it. Being in a house with a man like Charlie isn’t okay for me, but I don’t get to decide what’s right for her.
Maybe that’s best. It’s hard enough figuring it out what’s right for one person.
“Thank you for agreeing to sign the papers,” I say.
“Thank you for coming to meet your sister,” she says.
I curl the baby a little closer to my body, a twinge of regret cramping my chest. I wish so many things for this baby. A better father. A better life. Things I can’t provide. But I can give her a sister who is strong and independent. I can give her love and the encouragement to find her own way.
I touch the edge of the baby’s blanket, trace a small yellow duck, and feel a surge of love that’s bigger than all that I’ve lost.
Love for my mother and my perfect new sister. Love for Ruth who showed me the way, and for Lana and Maria who are pulling me into their family. Love for Spencer who reminded me that risk can be rewarding. And love for Lily, who at this very moment is probably tiptoeing toward her new life too.
“What’s her name?” I ask my mother, only now realizing I hadn’t asked before.
“Abigail.”
“Abigail,” I repeat. “You’ve got a lot of choices ahead.” I touch her cheek softly, feel the newness of her skin. “Be brave enough to make them count.”
Acknowledgments
Every book is its own miracle, and each one changes me. I’m grateful for that ever-renewing miracle and for God’s grace to allow me to be part of it.
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