My Life After Now

by Jessica Verdi

  But what if Lisa’s very existence had corrupted me, worked its way inside me when I was just a little kid, and pushed me in Lee’s direction? That would mean this living hell I’d fallen into wasn’t entirely my fault. Some of it—even just a small piece—was Lisa’s. Maybe, if I’d never known her, I wouldn’t have even thought to go home with Lee. Maybe, if she had simply handed me over to Dad after I was born and then stayed away, I wouldn’t be in this situation now.

  She finally finished fishing around in the fridge and kicked the door closed. But when she turned and saw me sitting there, silently glowering at her, she yelped and lost her grip on her armful of sandwich fixings.

  “Christ, Lucy, you scared me,” she said, squatting down to collect the food. I didn’t get up to help her.

  “Sorry,” I said, making it absolutely clear that I was not even a little bit sorry.

  She gave me a weird look but continued her sandwich-making mission. Clearly, it was going to take a lot more than a sarcastic attitude to come between a pregnant freeloader and her pile of free food.

  “Why did you come back?” I demanded.

  Lisa paused for an instant so quick it was almost nonexistent and then resumed slathering two pieces of bread with mayonnaise. “I already told you,” she said.

  “No, not this time. I mean, why did you come back those times when I was little?”

  That got her to finally put the food down. “Because I wanted to see you.”

  The carefully arranged mask of innocence on her face caused something to snap inside me.

  “Don’t lie to me!” I screamed, and pounded my fists on the table. Lisa sucked in her breath and her eyes grew huge.

  “I’m not,” she said unconvincingly.

  “You think I don’t remember? The first time you came back you were so strung out you couldn’t even look at me. That’s not a mother who wants to see her daughter. You were here because you needed money, and you knew Dad would give it to you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “But what about the second time? I didn’t ask for money then,” she said indignantly. At least she didn’t bother denying my accusation. We both knew it was the truth.

  “The second time was even worse! At least when you were all drugged up, I knew you weren’t worth my time. But the second time, you actually pretended to care about me!” Angry tears were starting to come now, but I didn’t wipe them away. “I didn’t need you, Lisa. I was doing perfectly fine without you. So why did you come back?”

  She lowered her gaze. “Because I wanted to see how you were doing. It’s the truth, Lucy. I missed you.”

  “You missed me,” I repeated, not believing her for a second. “So you decided the best thing for the thirteen-year-old daughter that you missed so much would be to come put on a big motherly show, make me love you, and then take it all away without so much as a good-bye? Oh yeah, that’s someone who cares about her kid.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Lisa shouted back. “I’m messed up. That’s my only excuse.”

  “Are you kidding me? That’s not an excuse at all! You’re messed up because you chose to be. No one forced those drugs into your veins or up your nose or whatever it is that you do. No one made you leave your family. You did all that. The only person you care about is yourself.”

  Her hand flew to her stomach. “That’s not true.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said, letting out a humorless laugh. “The baby that you actually do want. Because, somehow, that kid is going to make you into a decent person. You know, I feel really bad for that baby. It’s not even born yet, and it’s already expected to do the impossible.” I shook my head. “Do you have any idea how much you’ve managed to screw me up, Lisa? I actually have a family, people who love me unconditionally, and you’ve been in my life all of a collective five minutes. Yet somehow your toxicity managed to cut through it all and damage me in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine. So yeah, good luck, little unborn baby. With a mother like this, who needs enemies?”

  I stormed out of the kitchen.

  • • •

  I slammed my door, threw my earphones on, and blasted my iPod. I hated her. I didn’t care about the baby anymore—I just wanted that woman out of my house and out of my life once and for all.

  I lay on my bed, still fuming, and stared vacantly at the ceiling for a long time.

  But one Wicked, one Legally Blonde: The Musical, and half a Ragtime cast album later, I heard a noise downstairs. I quickly turned the volume down on “Wheels of a Dream” and listened. My dads were home, and there was a lot of indecipherable yelling layered on top of the sounds of feet pounding as they moved around frantically. I could also hear Lisa, but she wasn’t yelling so much as moaning. In pain? Despair? I strained to hear but couldn’t make out any words. What the hell was going on down there?

  Unable to just listen any longer, I ran downstairs and gasped at the sight before me.

  Lisa was balled up on the floor of the guest room, clutching her stomach and screaming in agony. There was blood covering her lower half and slowly spreading onto the carpet beneath her. Papa was on the phone, pacing the room and trying to explain what was happening to, I assumed, a 911 operator, his face panic-stricken. Dad was kneeling beside Lisa, futilely trying to get her to stop wailing long enough to tell him what had happened.

  I was frozen in place.

  Did I do this?

  Did my attack on Lisa send her pregnancy into distress?

  My offhand thoughts about not caring about the baby came rushing back to me.

  “I didn’t mean it!” I cried. “I’m sorry!”

  Suddenly, I was out of my body. The scene became muted and I felt like I was watching everything through a scrim. My feet stayed on the floor, but my spirit lifted up and floated over the room.

  Dad hung up the phone and said something to me. But he said it to my body. My detached spirit didn’t hear. He rattled my shoulders, trying to get a reaction. Unsatisfied, he ran out of the room in the direction of the front door. The ambulance must have been here.

  A moment later, two men in EMT uniforms rushed in and pushed past my hollow body. One tended to Lisa, taking her pulse and listening to her stomach with a stethoscope. The other turned his attention to Dad and Papa, trying to get answers. Dad and Papa responded, gesturing wildly. But to spirit-me, everything lingered in perfect silence. The men lifted Lisa onto a stretcher and took her away. Dad and Papa followed close behind, their clothes stained with Lisa’s blood.

  I remained suspended above the now-still room.

  But then my gaze landed on something, and I was violently sucked back into my body. I pried my feet off the ground and ran over to Lisa’s bedside table, which Dad and Papa must not have noticed in the commotion.

  Laid out on the table was an open, near-empty bag of cocaine.

  28

  Two Lost Souls

  “Miss Williams has suffered what is called a placental abruption,” the doctor explained.

  I’d shoved the cocaine baggie into a Ziploc and followed my dads to the hospital. When I found them in the emergency room waiting room, I showed them what I’d found, and Papa informed the medical staff. The three of us sat, shell-shocked, in the waiting room for several hours, not being told anything about Lisa’s status.

  But now, finally, we were getting some information.

  “What is that?” Dad asked.

  “It’s when the placenta, which is the organ that provides nourishment to the fetus, detaches from the uterine wall. It’s rare to see in healthy pregnancies; however, the use of cocaine during pregnancy does greatly increase the chances of it happening.”

  Dad rubbed his temples. “Is the baby okay? Is Lisa okay?”

  The doctor nodded. “There was only a partial uterine separation, so we were not forced to do an emergency C-section. Because Miss Williams is just now entering her third trimester, the chance of birth defects would have been very high should we have had to deliver. But we were able
to stabilize both mother and fetus through blood transfusions and the administering of IV fluids.” He paused to give us each a meaningful look. “They were very lucky.”

  Dad shook the doctor’s hand. “Thank you so much. We appreciate everything you’ve done to help them both.”

  “A word of advice—keep an eye on her. It is absolutely crucial that she not engage in any more illicit drug use during this pregnancy. Consider today a wakeup call,” he said sternly.

  “We will,” Dad said, nodding profusely. “When can we take her home?”

  “I want to keep her here for a few days to monitor her for shock and the fetus for any signs of distress. If all goes well, I would say she can probably go home this weekend.”

  They were still running some tests on Lisa, so we had to wait awhile longer before we could see her. We returned to our seats in the waiting room. It was already after midnight, but I don’t think any of us were very tired.

  We sat there in silence for a long while, half watching a Seinfeld rerun on the waiting room’s fuzzy TV.

  My phone buzzed.

  Any more news on the commercial? When do you shoot?

  I turned the phone off. I couldn’t think about Ty or the commercial right now; there was something I needed to confess. “It was my fault,” I said into the quiet.

  “What was your fault, honey?” Papa asked.

  “Lisa taking the drugs. I confronted her today. I pretty much screamed in her face, blaming her for everything and telling her what a terrible mother she is going to be to the new baby.” I took a deep breath. “That’s why she did the drugs. It was because of what I said.”

  Papa opened his mouth to respond but I kept talking.

  “And I should have named the baby.” I was suddenly feeling guilty about that too.

  “What do you mean?” Papa said.

  “Lisa asked me to name the baby. Maybe if I’d done that, she would have felt like I cared more and wouldn’t have gone and done this.”

  Dad and Papa looked at each other.

  “Lucy,” Dad said, “Lisa took the drugs because she has a problem. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Whatever,” I mumbled. I knew the truth.

  A short time later, a nurse told us we could go in and see her. She was propped up in the hospital bed, a white blanket covering her large belly, hooked up to all kinds of monitors and IVs.

  I don’t think my dads knew what to say any better than I did. The air was thick. I stayed close to the door, not saying much of anything. I’d said enough today.

  “How are you feeling?” Dad asked.

  “Better. The pain is gone,” she said.

  “That’s good.”

  Then Papa spoke up. “Lisa, you have to be honest with us. I thought the whole point of you staying with us during the pregnancy was because you wanted to stay healthy. What the hell happened?”

  “I do want to stay healthy,” Lisa insisted. “But it’s hard.”

  “That’s not an explanation,” Papa said.

  Lisa shrugged.

  “Where did you get the cocaine?” Papa asked.

  “From Serge.”

  “Serge? Who the hell is Serge?”

  “He’s a guy I met a couple months ago.”

  “You’re not telling me you’ve been doing drugs for a couple of months…?”

  “Like you care!” Lisa said.

  “Lisa,” Dad stepped in, clearly trying to set an example with his calm voice, “of course we care.”

  “Could have fooled me. No one has even looked at me twice in the last two months. The two of you are so bloody consumed with Lucy all the time. ‘Why is Lucy so down in the dumps?’” she said in a terrible American accent, mocking my dads. “‘Oh gee, I hope Lucy’s okay.’ ‘Let’s have our little secret family meetings with Lucy and not invite Lisa to any of them.’ ‘We’re going to the city with Lucy, Lisa. You can fend for yourself for dinner.’”

  We stared at her in shock.

  “I swear, I don’t even know why you had me come to live with you in the first place. At least Serge understands me.” She crossed her arms firmly over her expanded middle, sulking.

  Papa was at her bedside in two broad strides. He put his face close to hers and spoke fiercely. “You want our attention? You got it. For the next three months you will be watched like a hawk. You will not go anywhere near so much as an aspirin until that baby is born, do you understand me? And once the baby is out, so are you. You will never be welcome in our home again.”

  Papa stormed out of the hospital room, and Dad and I followed wordlessly, too stunned to do anything else.

  “Lucy, I hope you see now that none of this was even remotely your fault. That vile woman is a lost cause,” Papa growled as we fled the scene.

  We exited the hospital to find that it had begun to snow.

  29

  Maybe This Time

  Heavy snow canceled school Thursday and Friday. That meant rehearsals too. It wasn’t the best timing, what with the show set to open in a week, but it was just as well, because after what had happened with Lisa, I hadn’t been sleeping very well and I was grateful to have time to recuperate.

  I had the house all to myself. We were rid of Lisa for at least three days, and Dad and Papa still had to go to work.

  Friday afternoon, I made myself some soup for lunch and watched the snow falling from the living room picture window. Everything was so still, so beautiful. It was hard to imagine that this was the same world where so many people were dying senselessly, where pregnant women were willing to put their babies’ lives in danger, where fear triumphed over love.

  Gazing out at the white-blanketed front lawn, I was transported back to a time where everything was so much simpler. There were Courtney, Max, and I, bundled up in snowsuits and hats and boots, building a snowman on the front lawn. We outfitted him with a feather boa and a cardboard Happy Birthday hat, and used walnuts for his eyes and nose and a piece of licorice for his mouth. We called him Jonathan. Courtney proclaimed he was a prince and that we should build him a princess, so they could be married. But Max and I had a better idea…we built another snowman, gave him a belt and a backpack, and called him Andrew. When we were finished, we stood back to admire our work—Eleanor Falls’s first gay snowcouple—and collapsed in a giggling heap into a snow bank.

  But now, under the luminescent gloss that the snow had painted onto the world, I had never felt so alone.

  • • •

  I was just settling down on the couch to watch a movie when I heard the unmistakable crunch of tires on packed snow crawling up the driveway.

  Who could that be? I knew it wasn’t Dad or Papa, and after my disagreement with Roxie the other night, I officially had zero friends.

  I opened the front door, squinting into the falling snow, shivering against the cold.

  I knew that car. It was Ty.

  He trudged up the unshoveled walk, grinning. “Hey, Lu,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He held up a paper bag. “I brought you hot chocolate.”

  I couldn’t deny the little skip my heart did when I saw him. No matter what had happened in the past, Ty on my doorstep was a welcome sight. But still, I was suspicious. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because it’s a snow day and we always spend snow days together.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”

  “And?”

  “And I really miss you.”

  I searched his face, my pulse racing with possibility. His expression was open, genuine. Ty missed me.

  I opened the door wider, and he came inside.

  • • •

  In times past, Ty and I would have been cuddled up together on the couch, under a blanket, intertwined so that our legs and arms were indistinguishable from one another’s. As it was now, we were sitting on not quite opposite ends of the couch, but definitely with enough space between us to make the distance feel awkw
ard. I flipped through the movie channels, looking for something to put on.

  “What do you feel like watching?”

  “I’m actually not really in the mood to watch anything,” he said.

  I glanced at him. “What are you in the mood for—”

  But I cut myself off. Ty was staring at me, a dazzling grin fixed on his lips.

  Transfixed, I switched the TV off and slowly slid closer to him. He placed his hand on my cheek and tenderly touched his lips to mine. My skin was instantly on fire. It felt like my entire body had been charged with defibrillator paddles.

  The kiss became more passionate, but after a moment, I pulled back. “Wait. What about Elyse?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not working with Elyse. I made a mistake.”

  Relief flooded through me, and I kissed him again, even more intensely. Soon we were all over each other, horizontal on the couch.

  As we kissed and ran our hands all over each other, my mind was reeling with contradictions.

  The rational half of me was broadcasting, in flashing, neon lights: Don’t do this.

  I should stop to remember how badly Ty had treated me in the past. I should consider whether I even felt the same way about him anymore. I should think about my feelings for Evan.

  And, for the love of all things holy, before we went any further, I should tell him about the HIV. That was the right thing to do.

  But the rational half of me was beaten down into oblivion by the irrational half.

  Roxie had said that as long as I used a condom, it was next to impossible to pass the HIV on. She knew what she was talking about—she’d had HIV for nineteen years. If she could have sex, so could I, dammit!

  I didn’t want to be alone anymore. And here was this hot guy, who meant so much to me, telling me he wanted me. There was no way I was going to say no to that. Not when I needed him the most.

  • • •

  When it was over, we lay together, skin-to-skin, under the blanket. I closed my eyes as he stroked my hair, and breathed him in.

  “I missed you,” I whispered.