by Caela Carter
I should be angry that she says good night to dead babies every night but hasn’t even paid enough attention to me to know I’m in position to be valedictorian, or that I’m a total fuckup. But it’s too sad. I can’t be angry when the sadness in the room is so heavy.
“And then, really, I lost your father. And I know you blame him, but it was my fault too.” She pauses so we can both breathe. “But he loved you so much and so well, I knew if we split up, you’d go with him.” I want to tell her she’s wrong, but I can’t. She’s probably right. “I knew he could never live without you. And neither could I. So here we are. Both of us preparing to live without you.”
Now I’m crying in earnest. The first time I’ve cried since I got pregnant. I try to keep my shoulders still so she can’t see. I keep my eyes closed so she might think I’m sleeping. It feels so good to have her fingers in my hair after all these years. I wonder if my baby feels someone stroking its head like this just because I do. I hope it does.
“I’m going to miss you so much. And I’m so worried about everything you are about to lose—your freedom, your high school, and I think you must have lost Todd.”
She knows his name?
“I just don’t want all that to seal you up like it sealed me up. Please talk to Linda about it. Linda is wild and flighty and we were never close, but she’s happier than I am. Let Linda help you, Evelyn. Talk and talk and talk. Don’t be like me. And then come home, and we’ll all make it work. We’ll make it all work.”
It’s not fair for her to finally talk to me just as soon as she’s kicking me out. It isn’t fair to hear her say I love you now that we’re so angry at each other, now that we’re going to be hundreds of miles apart. It’s not fair for her to try to explain all of her mistakes away when she’s still the one who made them. It’s not fair for her to say that I haven’t lost yet when I so clearly have—lost her, lost my dad. Lost Todd. Lost everyone but Lizzie and Aunt Linda. It isn’t fair for her to pressure me to talk when she can’t talk herself. Not fair.
I try to stop crying as I fake sleep breathe, deep in, deep out. Steady rhythm.
Just when my brain feels heavy enough to fall out of consciousness, she starts talking again.
“You can keep pretending if that’s what’s best for you, Evelyn, but I know you heard that. I love you.”
Then she rolls onto her back again. My hair misses her hands. I want to keep pretending to sleep, but I remember everything she said about talking so I let the words slip out onto the pillow, so quietly, “I love you too, Mom.”
But I’m not sure she hears them.
7 Months, 1 Day
Today will be better. We can’t talk like we did last night and then spend silent hour after silent hour in the car like yesterday.
Mom throws the car keys at me without a word when I stumble out of the bathroom after my morning puke. As if last night didn’t even happen.
Driving in silence is worse than riding in silence because I can’t read or write letters or anything to distract myself from all of the words we aren’t saying. But hours later, when we’re pulling through the southern border of Illinois, I almost feel excited. It’s been close to two years since I last saw my aunt Linda, and that was at her wedding or whatever so I didn’t even get to talk to her that much. I can’t wait to hear her greet me, feel her hug me.
Finally we wind our way through the city of Chicago, the buildings painting lines in the afternoon sky. They reach all the way to the clouds and are lined up all the way to the lake. The highway to the western suburbs is so jammed that there has to be at least one other pregnant girl in one of these cars, freaking out, unable to tell her best friend, ready to kill it if she only could. Someone else like me. It’s a comforting thought.
A city this huge is so full of people it could never be silent. And someone else’s life would always be worse than mine. The thought settles the bean-baby down to the back of my uterus.
Maybe living with Aunt Linda will be better. I should give it a chance. Aunt Linda will talk to me every day and through every meal. She’s a social worker in a high school—she must have counseled pregnant teenagers before. Maybe she’ll even be able to help me so I don’t feel so rotten all the time.
Maybe Aunt Linda and Nora will let me babysit their daughters while they go out on their dates, and maybe those kids will start to look up to me and call me Cousin Evelyn. Maybe I’ll be able to cook for them, read them bedtime stories, and help them put on pajamas and brush their teeth. Maybe I’ll start to feel useful, worth something. Maybe I’ll be to them what Aunt Linda was to me.
What Aunt Linda Was to Me
When my parents lost the first one, I was still tiny. Maybe only two. My mom tells me there is no way I remember, but I do. I remember her puking in the morning and I remember the way her tummy started to swell. She told me later that the doctors always told her she was too far along to lose the baby. And then, suddenly, Mommy was gone. She was just not around. She was in her room, but I never saw her face.
Aunt Linda moved in with us, supposedly because she was broke and needed a place to stay during med school. That’s the reason my mom still gives for why Aunt Linda lived with us until I was eight years old, but I know that’s not the real reason. Aunt Linda came to help with me because my mom was just too sad. Aunt Linda told me that every day. She would pull me out of the bath and stand me on the bathmat, a chubby, fiery two-year-old, then a quiet string bean of a six-year-old. Then she would put a corner of the towel under my arm and spin me until the towel was wrapped all the way around me. She would say, “It’s my dinner: an Evie burrito!” Then she would lift me up and pretend to eat me, starting right at my middle, and I would giggle and feel her face so close to mine and smell the soap in my hair and the lilac of her hand lotion and I would feel all soft and warm. I thought Aunt Linda must be the best person God ever made.
And she would tell me, “I’m here for you, not for me, Evie-Teeny. I’m here to help take care of you because your mommy is just too sad.”
And Mom says there’s no way I remember that from when I was only two, but I do.
Then Aunt Linda decided to quit medicine and study social work. She moved all the way to Chicago and met Nora, who I still don’t really know, but she must be cool.
And I know that now that I’m moving in with my aunt Linda, and I’m all grown up and even pregnant … I know that she isn’t going to wrap me up like a burrito and pretend to eat me, but I think maybe she can still make me feel soft and warm, not like I’m rotting from the inside out, uterus first.
7 Months, Less Than 1 Day
Finally we pull into their driveway. The house is small and skinny, with other houses right on either side, sharing walls. I’ve seen houses like this on TV, but I’ve never been inside. You could probably fit four of Aunt Linda’s house inside ours, but somehow there’s supposed to be more room for me here.
I’m just starting to pull bags from the back of the Jeep when the door bursts open and Aunt Linda rushes out. Seconds later, her arms are around my waist and she spins me in the tiny driveway, saying, “Evie-Teeny, that beautiful face of yours is a relief. It has been way too long since I’ve seen you.” I’m dizzy. Aunt Linda smells like lilacs, the same; her hug feels just as warm, but it’s weird because my eyebrows are now above the top of her head. She swings my shoulders back and forth and finally stops and says, “We’re going to make this work, Evie, you hear me? You are welcome here.”
My eyes sting. It’s such a loud greeting, such a relief that I can feel both heartbeats slowing down: the one in my chest and the one in my abdomen. I have no idea what to say.
Aunt Linda lets go and approaches my mother. “Hi, Judy.”
“Hi, Linda.” They share a stiff hug. My mother is in full lawyer costume despite the jeans and sweatshirt that are on her body. “Where are Nora and your girls?” Mom asks.
“They went out to dinner,” Linda says, pulling some bags out of the Jeep. “I thought we’d do th
e same, and just get some things worked out before meeting the girls.”
We step into a kitchen so small you can’t fit a table in it. I wonder if this is why they’re out to dinner. But we go through a little opening and end up in a living area with a TV and a couch and two tables—one normal-kitchen-sized and one that is clearly for little kids. Aunt Linda runs a hand through her black hair, strands of silver streaking through it. “So, Jude, this couch extends into a sleep sofa, full sized. I think you’ll stay on it the next few days until you go back. I know it’s not luxurious, but it’s what we have.”
She should thank Aunt Linda and tell her it’s plenty, but she just nods.
“When are you going back again?” Aunt Linda asks.
“Wednesday. I’ve told you that, Linda,” my mother says, like she is speaking to a kid. She doesn’t even talk to me that way.
“Well, I hope this will do until then.” Again, Mom doesn’t say anything, as if Aunt Linda owes her. “You get settled for a second; I’m going to take Evie up to her room.”
We climb a small staircase and enter a room right at the top. It has bunk beds against the far wall—one comforter bright pink and one purple with a unicorn pattern.
“So this is your room,” Aunt Linda says. “Appropriately decorated, as you see.”
I shake my head. “Aunt Linda, I don’t want to kick the girls out of their room.”
She laughs and taps my throat. “Oh, good, you do have a voice in there! I was starting to get worried. Anyway, we’re just putting Cecelia in Tammy’s room. They both have bunk beds and they end up climbing into bed with each other anyway, so they’re thrilled. You’re great. You’ve just got to pick a bed.”
Aunt Linda puts my bags in the middle of the room. She seems to be waiting for me to say something. I feel like I could curl up into either bed and sleep the two days until my mother finally leaves.
Aunt Linda says, “And here’s the thing. I’m thinking you probably need some space from Mommy right now, so I’m just not going to give her the tour or mention the extra bed in here. She’ll be fine on the sleep sofa, don’t you think?”
My eyes well up. Exhaustion and open tear ducts, these must be pregnancy symptoms. But I’m grateful. Aunt Linda gets it. She always has. Everything is going to be okay. You should hug her, I tell myself. I stand, and I’m right next to her, but I just can’t make my arms do it. Maybe while I’m living here she’ll teach me to hug.
By the time we get back from dinner, I’m ready to kick my mother out. Aunt Linda is doing her another favor, picking up the pieces when it comes to me yet again, but my mother acts like she owes it to her. I’m so annoyed I forget to be nervous until we open the front door and Aunt Linda shushes us.
“The girls are probably sleeping by now,” she says.
Nora is standing in the corner of the kitchen, sleek blond hair falling almost all the way to the waist of her black skirt, which cuts off at the knees to reveal stockinged and perfectly shaped calves on top of shiny patent-leather high heels. She turns and fuses her neon-blue eyes to my abdomen. I have to catch my breath. I thought Nora was beautiful in a wedding gown, but I had no idea she’d be breathtaking in work clothes, watching a baby monitor on her kitchen counter. She flips half of her hair over her shoulder and approaches me with a hand out.
“Hello, Evelyn,” she says as if it’s not easy to get the syllables out. And I’m supposed to shake her hand? She’s, like, Aunt Linda’s wife—that makes her my aunt or something. She should hug me or at least pat me on the arm. “Why don’t you all go have a seat at the table in the family room. I’ll bring in some peppermint tea and we can discuss the details of this arrangement,” she says, and that’s when I know: she’s a lawyer. Another stiff and beautiful lawyer as the head of the house. My heart falls to my feet. The bean-baby tries to hide behind my bladder.
Aunt Linda tries to start a conversation with Mom about five times until Nora finally brings in the tea. I push mine away.
“You don’t like peppermint tea, Evie-Teeny?” Aunt Linda asks, and I swear Nora starts to roll her eyes.
“I’m not supposed to drink too much caffeine because of the—” I can’t finish the sentence. “You know, because of it.”
“Oh boy,” Nora says. Aunt Linda throws her a look.
“Peppermint tea is fine. No caffeine,” my mother says. I don’t know anything; I’m a total bonehead. I take a sip and it almost works like the ginger ale. I’m so tired I want to put my head on the table.
Nora is giving some speech but only the buzz words are breaking through the fog of fatigue and pepperminty relief in my brain: “Rules … younger girls … school … grades … doctor …” Mom echoes the same kind of thing back uselessly.
Finally, Aunt Linda tweaks my chin. “Are you getting this, Evie?”
“She’s grown now. You can call her Evelyn, you know,” my mother says, and I try to shoot daggers at her with my eyes.
“Getting what?”
Nora sighs like I just told her something terrible. “Well, it’s good I wrote down the rules.” She takes out a piece of paper. I almost ask her what kind of law she practices but I know that would sound rude.
She hands it to me. It looks like this:
RULE 1: E will drive herself to school and all doctors’ appointments without needing encouragement or reminders.
RULE 2: Any possible social activities will be limited to wholesome ones that will not impact E’s sleep and will be approved by L or N ahead of time.
RULE 3: E will be in bed with lights out by 10:30 p.m. every night.
RULE 4: E will complete all homework each night and maintain all As and Bs at Santa Maria High School.
RULE 5: E will meet regularly with L’s young mothers’ group.
RULE 6: E will report to all meals and eat everything on her plate.
RULE 7: E will be responsible for the following chores: taking out the trash on Monday, recycling on Thursday, and completing the after-dinner dishes each night. E will also maintain her own room and laundry.
RULE 8: E will not interfere with C or T. She will at no point be in a room or car with them unsupervised.
Then there is a place for me to sign, but my body has gone numb and I can’t pick up a pen. Nora drones on and on about how this move is supposed to be positive for me and the baby and how she and Linda want to take the very best care of me possible. She talks about how I will need good food and plenty of sleep to grow a healthy baby, and how that will be provided for me as well as emotional support, and the temptation to screw it up with substances or lack of sleep or nutrition or care will be completely taken away from me.
I stare at Aunt Linda, but she keeps her eyes away from me.
Nora doesn’t say one word about Rule 8.
The rest of the rules are crazy overkill, but I mean, I don’t really care. I don’t have any friends, so where am I going to go? I need to go to the doctor anyway; they don’t need a list of rules to make me do that. And the whole reason I am here is to be in school, so obviously I’m going to get As. But why won’t they let me talk to my new cousins? Am I so screwed up that they think their precious daughters will be corrupted just from being in the same room as me? Am I so messed up that I can’t even be a big cousin the right way?
I’m going to be a mother in seven months! And I can’t even play with my cousins in their room?
“Do you get it, Evie?” Aunt Linda asks, but if I try to say anything I will start to cry and the words will get wet, salty, and garbled. I force myself to pick up a pen and sign the damn contract, noticing that it is 10:20. I have ten minutes to get the lights out, according to Rule 3.
“Can I take a shower before bed tonight? It will take me past my ten thirty bedtime.”
“Of course,” Nora says. Aunt Linda just sits there like she has no say. “Why don’t you do that now? Let’s say lights out by ten forty-five tonight, okay?” The lady I barely know imposes this rule while my mother and aunt, who have known me all my life,
just watch her. I run up the stairs. Nora yells good night behind me, but Aunt Linda follows me.
“I love her, Evie,” she says. I snort. “And I love you. You’ll see why soon.” She hugs me and my muscles let go of their resentment only slightly. I want to ask her why they think I’m too awful to even talk to her daughters. I want to ask if that means she thinks I will be a more rotten mother than my own, but I don’t because she says, “I love you, little niece, and I’m glad you’re here. You’re very welcome.”
“Thanks,” I say. Which isn’t much.
In the shower her words repeat through the steam: “I’m glad you’re here.” “I love you, little niece.” “You’re very welcome.” “I’m glad you’re here.” “You’re very welcome.” “I love you.”
I hold my hand in a little cup next to my abdomen and let the water fill it up so the bean-baby can cuddle into the warm spot. “I hope someone says those things to you one day.”
I wrap myself in my own burrito and step into the hallway back toward my new room. The peppermint smell still wafts up the stairs, along with the grown-ups’ words.
“I’ll give you what you think you need, and also some more for renting the room,” my mother is saying.
“How much does it take to feed her for a month?” Nora asks.
“I don’t really know,” my mother says.
“Seriously, Judy!” Nora says, sounding exasperated.
“Well, to be honest, Nora, we just don’t need to worry about that, my husband and I.” I wonder if this is what a courtroom sounds like. “Let’s settle on four thousand a month.”
Four thousand dollars a month? Just for feeding me and renting a room?
“We don’t need that much,” Aunt Linda’s voice interjects softly.
“We’re already shaking hands. It’s fine, Linda,” my mother says.