Me, Him, Them, and It

by Caela Carter

  “Evelyn,” my mom calls into the phone once she has pulled the weepiness out of her words. “I sent you a few links to some cribs I think you should consider. I want you to get back to me today, okay?”

  I try to keep my rising heart rate out of my voice. “Sure, Mom.”

  Mary says stress can hurt the fetus, and so I’m sorry, bean, but I mean, you have a foot. I have to take care of your foot, and I have no idea what I’m doing.

  As Nora straps Cecelia in her seat and Aunt Linda pulls out of the parking lot, I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine Todd standing behind me while I hold a purring, sleeping little baby in my arms. I take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay.

  I don’t even see the e-mail right away when I get to my computer. Instead, I spend an hour looking at the cribs. I open up a picture of each and I imagine myself putting a baby in it. In my imagination, I look old. My arms are still swollen with baby pounds and my butt, when I bend to put down the baby, is still round. The baby is tiny. Then I watch myself lean over the side of a white crib, lowering what looks like a bundle of blankets onto a tiny mattress and boom, I drop it. I do it again with the next crib and it repeats and repeats. I’ve never heard of a parent who drops her kid but that’s me. I’m going to be a terrible mother. Maybe it’s because I want to drop it. It. This little person who is destroying my life from the inside out.

  I switch to Todd. I imagine his football arms holding a baby over each crib. I see his back go taut with the effort to keep the baby balanced while putting it down. He manages to make contact with all six cribs.

  What am I actually supposed to be looking for in these cribs anyway? I’m pretty sure I’m not just supposed to be imagining my baby daddy not dropping my future baby. What makes one crib better than the other? Who cares?

  I close the link and see the e-mail. The subject line is just my name: EVELYN. It’s sitting there bold and obvious in my inbox, this e-mail I’ve been waiting for forever, for days and weeks, and it was just sitting there all day. It says SENT: 3:33 A.M. It was there when I woke up and I just hadn’t checked.

  It says: TODD ARNOLD.

  All of his letters spelled out like that sends shivers up my spine and stretches my lips into a smile.

  I put my cursor on his name to open the e-mail, but I pause, remembering the way he smells like salt and Axe body spray, the way he always says “E” like he’s happy to be saying it, the way he could chew and smile at the same time without even opening his mouth.

  I felt like this baby was going to make me lose him, but it’s actually going to tie him to me forever. My baby will always be half him, and half me. Our DNA is together forever, so we might as well be.

  E—

  I told you, I can’t. I just can’t. I hope you know I did think about it, but I just can’t.

  Todd

  I am such an idiot. What the hell am I doing? I curl under my blankets and allow myself to sleep through most of New Year’s Day, my pillow wet from my stupid leaking eyes.

  Aunt Linda sits on the side of my bed and rubs cold hands over my shoulders.

  I roll over and look at her. Her face is painted with pity, and I don’t know if I want it, even if it does mean she loves me.

  “There’s just too much going on for you, isn’t there?” she says, and she gets it so completely it feels relaxing, like a foot rub or a hot bath. I sag into her arms.

  “Your parents … you know, they should’ve let each other go a long time ago, if you ask me. I know you’re blaming your dad, but maybe just don’t blame either of them. Maybe think about how to make your relationships work in the future.” So she has no idea what I’m upset about. Her palm is tracing big circles into my shoulder blades and I hate it because it’s such a lie, her just rubbing my back like that, like she understands me, and then getting it so wrong. It makes my blood boil.

  “Do you want to come down to dinner?”

  I shake my head.

  “If you aren’t feeling up to it, I’ll bring some up.”

  I nod, pretending I’m not the angriest person on the planet.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head.

  “Evelyn, please talk to someone. You don’t need to talk to me, but talk to someone, baby. Don’t just let this fester.”

  I do. I love Aunt Linda, so when she leaves my room, I force myself to pick up my cell and call Maryellie. She’s not coming back to school after break because she’s due on Friday. I don’t know how it’s possible, but that building of friendly, distant girls is going to be even lonelier without her.

  I read Maryellie the e-mail three times. Finally, she says, “Yes, he can.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, he can. He can do this. He needs to do this just as much as you do.”

  “What do I do?”

  “I don’t know. You make him. I mean, take him to court. Or just tell his mom.”

  Next thing I know, I’m using Aunt Linda’s house phone to dial Mrs. Arnold three times. She answers each ring, but I hang up. She doesn’t call back, thank God.

  Then I make a pretend call. I actually pretend to hit the numbers to dial, and then, when she pretend answers, I say out loud, “Mrs. Arnold, I’m not sure if you will remember me, but I am acquainted with your son, Todd. In fact, Todd and I have been sexually involved for quite some time and he recently impregnated me. I am extending you the courtesy of a phone call so you can try to influence him to do the right thing before I need to go to the courts.” Except this sounds too much like Lawyer Mom.

  I say to the empty phone: “Your dumbass son screwed me and then he screwed me over and his bastard child will be here in three months and you better make that jerkoff son of yours pull it together and do the right thing or I’ll have the courts skin his ass.”

  That sounds like Bad Evelyn, but I’m sure she won’t get me what I want.

  I hardly pay attention as my fingers start hitting the buttons again, and then a voice rings into the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello? Mrs. Gates? Can I please speak to Lizzie?” I hope she doesn’t ask me to call on her cell phone because I know Lizzie won’t answer.

  “Evelyn!” she says. “It is so nice to hear from you, honey. How is your aunt doing now anyway? Any better?” And I remember that this is all a secret. If I could just find some way for it to go away, no one would know. I could go back to normal Bad Girl/Honor Student. I don’t need to torture myself.

  But I deserve this torture. Except the part that’s Todd’s fault, it’s all my fault.

  If there’s going to be some baby torturing me, it’s going to torture Todd too.

  “She’s doing better, but I’m going to be here the rest of the year,” I am saying. “Can I speak to Lizzie, please?” I hear all the kids yelling in the background. With a jolt to my heart, I recognize Lizzie’s voice and I realize that if Mrs. Gates comes back and says Lizzie isn’t there, I’ll know it’s a lie and that will hurt terribly.

  “Of course, she’ll be so glad you got your phone privileges back. Lizzie?”

  She gets on the phone yelling, “Hang up, Mom!”

  When we hear the click she says, “What? What do you want, Evelyn?”

  I shrug even though she can’t see that through the phone.

  “I hope you know the only reason I even came to the phone is that I’m telling everyone as little as I possibly can about our fight so they don’t end up suspecting the truth.”

  “What truth?” I ask.

  “That you’re pregnant, duh,” she says, and it strikes me funny. She’s too mad at me to reply to e-mails or call, but she still goes out of her way to keep my secrets.

  “So …” I can hear the impatience in her voice but I also know it’s the kind that she’s putting there on purpose, her pride blocking out what’s underneath: the part of her that’s happy to hear from me. My words almost lock up in my throat, but if that happens, I’ll lose her for sure.

  “Should I call Mrs. A
rnold and tell her about the baby? Todd is saying he won’t help me at all.”

  Lizzie hesitates. “Guys suck,” she says finally.

  I have no idea what to say, but what comes out is “But I’m going to need some help.” I won’t tell her everything. I won’t tell her about the daydream where Todd and I live in an apartment in California and cook homemade pizza for each other, even though it’s so close I can almost smell the dough rising. If I can just get Todd’s mother to talk some sense into him, maybe. Maybe.

  There’s a catch in Lizzie’s voice. “Evelyn, don’t you realize that if you bring home a baby, everyone’s going to know you were pregnant before and that’s why you left?”

  “I guess.”

  “And if you make Todd help you—not that you shouldn’t—but if you do, everyone will know that you were having sex with him.”

  “I guess I just don’t really care anymore.”

  “Then there was no point in you going away?”

  Lizzie misses me. Maybe that’s even part of why she’s mad.

  “Well, I don’t know. I’m glad no one has to see me so fat.”

  “Oh my God!” she squeals, forgetting herself. “What do you look like?”

  “There’s an entire watermelon under my shirt. But on the bright side, I actually have some boobs!”

  When she laughs, it sounds like music.

  “Okay,” she says, “I’m finally going to tell you. You’ll never believe it. I found my birth certificate.” I pull the phone back and look at it. The nonsequitur throws me off balance.

  “And?” I ask.

  “It had his name on it: Joseph Appleton-Smith.” Her father. My eyes go wide. I wish she could see them.

  “So what’s next?”

  “I already looked it up … he has a LinkedIn page. Bethany is making up a fake one so we can try to see where he lives and works.”

  “Wow. Then what?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Yes! “So are we friends again?”

  “I’m still mad,” Lizzie says, without even hesitating. “But I’ll think of something big you can do to make it up to me and then we’ll be all good.”

  “I’ll do anything,” I say. “So, before that, can you tell me what you think I should do about Todd?”

  “Evelyn,” she says, and I hear the way her heart is breaking for me in each syllable. “I don’t know if I should tell you this.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “He’s—Todd—he’s going out with Amber Sallisbury.”

  Crash. Boom. Bang.

  My heart falls past bean all the way to my knees.

  “How do you know?”

  “He … he was kissing her. Like, at school. And, I don’t know, she told me.”

  “You talked to her?”

  “I almost slapped her, Ev. Really. Only I couldn’t because no one knows about you two. No one even knows you’re pregnant. Everyone thinks you’re taking care of your tragically ill aunt.”

  “No one knows I’m pregnant.”

  “When I couldn’t slap her, I went to slap Todd. He said you were giving him the silent treatment, anyway,” Lizzie says and I don’t know how to explain it. Why did I even do that? “You know,” she continues, “he should still have to help you. He doesn’t get off scot-free just because he’s dating someone or because he doesn’t have a vagina. It’s trashy anyway, to date someone while you got someone else pregnant.”

  I’m finally having a real conversation with Lizzie again, and I end up feeling like a piece of crap anyway.

  That night, once I go unconscious, I’m back in the blue circle. It doesn’t whoosh. It just gets smaller and smaller until it is only a ring around my pregnant belly. When it turns on, my skin pops off like a shell and a million electric-blue kidney beans spill out. Then my skin fits itself back on and I’m standing in my old room, exactly like I was before—no belly, no boobs, all bones.

  My eyes pop open.

  Just like before. That’s all I want now. And the baby kicks and kicks at my insides until I finally fall back asleep.

  Faking It

  For three weeks I pretend my way through life. I go shopping with Maryellie right before her due date and we pick out a pink, frilly outfit for her to take her baby home from the hospital. I pick out a crib with my mom and let her pay hundreds of dollars for it. I make a lists of names with Aunt Linda. Now that I know it’s really over, now that I’m really alone, I can do all this stuff. Beatrice for a girl, I say. Benjamin for a boy. I like names that start with B because right now it’s bean.

  Maybe I can do it. Maybe I won’t be awful at this.

  Maybe I can take Todd to court to make him be a dad.

  Maybe I can be happy living with my mom if my dad’s not there. Or with my dad without my mom.

  Maybe I can go to school and put bean in day care and get home every day to the bottles and the diapers and whatever else there is.

  Maybe I can just forget about college and be happy being a mom.

  Maybe I can love bean.

  So I don’t say anything. If I tell Aunt Linda or my mom that behind every thought and every conversation I want to give this thing away, then I will have to give it away. I keep tying up my lips and wandering around in a daze filled with babies and my mother’s mask and Amber Sallisbury’s cheerful laughing.

  At my six-month ultrasound, I shiver when the tech smears the goop all over the mound that used to be my stomach and squeeze my eyes shut. Aunt Linda is supposed to be here with me, but there was some emergency with some other girl at school, so I wind up driving myself here alone. It’s good, I tell myself. Aunt Linda would want to talk all about why I keep shutting my eyes when bean appears on the little screen, and I’m done talking. No more Talkative Evelyn. I’m sick of her. I talked and talked. Since I got to Chicago, I’ve said more words than I have in my whole life, and it got me nothing: no Todd, no valedictorian, no family. I feel homeless now. It’s good I’m here alone. I told Aunt Linda I didn’t care; it’s not like an ultrasound would hurt. And it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t.

  A few times I forget, open my eyes and glance at the screen. Bean floats there, a translucent outline, in almost the same blue from my dreams. Through my eyelashes, I catch the outline of a nose; a mouth opening and closing, a hand curled by its chin. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Do you want to know the gender?”

  “You can see its gender?” At my last ultrasound, they said the picture was too blurry, bean’s position too twisted.

  “Yup!” Her voice bubbles with excitement. “You want to know the gender?”

  What is she so chipper for anyway? She doesn’t even know me. Why would she be excited to know the gender of something that’s living inside me?

  And I’m thinking about how even though sometimes I call this thing “bean,” I still call it “it.” Bean is a thing. Once it has a gender, it will be a person. No one calls anything with a gender “it.”

  “Do you want to know the gender of your baby?” she asks one more time, her voice about to spill rainbows and butterflies all over the ultrasound machine.

  “It’s not my baby.”

  She doesn’t say anything else as she shuts the machines down and hands me a tissue to wipe off.

  The fog in my head is thick as I wander to my car through the chilly day, hear the phone ring, reach for it through the nothingness.

  It’s Maryellie.

  “Emanuella is here! She’s here! Come and meet her.”

  I shake some clouds out of my brain and do a U-turn on the road, following my Jeep’s GPS back into the city. I call Nora from the parking lot and walk into the hospital, still in a daze.

  First, I walk past a bed where a woman holds a baby to her breast, cooing to it so gently you almost can’t tell the woman is crying. There’s a white curtain hanging from the ceiling separating this woman’s side of the room from Maryellie’s, and the outline of all the people surrounding her with chatter and w
hoops for joy shines through the sheet.

  This is the side of the room where I belong. The lonely side.

  “Evelyn!” Maryellie exclaims when I push my way through the curtain and into the crowd.

  Maryellie is propped up in her bed, her long dark hair loose and crinkly over her shoulders. I’ve never seen it down before. Her mother sits on her bed, holding her hand, and talking a mile a minute in Spanish to two aunts who are in a corner by the window. Rosie and Lelani from school are on the other side, still in their uniforms.

  I scan the room so full of women looking for the baby.

  “She’s right behind you,” Maryellie says, and I turn.

  Mario sits in a chair tucked into the corner, curled over the bundle in his arms like a cocoon. He mumbles such soft Spanish it could put me to sleep. His thumb strokes her cheek.

  “Mi amor, mi amor, mi amor,” he says, over and over again, even though it’s clear she’s sleeping.

  “Wash your hands and sit down on the bottom of the bed, Evie. And you can hold her.” Maryellie is smiling, but she still looks all pregnant.

  Mario gives me a look—it’s not exactly nasty, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to let her go.

  And then she’s in my arms. She’s surprisingly warm and surprisingly alive. My forearms feel it when her little body takes in and lets out air. And her mouth opens in little sighs. She smells like powdery flowers and her head is covered in a fluff of dark hair. Her little fist keeps coming free of her blanket and running the length of her face. Every time that happens, Maryellie’s mother stands and tucks it back into the blanket, and I think about how I don’t even know how to do that.

  I think about seeing Mario bent over her like that and how Todd will never bend over bean and tell it he loves it in any language.

  Can I even tell bean I love it?

  The next time I’m sitting in a hospital holding something this small and this alive, I’ll be alone.

  Why did I need anything to change, anyway? What was wrong with the way things were—a house where I knew I lived, even if it was always silent; a boy to sleep with and talk to, even if he wasn’t my boyfriend; a best friend to listen to, even if she got mad at me for keeping secrets. And the other stuff I had too—doing well in school, even if I had to quit track; getting invited to all the parties, even if it meant drinking too much. Why did anything need to change to begin with?