Random Acts of Hope

by Julia Kent

  “I want to make sure you know that.”

  I sighed. The best way to get out of this was to just agree and be thankful. Which I was. Really. “Thanks.” My body tingled with rage and overwhelm and all I wanted to do was to get off the phone and go throw something through a plate-glass window.

  “You know I love you very much, right?”

  “I know, Mom. And I love you.”

  “And no matter what, a child is a child. It’s not how they come into the world that matters. It’s how you love them.”

  My throat tightened. “I know.”

  “But that doesn’t mean this doesn’t hurt.”

  “Right.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Charlotte

  “I cannot believe this is happening.” Maggie was driving my car and we were on our way to the nearest major city, forty minutes away. I couldn’t be seen by anyone who knew me.

  Not buying what I needed to buy.

  “It will be fine.”

  “I should have followed my instincts and taken the damn Plan B!”

  “He told you he’s sterile. Of course you didn’t take the Plan B. It’s a big bundle of hormones and no woman should take it unless she absolutely has to. You believed him. And if he’s sterile, then running a pregnancy test is a formality.”

  “Being a week late isn’t a formality. Not for me. I have cycles that run with such precision I could sets clocks to them.”

  “And that is why we’re driving to Springfield and buying a pregnancy test.”

  “Déjà vu sucks.”

  “This won’t be a repeat of five years ago, Charlotte.”

  “He still thinks I slept with someone else back then.” Her face remained impassive. No reaction at all to my words. “Maggie, I swear!” I could feel the hysteria rise in me.

  “I believe you!” she said with emphasis. “I really do. I think something went…wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “Maybe his swimmers regenerated.”

  “It’s not like a lizard whose tail got whacked off and spontaneously grows back.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me his parents took him to two different specialists in Boston. Tested him thoroughly. You don’t see too many medical doctors declaring a sixteen-year-old boy’s sperm dead as a doornail unless they’re certain.”

  “You two are at one hell of an impasse, then.”

  “Again.”

  “Yeah. Again. Except at least this time you know the score.” She banged her hand against the steering wheel. “I’m so angry for you.”

  “Angry?”

  “Fucking pissed! How could he not tell you way back? When you were dating and he learned about it? How long between when he found out and when you got pregnant?”

  I counted back the months. “A year and a half or so.”

  “He kept that secret from you for most of your relationship, then. That is one asshole move.”

  That would need a lot of time and thought to sink in. I’d been fixated for so many years on how Liam had reacted, and tried to tease out the “why,” and then this truth came along and changed everything. I’d been so upset that he thought I’d cheated on him that Maggie’s words were like a bucket of ice water dumped on my head.

  “You’re right.”

  “Bet he thought you’d dump him.”

  “What?”

  “What sixteen-year-old boy wants to think anything between his legs doesn’t work quite right? He kept it from you out of fear. A big secret he didn’t have the social skills, or the cojones, to share.”

  “Really bad metaphor,” I muttered.

  She shrugged, and pulled the car into a twenty-four-hour pharmacy in a part of the city where no one knew me. “I don’t have a lot of sympathy for him right now.”

  “You don’t? What would you expect a man in his position to think if his girlfriend called him up during his senior year of high school to announce she was pregnant with his baby, only he knew it was literally—literally!—medically impossible?”

  “I’ll give him the fact that most eighteen-year-old boys have the social skills of hyenas holding on to helium balloons in a tornado—”

  “Wait—what?” She lost me there.

  That didn’t stop her. “But—but—common decency would say that he should have explained why he shunned you. He just should have, Charlotte, and as much as you want to take this on yourself and try to find a way to make it so you can forgive him, I think there really is a limit to what you can wish away.”

  “That is not what I’m doing!”

  “That’s what it looks like from the outside.” She was seething. “You’ve felt such guilt over the miscarriage. You’ve only known me for a little over a year and your feelings of responsibility for it are so clear. But you know logically you didn’t cause it. Didn’t trigger it. Not one thing to make it happen. And now Liam comes along with a tragic explanation for his behavior that makes sense, but that shows what an asshole he really is and you try to use the truth as an excuse for his behavior? As validation?”

  Her incredulity took my nausea up a notch.

  “You’re so consumed by trying to make the pieces all fit together into a worldview that makes sense that you’re missing the obvious.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sometimes an asshole is just an asshole.”

  We were both breathing hard, my emotions a thick soup inside me. I opened my car door and the cold autumn air was like a slap.

  “And on that cheery note, let’s see if my sterile asshole just fathered another child by me.”

  Liam

  The first text message came from Darla:

  Big gig scheduled for October 29. A grand each. Clear your schedules.

  October 29 was a well-booked night for me and Sam. $500 each, easy. I typed back:

  You sure? Because Sam and I have a ton of gigs booked for that night. Halloween parties.

  Her reply: Just signed the contract. A done deal. Get ready to cancel more Magic Mike crap, because the new bookings are insane.

  I could feel my face split with a grin. This called for a celebration.

  You guys at the apartment? All of you? I knew Joe was in town.

  Yep, she replied. Come on over. Bring Esme. We’re make it a sevensome.

  Esme died.

  I’m so sorry! she texted back. Shall we start a new fund? Go for the eight-inch-mouth model?

  I’m bigger than eight inches. How about one that turns into a bear when you kiss it? I answered back.

  You just guessed the plot of my new novel :( she wrote.

  I’ll be over in half an hour.

  Buy a case of beer. Good stuff. You can afford it. ;)

  I put the phone away and got ready to head over to Trevor and Sam’s place. Er, and Amy’s place, too, now. Technically.

  My phone rang. Charlotte. My heart flopped in my chest like a sea bass as I answered it and—call ended.

  Weird.

  I tried to call back and it rang to voicemail. I hung up.

  I wouldn’t know what to say.

  * * *

  “According to this contract, if we can sell more than five hundred tickets, they’re willing to talk about a bigger tour next summer,” Darla explained. All six of us were hunched around the tiny kitchen table in Trevor and Sam’s apartment, amber bottles, mostly empty, littering the surface.

  “When will we know?”

  “You need to do the October 29 gig, then another one in mid-December. Ticket sales will determine whether the company will front us for a big tour.”

  “Summer tour?” Trevor asked with a nervous tension I’d rarely seen in him before. “Next summer?”

  “Yep. You won’t be in school!” Darla said excitedly.

  “I’ll be doing my internship, though. Hoping for Ropes and Grey.” I knew from years of listening to Joe practically have wet dreams just by saying the words “Ropes and Grey” that it was a big law firm. The kind that launches m
ajor careers.

  “You have to go to school in the summer?” Darla looked like she was about to explode.

  “You don’t have to,” Joe groused. “Only if you want to set yourself up for BigLaw.”

  Trevor gave him a sharp look. “Which I do.”

  “Zzzzzzz,” Joe shot back.

  “Don’t you?” Trevor challenged him. “I thought that was the Joe Ross Conquers Law goal. Get a high six-figure salary. Become a douchebag with money. Keep making more money. Ad nauseum.”

  “That’s what I used to think I wanted. Then I matured.”

  “You mean you couldn’t get a summer placement.”

  “We haven’t even applied yet! It’s only early October in our second year of law school!” Joe fumed. “Are you saying you already got a spot?”

  Trevor laughed in a way that made Joe looked desperate. “No, of course not. But it’s kind of a given.”

  “Because Harvard.”

  “Because Trevor.”

  “Sorry, guys, it’s hard to breathe in here. Trevor’s ego is sucking all the oxygen in the room.” Joe’s joke fell flat.

  “Really?” I asked. “I thought that was your resentment doing it.”

  “Can we cut the shit and look over these contracts?” Sam said, chugging the rest of his beer. “While you people fight over stupid details I want to get a glimpse at what may be the breakout moment for our once-in-a-lifetime chance here.” I swore he muttered douches under his breath.

  “The stripper is the one with the most sense,” Darla said brightly. Sam glowered at her.

  “What about me?” I asked. “I strip, too.”

  The room burst into laughter. The last fucking thing anyone needed was more tension right now. “If we set aside the issue of logistics, it seems if we can do well for these two concerts, we might have a break that allows for a funded, widespread tour.”

  The vibration in the room turned up a notch. “You guys willing to skip the summer internships if that happens?” Sam asked Trevor and Joe. Joe nodded yes immediately.

  Trevor froze with indecision.

  “Ah, shit,” Joe mumbled.

  “I—let’s see how the two concerts go.”

  “This isn’t just about you, you know,” Joe announced. “This is about the band. What’s good for the band, and all four of us. What’s good for our girlfriends and our futures. And how nobody gets a chance like this. It’s a long series of long shots all lining up for—”

  “—a one-in-a-million to happen,” I said.

  “That’s right. In or out?” Joe challenged Trevor. Then he looked at me and Sam. “I assume you’re both in?”

  Sam nodded eagerly. I was just about to give my answer when my phone rang, informing me I had a voicemail.

  Two of them, actually. And both from Charlotte. My internal system lit up like a Christmas tree, brain overcome by the voicemails. Why no text message? No email? Why not call? She was the hangups, I knew, so why voicemail?

  I couldn’t speak, just held up one finger in a gesture of waiting. With shaking fingers, I dialed my voicemails and entered the code. Was something wrong? Had she gotten hurt? Or did she want to try again? The first message was dead air. The second one, though...

  Her voice crackled over the phone while Joe complained in the distance about how sick he was of being interrupted.

  “Liam,” her voice said. “I couldn’t do this in a regular call, so here goes. I can’t believe I have to say this at all, but I do. I do and I give up! I give up trying to understand how the world works. I know you think that you know the truth but there are a lot of truths in this world. More than anyone can see. And sometimes truths clash. And that’s where we learn the most about ourselves.”

  She paused. And then she said:

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Click.

  Charlotte

  “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever said to anyone,” I groaned as Maggie slid the phone from my hand. “And the wimpiest.”

  “Nope. Brave. Last time you told him live over the phone, he dumped you. I get it.”

  “He’s never going to call me.” An inverted tornado formed in my abs, like the tip was spinning so hard, bands of wind scraping my ribcage and pelvis, making it hard to breathe. Or think.

  “He’ll call. I think he’ll just show up.”

  “He’s not sterile.” That came out fiercer than I’d expected, and for a second the growling sound in my throat put the nausea and horror on hold.

  “No kidding. In fact, I think he has super sperm. Made it through your being on the pill.” She looked me over from toe to eyebrows. “And you are a fertile myrtle. You must be related to Michelle Duggar. Some distant cousin thrice removed.”

  My snicker turned to a roiling, barfy feeling as a quick sweat made my skin clammy.

  “He’d better be there for this baby, this time,” she said with a flash of unexpected anger.

  “It’s not—he’s not like that, Maggie.”

  “Not like what? The kind of guy who dumps you and—”

  “I know you’re outraged for me. I get that you think I’m being a pushover. I do. And we see tons of women who really are. In this job we see it all the time. And if you think I’m not constantly reflecting on myself and my own behavior, think again.”

  She looked chastised. Good. Back off.

  “I am fumbling through a dark tunnel with no light source on this one. Not even a weak candle. I need support. Not a lecture on how he’s an asshole. Which he was. But I’m not sure he is. Only time will tell.”

  A wave of sympathy crashed through me at the same time my body manufactured enough hormones to make me puke until my stomach poured out onto the floor. Being told you can’t make babies—ever—at sixteen would be one hell of a blow to anyone. An ego blow for sure to Liam, who had always been a little too macho-cocky for me. Reining him in had been a subtext in our relationship.

  Telling me he wasn’t fertile was the evolutionary equivalent of walking up to the alpha male in a group and showing his belly.

  “I have the right to my own feelings and reactions, though,” Maggie said gently. I reached for her hand and squeezed, and then a wave of cold flashed over my skin, followed by impending doom.

  “Oh, God.”

  “Nausea?”

  I answered her by sprinting for the bathroom. By my estimate, I was at six weeks exactly, and this was just like my earlier pregnancy. A slow build and then wham! Puke-o-rama.

  “It’s a sign of a healthy baby!” she called out.

  Blargh was all I could say.

  “I’ll make you some ginger tea,” she called out.

  Blargh.

  I barfed my stomach clean empty, then wandered out to my living room, where Maggie was trying to help but was generally ineffective.

  My phone rang. We both froze.

  “I can’t look!” I confessed.

  Maggie grabbed the phone, squinted, then held it out to me. “It’s your mom.”

  I took the call. “Hi, Mom!”

  “Charlotte? Is that you?” she said in a goofy, fake voice. “This can’t really be Charlotte, can it? Because the Charlotte I know dropped off the face of the earth a few weeks ago and hasn’t talked to her poor, sainted mother in so long she’s forgotten the twenty-hour labor and six weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit she spent with her Charlotte.”

  “Guilt does not suit you, Mom. It sounds weird with the British accent.”

  “I have a British accent!” Mom gasped. “Oh, lordy! That’s the first I’ve heard of it.” She poured it on nice and thick, making her sound like Hyacinth Bucket from the British comedy “Keeping Up With Appearances”.

  I couldn’t not laugh.

  “Ah, now that’s better! You sounded so down when you answered.” She paused. “Everything good?”

  Every pore on my body decided to do the wave, standing tall like a soccer stadium filled with undulating fans. “Yeah,” I said through a new sweat that popped up in secon
ds. “Fine.”

  “I’m calling to invite you home for Thanksgiving.”

  “You mean for Ethiopian food and a movie.”

  “That’s tradition, isn’t it?”

  “That’s your British tradition.” I laughed.

  “Do you have British exchange students again this year?” Last year there had been one British study abroad junior named James Leeds who was horrified by the Office for Student Diversity’s “Bring a Student Home for Thanksgiving” campaign.

  He said it was near treason. Mom had read an article in the local news and insisted I invite him for our British version of Turkey Day.

  She and James were still Facebook friends.

  “Bloody Yanks and their traitorous—”

  “Now you’re just being silly.”

  “Yes, I am.” She laughed. “But I did want to make it clear that I hope you’re coming home.” The smile in her voice was so welcome right now.

  You’re going to be a grandma.

  The words slammed through me so hard I gasped.

  “Charlotte? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m actually getting sick, Mom. Might be food poisoning.” Maggie looked at me from across the room and made throat-cutting gestures. I’m trying, I mouthed.

  “Then get off the phone, for goodness’ sake! I’m so sorry, and I hope you feel better.”

  Click.

  Pragmatic mothers are great in moments like this.

  Moments when you vomit all over your own living room floor.

  Liam

  Darla watched my face closely. I froze. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  Couldn’t.

  “We making decisions here?” Joe demanded, oblivious to what I was going through.

  “Joe,” Darla whispered. “Hang on.”

  “Why?”

  Slowly, every set of eyes fell on me. Normally I wanted to be the center of attention, but right now I wanted to be one of those guys who go into the wilds of Siberia and live alone for five years by choice, coming back as a guru and selling shit on NaturalNews.com.

  “Bad news?”

  “Impossible news.”

  Sam frowned. “Impossible?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Liam, hon, you need to sit,” Darla coaxed, guiding me with her hands. My ass plopped down on the springy sofa with a finality that made the room spin.