by Amy Hatvany
“Spencer,” Grace said. At the sound of his name, Spencer set the chairs down and walked over to them. “This is my friend Melody,” Grace continued. “Melody, this is Spencer. He’s the chef at the Loft. The one whose food I’m always raving about?”
“Nice to meet you,” Spencer said with a small smile, and held out his hand. Melody shook it and nodded, and I thought I caught her giving him a second glance after he’d already looked away.
“Ava, what’re we supposed to do?” Max asked again, pulling at my sleeve. I yanked away from his touch.
“I don’t know!” I snapped. His eyes glossed with tears and I immediately felt like crap for being mean to him. “Why don’t you go eat something?” I suggested in a much nicer voice. “There’s a ton of food on the table.” He shook his head, then leaned it against my arm. I sighed and took his hand in mine. His fingers were warm and sweaty, but I held on to them anyway. I knew he couldn’t always help being a pain. He was only seven.
I felt Grace’s eyes on me from across the room, then she made her way over to the couch. “I brought some of your mom’s photo albums from her house, remember?” she said quietly. “Do you two want to look through them?”
I shrugged again, my stomach flipping over inside me. I’d forgotten about those albums, and suddenly, I wanted to do nothing else. Grace gave my arm a gentle touch before going into the den and returning with a stack of albums. She sat down in between Max and me, giving me one I didn’t recognize from the top of the pile—it had a worn black vinyl cover and spiral edges.
I ran my palm over the front of the album and wondered why Mama hadn’t shown it to me. She had stacks and stacks of albums from when Max and I were babies—I made fun of her for how many pictures she took of us just lying on a blanket on the floor, doing nothing. “What was so interesting about that?” I asked her, and she’d smile. “Every single little thing you did as a baby was like magic,” she said. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you for a second. You were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I opened the album to the first page, and Max reached over Grace’s lap to point at a picture of an unsmiling little girl who stood in front of a red brick house. She wore a plain, dark blue dress and her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail at her neck. What looked like dead shrubs grew up around her, right out of the dusty ground.
“Who’s that?” Max asked.
I scrunched my eyes up to read the tiny letters written on the white edge of the photo—“Kelli, three years old,” I said, then looked at Max. “It’s Mama.” I scanned the other photos on the two open pages, then flipped through a couple more, taking in the images in front of me. “These are all of Mama growing up.” There were pictures of her standing with her mother—a wisp of a woman with dirty-blond hair and heavy lines across her forehead; an image or two of her father resting his large hand on her small shoulder. He was a tall, grim-looking man with blond, slicked-back hair and black-rimmed glasses. His white, short-sleeved shirt was buttoned all the way to the top, and the wobbly skin of his neck was pinched with a bow tie. There was Mama standing in front of a church in a long white dress, a lacy cap pinned in her hair, with the words, “Kelli, first communion,” written on the picture’s edge.
“She never showed us these before,” Max said, and as he did, Dad approached us and sat down on the chair next to the couch.
“Never showed you what?” he asked.
Grace smiled at him. “One of the albums I brought from Kelli’s house.”
“It has pictures of Mama when she was little,” Max said, and just as he did, my eyes landed on a picture of Mama that had “Kelli, 13,” written in spidery script on its edge. We almost could have been twins, only Mama had blond hair and mine was dark. But our bodies were the same, slight and skinny, all elbows and knobby knees. She sat on a white wicker chair, holding a thick book in her lap. Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were not. We turned a few more pages of the album, seeing more pictures of Mama around my age, looking unhappy and dark, and I thought about the pictures Bree and I took with our cell phones—goofy shots of both of us making faces or puckering our lips and pretending to be glamorous. There was nothing like that here. Maybe Mama had never had many friends. Maybe her life was just so miserable with her parents that she had to leave. There was something so plain about her in these pictures, so the opposite of the woman I watched spend an hour straightening her hair and carefully applying her makeup. The woman who wore tight blue jeans and knee-high, black leather boots.
“Why didn’t she ever show us these?” I asked Dad, then swallowed to ease the cottony feel in my mouth. I kept my eyes on the album, afraid I might miss something if I looked away.
Dad sighed. “Probably because she didn’t like talking about her past very much, honey. It was hard for her.”
I turned another page, stopping short when I saw the last ten pages or so were blank. The pictures just stopped after the ones of her at fourteen. I finally looked over to my dad. “Did you ever see any from when she was in high school? When she was a cheerleader?”
Dad shook his head. “I don’t think so, sweetie.”
“But why would they just stop?” I asked. “You guys have tons from when you met and got married. And tons from when me and Max were babies. Why wouldn’t she have any from when she was a teenager?”
“I guess because she didn’t take any with her when she left California,” he said. “Her parents probably still have them.”
“But she has this one,” I said, giving the album a little shake. “Why wouldn’t she have taken those, too?”
“I don’t know, Ava. Okay?” His voice held a sharp edge, one I’d heard him use on Mama more than once. Grace reached out to touch his hand. He took a couple of deep breaths, his face softening almost immediately when she touched him. I wondered why Mama never reached out to him like that when he was angry, instead of screaming or crying about how bad a husband he was. Maybe if she had, he’d never have left us.
He spoke again, more gently this time. “Sweetie, look. I understand you want to feel close to your mom right now. You want to know more about her. But there just isn’t that much more to know. She and her parents just didn’t get along. For all sorts of reasons.” He paused and reached out to take my hand. “She didn’t believe the same things they believed, and I think for them, that was bad enough for them to not want to see her anymore. When she left, she left everything behind. Pictures included. Maybe this album was all she could take with her.”
I considered this, not quite believing he was telling me everything he knew. A panicky thought rose up inside me and I looked at him with wide eyes. “Could I ever do anything so bad that you’d not want to see me?”
“Never,” he said quickly. “Not in a million years. No matter what you do, I will always be here for you, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, allowing myself to be momentarily comforted. He and Grace got up when the doorbell rang, and a couple of people Mama worked with entered the house, staring at Max and me with such intense pity, I had to look away.
“Thanks for coming,” Dad said to them. “Kelli would have appreciated it.”
Max scooted closer to me and tried to take the album out of my lap. “Hey!” I said, yanking it out of his reach. “Don’t!”
“It’s my turn,” he whined.
“No. You’ll get it . . . sticky.”
“I will not!” He regarded his hands a moment, palms up, then began to lick his fingers.
“Gross, Max!” I said, loud enough for Grace to shoot me a brief warning look. “Knock it off,” I whispered.
He dropped his hands to his lap and wiped them on his pants. “I just want to look at it again,” he pleaded. “Please?”
“Okay, but I’m holding it.” He nodded, and I turned back to the first page, examining each image of my mother when she was a child. Over the next couple of hours, more people trickled in and out of the house, murmuring how sorry they were about
Mama. I only nodded in response, not lifting my gaze to meet theirs. Not trusting myself to speak without crying.
After a while, Max got bored looking at the album and went to get something to eat. I still sat on the couch, trying to ignore everything that was going on around me. Dad checked on me; Grace did, too. I told them I was fine, unable to focus on anything but the album I held in my lap. But as the day went on, as most of the people finally left, it wasn’t the pictures I found myself thinking about. It was the blank space of her high school years, the place where Mama just seemed to disappear.
Kelli
Whore.
The word repeated over and over in Kelli’s mind as she curled up in the backseat of her parents’ car. It was the word her father had used right before he slapped her across the face a few weeks ago, right after her mother told him his daughter was pregnant. Kelli had barely felt the sting of his hand on her skin. In fact, she barely felt anything at all. Not since her mother made her take the test to confirm what they feared. While she waited for them to decide what to do with her, Kelli went through the motions of her life—to school and church—like nothing had happened. Every time the secret rose up inside her, she swallowed it down, trying not to choke. But here was the truth: she was pregnant and her parents were sending her away. At that point, she didn’t care. None of it mattered. Maybe she was a whore.
They’d asked who had done this to her, but she refused to tell them about Jason. “What about the baby?” she asked instead. “What will happen to her?” She didn’t know why she assumed it was a girl; she just did.
Her parents ignored her question. “We’ll say you were having trouble with your grades,” her mother said. “We’ll say this boarding school caters to young girls who need to focus on their studies.”
“Where is it?” Kelli asked.
“A couple hours north of San Francisco,” her mother told her. She went on to explain to Kelli that one of her friends from church had a drug-addicted daughter whom they’d sent there when she was sixteen. “She came back a year later and she was entirely changed.”
Changed into what? Kelli wondered. She knew her parents were devastated. She knew they were angry and ashamed. They wanted her to be a clone of them, but no matter where she went, no matter what happened to her, she didn’t think she could be. But even as part of her ached with guilt, another part was excited. The baby would love her. Kelli would never put her down. She’d kiss her baby’s toes and sleep with her each night. She’d love her baby the way her parents had never loved her.
Her father pulled off the highway and onto a long gravel road with tall red cedars towering above them on both sides. Kelli almost asked how much further it was to the school, but then she saw a sign that read New Pathways, 3 miles ahead. Three miles was a long way, Kelli thought. The last town they’d seen was more than an hour ago, so it wouldn’t be easy for students to try to run away. Not that Kelli planned to. She was almost happy to be tucked into the woods, far away from everyone and everything she’d ever known. It was almost as though she was being given a chance to start over.
A little while later, a large brick building loomed ahead of them. It was a perfectly plain gray box, three stories high with small square windows. Kelli was relieved to see several other girls sitting out on the lawn on blankets. Some of them were reading, others were talking—a few even had smiles on their faces. One of them was clearly pregnant, much further along than Kelli, who hadn’t even begun to show yet.
Her father parked the car by the front steps, and the three of them sat in silence for a moment. “You should get your things,” her father said. “The trunk is open.”
“Aren’t you going to come in with me?” Kelli asked, her words shaky and thin.
“We’re not supposed to,” her mother said. At least she had tears in her voice. “The director is expecting you in the front office. They’ll get you settled.”
“But when will I see you again?” Kelli asked. Neither of her parents responded. It was almost as if she had vanished. It was almost as though after what she’d done, she didn’t exist to them at all.
* * *
Kelli quickly learned that most girls at New Pathways thought it little better than a prison. They all adhered to a strict schedule: showers at six, breakfast at seven, classes from seven thirty to three. Chores and homework for two hours, one hour of free time for a walk or to read on the lawn, dinner at six, lights out by nine. There were no more than thirty girls who lived there, but during her first month, Kelli wasn’t openly welcomed by any of them. They nodded and said hello, but conversations never got much past “Please pass the rolls” at the dinner table. Most of the girls kept to themselves, plagued by their own set of secrets. None of them asked why she was there, and on some level, she was glad. She thought about the life growing within her, imagining that it would change who she was—make her a better, strong person. She needed to rest; she needed to focus on her schoolwork so she could get a good enough job to take care of her baby girl. Most of the time, she welcomed the structure the school required.
But one night, as she sat in the corner of the school’s small dining room, slowly eating rubbery chicken and bland steamed broccoli, the reality of her situation sounded off in her brain, too loud to ignore: Jason used her. She was pregnant and alone and nobody—not even her parents—wanted her. They didn’t even love her. They wouldn’t have sent her away if they did. They would have kept her with them if she was worth anything at all.
Sorrow wrapped itself into a heavy chain around her neck until it felt like she couldn’t breathe. Tears stung her eyes as she choked down the last bite of food on her plate, then took her dishes to the kitchen.
Later, while the other girls watched television or listened to music, Kelli sat at the small wooden desk next to the narrow bed she slept upon and made a list of all the things she would need for her child. Diapers, clothes, and bottles. Baby powder, blankets, and a crib. She thought if she had a list, maybe she’d feel better, more capable of being a good mother. She tried to think of everything she’d seen in movies about babies but couldn’t come up with much. She hoped when she and her child went home, her mother might help her. This would be her grandchild, after all. Her baby would change everything.
“Whatcha writing?” A voice popped through her thoughts and Kelli whipped around to see the pregnant girl, whose name she’d learned was Stella, standing in her doorway. Her mousy brown hair was twisted on top of her head in a messy bun and she wore stretchy pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that was too small to cover her stomach. Kelli could see her belly button and for some reason, that made her uncomfortable.
Kelli flipped the piece of paper over, even though Stella wouldn’t have been able to see it. “Nothing. Homework.”
Stella cocked her head and ran one palm over her swollen belly. “Homework, huh? More like a letter to your boyfriend. That who knocked you up?”
“No!” Kelli exclaimed, a little shocked. She hadn’t told anyone why she was there. “How did you know?”
“Your boobs. They’re bigger than when you first got here. And you stomach’s starting to pooch out a little, too.” She gestured toward Kelli’s bed. “Mind if I sit down? My feet are killing me.”
“Sure,” Kelli said, tucking the sheet of paper into her folder before turning around to face Stella. “Is that because of the baby? Your feet hurting, I mean?”
Stella groaned as she carefully lowered herself to the bed, putting one hand down flat on the mattress so she didn’t fall right over. “Yeah. I’m all swollen and achy. And fat. It sucks.”
“Are you scared?” Kelli asked, strangely exhilarated to finally be talking about this with someone who might understand how she’d been feeling. She was a little freaked out thinking about the fact that she actually had a whole other body growing inside her. The only conversation she’d had about her pregnancy since getting here was with the director, who told her if she tried to sneak her boyfriend in the school for sex, she’d regr
et it, and with the doctor whom she’d met with once for a checkup, who told her to eat Tums if she got heartburn and make sure to take the prenatal vitamins he gave her.
“Sort of,” Stella said. “Are you?”
Kelli nodded, trying to keep her bottom lip from trembling. She’d never been so afraid of anything. Remembering how Jason being inside her had hurt, she couldn’t fathom the kind of pain having a baby would bring. She pictured sweat and blood and screaming and instantly, fear spread like hot tar inside her chest. “What else does it feel like?” she asked Stella, hoping she might learn something that would ease her concerns.
“Well, some of it’s pretty cool. When the baby moves and everything? It’s kind of like having an alien inside you.” Though that wasn’t especially reassuring, Kelli nodded and waited to hear more. Stella sighed. “I have to pee like, every ten minutes, too. Which sucks. And my boobs hurt. And my back.”
So much for reassurance, Kelli thought. “When are you due?”
“Any day now,” Stella said. “I can’t wait to get this thing out of me.”
Kelli froze at her choice of words. “You don’t want to keep it?”
Stella scrunched up her face and shook her head. “Are you nuts? No way. It was totally a mistake, but my parents wouldn’t sign off on the abortion, so here I am. It’s going to be adopted by some couple in L.A.”
Kelli couldn’t imagine giving her child up so easily. “Did you get to meet them? Are they good people?”
Stella shrugged. “They don’t let us meet the parents. They just take the baby.” Her eyes became shiny and she looked out the window into the dark night. “I can’t wait to get back home. My boyfriend and I are gonna get a house together. He’s the manager at the gas station and he’s going to take care of me ’til I turn sixteen and can get a job.”
“What about your parents?”