“That’s not true,” Martha said. “Don’t think that.”
“Um, I don’t care, so you don’t have to use your voice like you feel bad for me, but of course that’s true. And it’s fine. Cathy and I have never been close. She used to basically torture me when I was little, remember?”
“She had a lot of issues,” Martha said.
“Yes, she did.”
“I’m just saying, maybe you should be a little more enthusiastic about the wedding.”
“And I’m just saying, if you don’t shut up now, I’m going to jump out of the car.”
By that time they were just about home anyway, and they drove up the street in silence. Claire slammed her door shut and was inside the house before Martha even got out of the car. She sat for a moment, then pulled herself together and went up to Claire’s room, where she knocked, but then opened the door right away.
“You know, Dr. Baer said that she once knew two adult sisters that moved back home and had so much trouble, that they went to couples counseling.”
“Jesus.”
“It’s just something to consider.”
“We are not going to couples counseling.”
“You shouldn’t judge therapy so much. You know, you might benefit from it.”
“Martha, seriously. If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to push you out. I mean it.” Claire stood up from her bed, like she was going to come after Martha, like they were going to have a physical fight, which they hadn’t done in about twenty years. Even then, it rarely happened, where they actually pulled each other’s hair or pinched one another. But Claire was moving toward the door, and Martha turned and ran, hearing the door slam behind her.
MR. CRANSTON SLEPT MORE AND MORE. At first Martha thought maybe he was just coming down with something, but he never really seemed to bounce back. Everything exhausted him. He never even read the papers anymore. He would start to, and then get tired or frustrated, and they remained folded up on the table until the next morning, when Martha would throw them in the recycling bin and replace them with the new ones.
Jaz seemed to be around more, like she was nervous to leave. Martha didn’t mind, since it gave them a chance to talk. She told Jaz about the Saint Jude statue, which made her laugh, but then she said, “It can’t hurt, can it?”
“No,” Martha agreed. “It can’t.”
Most mornings, Jaz was there to fix breakfast for Mr. Cranston. Martha noticed that she started giving him bacon every once in a while. “He needs a pick-me-up today,” she said, whenever she fried the bacon slices up in the pan.
All of a sudden, it felt like everyone was waiting. There was no more talk of new doctors, and even Ruby and Billy decided to get over their fight and began spending time at the house together.
“I decided to start looking for a place to buy,” Martha told Jaz one day.
“That’s good,” Jaz said. “You should keep moving forward for as long as you can, until you can’t move forward anymore.”
Martha started to write that one down, but found it was too depressing. She ended up tearing the page out of her notebook and throwing it away.
SHE WAS HAPPY TO BE SPENDING her weekends with Sarah again. She’d been a little nervous, but they fell back into a routine pretty quickly. Sarah would come and pick her up, they’d stop at Starbucks and go over the listings for the day, and then they’d head out.
On the second time they were out, they looked at an old converted loft. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, an open kitchen, and a balcony.
“I know you said you didn’t want a loft space,” Sarah said. “But I think you should look at this one. It’s all brand-new, which I think you’ll like. Brand-new appliances, a washer and dryer, the works. It’s really beautiful.”
Martha was sure she wouldn’t like it, especially when she saw there was still sawdust in the lobby. “They’re still working on most of the units,” Sarah explained.
It wasn’t at all what Martha had pictured as her new home. It had high ceilings and exposed brick and pipes. But there was something about it.
“Do you think it will be loud?” Martha asked.
“There might be some echo,” Sarah said. “That can happen in spaces like these. But I don’t think it will be too bad.”
“Okay,” Martha said. She walked into the smaller bedroom.
“So what do you think?” Sarah asked. “Should we say it’s a maybe?”
“Yeah,” Martha said. “Let’s put it at the top of the list.”
IN MAY, THEY THREW CLEO a baby shower. Weezy kept saying, “It’s the right thing to do. This baby is coming, so let’s get on board.” She pretty much just kept repeating this to herself as the days went on, but Martha figured whatever helped her was okay.
Martha and Claire put together the invitations, rolled-up pieces of paper in actual baby bottles that they mailed out. Martha had seen this on a crafts show once and she’d been dying to try it. Claire had sort of grumbled about the idea, but finally agreed, and the two of them went to Target to buy all the supplies, stocking the cart with baby bottles, ribbon, and confetti shaped like little rattles.
“We should get some streamers,” Martha said.
“Really? Streamers?”
“You don’t think so?”
“That seems more junior high dance than baby shower.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” They continued walking up and down the aisles. “I still can’t believe this is happening. I feel so bad for Mom and Dad.”
“Don’t you feel bad for Max?”
“No. I mean, look what this is doing to Mom and Dad. He’s the one that put himself in this position.”
“Martha, it was an accident. You think he meant to do this?”
“I’m just saying it was irresponsible. And he’s always been that way. I’m just worried about Mom being able to handle this.”
“She’s fine.”
“She’s not fine. Haven’t you noticed? And it’s really affecting the whole family.”
“Have I noticed that she’s being dramatic because that’s how she is? Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
“You’re being really insensitive.”
“I’m being insensitive? You’re the one that doesn’t even feel bad for our twenty-one-year-old brother who’s about to be a dad and is scared out of his mind. Stop making this about anyone else. It’s Max that has to deal with this, and he’s the one you should be worried about.”
The two of them pushed the cart down the aisles, sighing and shaking their heads. “Have you thought any more about coming to therapy with me?” Martha finally asked.
“Oh my God, Martha, I’m not going to couples therapy with you. Seriously, what is your problem?”
“It’s not my problem. We’re having trouble communicating.”
“No, we’re not. You’re just looking for something to be wrong. You’re looking for a problem to have. It’s like you like it when you have issues to deal with.”
“That’s not true.”
“Well, it seems like it is. It seems like Max is taking a lot of the attention lately, and you want some disaster of your own to focus on, and so you want to go to couples therapy with your sister, which isn’t just ridiculous—it’s totally weird.”
“People have done it,” Martha said. She sniffed.
“I’m sure they have. But we’re not going to. Look at us—we’re communicating right now. So let’s finish shopping for this baby shower and go home.”
“Fine,” Martha said. Later that afternoon, she sat on her bed and evaluated her behavior. This was something that Dr. Baer had suggested she do. She wasn’t being insensitive to Max, like Claire suggested. That was absurd She just didn’t think that everyone needed to be falling all over themselves feeling bad for Max and Cleo, when really, they were the ones who got themselves into this mess in the first place.
MR. CRANSTON CAME DOWN WITH A COLD, that turned into bronchitis, that turned into pneumonia. When he coughed, his who
le body shook, and sometimes it sounded like his chest was going to rip right out of him.
Ruby and Billy agreed that it was probably smart to have nurses there round the clock, at least for a little while. “He’s having so much trouble breathing,” Jaz told Martha. “They just want to make sure that there’s someone here to help.”
Martha wished that she could be the nurse that was there, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t done one thing—not one thing!—to start getting recertified. What had she been doing this whole time? She was ashamed of herself for wasting these months. Sure, there had been family drama that had taken her attention away, but still. That was no excuse. She promised herself that she would start looking into it.
THE BABY SHOWER WAS A SUCCESS, despite the arguments that had taken place. She and Claire strung a clothesline across the living room, and hung little onesies on it. Claire had wanted to make strawberry cupcakes, but Martha thought that made it look like the baby was going to be a girl.
“I think it’s fine,” Claire said. “It’s a girlie cupcake, the kind you would have at a shower.” But Martha was really against it, and eventually Claire gave up and made chocolate chip cupcakes instead, which were delicious.
Martha was dying to meet Cleo’s mom at the shower. Cleo had described her once as “driven,” and Martha wanted to know what that meant exactly. Elizabeth arrived a few minutes after the shower started, as though she were just another guest and not the mother of the mother-to-be. She wore a suit, and stood out among all the other women. Martha wasn’t surprised to see that Elizabeth was a very attractive woman, although she noticed that her beauty was a little different from Cleo’s, more focused and angular. Elizabeth had a firm handshake and she was direct and in command, which Martha admired. When Cleo opened the presents, Elizabeth stood in the very back of the room, like a Secret Service agent watching the crowd.
Cleo got so much gear that Martha couldn’t even imagine where she was going to put it all. People had so much stuff for babies these days. There was a bouncy chair, a vibrating chair, and a swing. There were mats and mobiles and play sets. It was craziness.
But at the end of the day, when Cleo was done unwrapping her presents, sitting among the piles of her loot, she thanked Weezy, Martha, and Claire for the shower, and even started to cry a little bit. Martha felt satisfied, like she’d done a good deed. She wanted to point out to Claire that an insensitive person wouldn’t have felt that way, but she kept it to herself.
CHAPTER 18
Winter finally started to melt, and after a quick and wet spring, it became hot. The weather people kept calling it “a burst of summer,” like it was something fun, when really it was just miserable. No one was ready for the weather. People still walked outside with jackets, confused. They hit eighty degrees at the end of March and it just kept going up from there. And Cleo, who was already hot all the time anyway, became more annoyed with each day.
“Tell me there isn’t global warming,” she said to Max one morning. He was eating cereal at the little table they had in the kitchen, and he just raised his eyebrows.
“I mean, are people kidding when they try to pretend it’s not happening? Eighty-seven degrees in April? What the hell is going on here? It’s like those people that try to say the Holocaust didn’t happen.”
“I know,” Max said. He ignored her comment about Holocaust deniers. “The air conditioner isn’t doing much, is it?”
“It sounds like it’s dying,” Cleo said. They had only one air conditioner in the apartment and they kept it in the bedroom. It was an old one that Max had taken from the Coffeys’ attic, and it growled and whined as it tried to spit out cold air. If you stood directly in front of it, you could sort of feel a breeze.
“Even I’m going to the library today,” Max said. “It’s too hot to stay here.”
“Actually, I think I’m going to stay here today.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I just need to work without distraction.”
“Okay,” Max said. “But I’ll save you a seat just in case you change your mind.”
The weather was a problem for lots of reasons, the main one being that all the kids on campus stripped down like it was spring break, and Cleo, who was not ready to show her stomach to all, still wore sweaters, as if the extra layering could hide what was happening underneath. She ended up sitting in her classes, sweating and uncomfortable, trying to cool down by pulling the fabric away from her skin and fanning papers at her face. When she was alone in the apartment, she usually wore nothing more than a tank top and boxers, and she’d sit on the couch with her feet on the coffee table in front of her, hands stretched across her stomach. She sat like that for hours, not moving, just holding her stomach like that was going to stop it from getting bigger.
They opened the windows wide, in an attempt to cool the apartment down. All it did was invite every fly to come in through the screenless openings. Once they were inside, they buzzed around, too dumb to figure out how to get back out. Cleo watched them frantically fly around, hitting the blinds and the walls. Sometimes she tried to sweep them out with papers, but it didn’t help much. Always, right before they died they got especially crazy and aggressive, looping around and dive-bombing Cleo and buzzing out of control as if that last burst of energy could save them. A few hours after that happened, Cleo usually found a little black corpse on the ground, and she’d scoop it up and throw it out the window. One morning, she woke up to find a bunch of dead flies on the table. “A massacre,” she whispered, and then cleaned them up.
After Monica heard that she was pregnant, she came by the apartment. “You could have told me,” she said.
“I couldn’t,” Cleo said. “I couldn’t even say it out loud.”
She finally had what she wanted: Monica was here with her to talk to her about being pregnant. She could have cried or screamed or told her that she was so scared all the time, that she felt like they were making every single decision wrong. They weren’t living in a movie. Things weren’t going to work themselves out offscreen and result in a cute baby. There was going to be blood and fighting and a lot of crying. She knew that much. But she couldn’t say any of that to Monica. What she’d really wanted was her old friend before they’d fallen apart. Now she had someone who looked familiar but felt sort of strange. It was almost better when she was gone altogether.
“It’s pretty messed up,” is all she said.
Monica started to come by the apartment more often. Sometimes she brought an orange or a bag of licorice or a gossip magazine, like little offerings. Most days they ended up sitting side by side on the couch, watching bad reality TV.
“You know,” Monica said one day, looking at Cleo’s stomach, “you’ll get used to people staring. Or not used to it, but it won’t bother you as much after a while. Like when you get a haircut and it feels so different, you feel the missing ends, and then one day you wake up and it’s just your hair again. It’s like that.”
“It doesn’t feel like that,” she said. She knew that Monica was trying to help, but what she wanted to say was that being pregnant was way worse than being anorexic. She wouldn’t say that, of course, because it sounded horrendous. But still, she thought it.
And it was true. There were things that college professors were used to. They were used to kids getting drunk, or getting overwhelmed, or failing a test and then crying. They were used to girls like Monica getting pulled out of school and returning a semester later. But they weren’t used to seeing pregnant seniors wander around the campus. They could barely look at Cleo. When it finally became clear to her economics professor that she was pregnant, he started avoiding her eyes when he taught. The staring was bad, but it was worse when people pointedly didn’t look at her, when they just avoided her altogether, fixing their eyes on the air around her.
CLEO WAS READY FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR to end, ready to be away from everyone her age that was celebrating and talking about where they were going to move. They talked about Manhattan
and Boston and Chicago and San Francisco. Sometimes they changed their minds just because they felt like it. They were going to live on the East Coast and then decided to try the West Coast. Why not? They had choices. They could do whatever they felt like. She was moving into the basement of her boyfriend’s parents’ house in a suburb of Philadelphia. Was a sadder sentence ever said?
She and Max had both agreed to move to the Coffeys’. She didn’t want to, but what other option was there? Where else were they supposed to go? Even if Elizabeth had wanted them, her apartment was way too small, and it was still too hard for her to really talk about the baby without causing a fight of some kind. The last time they’d spoken on the phone, she’d said, “You have to understand, I just feel like I failed as a mother, Cleo. To have you pregnant in college is a nightmare and I can’t help but think it was my lack of parenting.” Cleo wasn’t sure if this was supposed to make her feel better, but it certainly didn’t. Then Elizabeth said, “I should have never let you go to that school,” like that was the cause of all this.
She and Max also decided to get married, although that still seemed not quite real. Max had brought up marriage the day after he’d woken her up with McDonald’s on her pillow. The fight was over, but they were still talking carefully to each other, stepping out of the way when the other walked by, saying sorry and please more often than normal.
They were both in bed, but not sleeping. Max was on his computer and Cleo had her eyes closed, a book resting on her stomach. Max cleared his throat once and then again and again, until Cleo opened her eyes.
“I was thinking,” he said, “that we should probably get married.”
“Married?”
“Yeah. I mean, we’re going to be together anyway, and with the baby, I just feel like it’s right.”
“I just … I don’t know. It’s a lot.”
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