Beneath the Skin

by Kyla Stone

  I hate what’s inside me.

  I don’t know how to get it out.

  36

  The social worker finally calls. Aunt Ellie’s face turns gray as she talks. She chews her smudged, orange marmalade lipstick right off her lips. Ma’s baby was born five days ago. She came six weeks early. The pregnancy was high risk, so they brought her to a local hospital to give birth. There are problems.

  When Aunt Ellie gets off the phone, she shakes her head. “Susan was drinking, wasn’t she?”

  I sit at the table, staring into the mouth of the peanut butter jar. My throat’s thick and gunky. Slowly, I nod.

  “And you didn’t stop her?” Her voice is harsh, strangled.

  A blade of guilt slides between my ribs. “I tried. She either insisted she’d only had one glass or denied she had any altogether. She had a secret stash. She’d always find more even when I tried to dump it.”

  “How could she do that?”

  I screw the lid back on the jar. Abruptly, I’m not hungry at all. “I don’t know.”

  Aunt Ellie passes her hand over her eyes. “I had no idea how bad off she was. I had no idea. I’m sorry, Sidney. You’re right. You’re not responsible for her drinking. She was. I just didn’t realize—it’s just too much.”

  “Too much what?”

  She gazes up at the ceiling like some higher power is going to send her the fortitude she needs to get through this, to survive us. She fingers her tortoiseshell necklace. “I’m sorry, honey. I just—I need some time.” She goes back into Ma’s bedroom and shuts the door.

  So this, too, is up to me. After I make an appointment with the social worker, it’s Arianna I call to come to the hospital with me. I don’t say anything to the boys. They don’t need to know yet. Arianna tells me to call Lucas.

  I think about how I abandoned him. Again. “He won’t want to. I’m pretty sure he’s finished with me.”

  “You don’t give him enough credit, Sidney. Try him.”

  Of course I won’t, and Arianna knows it. She texts me five minutes later. She called Lucas herself. He’s coming with us.

  I watch the stark trees reaching for the gray, low-bellied sky with gnarled fingers. Sullen buildings heavy with snow slide past the car window. My hands are balled so tightly in my lap, the edges of my rings bite into my skin.

  Lucas sits next to me. He chats easily with Arianna. He doesn’t try to touch me. He doesn’t ask me why I abandoned him, why I left him waiting by the fence while snow dropped from the sky. His presence is like a wall of static electricity crackling against my skin.

  At the hospital, we check in at the nurses’ station on the maternity ward. The counter is draped with twinkly Christmas lights. I want to crush every bulb with my bare hands. We stand against the wall while we wait, listening to the sounds of nurses bustling in and out of rooms and babies crying. The hospital has that bleached, sharp antiseptic smell. I’m dazed, like I’ve just been in a car wreck, or am about to be.

  A short woman with smooth brown skin walks up to us. She’s dressed in a pinstripe pantsuit and shiny red heels. “I’m Michaela Davis. Please follow me.”

  The beads on the ends of her braids clack together as she walks. She leads us to a small room with rose-colored walls and fuchsia chairs. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen plays from a speaker on the desk.

  Michaela Davis sits behind the desk, yanks a manila folder out of her briefcase, and stares at it for a moment. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your sister has FASD, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder.”

  A steel band constricts my stomach. Images of deformed limbs and other monstrosities flare before my eyes. “Because my mother drank.”

  “Yes.”

  “How bad is it?” Arianna asks.

  The social worker glances down at the still unopened folder. “She weighs just under five pounds, though she was full-term. She displays the classic signs: growth deficiencies in size, weight, and head circumference, facial abnormalities, tremors. It’s likely she is least moderately mentally disabled. Half of FASD victims have an IQ below 70.”

  It’s hard to breathe, to remember how to suck in air. Arianna takes my hand. On my other side, Lucas’ shoulder presses into mine, holding me up. “What—what will happen to her?”

  “We have some very good programs here. She may be cared for at the Children’s Resource Center, which is where she’ll be transferred after leaving the hospital. We also have several foster families who are trained to work with FAS children. There are also a few potential adoptive families already approved.”

  I never thought about what would happen after. Where the baby—my sister—would actually go. “So—so she’s not coming home?”

  “Your mother requested to terminate her parental rights.”

  I feel like I’ve been sucker punched. “Can I see her?”

  “Of course. First, I need to prepare you for what to expect. Her facial deformities, characterized by hypoplasia, the underdevelopment of the facial bone, will become more prominent as she gets older. You will notice ptosis, the drooping of her eyelids, a thin upper lip and short nose. FAS infants are easily agitated. They don’t like to be held or to make eye contact. They may have tremors.” Michaela Davis sounds like she’s reading from a textbook.

  “Screw this,” I interrupt. “Just let me see her.”

  “Certainly. Please follow me.” We follow her down another long, narrow hallway to the nursery. Several infants lay swaddled in their incubators, their fuzzy heads barely showing. They are the lucky ones, the ones born to good mothers.

  “Here.” Michaela Davis pauses at an incubator all the way in the back. Lucas takes my hand as we look down at a newborn who appears almost normal. The baby’s body is tiny, her head small and elongated. I can see the squat nose the social worker talked about, the shortened upper lip. But still, she looks like a baby.

  It’s her insides that are critically damaged, the tiny brain boiled in alcohol. It’s in her glassy, unfocused eyes. Acid roils in my stomach. I taste it on my tongue.

  “Are you all right?” Arianna asks me.

  “Sure. Just freakin’ fantastic.” I’m reeling. I’m heartbroken. I’m so angry I want to destroy something, anything, smash it into a thousand million pieces. I should have done more, could have done more to keep the alcohol away from my mother. I should have done something. Now this tiny thing with her stubby little fists and soft, downy skull and a mouth like a rose bud is the one who suffers. I swallow hard.

  Beside me, Arianna closes her eyes. Her mouth moves silently. I know she’s praying for the baby, for my sister.

  An Asian man in scrubs with spiky black hair and a mustache approaches us.

  “This is nurse Jheon. He helped deliver your sister. I thought you might have some questions for him.”

  “Would you like to hold her?” he asks.

  I blink rapidly. “Yes.”

  The baby screams as the nurse lifts her and places her tiny form in my arms.

  I try to rock her, but her wails only intensify. Her gaze zags off to the side.

  “Try holding her closer to your body.”

  I cradle her against my chest. She is so very, very small, wrapped up in a blanket like a burrito. Her webby veins show beneath her skin. I gaze at her tiny, shell-pink ear. This part of her, at least, is perfect. Her shrieks taper off into snotty whimpers, then huffy moan-gasps, as if she’s too exhausted to cry any more.

  The nurse crosses his arms. “She wouldn’t stop crying for anybody else. You have a way with her.”

  I shrug, but warmth spreads through me. “What was my mother like?”

  “The labor was long and hard. She wanted to see the infant right away. We could tell she had FASD. Your mom knew too. She’d been warned. She started crying. Your mother wouldn’t calm down, so we gave her a sedative and took the baby away. When she was coherent again, she didn’t ask for the baby, so we didn’t bring her in. She sat in the hospital bed for 24 hours, staring at her arms, l
ike she was holding something that wasn’t there. They took her back to Huron Valley yesterday.”

  I touch her soft, perfect ear. She needs a family that can take care of her right, can care for her needs in ways I could never do. It’s a good thing Ma’s giving up her rights. She gave up her right a long time ago. It’s the right thing. But still, the pain radiating through me steals my breath away. I want to imprint my love on her somehow, to leave her with a sign, a stamp on her heart that will remind her. A promise she can carry into whatever future awaits her. Someone loved her. I love her. “What’s her name?” I choke out.

  “Your mom didn’t name her. Would you like to?”

  My whole hand fits over her head. Her chocolate brown fuzz is soft as down. She needs a beautiful name, a strong name. “Zoe Rose.”

  “That’s a lovely name,” Arianna says, smiling.

  “Can I see her? In foster care? Even after she’s adopted?”

  “I’m sure something can be arranged. We could do an open adoption, where you get pictures and videos every so often.” Michaela Davis tucks her briefcase beneath her arm. “I’ll call your family next week.”

  We leave the hospital and head back to Arianna’s car in silence. Snow sputters down from the slate-colored sky. My stomach roils with bile. I’m sick. Sick to death of all of this. Most of all, I’m sick to death of myself. I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t stop Ma from drinking. I didn’t save that beautiful baby—my own sister—in the incubator up in that hospital room. I could have done more. Should have. But I didn’t do a damn thing.

  “This isn’t your fault,” Arianna says, like she can read my mind.

  Lucas touches my arm.

  I flinch. The monster inside me is moving, sliding through my veins like black sludge. “Just leave me alone.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” His voice is firm, unyielding.

  I shake my head. I’m so full of shame, I can barely look at him.

  He steps closer, brushing my bangs out of my eyes. “Can I touch you?” he says softly, so only I can hear.

  Then he’s holding me, wrapping his arms around me, tucking my head beneath his chin. He’s solid, strong. Safe. I’m shivering, but my whole body fills with warmth all the way down to my toes. After a moment, I wilt against him. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’ve been a big fat jerk to you.”

  “Maybe just a little bit,” he says into my hair. “I know you don’t mean it. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  I want to say thank you to both of them, but the words stick in my throat. I don’t know how.

  Arianna rubs my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

  But I don’t know if it will ever be okay. Not for Zoe Rose, and maybe not for me.

  Lucas holds my hand the entire car ride home. It’s like a thread, a cord connecting us to each other. I can feel it pulsing through his palm.

  His fingers entwine through mine like a promise.

  37

  The ride home is silent. When we get back, Lucas gives me a long, fierce hug. I hug him back. Arianna and I don’t talk until we’re in her bedroom, on the floor leaning against her bed. We’re wrapped in blankets with steaming mugs of hot chocolate by our sides. Her parents are at prayer meeting, so we have the house to ourselves.

  “I don’t know the best way to say this,” Arianna says softly. “But I’m worried about you. Even though your dad is gone, your eyes are still filled with shadows. It’s like—it’s like they still have power over you—your parents, and they aren’t even here anymore.”

  My head snaps up. That familiar spiky rage jabs through me. “Easy for you to say, Beauty Queen. Look at you. You’re so skinny, you’re sprouting those soft white hairs babies get. Your skin looks like it’s painted on your bones. All you have to do is put food in your mouth, but you won’t. Right this second, you’re pretending to sip hot chocolate, but we both know not a single drop has touched your tongue. Don’t you dare tell me how I need to fix myself, when you’re fading away like a picture left too long in the sun.”

  Tears spring into her eyes. She gnaws on her pinkie fingernail until blood streaks her teeth. “You’re right.”

  “I know.” I desperately want to help her. To reach for her hand the same way she reached for mine. “You can talk to me. I can listen, too, you know.”

  She presses her hands against her belly, takes a breath. “I spent my whole life being perfect, doing everything everyone wanted me to—the grades, the flute, French, class secretary, the Bible studies, the bake sales. Everything. I didn’t choose any of it. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of doing what my teachers and my parents and my youth group leader want. I’m sick and tired of worrying so much about what every single person thinks of me. Everyone, even guys I hate and my friends who aren’t even my true friends. Before the beach, when I thought they were my friends, I had to talk like them and act like them and dress and do my hair like them. I only get their approval when I’m pretty—but not too pretty—and thin and subservient and meek. I hate it. I feel like a coward and a fraud all the time.”

  I stare at her. Her eyes look like they’re drowning. My heart contracts. I force the blackness inside me down, beating it back to the edges of my mind. As much as I don’t deserve it, this girl’s given me parts of herself I never could’ve asked for. She risked so much for me, lied for me, abandoned her safe, popular existence for me, and she did it when I was nothing but a smart-mouthed jerk to her. I owe her. More than that, I want to help her. I can do this. I can be who she needs. “Keep talking. What else?”

  “Sometimes I’m angry or I don’t like something someone does, but I’m not supposed to say anything because then I’m the bitch, excuse my language. I’m so terrified someone’s going to notice the mask is chipping and rip it off, and then people will know. I’m really nobody at all. And I’m losing it. I’m losing myself. I’m losing myself and I hate myself for doing what everyone else is doing.

  “It’s like nobody sees me. I’m literally disappearing—and nobody even notices. My so-called former friends don’t see me. My parents don’t see me. Pretty soon I won’t be able to see me either.” She covers her mouth with her hands like she’s just said something terrible. “I’m so sorry. I really am. You’re going through all this stuff and listen to me blabber on about nothing.”

  “Stop apologizing. Seriously. It’s driving me insane. You don’t have to apologize for your existence.”

  “Sorry,” she says automatically, then hiccups.

  We exchange sad, small smiles. Her pain is as real as mine. She writes her pain on her body, like I do. A strange new feeling washes over me, one I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s more than owing her. I care about her. I want her to be okay. Even more, I want her friendship. “You have to eat something. You have to forgive yourself. You should know that better than anybody, with all your God and mercy and grace talk.”

  The muscles in her jaw twitch. She picks at her bitten fingernails. “You’re right.”

  “Where is the grace for yourself? If God forgives you, then who are you to reject forgiveness?”

  She hesitates for a long moment. She rocks gently back and forth, her shoulders hunched. “You’re right.”

  My throat tightens. It’s hard to speak the words, but I have to. “I can’t do this by myself.”

  “You have Lucas.”

  I shake my head. “No. He’s important. But I need you.”

  Tears shimmer in her eyes. “I remember when I first saw you. I would watch you in class, in the halls, being you, loud and snarky and fierce and not caring at all what other people thought, even when they hated you. I admired you. I wanted to know how you did it. I wanted to BE you.”

  I laugh in spite of the seriousness of the conversation.

  After a moment, she laughs, too. “Just being around you makes me want to be stronger.”

  “You’re like the Viceroy.”

  “The what?”

  “The Viceroy has the same orange, brow
n, and white colors and patterns of the Monarch butterfly. Monarchs eat milkweed, which makes them taste bad to birds and other predators. Viceroys feed on willows and poplar, not milkweed. So by looking like the Monarch, the Viceroy is protected because the birds think he’ll taste terrible. He’s a mimic.”

  “Okay, yeah. I can see that. Fake it ‘til you make it, right?” She nods, nibbling at her fingernails. “I never pegged you for a butterfly girl. Like, at all.”

  “I’m full of surprises.” I give her shoulder a little shove. “You’re strong. You’ve already proven it. It’s time to surprise yourself.”

  She hesitates, then lifts the hot chocolate and takes a drink. A regular, normal drink. Then another one. Her face is pale, but she keeps drinking. “Okay. Okay, I will.”

  “And what else?”

  “What else?”

  “Yeah. What else do you want for yourself that you’ve given up for someone else?”

  She’s quiet for a long time. I’m starting to think she’s not going to answer when she finally speaks. “I don’t want to go to college.”

  “Seriously? For real?”

  “Not like my parents want me to. I don’t want to go to med school. I have zero interest in being a doctor. I want to be a sous chef or a pastry chef, like at a chic outdoor, beachfront restaurant. I’ve been researching all these great culinary schools in Chicago.”

  “That sounds perfect for you.”

  She shakes her head. “That’s basically like throwing away my future, according to my parents. My mom would totally flip out.”

  “She’ll live. And so will you.”

  “That’s debatable.” She looks up at me, her eyes suddenly bright. “You could go to the Art Institute of Chicago. You’re so good, I’m sure you’d get in. We could rent the tiniest studio apartment on Michigan Avenue, like where the bedroom is also the living room and the bathroom is the size of a phone booth? We could room together.”

  And just like that, a future unfurls in front of me I can almost see and feel. It could actually be real. It is luminous, brilliant, nearly too shiny to look at.