by Emily Adrian
“Sounds plausible.”
“And Carrie kept saying, ‘Don’t throw the bowl! Don’t throw the bowl!’”
I assured her I would not throw the bowl, only its contents. Then, with the water rushing beneath my unprotected feet, I chucked the bowl against the rocks. The river swept the ceramic shards downstream. Gabe turned up his palms in disbelief, but Carrie was instantly cheered. “I told you to be careful! I knew that would happen!”
“You were right,” was all I said.
In Rome, Gabe finished this story and summarized, “You knew if you screwed something up, it would be like Carrie’s own mistake had never happened. It was manipulative, but in a sweet way.”
“You fell in love with me because I broke a mixing bowl?”
He smiled. “Yeah. A little bit.”
Because I didn’t know if we’d ever again be drunk and abroad, I resisted the temptation to change the subject. There were so many moments from which I’d been excluded that year. Moments that felt crucial to understanding my own history and my own future.
“What happened when you told your parents Carrie was pregnant?”
“I told them on a Friday morning. They were stone-faced. Like, just completely ashen. I was sobbing and begging them to say something, but my dad kept repeating, ‘You’re going to be late for school,’ until I finally gave up and left. I guess that’s when they sprang into action. By the time I got home, they’d hired a mediator and arranged the meeting with Carrie’s parents.”
“I always thought you guys ambushed the Harts.”
Gabe shook his head. “All the adults were in cahoots. My dad tracked down Rosalind at the library. I think she was relieved, honestly, to realize he was this business guy with plenty of money and, you know, shame.”
“Were you upset?”
Gabe put his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair. “I was embarrassed. Carrie’s preference was to act like we had everything handled, and to me, that seemed noble and mature. I wanted to be like her. I didn’t want her to think I’d gone running and crying to my parents.”
“But you had.”
“Oh, totally.” We made deliberate eye contact. “But you know, their involvement was a relief. It took me a week to tell them, and the whole time I was thinking it was a situation they couldn’t rescue me from. But then, in the end, they rescued me anyway.”
“Not really,” I said. “Carrie stayed pregnant. You still became a dad at eighteen.”
“Yeah, but what did I have to give up? Nothing. I got everything I wanted—college, New York. I even got you.” His expression was strained, as if our togetherness was an indulgence Gabe hadn’t deserved.
His implication—though never voiced, not even in Rome—was that Carrie had given up everything to become Nina’s mother. Maybe it’s convenient, my reluctance to agree. But Carrie, who hadn’t previously known what she wanted from her life, couldn’t have been calmer or more focused during the nine months of her pregnancy. The test turning positive filled her with the sense of purpose that kids like Gabe acquired after touring the green lawns or city campuses of their dream schools.
And isn’t it more ambitious to raise a child than to get a bachelor’s degree?
At least, to try to raise a child without fucking her up?
“I guess, if I’m being totally honest,” Gabe went on, “I’m not sure I would’ve become a high school English teacher in another life. When Nina was around two, it started to really bother me that my parents were still making those payments. I might have gone for a PhD if I’d felt like I had the time to spare. You know?”
The wine plus Gabe’s tone, newly laced with self-pity, made me blunt. “Yeah, but it doesn’t count as a sacrifice if you only think of it afterward.”
He blinked at me. I stared back, as cool and formidable, I hoped, as Carrie Hart herself.
“You’re right,” he said finally.
* * *
From the night I tossed the mixing bowl into the river, a memory we’ve never once discussed: Carrie went to the bathroom for the hundredth time. Gabe and I were alone in the kitchen, among the open bags of sugar and salt. There was something he wanted to say to me that I preferred not to hear. As a distraction, I grabbed a yellow legal pad and sketched—without looking at the page and hardly breaking eye contact—a portrait of him. It turned out good. I had captured the light in his eyes, the span of his extravagant smile. With a flourish, I spun the pad in his direction, as if presenting a test score or a puzzle I had solved.
From the bathroom, we heard the toilet flush. Gabe gave the drawing a once-over before looking up at me through the swoop of his hair.
“And you claim Carrie’s the artist,” he said.
* * *
Because Carrie was long, lean, and fond of wearing an oversized track-and-field hoodie, the swell of her stomach went unnoticed until April. Even once her pregnancy was public, it was decidedly less of a circus than Tatum Barnett’s. Though she shared a due date with Carrie, Tatum had been showing—and outfitting herself exclusively in formfitting maternity clothes—since January. Hazy ultrasounds adorned the inside of her locker, and she would recite her daughter’s full name, Madison Grace Barnett-Delaney, in one breath to anyone who would listen. (Tatum’s baby turned out to be a boy, whom she named Pete, a twist I would eventually discover on Facebook.) Maybe it was Tatum’s gestational enthusiasm that allowed our peers to go easy on Carrie—or maybe it was simply that people were already accustomed to leaving Carrie Hart alone.
For whatever reason, reactions to her pregnancy were mostly limited to rumors about who the father might be. Gabe’s parents had asked her to keep Gabe’s role a secret, arguing that the information could cost him his spot at NYU. Gabe, to his credit, insisted it was within Carrie’s rights to tell whomever she pleased, but Carrie had honored the Feldmans’ request.
And so, suspects included Hunter Locke, who pronounced his name Hunner and who had once dared Carrie to hurdle a shopping cart; the youngish track-and-field coach with the goatee, who had always favored Carrie over the other gazelle-legged girls; the possibility that Carrie was so promiscuous she had no idea; and my brother. No one suspected Gabe. Kids in Deerling were largely bad at math, and the weeks during which Carrie and I had comprised the new kid’s inner circle seemed, to most, like a lifetime ago.
Then, on a particularly hot day in May, Hunter Locke happened to wander by the drinking fountain in the south hallway as Carrie was struggling to lean over her eight-month bump and reach her lips to the water. Maybe Hunter was going through a rough time. Maybe his truck needed a new transmission or his dog had died. Maybe he resented being in the running for possible father of Carrie Hart’s baby or else it may have irked him that Carrie had gone and gotten pregnant by someone else. The two of them had dated erratically—smoking pot in the garage behind Carrie’s house, making out in the elevator the school reserved for students with disabilities—prior to Gabe’s arrival.
“Hey, Hart!” Hunter’s greeting was aggressive, and Carrie spun around, water still dripping down her chin. I stood beside her holding her backpack. I was always holding her backpack. “Think you’ll ever own up to being a slut and tell everyone I’m not your baby daddy?”
Hunter’s question, shouted across the hall, ignited Jerry Springer–esque commotion. Everyone was stir-crazy, counting down the days until the last day of school, desperate for stimulation. The twist of Carrie’s mouth made me think she was going to either puke or cry. For Carrie’s sake, I hoped for nausea, knowing tears would embarrass her more.
It’s one thing to be called a slut when you are the sole occupant of your body. By the time Carrie and I entered our teen years, we were accustomed to degradation. Hearing random men holler nice ass through the rolled-down windows of passing cars was the price we paid for having bodies at all.
It’s different when your ribcage is stretc
hing painfully to accommodate your organs, which are retreating from your uterus, which is growing as fast as the human it houses. It’s different when your body is busy with a colossal task beyond your jurisdiction. You become protective not only of your baby but of yourself. Of women everywhere.
It’s mortifying, then, to have your pregnant body objectified.
Gabe pushed through the crowd. He handed Carrie a bottle of water. The two of them locked eyes as she drank. A rosy glow returned to her cheeks as Gabe placed a hand on her belly and kissed a drop from the corner of her mouth. The kiss was neither dramatic nor prolonged. It was perfunctory, as if they always kissed between third and fourth periods, indifferent to their captivated audience and to Hunter’s disbelieving scowl.
Watching Gabe come to Carrie’s rescue, I had never loved him more.
It must have been around the same time he proposed.
* * *
There were exactly two moments that year when my resignation veered toward hope. At midnight, a couple of weeks before Carrie’s due date, Gabe IM’d me out of the blue. While the three of us sometimes chatted as a group, Gabe and I never conversed in a private window of our own. It was unprecedented.
Gabe: What are you doing up so late?
Waiting for something like this to happen, I thought.
Me: Can’t sleep. Worried about C.
Gabe: I guess it could be any day now?
Me: Could be. Most people go past their due dates though.
Gabe: Then why worried?
Me: It was movie night in birth class.
Me: I’ve seen some things.
Gabe: lol
Gabe: C’s tough. She’ll be ok.
Me: Easy for you to say.
Gabe: Hey, I’m gonna be there too.
Me: In the room?
Me: She said yes?
Gabe: Yeah, but if she ends up needing a C-section I guess she can only have one person in the OR with her?
My fingers froze. I had never heard this rule.
Gabe: So if that happens, I’m out.
I relaxed.
Me: Ok, good.
Gabe: Why good?
Me: Oh, you know. Abdominal surgery. Kind of a “girls only” thing.
Gabe: Right. Like pedicures.
Me: Exactly. We don’t like boys to see our toenails ... or our intestines.
Gabe: Got it.
Gabe: You’re a good friend.
Gabe: I know I’m like the last person she would’ve chosen to have a baby with.
Gabe: I mean, we didn’t really date that long.
Gabe: I’m pretty random.
Gabe: And totally unprepared for this.
Gabe: But knowing she has you ... makes me think she’ll be ok.
Me: She will definitely be ok.
Gabe: You know when I first met you guys, I could tell Carrie liked me but I thought you hated me on sight.
Me: Why?
Gabe: You kept squinting at me. Like I was a bug in the corner and you were trying to decide if you needed a dictionary or just a really thick novel to smash me with.
Me: Oh, that’s just my face.
Me: I’m really sensitive to light.
Gabe: lol
Gabe: No, you have a cute face.
Gabe: This was your cute face twisted into a hostile expression.
Gabe: But then I realized that’s just how you look at people who aren’t Carrie.
Me: Sorry, I should’ve been nicer to you.
Me: Didn’t realize you were going to sire my best friend’s firstborn!!
Gabe: lol
Gabe: Stop making me laugh.
Gabe: I’m going to wake up my parents.
Me: Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Feldman.
Gabe: Please, call them Diane and Hank.
Gabe: I mean, I do.
Me: Ok, now I’m laughing.
Gabe: Do you ever think ...
Gabe: I mean, humor me for a sec. What would have happened if you and I had hooked up instead of me and Carrie?
Me: Nothing would have happened. I have intimacy issues.
Gabe: lol what?
Me: Seriously. I haven’t even kissed anyone since the seventh grade.
Gabe: So you’re saying there wouldn’t be a baby?
Me: Ours would have been a sexless affair.
Gabe: What about hand-holding? Would you have held my hand?
Me: I guess ... if you sanitized it first.
Gabe: lol, ok
Gabe: This is getting weird.
Gabe: We should sleep.
As if we would turn off our monitors at the same moment, slide between the same set of sheets.
Gabe: But first.
Gabe: I know this isn’t fair.
Gabe: But I was hoping you could tell me I’m doing the right thing.
Gabe: By going to college.
Gabe: Leaving Carrie alone here.
Gabe: Or not alone.
Gabe: But you know what I mean.
My hands hovered above the keyboard. Given the chance, would Carrie have asked Gabe to stay? Would the three of them be happiest behaving like a family—because they would be one? I wanted to do the right thing too. At the very least, I wanted to know what the right thing was.
Me: Here’s what I think:
(I had no idea what I thought.)
Me: You should go to New York.
(Sabotage.)
Me: Because you’re 18. And you’re smart. And you have your whole life ahead of you. Plus I’ll be here with Carrie.
Me: But you should remember that Carrie might change her mind and ask you to come back.
Me: And if she does, you should do what she says.
Me: Because she’s the mother of your daughter.
Me: Got it?
Gabe: Got it.
Gabe: Thank you, Amanda.
Me: Goodnight?
Gabe: Night.
Two weeks later, Carrie went into labor. A nurse entered Carrie’s delivery room and said, “There’s a kid out there claiming he’s the father.”
“That’s Gabe,” Carrie said. She was between contractions and still in possession of herself. Still reaching up, occasionally, to retie her hair.
“Your boyfriend?” the nurse asked.
“No,” I said.
“Can you just let him in?” Carrie requested.
“If he comes in, she has to go.” The nurse nodded at me.
Carrie said, “Amanda’s not going anywhere.”
“Well, unless you want to kick your mama out . . .”
Mrs. Hart crossed her arms. “Mama’s not going anywhere.”
Carrie looked up at me helplessly.
“I’ll go tell him,” I said.
The waiting room for the maternity ward was small. No more than fifteen chairs surrounded a low table covered in battered magazines and gnawed-on picture books. Gabe was alone, staring up at a television mounted high on one wall. The television was showing an episode of Friends, which was still a year away from airing its series finale. On the screen, Ross Gellar was shouting, “My best friend and my sister?” Squeaky panic undercut his rage. Chandler and Monica cowered, contrite, while the other friends looked on.
I’ve hated that show—any show with a laugh track—ever since.
“They won’t let her have more than two people in the room,” I told Gabe.
He whipped around. He processed what I’d said, and then his shoulders went slack. Tension drained from his face.
“Is she doing okay?”
“She’s doing great so far. She’s only at five centimeters, if that means anything to you.”
A lesser boy might have winced, or smirked, but Gabe nodded. “I read the books.”
“What to E
xpect When You’re Expecting?”
“No, the companion text: What to Expect When a Girl Who Broke Up with You in a Garage Is Expecting.”
I was the one who smirked. Carrie was always breaking up with boys in the garage.
“I should get back in there,” I said, “but if you’re going to wait, I’ll come out and give you updates when I can, okay?”
It was a well-intentioned promise that I would fail to keep. Over the next few hours, Carrie’s labor would progress rapidly, and Gabe would be the last thing on my mind. But for now, he had my full attention as he reached for my arm and whispered, “Wait.” Gabe pulled me into a hug—a substantial, ribcage-crushing hug. He clung to my shoulder blades and buried his face in my neck. Heat swarmed my body.
For years I maintained that if I could relive a single moment of my life, this is the moment I would choose.
The maternity ward was slow that night. Carrie’s bellows were audible from the waiting room as she pushed Nina, bit by bit, eyebrow by eyelid by eyelash, into the world. Gabe was not allowed inside the delivery room until after the baby had been wiped clean, weighed, measured, vaccinated, and swaddled. Nina’s eyes were wide and roaming as Carrie—already standing, a feat I wouldn’t manage for a full twelve postpartum hours—placed her in Gabe’s trembling arms. I have an improbably vivid memory of the first look Gabe gave his daughter. Maybe I’m actually remembering the first look he gave Jack, or maybe it was the same look each time. I ought to be able to distinguish between the two memories as easily as I can tell a photo of Gabe at eighteen from one of him at thirty—but the truth is, I’m not sure I can do that so easily either.
Gabe, in my eyes, never ages.
It was a look of awe and absolute terror. A crumpling of his brow, a loosening of his lips. Gabe’s children undid him.
* * *
Carrie and I spent the first half of July sitting on opposite ends of her couch, passing a curled, slumbering Nina back and forth. The baby was a satisfying eight pounds, as warm and yeasty as fresh bread. Weird urges came over Carrie whenever she sniffed her daughter’s hair. She would burst into tears or else declare her desire to have ten more children. She reminded me not of her drunk self, exactly—Carrie became more introspective the more she imbibed—but of a drunk stranger, teetering between despair and bliss.