by Megan Hart
Almost always, she thought guiltily. Unless she wasn’t.
“It didn’t say she wasn’t friendly. Said she was having trouble relating. She’s new. Maybe she’s having a bit of a hard time fitting in. That couldn’t be such a surprise, could it?” Dean lifted the lid on the pot of chili she’d defrosted and had simmering.
Marian felt the narrow plastic stick in her pocket. She’d almost forgotten about her news. The message from school had left her mind churning. She seemed to be royally screwing up with the kid she already had. What made her think she could possibly have another one without screwing that one up, too? And forget about getting a job, even one part-time. She could hardly go back to work now. And nights out with the girls? She’d had only one and could kiss those goodbye too, at least for a while.
She was pregnant, and everything was going to change.
“Babe?” Dean was looking at her with concern.
“She’s my kid. I worry about her.”
Dean hugged her from behind. “I know. There’s been a lot of change recently. We’re all a little stressed out. It’ll get better. This is the best thing for her. You’ll see.”
She opened her mouth to tell him about the double lines that meant yes, but Briella came into the kitchen. “Hey, there. Dinner’s almost ready.”
Marian could have sent her back to watch more crappy television. She could have told Dean right then about the positive test and shared the news with both of them at the same time. Instead, she waved at the table for them to sit.
Briella kept up the chatter about school nonstop throughout dinner as she devoured two bowls of chili along with rice, corn bread slathered with peanut butter, and a couple glasses of milk. She answered Dean’s questions without even a hint of attitude, and while Marian might have tried to correct the girl’s table manners, she was more than happy to deal with a spray of crumbs if it meant Briella and Dean were bonding. Marian herself stayed a little quiet, her stomach not queasy but the promise that it might become so enough to keep her nibbling lightly.
“So hold on,” Dean interrupted. “Back up, Bean. What exactly are you trying to do with the computer program?”
“Make copies.”
Dean glanced at Marian. “Of what?”
For the first time, Briella looked cautious. “Whatever I need to.”
“Aren’t there programs that copy things already?” Dean asked.
Briella nodded slowly, her cautious expression turning to reluctance. “Yes.”
Dean was smart enough to see that he’d pushed for too much. He backed off. “Cool.”
“It’s all Greek to me,” Marian said with a laugh.
Briella scowled. “It’s not Greek. It’s Blackangel.”
Dean and Marian shared a look, and she said carefully, her every sense tingly, “What’s that, Bean?”
“It’s my computer code.” The girl had gone from bubbly to sullen. Her gaze shifted from Marian to Dean and then to her plate. “I’m done eating. Can I be excused?”
“Sure.” Marian watched as Briella carried her bowl to the garbage and scraped it clean to put it in the sink. Before the kid could escape the kitchen, Marian said, “You’re not going to go out and feed Onyx? He’s going to miss his dinner.”
Briella turned in the doorway. “Oh. I guess I could take him some rice. He might eat that.”
“We haven’t seen him in a while,” Marian said, watching her daughter carefully. Using the word he, not it, on purpose to make it sound like she cared.
Briella didn’t answer at first. She chewed her lower lip, then shrugged. She went to the back door and opened it to step onto the porch. “Onyx! Come on, rice!”
She was back inside half a minute after that, barely enough time to have waited for the bird at all. “He didn’t come.”
“Oh.” Marian went to the back door herself to look out. “You’re sure? Maybe you should call him again. He might need a few minutes.”
“I’m sure. He’s not coming. Can I go up to my room and read?”
“Of course. Sure. Wait. Briella?” Marian said. The kid turned. “Did he end up going with you to show and tell? You never told me.”
“No, Mama, you were right. He didn’t know how to go to school with me. I was silly to think so. Just because I taught him a few tricks, that doesn’t mean he would know enough to go to school with me.”
Marian studied her. Briella didn’t look broken up about it, not about the school absence or the bird’s refusal to come when she’d called it just now. “When’s the last time you saw him? Was it at your other grandparents house?”
“I guess so.”
“Since then?”
“No….”
“You don’t seem very upset or worried.”
“He’s a wild animal, Mama. He’ll be fine.” With that Briella left the kitchen.
Like all of us, Marian thought and swallowed another rush of bile.
Dean started running the water in the sink, scrubbing at the plates while Marian put away the leftovers. She’d told him often enough that he didn’t need to wash up, not when he could use some downtime before he had to leave for work. He generally insisted on helping her anyway.
“I hadn’t thought about it until you mentioned it, but yeah, the bird hasn’t been around for a bit.” Dean lowered his voice. “Do you think…you know. Tommy?”
Marian shivered and tried to think when exactly they’d last seen the bird. It had been before Tommy’s story, but how long ago? She thought about telling Dean what her father had said about the angels, how it related to Tommy’s crazy, stupid story, but it hurt her brain to think about it, much less try to explain. Of the other matter, the one she could not bear to think about, she wasn’t going to say a word. Anyway, that had nothing to do with the raven.
“If he killed it? I wouldn’t put it past him. Maybe. It’s been a while since it’s been around, but I can’t remember how long.”
“Briella didn’t seem to notice,” Dean said. “I have an excuse because it wasn’t my pet, but that seems weird, doesn’t it? Considering how attached she was.”
“Let’s hope that’s because she’s over it. She’s focused on her new experiments and stuff.” Marian thought about the plastic stick in her pocket. “I have something to tell you.”
After all the trouble she’d had with miscarriages, Marian became convinced she wasn’t going to get pregnant again. Not without help anyway. Maybe the kind that came from angels, although not the sort that tapped at the windows of the dying.
Marian took a deep breath. Dean was frowning, brow furrowed. She took another breath, determined to keep her voice from shaking but not sure she was going to be able to. Instead, she pulled the pregnancy test from her pocket and held it up.
“We’re going to have a baby.”
“Oh, shit. Oh, my God. Oh, wow.” Dean blinked rapidly.
“Is it going to be okay?” Her voice wavered, despite her best efforts.
“Baby, it’s going to be perfect. Wow. I didn’t think…wow.” Dean let out a small burst of laughter and swiped at his eyes.
His happy tears made Marian cry, too. In a second they were both laughing and crying and kissing. Her sobs ratcheted up and out of her, too hard, too fierce.
“Baby?” Dean asked with a frown.
“It’s just…I was going to talk to you about going back to work. Doing something out of the house. We were on the downward slide to having more time with each other.” Marian drew in a ragged breath and tried to swipe at her eyes. “I was looking forward to when Briella could be off and on her own a little more, you know? And now we’ll be right back to the start.”
“Aren’t you happy about it, though?”
“I am happy,” she told him with a watery smile, and it wasn’t a lie. “I am confusedly happy. This time around, maybe I can do a better job. Seco
nd chance.”
“You’re an amazing mother, Marian. Don’t talk like that.” He squeezed her too hard, then let go with an apology, putting a big hand on her belly. “Oops. Gotta be careful.”
“With what?” Briella asked.
Marian’s laughter faded. She still held the pregnancy test in her fist. She gently disengaged from Dean’s embrace. How long had the kid been standing there?
“We have some good news for you, Bean. You’re going to have a baby brother or sister soon.”
Briella’s eyes went wide, then narrow. She looked at the test stick. “What’s that thing?”
“It’s a special test that tells you if you’re going to have a baby. See the two lines? That means I’m pregnant.”
“You said that was nothing.”
“Ah, well, I wasn’t ready to share the news yet.” Marian put the test on the counter and moved toward her daughter.
Briella took a step back. “Lying is supposed to be bad. You said that was nothing, but you lied. A baby is a big something.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth right away. But Bean, this is a good thing.” Marian hesitated, thinking of the days when her daughter had been pliable and not this bundle of prickliness. “A baby brother or sister is going to be so much fun.”
“Not for me,” Briella said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Briella took herself off to bed. Marian waited until Dean had left for work before climbing the stairs. The girl’s door was closed, but the light was on, a thin strip of gold showing at the bottom and sifting into the hall.
Marian held her breath, listening for the sounds of Briella talking to the raven, but she heard nothing. She knocked lightly and heard a faint response. She pushed open the door.
“Hey,” she said.
Briella had been sitting up in bed, scribbling in a notebook, but she put it aside. “Why do you have to have a baby?”
“That’s a good question.” Marian crossed to sit on the edge of the bed. She reached for Briella’s hand, squeezing her warm and slightly sweaty fingers. “The short answer is, because I got pregnant.”
“Were you trying to get pregnant?” Briella demanded.
Marian shook her head, so not ready for this conversation but knowing it had to happen. “No. I didn’t think I could have another baby. I had a lot of problems before I had you. And a few times after, too.”
“I know. The babies died before they were born.”
“Yes. I thought that would always happen.”
“So why would you take a chance that it could? Can’t you take a pill to stop it?” Briella asked.
Marian had never had ‘the talk’ with Briella, but she wasn’t surprised the kid knew about reproduction and birth control. “Sometimes, accidents happen. But this baby is a good thing, Bean. It means a brother or sister for you.”
Briella pulled her hand from her mother’s grip and turned on her side, facing away. Her shoulders rose and fell with a long, deep sigh. Marian put her hand on the girl’s hip but said nothing. Briella muttered something Marian couldn’t hear.
“What’s that, Bean?”
Briella didn’t roll over, but her voice rose. “I said, you’re going to love this baby more than me.”
“Oh, no.” Marian tried to gently nudge the girl toward her, but Briella resisted and Marian stopped. “Briella. No. I can promise you that I have more than enough love for you and the new baby.”
“You can’t promise that. You don’t even have the baby yet.”
Marian sighed. Desmond was older than her; she’d never had a younger sibling, had no idea what it felt like to know your parents were welcoming in another child. All of this still felt so surreal. Truth was, she didn’t know what it would be like to have more than one child. When she’d had Briella, the love had been brutally all-encompassing. She had thought more than once, though never admitting it to anyone, that once she’d had her baby, there had been no room for anyone else, not until Dean. She and Tommy might have stayed together if she hadn’t had Briella.
“I believe that love is infinite,” Marian said finally. “That means I have room in my heart for you, Dean, for Grandpa. And the new baby.”
Briella said nothing. Marian squeezed her hip again. Briella made a low, irritated noise, and Marian let her go.
“I understand you’re upset, Bean. But it’s all going to be okay. I promise.”
Briella didn’t turn. Marian waited a moment or so longer, trying to think of something to say, but finding no words. Sometimes silence was a better reply.
Downstairs, she made herself a mug of sleep-enhancing tea and sat at the kitchen table with her phone. She logged into Connex. She wasn’t looking now to get caught up on her high school friends or national news or pictures of funny cats. She searched her friends list. She couldn’t remember Pamela Morgan’s mother’s name, but she thought they’d Connexed sometime back when the girls were younger.
Social media could be magic. There was Pamela’s mother, her profile picture of a smiling family at Disney World, all in matching mouse ears. Marian navigated to the woman’s profile page. She hadn’t updated recently, but there were plenty of posts to her feed.
No funny cat pictures.
No news.
Post after post of sympathy to a mother who’d lost a child.
Marian covered her mouth, expecting the tea to rise. She scrolled, horrified. Pamela had died the day after she’d started having seizures in the Southside Elementary parking lot.
Dead. The girl was dead, and Marian hadn’t heard about it because she hadn’t logged on to stupid social media, and Briella no longer went to Southside. The girl was dead because…
The girl was dead because accidents happen, Marian thought firmly.
She swiped away the app to close it and put her phone on the table.She wrapped her hands around her mug, cool now. She closed her eyes. She counted, first to ten, then to twenty, and finally, after some long minutes, she made it all the way to one hundred.
She finished her tea.
She went out back to stand on the tiny porch. No gifts had been left on the railings. No sign of the bird. Nothing but air cold enough to bite, nothing but the clear winter night sky and the points of brightness overhead.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Christmas came and went with gifts and a tree and a ham. They spent the day with her father. Tommy sent a box of presents, but when Marian asked if Briella wanted to go with him, she said no. Tommy didn’t argue about it. His mother had not yet passed away, but a few terse texts from him told Marian they expected it to be any day.
Now that she knew why she was so tired and half-sick all the time, Marian felt better. Still a little queasy, not just in the mornings but all day. Still sleeping like crap. But the idea of a new baby lifted her heart every single day.
So far, she hadn’t told anyone else: not her brother or his wife, not her father, even though the news about Tommy’s mother had her wondering if she ought to tell him before it was too late. It was still a little too early for that. She wanted to. She wanted to start shopping for little clothes and stocking up on diapers and wipes and all the things she knew they’d need. She kept herself from it because she could not forget the losses she’d suffered before, and even though her doctor had assured her there was no reason to think she could not expect to carry this baby to term, superstition was keeping Marian quiet.
The only thing she had started to do was clean out the small second bedroom upstairs. Dean’s parents had used it for storage, and she and Dean had never cleaned it out, which meant more boxes to sort through and donate. Marian liked the tasks. They gave her something to do every day after Briella got into the white Parkhaven van and went off to school.
A call to speak with Mrs. Addison had convinced Marian that allowing Briella to have weekly sessions wi
th Dr. Garrett, the school psychologist, was not a bad thing. The weeks passed without any updates from him, and Briella rarely mentioned it, so could anyone have blamed Marian for thinking that meant everything was fine? Briella hadn’t even brought home a note.
The message that had shown up in Marian’s email account that morning hadn’t come through the parent portal, which, Marian realized, she’d once again been locked out of. That meant the message was important enough that Garrett had made sure it got to her. He wanted to see her and Dean as soon as possible.
What was wrong with these people, Marian fretted, that they couldn’t be bothered to state up front what the issues were? She was so tired of the schools contacting her about Briella without just coming out and giving a full explanation, so that she had to worry. For a moment, Marian’s thumb hovered over the phone screen. A quick swipe could delete it. She could pretend she hadn’t received it.
But that wouldn’t make the problems, whatever they were, go away. And there had to be problems, didn’t there? Everything had been going along too easily. With a mental shake, she dialed the number the psychologist had listed. It took only a short conversation. She agreed to go in that afternoon.
Dean had been putting in overtime, banking the extra paychecks and also the hours toward paid time off to give them some breathing room when the baby came. He wasn’t home yet. Marian drove herself to the school, her fingers tapping nervously on the steering wheel. By the time she got there, she’d begun to fear she was going to embarrass herself by getting sick all over the place. It would be from nerves more than morning sickness, but it didn’t matter. A stick of ginger gum helped. Her palms still sweated.
Storm clouds had gathered in the early January sky by the time she pulled into Parkhaven’s parking lot. When Marian got out of the car, a brisk wind whipped up. It tangled her hair and battered the hem of her coat against her calves, but it also pushed the clouds of pending snow away from the sun. She told herself it was a good omen and went inside.