by Megan Hart
The bird flew over the roof and landed on the front porch railing with a squawk. Marian couldn’t hear what Briella was saying, but she could see the girl pull a handful of something from her jacket pocket and hold it out. Goldfish crackers, it looked like. The bird pecked a few delicately and flapped its wings before flying off.
Marian opened the car door. “People food can’t be good for it.”
She wanted to say more than that. She wanted to ban the damn bird, but what was the saying? Keep your enemies close, something like that? The bird wasn’t an enemy, exactly, but it was definitely not Marian’s friend.
Briella had turned with an almost comical look of surprise. She watched as her mother heaved herself out of the front seat, then ran down the front porch steps to greet her.
“Mama, what the heck?”
Marian laughed softly at the kid’s expression, even as she gave her own confused look. “What are you doing home so early? Are you sick?”
“No. Everyone got out of school early. There was a message sent out to the parents.”
That damn parent portal must have screwed up again. Marian was getting totally frustrated by it. She closed the driver’s side door and hitched her bag higher on her shoulder. She tucked a strand of Briella’s curly hair behind her ear. “Why was everyone sent home?”
“I don’t know.” Briella shrugged.
“I didn’t get the message, so I guess it’s a good thing I got home when I did. How was school?”
“Oh, it was awesome. Today I got to work in the art room, at least until Mrs. Addison got sick. Hey, Onyx!”
The bird had returned. Marian suppressed her distaste as it swooped around them to land on the railing again. Something shone in its beak. Briella held out her hand, and the bird dropped its gift into her palm.
“Briella,” it said.
“Thanks! Look, Mama. What is this?” Briella held up a small silver key attached to a tiny scrap of crimson ribbon.
“It looks like the key to a diary. Someone’s going to be sad they’re missing it,” Marian said. “You should tell it to take it back.”
Briella snorted laughter and stroked the bird’s sleek black head. “You always say you don’t believe he’s that smart, you know, but then you want him to do stuff like that.”
“Fair enough,” Marian said as she got the front door open, pushing hard because it tended to stick. She cast a few last warning words over her shoulder. “It doesn’t come in the house.”
“I know, I know. Onyx, I’ll play with you later, in the backyard.” Briella followed her mother into the shadowy front hallway. “You smell like burgers. Are we having burgers for dinner?”
Marian pushed away her guilt, glad she’d forgotten the empty wrappers in the car so she didn’t have to explain her greedy indulgence. “You have a nose like a bloodhound, you know that?”
“Does that mean you think I look like a dog?” Briella swung her backpack onto the hook by the closet and kicked off her shoes.
“It means you’ve got a really sensitive sense of smell.”
“Yeah, I do. Like when I smelled Daddy’s mom, and I knew she was…you know.” In the dim lighting it was hard to see Briella’s expression, but her tone was casual, even though she cut herself off.
Marian went into the kitchen. “We’re having baked chicken and mashed potatoes with green beans for dinner.”
“Yuck. Would rather have burgers and fries! Why can’t we go get some?”
“Because I already planned for us to have baked chicken and mashed potatoes and green beans.” Marian opened the freezer door to pull out the package of chicken to defrost.
Briella kicked at the floor. “Ugh.”
“C’mon, Bean. Briella. You like chicken.”
Briella shrugged and gave her mother a sideways glance. “Did you go to see Grandpa today?”
“Yes.” Marian hesitated, facing the sink as she washed her hands. She kept her question light. “How did you know?”
“I can smell it on you,” Briella said in a low voice.
Marian was silent for a moment. She dried her hands. She turned to her daughter. “He’s going to die, isn’t he?”
Briella looked caught, guilty, although she had no reason to feel that way. “I don’t know.”
“You can tell me, Briella. If you know something. If…Onyx told you.” Marian cleared her throat. On impulse, she moved forward to take her daughter by the shoulders and held her still so she could look deeply into Briella’s eyes. “Please. I know you love Grandpa, and you love me.”
“I don’t know anything,” Briella insisted. Her eyes were bright, but not with tears. “I’m going to play outside in the yard, okay?”
Marian nodded, then added after a pause, “Don’t leave the yard.”
“Why can’t we have burgers?” Briella cast this last plea over her shoulder.
“I’m making the dinner I planned, and that’s what you’ll eat.”
And there it was: Marian had lost it completely. That tenuous thread of bonding with her child. Marian’s biting tone had clearly broadcast her irritation. The scant few moments they’d shared in which she had thought maybe she might be able to connect with her kid had vanished.
She was a shitty mother.
Marian’s hands went protectively over her belly. The baby inside probably twisted and squirmed, but it was too early to feel it kicking. The child in front of her gave Marian a steady, unblinking stare.
“Go outside and play,” Marian said in a low voice.
It was still a little too early to make dinner, but it took her only a few minutes to defrost the chicken in the microwave and put it in the oven along with the potatoes she would serve baked instead of mashed – less effort that way. Before she’d even had time to finish cleaning up the counter, Briella had returned.
“I thought you were going to play outside.”
“It’s cold.” Briella shrugged. “I’m going upstairs to read.”
That was even better, since a sudden wave of exhaustion had washed over Marian. “Dinner’s in the oven. You can have a small snack if you want one.”
Briella declined a snack. It would be another few hours before Dean woke up and it would be time for dinner. Marian went into the den and powered up the old computer. She fought with the slow browser and changed her password one more time to get into the parent portal. When she was finally able to access it, she checked the email address listed for her. Once again, the same as it had every other time she’d been locked out, her email had been subtly changed by one letter.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
She changed it back to the correct address. Along the side of the site, a menu bar listed several options. One of them she’d never paid attention to before was ‘Previous History’. She clicked on it. It listed each of her failed log-in attempts and password changes. It also listed several other log-ins with password changes, all of them to that same subtly incorrect email address.
She stared at the list for a long time.
She rarely used the computer, but when she did, it was never at two, three or four in the morning, which was when the previous email addresses and passwords had been changed. Marian clicked on the portal’s News tab. She saw the announcement for the early dismissal, and the reason why.
Mrs. Addison, Briella’s homeroom teacher and her advisor for the work on the Blackangel project, had suffered a severe grand mal seizure during class. The trauma had been enough that the administration had sent all the kids home early.
Marian closed the browser window and shut the computer down. She went upstairs, feeling very calm. Very measured. She knocked on Briella’s door, but didn’t wait for a greeting to push it open.
She found the girl sitting on the window seat, the window open. No sign of the bird, but that meant nothing. Briella turned when Marian came in.
“You’re supposed to wait for me to say ‘come in’,” she said.
“Mrs. Addison had a seizure today.”
Briella nodded. “I know.”
“You told me she got sick,” Marian said. “You didn’t tell me she had a seizure. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
Briella’s expression didn’t change. She did not smile or frown. She made no twist in her expression. She met Marian’s gaze without flinching.
“Have you been changing the parent portal log-ins? So I can’t get information from the school? Answer me, Briella!” Marian tried to shout, but her throat had closed up tight. The words squeaked out, without force. She swallowed hard. Made another attempt. “Have you been changing my password and my email address?”
“You asked me to help you!” Briella cried.
“I asked you to help me when I couldn’t get logged in! But someone’s been changing the information so I can’t get in there, I don’t get any of the messages, I can’t check up on your progress.…” Frustrated and well aware she sounded like a crazy person, Marian used both hands to scrape her hair away from her face. She drew in breath after breath until she could ask calmly, “Briella. Did you…do something…to Mrs. Addison?”
Briella launched herself against Marian and clutched her around the belly. The girl’s shoulders shook as she wept. Maria cradled Briella against her, smoothing the girl’s curls. Her own tears flooded down her face, choking her.
“Talk to me, Bean. My God, please, please, talk to me!”
For a moment, Marian thought Briella was going to, that she would spill everything. Disclose all. And what would Marian do then, when her daughter had revealed herself to be the monster her mother had begun to suspect her of being?
But then the girl pushed out of her mother’s embrace and wiped at her eyes. Her lower lip trembled, but she drew herself up. She made a visible effort at shoving away her tears.
Her mouth worked before she could speak. “I can’t.”
“You can’t talk to me? Why not?”
Briella shook her head. “I can’t tell you what you want to hear.”
“What is it that you think I want to hear?” Marian’s voice had risen a little too high, squeaking, and she knew at once she’d lost. She’d made it too obvious about how deeply she cared.
Again, Briella shook her head. She pressed against Marian without saying anything. Her sobs had eased, and now she took a few long, deep breaths. Marian held on to her, her own tears still leaking down her cheeks.
This could not be happening. Why was this happening? This could not be happening.
Marian closed her eyes tight. She held her girl. She found her voice.
“Did you do something to Mrs. Addison? Did you…did you do something to Pamela Morgan?”
Briella tightened her grip on Marian’s back. Her face pressed hard into Marian’s breasts, which had gotten bigger along with her belly. The pressure hurt a little. Not too much, but enough.
“What do you think I did, Mama?”
The girl’s voice had gone soft. Soothing. Tinged with the edges of tears, but not hysterical.
Marian could not bring herself to say what, exactly, she suspected the girl of doing. She could not force the accusation: that Briella had stolen her grandfather’s medications and somehow slipped them to a girl who’d been unkind to her and a woman who’d taken away something she loved.
“I’m just a kid, Mama, what do you think I did?” Briella’s voice had risen a bit. Not too much.
But enough.
“Nothing. Of course you didn’t do anything. Mama’s just…tired,” Marian said over the rise of another series of sobs. “The baby is making me very tired, that’s all.”
“It’ll be good when you don’t have to deal with it anymore then,” Briella said in a hitching voice Marian had trouble making out.
“What?”
Briella’s tone changed from tears to fake, plastic, sweet. “After it’s born, that’s all I meant. You’ll be better after it’s born.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The morning sickness did not go away.
It got worse.
Nothing helped. No peppermint or ginger tea, no acupressure wristbands, no saltine crackers. One day, Marian fainted after heaving nothing but strings of yellow bile into the toilet. It had been lunchtime, last she recalled. She woke with a goose egg on her head from where she’d struck the rim of the toilet when she went down. Briella stood over her, staring without a word. Marian reached for her daughter.
“Run across the street. Tell Mrs. Patterson we need the ambulance.”
An overnight stay in the hospital. IV fluids. A diagnosis – hyperemesis gravidarum. Fancy talk for never-ending nausea, frequent violent vomiting and a relentless sense of illness that kept Marian confined to bed.
Dean had been moved to day shift a week or so before; Marian refused to allow him to go back to nights, even though it meant she was by herself during the day. She wanted him beside her at night, when and if she could sleep. She needed him to be there to fix dinner for Briella, to wake her for school in the morning, to fight with her about her clothes and teeth and hair.
Marian had never told Dean about the day she tried to accuse Briella of hurting both her teacher and former schoolmate. She and Briella never spoke of it. Her log-in information to the parent portal never changed again, but they didn’t talk about this, either.
Her belly grew as the rest of her body shrank. Getting to her OB appointments was a nightmare of emesis bags and the drugged semiconsciousness that was the only way she could manage a car ride.
The days she was able to keep down the peppermint tea and some crackers were good days, but it was enough for Marian to get through the day without feeling as though she were going to die. Without wishing she could. She was too sick to read or watch television, too sick to sleep. She spent ninety per cent of her time propped in bed, dreaming while still awake. The days spun into weeks. Then months – one, then another – and a few more weeks, until Parkhaven finished its school year and Briella was home full-time.
By the middle of June, though, Marian felt good enough to shuffle to the kitchen for a mug of peppermint or ginger tea every now and then, instead of relying on what Dean or Briella brought her. She’d even been able to get herself to the bathroom without falling down or immediately hurling from the mere motion of walking.
Two more months, she told herself now. The baby would come, maybe even a little early if they felt they could induce her safely. She could make it until August. The agony of unmedicated childbirth would be a relief compared to this.
“Here, Mama,” Briella said now. “I made you some tea.”
Marian propped herself up on the pillows. She felt grungy, sweaty, gross. She hadn’t showered in what felt like forever, and didn’t dare try with only Briella in the house. If she fainted, that would be bad. Today, at last, Marian was feeling good enough to take the mug in both hands and let the fragrant steam bathe her face. She couldn’t bring herself to drink any of it right then.
“What have you been up to?” she asked, eyeing the girl’s stained white shirt. Purple splotched it, along with various older stains. “What’s on your shirt?”
Briella sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her shirt. “Grape Popsicle.”
God, that sounded good to her, surprisingly. Much better than the tea. “Can you get me one, please?”
“Does your stomach feel better?” Briella brought back the twin Popsicle, breaking it in half so they could each have one.
“Yes, today it does. A little, anyway.”
“You should drink your tea, though. Dean said your doctor said you need to keep your fluids in you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marian joked, but Briella didn’t laugh.
“I just want to take care of you,” she said
.
“I’m sorry I don’t feel better,” Marian apologized. “I’m sorry all of this has been so gross and kind of scary.”
“Don’t feel bad, Mama. You’re the best mom. The greatest mom. The very best mom.” Briella said this all so genuinely, so sincerely, so…brightly…that Marian had to fight tears. “It’s not your fault. It’s the baby’s fault.”
“The baby isn’t doing it on purpose.” Marian could not bear another single sip of peppermint tea. Even the Popsicle that had seemed so appealing now was too sweet, too sticky. She tossed it into the trash can by the bed. “Can you get my pills?”
She took regular doses of antinausea medicine. It didn’t always help, but she took it because the doctor prescribed it. To stop taking it had felt like she was giving up hope.
Briella gave her the small foil pill packet from the mess on the nightstand. “I don’t ever want to grow a baby inside me and be sick all the time.”
“Not everyone gets this sick when they get pregnant.” Marian’s eyes slipped closed. She yawned. The baby inside her shifted and kicked, and she tensed, waiting to see if it was going to start doing a line dance to keep her up. She rested her hands on the mound of her belly, which seemed much bigger because the rest of her had grown so frail.
“I’d rather just have an egg. Just lay an egg in a nest and sit on it so it hatches. That’s much better and easier. I’m going to have an egg instead.”
Marian forced herself to open her eyes. The meds made her drowsy and groggy, even if she hardly ever slept and only just…floated. “Huh?”
But Briella was already gone. She’d left the door wide open, but Marian was too tired and too encased in her pillow fortress to get out of bed. Too tired to yell for the girl to come and close it. Normal noises weren’t going to keep her awake. Not right now.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Marian actually slept.
* * *
Screaming.
Marian was screaming. Her throat raw with it, tears thick in her nose and on the back of her tongue, salty and bitter and sharp enough to scrape her to the bone. She was screaming and fighting the weight pressing her down, keeping her in bed.