Foregone Conclusions Ten Years Old, Washington
Foregone Conclusions
Ten Years Old, Washington
As we were nearing the end of our time at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State, I spent the better part of the summer between fifth and sixth grade outdoors with Beck.
The Byrnes lived two houses from ours, in a neighborhood close to JBLM. Dad and I both loved Washington: its soaring evergreens, ample ski slopes, and cold, rocky beaches. Mom thought the Pacific Northwest was too gray, and too expensive. She missed the South’s swampy summers and the snow-white beaches kissed by the cerulean waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Still, she had Bernie, and Dad had spent the last six months stateside, so she rarely complained.
Except, since school had let out in June, she hadn’t been well. I exhausted the daylight hours with Beck using scrap lumber to build forts and bike jumps in the undeveloped lots in our neighborhood, but the oddness of coming home to find Mom on the couch, sipping lemon water, zoned out on whatever documentary she was streaming, didn’t escape me.
When she wasn’t on the couch, she was in the bathroom, preparing to vomit, vomiting, or brushing her teeth post-vomit. She rarely ate anything more than buttered toast. She hardly ever wore makeup. More than once, I’d woken up late at night to my parents’ hushed conversations floating down the hall from their bedroom. They weren’t arguing—they seldom do that—but they didn’t sound happy either.
Something was wrong.
On a rare sunny day, while outdoors with Beck, I coughed up a confession. “My mom’s dying.”
He lowered the hammer he’d been using to nail a 2x4 to a piece of particleboard. His hair was windblown, and there was a smudge of dust on his freckled cheek. “Are you serious?”
“I think so. She’s always tired. She hardly goes out. She throws up all the time.”
He dropped the hammer, nicked from Connor’s toolbox, and made himself comfortable on the ground, draping his arms over his bent knees, peering at me through the sun’s glare. I’ll always appreciate this about him: Beck played hard and acted tough, but when circumstances dictated, he transformed into this thoughtful, attentive boy who’d lay down his hammer to hear a friend out.
“I haven’t seen a lot of her, now that I’m thinking about it,” he said. “But my mom would’ve said something if your mom was sick. If she was dying .”
I raised a shoulder, then let it drop. “Maybe she doesn’t want you to worry, the same way my mom doesn’t want me to worry.”
“Have you talked to your dad?”
I huffed. “He acts like everything’s fine. Like I’m a moron who doesn’t notice that her mom suddenly lives on the couch.”
“Hey now,” Beck said with a gentle smile. “I’m the only one who gets to call you moron .”
“I’m just—” To my dismay, my eyes flooded with tears. What I said next came out waterlogged and pitiful. “I’m worried about her.”
He laid a hand on my knee, skinned the day before thanks to a bike wipeout. “She’s fine, Lia. She’s gotta be. I mean, what would my mom do without her?”
“What would I do without her?”
He sighed, a compassionate sound. “She’ll be okay. And even if she isn’t, you will be.”
I sniffled. “How do you know?”
“You have me. No matter what, you’ll always have me.”
***
A few nights after I laid bare my worries to Beck, I was startled out of sleep by a crash.
A bellow followed, and my body went cold with fear.
I scrambled out of bed and sprinted down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. Throwing open their door, I heard Dad curse, and curse again. The bed was rumpled but empty. The bathroom light was on, though, and I was across the room in a flash. Dad was crouching over Mom. Her face was pallid. Her eyes lolled. She was on the floor, tangled with a pair of terry cloth towels. Two holes yawned in the drywall, where the towel bar had been torn from its anchors. Her top was damp around the neckline, and her pajama bottoms…
There was blood—a lot of blood.
My head went chaotic with questions, but I lacked the composure to do more than release a shaky breath.
I whispered, “Daddy?”
He looked at me, eyes glassy. His voice was remarkably calm when he said, “Get my phone. Call Bernie. Tell her to come now . Then dial 911 and bring the phone to me.”
I did as he asked. Panic pinballed through my body, but I functioned on autopilot because in my head and my heart, I knew Mom needed me.
As soon as I had a 911 dispatcher on the line, I shoved the phone into Dad’s waiting hand, then hovered, listening as he described the scene. “She’s thirty-four… Yes, bleeding… Just the last few minutes.” And then, brusquely, “I don’t know!”
Mom moaned, clutching her middle. Her mouth contorted, and her eyes pinched. I stooped down, afraid to touch her, but desperate to comfort her. Carefully, I set a trembling hand on her brow. My palm slip-slided on her clammy skin.
And then—
“She’s pregnant,” Dad told the 911 dispatcher.
I reared back, snatching my hand away. I saw white, that word— pregnant —making me feel like I’d been swept up in an avalanche.
Dad’s gaze collided with mine.
Mom was carrying a baby.
“Sixteen weeks, I think,” Dad said into his phone.
To me, he mouthed, I’m sorry.
Distantly, the front door slammed. Footsteps clambered up the stairs. Bernie appeared in the doorway, hickory hair scooped into a sloppy ponytail, cheeks flushed. Her eyes fell to my mom, helpless on the cold travertine tile.
She breathed, “Oh, God, Cam.”
“I know,” Dad said. “Jesus, I know . Paramedics are on the way.”
Bernie dragged her attention from Mom—her best friend, who lay delirious and bleeding—to me, curled practically fetal beside her. “Lia, baby. Come with me.”
“But—Mom.”
“Your daddy’s got her. Let’s go meet the ambulance.”
I took Bernie’s hand. We made a sluggish trip down the stairs and through the front door. Together, we stood on the driveway, listening for sirens. And then, a faraway whee-ooh that upsurged as an ambulance screeched to a halt at the end of our driveway.
The rest is a blur: paramedics racing into the house, then hurrying back out, jogging alongside Mom on a stretcher. Dad, climbing into the back of the ambulance with a rushed “No, Millie. Stay with Bernie.” Bernie, holding me back as I flailed in a hopeless attempt to race down the street after my parents.
I collapsed onto the driveway, dropping my face into my hands, and sobbed.
Bernie cried too.
Eventually we went in the house. The clock above the mantel said it was nearing three and while I was drained, I wasn’t tired. Bernie made me hot cocoa, the good kind, on the stove, with melted chocolate, then fixed us a nest of blankets on the couch.
I sipped my cocoa.
Bernie sat silently next to me.
When I couldn’t stand the quiet another second, I asked, “She’s really pregnant?”
Bernie nodded. “She didn’t want you to know—not yet. There’ve been complications.”
“I thought she was dying.”
For all I knew, she would die. Was already dead.
Bernie reached over to take my mug. She set it on the coffee table, then took my hands in hers. “Tonight…what happened…We’ll have to wait for your daddy to call, but, Lia. She’ll be okay.”
Beck had said the same thing, just a few days before.
As much as I wanted them both to be right, neither could say with certainty that Mom would pull through. That she’d come home.
“She’s not supposed to have any more babies,” I said.
Bernie lifted a brow. “She’s not?”
“The fortune teller’s reading? You will bear one child. That’s me. Another baby…it doesn’t make sense.”
I studied Bernie’s expression as she absorbed my words, as she tried—and failed—to hold back an amused smile. She was looking at me like I was silly, naive, because I put stock in a carnival clairvoyant’s prophecy, which was so hypocritical. Mom believed in that reading. Bernie did too. I knew, because she’d been referring to her son— Beck —as my soulmate for as long as I could remember. And now, because the prediction didn’t serve the narrative, it was silly?
“Life is confusing,” she said. “Things aren’t as simple as a fortune teller’s prediction.”
I wrinkled my nose, deeply unsatisfied with her nonanswer. “Fine. Then I guess Beck and I won’t be together forever.”
She laughed, a straight pin to the bubble of anxiety I’d been trapped in.
“Oh, Lia. Be with Beck because you want to. Not because a clairvoyant told your mama you’re supposed to. I’ll always adore you, no matter what.”
She pulled me in, tucking the blankets around us. Using the remote, she turned on the TV, then navigated through our streaming services, finally settling on the pilot episode of Dawson’s Creek , a show my mom wouldn’t let me watch because of its supposedly mature themes. It was like that, though—Bernie let me get away with more than Mom did, just like Mom laughed it off when Beck dunked Oreos into our peanut butter jar.
“I loved this show when I was a kid,” Bernie said as Dawson and Joey argued about sleepovers. “This, and Beverly Hills, 90210 . Party of Five and Veronica Mars …teen drama at its juiciest. Girlie, it’s high time you get to know Pacey, and Rory Gilmore, and Buffy, and Tim Riggins. Oh, God—Texas Forever. Swoon.”
I giggled and, in Bernie’s arms, drifted to sleep.
***
Sometime later, I woke groggily to her phone ringing. Bernie slipped her arm from beneath me and tiptoed out of the living room. I followed stealthily. She went into the kitchen, listening, and rooted around in our coffee cabinet. She knew our kitchen as well as Mom did. She selected a medium roast pod, then tucked it into the Keurig, murmuring yes and no and I’m so sorry .
It was Dad—I knew by her tone.
I also knew that Mom was all right. Otherwise Bernie wouldn’t have been on her feet, choosing a mug, pulling hazelnut creamer from the fridge.
But why was she so sorry ?
“Lia’s okay,” she said, puttering around as her coffee brewed. “She slept a few hours. I’m here, as long as you need me.”
Dad said something—thanked her, probably, because she hummed an assent.
I pressed a hand to my heart. It was beating too fast for a body standing motionless.
“Give Hannah my love,” Bernie told Dad, and then she ended the call.
When she turned around, she didn’t seem surprised to see me lurking. The aroma of coffee filled the kitchen, warm and rich, as we sized each other up. There was a heaviness to her expression, as if sadness was tugging her features down.
“Your mama’s okay,” she said finally.
“You knew she would be.”
“I hoped she would be.”
“And the baby?”
“The baby…is no more.”
A gentler version of dead . That sort of delicacy is unnatural to Bernie and, while I appreciated her consideration, I was ten, not two. After what I’d witnessed the night before, I was in no mood for vague, flowery language. I wanted candor—I needed candor.
It bothered me, the certainty with which I’d known the pregnancy would end.
But there had been a baby.
Already, my heart suffered the loss.
Bernie moved toward me. “Lia, I’m sorry.”
I nodded because I didn’t have words. I had feelings. Big feelings, warring feelings, feelings that burned so hot, I was sure they were turning me feverish. I was frustrated at not having been told. Devastated at having been denied the chance to love my sibling. And most of all, furious with the clairvoyant for speaking the previous night’s turmoil into truth.
Mom was to bear one child—not two.
“I don’t feel well,” I told Bernie.
“Lia—”
“Please,” I said, shuffling toward the staircase. “I want to be alone.”
In my room, I took to my bed, a phrase Grandma uses, meaning I lay down and cried dramatically into my soft blankets. I must’ve exhausted myself, because the next thing I knew, I was being jostled awake. I opened my eyes to find Beck roosting on the edge of my mattress, his warm hand on my shoulder.
“My mom sent me to get you. She made pancakes. She wants you to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said, rubbing my bleary eyes.
“I know. But when I feel crappy, food helps.”
I pulled my quilt up to my chin. “The thought of syrup makes me want to hurl.”
He took the Magic 8 Ball, a stocking stuffer from a few Christmases before, from my nightstand. Closing his eyes, he said, “Should Lia eat pancakes?”
“Beck—”
He consulted the ball, then said sagely, “It is certain.”
“Give me a break. That thing’s just a toy.”
“A smart toy. How ’bout this? I’ll fix your pancakes with strawberry jam. Or Nutella.”
My stomach rumbled.
“Nutella sounds good. And…you’ll bring them up? So I can have them in bed?”
He nodded, offering a sweet smile.
I thought, then, of the time Bernie had quipped, “Aww, Lia, you’re practically my daughter-in-law.” Mom was fond of saying: “Beckett Byrne and Amelia Graham: Certain as the setting sun.” And Beck himself, a few days before, had promised, “You’ll always have me.”
It wasn’t until that moment, though—him in my bedroom on the worst day, promising pancakes and comfort—that our future felt like fact.
Beck and I were a foregone conclusion.
I gazed at him, trying to call up the love I’d someday feel, wanting to try it out, like a Costco sample or a movie trailer. My eyes fell to his mouth, quirked uncertainly, as I imagined my first kiss—with him.
Weird , I thought. Kissing Beck would be so weird.
He cleared his throat. “You good?”
“I think I will be.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll be back, okay?”
I nodded, then watched him cross my room, his overt boyness out of place among my mostly feminine things.
As he reached the door, I called his name. He stopped and turned, one hand coming up to rest on the jamb. He looked at me, eyes gray-green and inquisitive, and I suddenly couldn’t remember what it was that I’d wanted to say.
Flustered, I settled on, “Thank you.”
His mouth lifted in a smile. “You’re welcome.”