Chapter 27
SIX YEARS LEFT
For the next few weeks, it felt like the grief was transforming my body.
Every morning I woke to waves of sickness, brought on by the memory of what had happened to Tate.
I could barely eat, and when I did, I couldn’t keep it down.
I was exhausted, and I spent days on end in bed.
Various bowls and casserole dishes surrounded the mattress from people who had come by to take care of me, and when I couldn’t bear to leave the room, I peed in these and left them on the floor.
I’m not sure how long this went on. But one morning I woke up and felt better.
In fact, I felt wonderful. I walked stiffly into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I’d lost weight from my convalescence, but somehow my boobs had grown. My complexion was milky and mixed with light. Mourning had endowed me with a tragic beauty. I was radiant with grief.
But above all, I was hungry. No, not hungry. Ravenous.
I called Phoebe, who was in town, and she came right over with a sack of cheeseburgers. She took one look at me and her face dropped. “Dear God.”
“I know, right? I’m gorgeous. Look at this shit!” I twirled around in front of her.
“No, Lou.” She put a hand on my shoulder and lowered me to the couch. “I don’t know how to say this.” She looked like she had before Tate’s funeral, when she tried to get me out of bed.
“What? Did something happen? Is everyone okay?” If someone else had died, I’d take my beautiful ass to some cliff and jump right off.
“No, everyone is fine. It’s nothing like that.” She took a deep breath. “But darlin’, I think you’re pregnant.”
Everything stopped for a moment.
I’d been careful. So fucking careful. I was on the new pill they offered, and it’d felt like armor against such threats. I’d imagined my body made of steel. Impregnable.
Then, I felt a flicker of something. Not like I was special, exactly, but like I’d been touched by a bit of magic.
There was a kernel inside me that contained infinite lives.
The last fragment of my relationship with Tate, this little memento of our journey together.
I imagined his soft golden hair glinting on the head of a small child.
At the image of this tiny, innocent figure, a thick dread began to seep coldly down my throat and over my ribs. It covered every other thought and feeling in its muck.
What if it was a girl?
I had told myself years ago that I would never inflict my curse on another human being, especially my own child. How could I deliberately put her through such pain, of first my loss, and then her own doomed existence?
It was one of the reasons I’d ended things with Hess.
God, Hess.
The person I never let myself think of, and the one I thought of every day anyway.
I imagined her sitting there with me, perched on the arm of the couch as Phoebe delivered the news. She would have been so happy. It was what she’d dreamed of: a little family of our own.
Every time I’d contemplated going back to her over the years, I’d told myself it was the wrong thing to do. But the truth was, I was ashamed.
I had taken her tender loving care for granted, fashioned it into a trap.
And look at where I’d ended up without it.
I would never regret my time with Tate because of what it led me to, but it was undeniable that the years had been hard on me.
There I was: no music in my head, a baby in my belly, my body and mind barely hanging on.
And so what if Hess didn’t believe in the curse? Who would want to believe their love was going to die so soon? She didn’t let things like mortality get in the way of her enjoying life and caring for other people the way I did.
I had wanted to protect her, of course. But who was I to make that decision for her? Who knew when she or anyone else would die? Look at Tate.
I was such a goddamn fool.
She was my Great Love, and she was alive, but at any moment, she could be taken from this world just like him. How had I spent four years without her? How could I live one more moment on this earth without being in her presence?
I had six years left.
And I wanted to spend them loving someone and being loved by them. I wanted to give Hess what she’d always wanted, the love and family she deserved.
And just maybe, if I was lucky, I could give it to her now.
Phoebe took me to the doctor, and they confirmed her suspicions. I was knocked up.
She knew how I felt about children, so she didn’t treat it like this great miracle as the nurses had at the doctor’s office. She solemnly watched the road as she drove me home, and I stared out the window, trying to organize my thoughts.
An image came to me of my aunt laid out on a bed when I was about six years old. The granny witch dangled a gold band from a string over her pregnant belly, and the entire family watched, our breaths held. The ring finally moved, making a circle over the bump, and my uncle grunted in the corner.
Another goddamn girl.
Back at home, I went to my bedroom and Phoebe followed, saying, “Lou, we need to make a plan—” But I held a hand up, cutting her off.
I lay down on the bed, then I unclasped the simple silver chain around my neck and took off the wedding ring Phoebe had loaned me for the doctor’s office.
I strung the gold band on the chain and reclasped it, letting it hang down like a hypnotizing instrument.
I took a deep breath and held it above my belly.
“What are you doing?” Phoebe asked, bewildered.
“Please. Just watch. I want to try something.”
She didn’t say another word, and we both stared intently at the necklace.
Slowly, the thread of metal started to move, the gold glinting as it swung back and forth over my middle in a straight line.
I exhaled, and Phoebe instinctively did the same, not knowing what had just happened.
I was having a boy.
And he would not be cursed.
I knew I wasn’t meant to be a mother. I was too wild and strange, and I would be gone before he really remembered me.
But Hess certainly was.
He belonged to her. I knew this in my bones.
When I died, I wouldn’t be leaving him or Hess behind, alone. I’d be leaving them with each other. This child would not grow up motherless as I had, but with the best mother I could imagine, the woman who had saved me time and again.
“What just happened?” Phoebe asked, dumbfounded.
“Have you heard from Hess lately?” I responded, ignoring her question.
“What?” Her name hadn’t been spoken between us in four years. “Why?”
“I just need to know. Tell me what she’s been up to.”
“Lord, you have lost your mind,” she began, but I pleaded, “Please.”
She sat down on the bed and exhaled. “She moved back home after y’all parted ways. Got sucked back into her parents’ fancy world, going to all the society parties and whatever else rich people do. Shove tennis rackets up each other’s butts, who knows.”
I laughed for the first time in weeks.
“I don’t hear from her too often. I think I remind her of you, and it hurts too much.” She bit her lip, and I knew something was coming.
“Come on. Give it to me straight. I can handle it.”
“About a month ago, I got an invitation in the mail. For her wedding. She’s getting married to this guy whose family owns all the gas stations in the state. Never met him before.”
I was speechless. I couldn’t believe she’d fallen for someone else. And a man at that. While I’d always been attracted to both sides, Hess had told me men did nothing for her.
“Does she love him?”
“Lou, I don’t know. She’s getting married to him, so that has to mean something, right?
Should we be talking about this right now?
There are bigger things to worry about.” She put her hand on mine and lowered her voice.
“I know someone who can help you. It’s safe.
Not like what you hear sometimes. He’s a real doctor. ”
“Can you ask her for me?”
“Lou, come on. She’s marrying the guy tomorrow. I’m not doing that to her.”
Phoebe’s heart was in the right place. But I needed to know for myself. I wasn’t going to give her up not knowing.
I told myself I’d just ask her, and if she was happy, I’d let her go. I really would.
I’d never been to Hess’s house before. Her family didn’t exactly approve of “hillbilly music” and all the shady types that played it, and I’d never been real eager to meet them either. I can’t stand people who think they’re better than anyone else.
But good lord, their house was magnificent.
It rose up like a Greek temple on this big piece of land surrounded by trees.
I parked my car down the road and walked through the woods so I wouldn’t be spotted by the people moving in and out of the house.
Phoebe’s invitation said the wedding would be at the First Baptist Church followed by a reception in the ballroom at the Walker Estate.
I stood there in the trees like a little dirt child, studying the house and wondering how exactly I was going to get in to see her.
At the side facing me, I spotted a large oak tree with a thick, gnarled limb reaching out toward a balcony on the third floor. I remembered Hess’s story of the oak she climbed down to sneak out for shows in high school.
Bingo.
I ran across the open lawn, praying no one would see me. I usually didn’t run unless I was being chased, but I was fast when I did. I reached the side of the house mercifully undetected and flattened myself against it to catch my breath.
I’d decided to wear heels because I wanted to look good for Hess, but now I was forced to kick them off into the grass.
I wrapped my arms around the trunk of the tree and used my bare feet to inch my way up until I could grab hold of the lowest branch.
I climbed from branch to branch, flexing the old muscles.
Soon I was on the final limb arcing out over the terrace, and I quietly jumped down onto the tiled floor.
The doors were curtained, but I could see a light was on inside. I put my ear up to the glass. I’d imagined a room of female relatives that I’d have to contend with. But it was strangely quiet.