Chapter 48
Helena was striding ahead of the others. Bright spots were beginning to swim at the corners of her vision. She knew she was pushing herself too hard, but she didn’t want to slow and allow the others to catch up with her. She needed space.
Her hiking boots pounded over stone and rock. The mud streaking her legs and caking her socks had dried and cracked, flakes of it falling into her boots. Thankfully her blisters were less painful, since she’d managed to tape them last night.
She pushed on, aware that her heart was racing. Then a strange boneless sensation followed in her legs.
Odd, she thought.
Without warning, a whoosh of heat moved through her body and her vision began to tunnel, while the ground seemed to lurch away from her.
Then black.
—
“Helena!” she heard Maggie calling distantly.
She blinked, opening her eyes slowly. She was lying down, cheek on the cold ground. Maggie was crouched beside her, a hand on her shoulder, eyes wide with worry.
“What happened?”
“You fainted,” Maggie said.
Had she? Helena pushed herself upright with the heels of her hands, head spinning.
The others were standing around her looking concerned. She pressed her lips together. Felt the grit of earth stuck to her lipstick. Wiped her mouth with her hand.
Maggie was stroking her back. “You need food. Your blood sugar can go nuts in pregnancy—”
Helena blinked.
She saw Joni’s and Liz’s heads swivel to look at Maggie.
Maggie clamped a hand to her mouth. “Sorry! I—”
“God’s sake!” Helena said, pushing herself to her feet, the ground swaying a little.
“Go steady,” Maggie said. “You need to rest.”
“If there’s a service station coming up, do let me know,” Helena said spikily. She dusted herself off while Liz and Joni just stared at her. “What?” she said into their silence.
“You’re pregnant . . .” Liz marveled, eyes bright.
“Yes, I’m pregnant. No, I don’t know who the father is. Yes, I’m still in shock. No, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. I think that answers all the main questions.” She moved to step past them, saying, “As you were.”
“But—wait! Are you okay?” Liz asked, voice filled with concern. She was standing on the narrow trail, blocking Helena’s path. “This is a lot. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been walking for three days and am halfway up a mountain with no food or water.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us before setting off!” Liz said. “I would never have let you do this. Are you okay? Really?”
Helena wanted to say she was fine, but she could feel her throat thickening with emotion. “Look, let’s not. We’ve got bigger things to worry about right now.”
Maggie gave her a hard stare. “You are what matters right now.” She asked, “Have you thought more about what you want?”
Out here, Helena was so far away from normal life that she felt free of herself.
She didn’t know if that even made sense, she just knew that the image of who she was, and how her life should be, had blurred a little at the edges.
Everything felt more possible. And into that space of possibility, there was space to feel what she wanted.
Maggie was watching her, waiting.
When she was a kid, she’d visited an older cousin, whose newborn was plonked in Helena’s arms. The baby took one look at her and bawled.
Helena remembered thinking that the baby must have sensed something off about her.
Knew he wasn’t safe with her. Other girls were always so eager to hold babies, but she hung back, said she wasn’t a “baby person,” whatever that meant.
She started to say she didn’t want kids.
It became a story she told herself so often that she believed it.
But now she wondered if she’d written that story because she was afraid that she wouldn’t be any good at motherhood.
“I’m going to consider all options,” she said, aware that she sounded like she was in a business meeting.
A tiny smile appeared on Liz’s face.
“If you do have the baby, you know we’ll be there for you, don’t you?” Maggie said. “You wouldn’t have to do it alone.”
Joni was standing at the edge of the group. Quietly, she said, “You would be an amazing mother.”
Helena blinked. Joni hadn’t spoken a word to her since their argument, hanging back, eyes down, hands balled into fists. And now here she was, looking right at Helena, saying something so startling that it made Helena’s breath catch in her throat.
Those words—You. Amazing. Mother.—they cracked something open. They were the very words she needed to hear. “You really think so?”
Joni continued to look at her—right at her—as if she could see exactly who Helena was. “I know so.”