Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
TALLY
“Tally,” my mom calls from outside the bathroom.
She insisted I take a pee test once I started vomiting every morning and couldn’t keep anything down.
So I went to CVS and bought ten different pregnancy strips, praying at least one would say I wasn’t pregnant.
But every single one lit up instantaneously—plus signs, “pregnant,” double pink lines—whatever they use to make it painfully clear you’re expecting. “What do the tests say?” she asks.
I slump on the toilet, head in my hands, and exhale.
Everything had been going so well. After batteries of tests with a shrink over at Cedars, Mom got a latent bi-polar disorder diagnosis.
The doctor explained to both of us that she’d likely shown bi-polar disorder symptoms forever, but they stayed hidden under the stress plus her Oxy habit.
Once she quit the pills, the bi-polar disorder surfaced, and he prescribed a cocktail of lithium plus Abilify.
It’s working wonders—she’s stable and happy.
Since then I’ve been cooking for her so she’d gain weight, and I even dropped my F45 weight-lifting classes so I could take her to Pilates five afternoons a week after my 7 AM–4 PM shift.
She’s loving it, getting stronger every session.
She’s talking about getting a job to “pay her keep,” not that I care much when she does.
I bought her a whole new wardrobe on my credit card.
She’s started a little herb garden on our terrace—chervil, rosemary, basil and upside-down tomato planters dangling from the ceiling.
Mom has a real green thumb, and I’ve been enjoying her fresh herbs in every meal.
For the first time since Dad died, life seems peaceful for her.
I was even planning to squeeze a baby grand piano into our cramped two-bedroom apartment—as soon as I 86 an old bookshelf and unused desk—and watch her play again.
Helping Mom, plus my tattoo gigs and catch-ups with Celeste and Liv once or twice a month, nearly erased the pain of losing Cam.
He’s called, texted, tried FaceTime countless times, but I never pick up.
I want him to move on, find someone who fits him better, because I’m not that person for him and never was.
And now this. A baby. Damn. What am I going to do?
We’re stuck in this tiny apartment—two little bedrooms, one for me, one for her—and there’s no asking Mom to move out.
She’s too fragile. I’m not sure she’d remember to take her meds, eat properly, keep up with exercise, make doctor’s appointments or get to bed early enough to avoid triggering her symptoms—she’s such a night owl.
In other words, I don’t trust my mother to take care of herself without me.
I’m keeping her together. I still hold my breath every fucking time I go to work for fear that when I get home, she’ll be gone.
Still hold my breath every time I go to sleep that I might wake up and she’ll be gone.
Same thing for when I go out with the girls.
Fuck! The girls! No way I'm telling Celeste who knocked me up. She'd go ballistic. She's still clueless about me and Cam, and I'm keeping it that way. Christ. I'll have to feed her some line about a random hookup, which she'll never buy since I don't do casual. Never have.
And protection? Dammit, we used protection, all kinds of fucking protection.
The pill since I was sixteen, plus Cam's condoms every damn time.
How the hell did this happen? Roman's wife Lilith would probably flip her tarot cards and say some mystical bullshit about the universe having plans.
And maybe she'd be right – because what else explains a pregnancy that bulldozed through two forms of birth control?
The universe clearly wants this kid to exist, and I had absolutely no say in the matter.
I emerge from the bathroom, tugging at my jeans that already feel snug across my middle.
"Guess I'll be hitting up the stretchy pants section soon.
" I scan our cramped apartment, mentally rearranging furniture to figure out how the hell I’ll fit a baby in this place.
"Where the hell am I supposed to put a crib?
" Mom's stuff is barely unpacked—she only moved in weeks ago.
No way I'm asking her to sleep on that lumpy couch when this whole knocked-up situation is not her circus, not her clowns. Hell, it’s barely even my fault considering we were so careful.
But I know Mom—give her one uncomfortable night and she'll be halfway to Timbuktu by morning. Not happening.
Mom’s not sure how to take this news. She looks like she wants to be all happy about her first grandkid, but, then again, if she says one fucking word of congratulations, I’ll cut a bitch. She knows that. Poor Mom.
“Well,” she finally says. “At least the father is wealthy, or comes from a wealthy family at any rate.”
“He is wealthy,” I say. “Makes six figures, around 300 large a year at the ER and plus he has a trust fund. They all do. Celeste tells me that each of the brothers have at least a half a billion in trust, because the Granddad made it that way.” I shake my head.
“But that’s neither here nor there, Mom.
I’m not telling him about this baby.” I cross my arms in front of me.
“I mean, I’ll tell him there’s a baby. I’ll have to, because word will get around to him.
Celeste will know, and she’ll tell Max, and…
” And what? Why would Max announce the baby to Cameron?
Nobody knows about us. But he might let it slip - “did you hear that Tally’s having a baby?
” Somehow, someway, the jig will be up with Cameron, if not Max slipping then maybe I’ll run into Cameron at some Kensington function in the future.
At any rate, there’s about a zero percent chance of him never finding out I had a kid so… better tell him something.
Dammit. He’s exactly the kind of guy who’ll demand we “do the right thing”—and that “right thing” is the last thing I would ever want.
Other girls fantasize about their big day—what dress, what flowers, how many bridesmaids, where the reception is, who takes the photos, yada yada blech.
Not me. I refuse to trade my independence for some guy.
No one gets veto power over my life choices.
Especially not Cam, dropping to one knee and sliding a diamond on my left ring finger.
He doesn’t know this baby is his. So I’ve got to beat him to it: call him, and drop the hammer of the fake story I’ll create—I got plastered right after he left (and yeah, he’ll do the math), slept with a rando and now I’m pregnant.
End of story. No fuss, no compromise. Cam will hate me? Fine. Let him.
Better he hates me than learn the truth and smother me.
He’d fly home early from Sicily and start bossing me around: “Tally, have you taken your vitamins?” “Don’t eat sushi.
” “Working till midnight again?” “Your mom shouldn’t be around little Liam—or Vanessa.
” “Don’t meet the girls; you’ll drink.” He’d turn into my dad—who I barely knew—and hell no, I’m not letting that happen.
And anyway, women drank and smoked constantly in the ’50s and ’60s, and guess what—there weren’t more birth defects from booze than there are now.
The spike back then in birth defects was from missing vaccines and taking toxic shit like Thalidomide, not wine.
So if I need a glass after a crappy day, nobody’s grabbing it from my hand.
But goddamn it, having a kid means giving someone veto power over everything I do. A baby will own my life just as surely as any diamond ring ever could.
I hold up my hand. "Mom," I say, my voice already cracking. "Don't. Fucking. Move."
She freezes.
The scream rips out of me like something feral, tearing my throat raw.
I slam my fists against the wall, kick over the coffee table, sending magazines flying.
My lungs burn but I can't stop—won't stop—until every cell in my body is vibrating with it.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" I shriek at the ceiling.
"CONDOMS! THE GODDAMN PILL! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?
" My knees hit the floor as I pound my fists against the carpet.
"We weren't some drunk teenagers fumbling in daddy's car!
WE DID EVERYTHING RIGHT!" Tears stream hot down my face, mascara probably turning me into some horror-show clown.
"This is punishment, isn't it? For screwing Cam?
Well FUCK YOU!" I'm not even sure who I'm screaming at anymore—God, the universe, my own stupid body betraying me.
Mom sighs. "Tally," she says. "I just want you to know that I support you in whatever you do." She nods meaningfully, and I catch her drift.
This is the Mom I remember from the good days—the sober stretches between pill bottles and strange men in our house.
The one who squeezed my sweaty little hand on the first day of kindergarten when I was too scared to let go.
Who didn't bat an eye when I watched Simba's dad die for the fortieth time in one weekend.
Who'd crack open The Giving Tree night after night until the spine was worn through.
Who never, ever questioned my desire to get an art degree from UCLA.
When other parents would've pushed me toward something "practical," Mom helped me research art careers on our ancient desktop.
That's how the tattoo studio dream was born.
And oh, The Giving Tree! That damn book still wrecks me.
A tree giving everything—apples, branches, trunk—until she's nothing but a stump for some ungrateful old man to sit on.
Some see that story as beautiful sacrifice; others see a toxic relationship.
All I know is I still cry every time, just like when I was four and somehow already understood that love sometimes means giving everything to someone who might never say “thank you.”
My hand drifts to my stomach. Soon I'll be giving pieces of myself away too.
I wonder if I'm setting myself up for the same raw deal as that tree, making sacrifices for someone who might never appreciate them.
But then I remember my mother reading to me, her voice steady even on the hundredth time through, and I think maybe there's something beautiful in the giving after all.
“No, Mom,” I say, feeling calmer now after I threw my fit. “Not an option.” I sigh. “I’ll march in the streets for the rights of others to choose, but for me…no. I’ll have this kid and somehow, someway, I’ll make it work.” I sigh. “Even though I’ll obviously have to find a bigger place.”