Chapter 5
Now
Bea
The morning after the wedding, I wake up fully alert and—and well rested.
It’s disconcerting for a moment, like ascending the stairs and expecting another step, a moment of suspension before I meet solid ground.
I hold my breath and wait for the tight burn in my temples that follows a night of crying (or trying not to) and it doesn’t come.
My eyes don’t feel hot or swollen. There’s only a faint, pleasant soreness in my thighs and shoulders from being tossed around a dance floor.
Rolling over upends the shoebox of photographs I pulled into bed with me last night, right before I lost steam and passed out.
I start to pile the pictures back in but linger on one.
Prom, junior year, a group of ten of us in front of Martha O’Doyle’s store, with Silas, Merritt, and me, front and center.
I remember Silas’s sister pinning the boutonniere she made for him onto his suspender strap, and how she complimented the orchids on Merritt’s dress.
Even back then, Sage had an affinity for flowers, and now she runs a floral business out of her very own home garden.
The principal Silas suspected was moonlighting as an author ended up becoming a New York Times best-selling one with multiple film adaptations.
She and the English teacher she’d been secretly seeing now live in Bend with their three kids and a gargantuan, droopy-faced dog.
I wonder what I’ve managed to keep of myself from back then, too. Sometimes I worry all I’ve done is lose the things that felt truest to me. My lightness, my grit. My favorite person.
More of my mom’s words run through my mind, unbidden.
“Too much of your life has been lived according to someone else,” she’d hurled at me in our biggest fight.
“You left school when she got sick the first time. Your plans have always been tied to Merritt. You cannot make this decision based on her, when she’s not even here.
You’re in no frame of mind to make this choice right now. ”
And these are the thoughts that make the tears come, because this morning, with sunlight shining stripes across my bedroom and last night’s makeup trickling down my face, the sharp corners of memories poking into my limbs like they might cut me .
. . I am so worried that she was right, even if it doesn’t change what I want.
I sit up in bed, other photos stuck to my arms in places.
I gently peel them away and leave them in a tidy pile while I go brew some tea.
On my way back, I stop by the credenza with all the pictures turned around on it, facing the wall.
I had to leave my place furnished but was sure to bring my most personal effects with me here.
I know there’s a blanket haphazardly shoved inside that credenza, where it’s been for at least three months.
I’d lain down on the couch after a jam-packed day, ready to turn on something mindless that would put me to sleep.
I’d pulled up that blanket and caught a whiff of Merritt’s perfume clinging to it, kicked it off me like it was on fire, then put it away while I held my breath.
The thought of washing it felt like a betrayal, but the thought of falling apart while I huffed it felt unbearable, too.
Today, it doesn’t.
I methodically spin each picture frame around and retrieve the blanket with a confidence that feels long forgotten. Before I know it, I’ve hauled two boxes of photographs into my temporary living room and swept the blanket across my lap, and Joni Mitchell is crooning through my portable speaker.
I start sifting through the pictures, laughing wetly over each memory.
The song reminds me of Christmas, of Merritt with wine-stained teeth and a light-up headband, arms gesticulating wildly at the television as she wailed, “How could Hans Gruber do that to Nanny McPhee? Bastard!” No matter that we’d seen Love Actually probably fifty times, that betrayal wrecked us every year.
I go at it like this for hours. Smiling, crying, laughing to myself like a lunatic.
More music, more pictures. In between it all, there’s that evergreen thought on a loop: This isn’t fair, this isn’t fair, this isn’t fucking fair.
But god, I still think doing this . . . in some way, I think it feels good.
The only things that pull me out of it are my basic human needs. After I feed myself, I decide to shower for myself, too. Which I suppose is the function of every shower, but I’m not getting ready for work or an appointment or a wedding or anything that I have to get ready for, other than me.
After that, as I’m starting to put everything away again, I map out a plan to go over to the house and talk to my mom, aggregating all my talking points.
I know what I want to do, and I’m going to keep moving forward.
I know that I still want to have a baby and that I’m going to keep pursuing IVF.
But I also know that if I want to start this journey from the best place I can, emotionally as well as financially, I can afford to take another month, if need be.
My plan to save up enough money for childcare and time off and all those other contingencies may not have won over her confidence, but maybe telling her I’m going to give myself a little more time will help.
Maybe she’ll finally realize I’m taking this as seriously as I can.
That I’ve got a clear head. At the very least, I’m hoping the added time will be an olive branch between us.
It’s well into the afternoon now, and I’ve got the windows open so the smells of Mom’s flower garden can permeate the house.
I brew a fresh cup of tea to bolster me and walk out onto the front steps, just in time to see my stepdad get into his car with a shake of his head.
He slams his door and backs down the driveway just as Mom rounds the corner of their porch, arms crossed and expression worn.
I meet her halfway.
“Mom,” I say, expelling a quick sigh, “I know you thought I was harsh last night, and maybe I was, but you have to see how insensitive you were, too.”
“Bea, we don’t need to discuss last night.”
I bring a hand up to shield my eyes so I can get a better look at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I wasn’t on my way to discuss that with you.”
“Then what—”
“You can’t stay here,” she says.
My hands fall at my sides. Some of my tea spills. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. And I know you think you are, too. But having some more money in your bank account is not going to make you ready to be a mother. Not under these conditions.” Her voice doesn’t even waver. I know mine is about to.
“You know that’s not what I think,” I say, volume gathering before it drops into something meek.
“I am just trying to be ready in every possible way, Mom. I want this.” I sigh a laugh.
“Jesus, Merritt’s mom is dying for another grandbaby.
Aren’t most parents pushing their kids to have kids by thirty?
” It’s a poor attempt at humor, but it’s what I’ve got.
“Most parents haven’t had to get their adult daughter out of bed for months.”
I flinch. My nose stings.
“Bathe them,” she forges on. “Feed them.”
“No,” I bite out. “Bonnie just had to watch her kid die instead.” And now I know why neither Mom nor Bonnie has mentioned the other lately. They must be having some version of this disagreement outside my awareness.
“Bea,” she says. “You scared me, honey. I just—I do not think this is a good idea.”
“I was obliterated.” My voice is a hoarse whisper.
I grasp at the edges of my composure. “Of course I was, Mom, but . . . but I worked hard to get better. I am doing better.” I’m living.
Functioning in ways that felt impossible a year ago.
I feel ready for something good again—despite the guilt that rides shotgun.
My hope is gauzy, and I can still see all my grief through it, but dammit, it’s there.
“You did,” Mom says, nodding. “You got out of the worst of it, and I’m proud of you. You’re a successful, beautiful young woman, and you have your whole life ahead of you. Which is why I don’t agree with you permanently anchoring yourself to the past.”
“I’m sorry you feel that’s what a child is,” I say. “An anchor.”
She only sighs through her nose, and I’m small under the look she gives me.
I don’t feel anything like a successful young woman in her eyes.
I’m fourteen and she just got the cell phone bill and found out I ran up her data texting a boy from Astoria I met over the summer.
Like something that feels huge and full of promise to me is something both dangerous and trivial to her.
She’d been right about the boy, of course.
But in this moment, at thirty years old, seeing the full scale of our impasse, I know she’s wrong about me having a baby.
I’m released from my earlier worries and accept that she’ll have to come around on her own time, just like I had to.
I can’t force her to see something she’s not ready to see.
“You own your own home,” she goes on. “You don’t need to live here. And if you want to continue to move forward with this, I can’t stop you.” She looks like she’s going to reach for me, then tightens her arms around herself instead, and I’m glad. “But you can’t do it here.”
“You’re doing this because you’re mad at me,” I say, calmly. “This is about last night.”
“This is about you rushing into this because you’re still feeling lost!
” she cries out. “Now, I can’t fault Merritt’s mom for wanting this from you, but I also can’t stand by and watch you do something of this magnitude for someone else.
Bonnie will survive, Bea. She has a living daughter and two grandchildren already.
” She crushes her lips together. “This is about me wanting what is best for you.”
“I was on my way to tell you that I’m willing to wait longer,” I say, steady, if a little pitchy. “I’ve been doing everything I can to prove to you that I’m ready. That I know exactly what I want. I want to do this. I want this for myself just as much as I want it because Merritt asked it of me.”
She does a half turn away, shoulders slumped like she’s even wearier than I am. “You don’t need to prove anything to me, then. You need to prove it to yourself.”
But I still want your blessing. I want your support, I almost let slip, but I think I’d only prove her point.
“I understand,” I say. “And you’re right, I don’t need to prove anything.
But at this point in time, if I cancel all of the rentals lined up, I’ll have to pay a huge sum in fees, Mom.
” I’ve already gone through the selection process and paid the sperm bank, but the meds will come next, then the procedure itself.
I’ve started my birth control cycle, and shots begin in roughly three weeks.
She knows all of this, and how much I’ve saved up, and why I am trying to save more.
She turns the rest of the way and walks back toward her house. “I’ll give you two weeks to move.”
Back inside the guesthouse, I’m certain I’ve paced a hole through the floor. My feelings are so fast and turbulent that I can’t grab on to one at a time. The only thing I hold firm to is what she said about proving something to myself.
I snatch up my laptop and park myself on the couch, then open my finance spreadsheets, reworking my numbers to see what I’ll need to budget for a rental.
I start compiling listings from my phone.
Everything available right away would make my profit margins almost nothing.
Everything else isn’t available for months.
I refuse to call Bonnie. I’m not sure what she could do, anyway, being four hours away, and I’m not going to smother the hope she has with any sort of added guilt related to this. I’m sure my mom has managed that just fine.
I’m not completely sure why he comes to mind first, and I’m not certain I want to examine it too closely, but I decide to scroll over to my messages and search for Silas’s thread.
You said it’d be nice to be friends again, I quickly send before I lose my nerve. Like I’m justifying this to myself, too. My stomach clenches when three dots immediately pop up.
You have red hair and (objectively, in a benign, non-objectifying way) an ass that won’t quit, he replies.
I send back an ellipses and a question mark: . . . ?
I thought we were just stating factual things at each other.
I was asking a question, Silas, I fire back.
Punctuation is our friend. And yeah, it would be nice to be your friend again, too.
I hear myself snort a dumb laugh and promptly groan.
Last night. Did you mean it when you said I could stay with you?
My phone rings, and I sigh. I put a hand over my bouncing knee to steady it, then hit Answer.
“Calling instead of texting back?” I say, all false bravado. “Already working from a deficit in friendship points, Silas.”
The warm timbre of his chuckle buzzes through the phone. I curl my fingertips tighter around it. “The answer is yes. I meant it, Ruby. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
My throat compacts on a surge of emotion.
I have to siphon off some of it in a watery exhale.
“Yeah, I’m . . . I’m okay,” I tell him, because even if we’re being somewhat liberal with the definition, the truth is, I am okay.
I could move back into my house. I do have the money to pay for the fees, and it’d be unbearably tight, but I could afford at least one round of IVF still.
Determined as I am, all wouldn’t be lost.
Compared to real, actual loss? A plan going awry is not the worst thing.
He sighs. “Okay, good,” he says. “But really, whatever you need. I’ve got plenty of room.”
“I wouldn’t need much. Most of my furniture is still in my house, so it’d really just be me and some boxes. A few small pieces I could move myself. It would be temporary. A month or two, at most.” I’m sure I can find an affordable rental by then.
“I’ve got a bed—as in, I’ve got a bed you can use.
Not one you can share.” He mumbles something indecipherable away from the phone.
“I mean you can share it with someone if you want to, and it doesn’t have to be me or anything.
Jesus Christ. I’ve got an extra bed in a separate room on another floor. ”
A skittish laugh jumps out of me. I shouldn’t enjoy flustering him. I can’t enjoy flustering him. I damn well can’t let it fluster me. “If it’s too weird, you really don’t have to say yes to this, Silas.”
“It’s not weird. It doesn’t have to be weird,” he says.
I relax another degree. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
There’s a beat of silence before I add, “Hey, Si? I’ve got an appointment on Friday if you want. For a haircut.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”
“See you then,” he confirms. He hangs up without a goodbye.