He might be right about the part he understands. When I close my eyes, I always see it: pine needles, my mother’s diamond ring, and my broken guitar, Irene’s Christmas tree, and the stars on Matty’s ceiling, like every moment of my life gets loaded in that motorhome. Everywhere I go, I’m dragging it with me, collecting more hurt and loss and sad sweet memories that I don’t want to hold. But this time I think the drama could be the worse kind of pain. If I tell Ethan and Robert the truth, I could lose everything that’s good, and if I don’t, I’m ruining the good thing anyway.
“I could be your drama sponsor,” Ethan says. “We’ll have meetings, and when you’re about to grab your keys and hit the road you can call me and we’ll stage an intervention. I’ll bring donuts.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.” I wish he could fix everything the way he thinks he can.
“Don’t say no to donuts,” Ethan says, grinning.
I wish I could go back to what it felt like when Ethan knew everything about me.
— Chapter 57 —
July 1997
Asheville, NC
The baby is four and a half months for real, but three and a half to Ethan and Robert. It gets harder every day to remember that their timeline isn’t the real one. Late at night when Robert is working and I don’t have to play, Ethan is asleep, and I’m alone, I have to remind myself. When it’s just me and the baby, I put my hands on my stomach and remember what’s true.
Robert rubs my belly all the time. “You’re carrying precious cargo,” he says.
I feel like a steamer trunk.
On the fridge in his kitchen, he keeps a list of all the dad things he wants to do. Every time I’m over, he’s added something new. Fishing and riding bikes and seeing a Rolling Stones concert, camping in the Great Smoky Mountains, sailing on Lake Julian, Frisbee at the park, building a tree house, catching fireflies in a jar.
“I was raised by my stepdad,” Robert tells me one night while we’re lying on the couch after dinner. He runs his fingers through my hair, coaxing out the tangles. “I always felt like a guest. I can’t wait to have someone who’s mine.”
His fingers snag a knot in my hair, and he thinks that’s why my eyes start tearing. “I’m so sorry,” he says.
The baby kicks for Ethan, but not for Robert. He keeps trying.
Ethan calls the baby “our little overachiever” for kicking so early. Every time he says it, I feel like it really means April is a big fat liar. I feel like they should just know. They should have figured it out. Sometimes I even hate them for not knowing, but I love them too much to tell the truth.
Since Robert works late, I stay at Ethan’s mostly. They don’t want me to be alone, just in case. They’re overprotective.
Robert buys an old dresser for my room at Ethan’s. He strips it down in the garage and paints it white to match the daybed. “We’ll move it into the baby’s room next door, after,” he says, like it’s already decided where I’ll live. I like having two houses. I like living with Ethan. I don’t tell Robert that one house would make me feel caged. I don’t tell him that sometimes even two houses doesn’t feel like enough space.
On the nights I stay at Ethan’s, I think about calling Justin. I listen to Ethan brushing his teeth in the bathroom. I hear him spit, swish, spit again. Pee, flush, walk into the hallway. I’ve memorized his patterns like a song. Two steps, creak. One step, creak. Five steps, big creak.
“Night, Angel,” he yells.
“Night, E.T.,” I yell back. “Bite the bedbugs.” I hear his bare feet on the stairs, and then I hear the bedroom door close and pop open and close harder. I imagine little white paint chips falling to the floor.
I think about leaving and driving to Binghamton to tell Justin. I remember running my finger along the dent in his chin and the spikes of his new haircut.
Justin’s shirt doesn’t smell like him anymore. It smells like a rabbit cage from the funny little cedar cubes Ethan puts everywhere.
* * *
Ethan thinks the baby is a girl. He says I’m “carrying high.” I’m sure it’s a boy. I don’t know why. I just am. I want to name him Max. Robert likes Rierden. It was his mother’s maiden name. Ethan likes Ethan. We never discuss what his last name will be. I’m going to give him Justin’s shirt someday. Maybe when he leaves for college. It will be cool and retro by then, like bellbottoms or a Stones t-shirt. I won’t tell him where it came from.