Junk Love, page 12
“We’re both healthy.”
“I’m glad it’s healthy.”
It. She had told her the baby was a girl.
“I’m proud of how well you’re handling this.”
“Thanks, Mom.” When she rifled her purse for a tissue, her fingers hit the slippery ultrasound pictures she had almost shown Emily and Gabe at lunch. Dr. Rigby had encouraged her to start talking to the baby—the size of an avocado—since she could hear her now.
“You’re going to be a wonderful doctor. Just like your dad.”
“I don’t know.”
“You are.”
“My brain is mush. I screwed up scheduling an appointment last week and double-booked Dr. Rigby.”
“Maybe you should just focus on summer school and let something go.”
“It’ll work out.”
“Don’t worry about the patient. These things happen when you’re pregnant. Mom brain.” Her mother’s eyebrows twitched before she composed her expression, erasing the regret if not the words.
Mom brain. Cora turned to face the passing homes. Her “mom heart” was broken, too.
“Honey. It’s going to be okay. This will be over soon. The baby will have a good home and you’ll be back on track.”
The only track she felt on was a train track in a silent film, as the bound-up damsel in distress.
“Plans can change…”
“Cora. You’re not going to throw your life away.” The red light and her mom’s eyes were piercing. “I remember being pregnant. The hormones wreak havoc. Please don’t let your emotions rule your decisions. They won’t steer you in the right direction.” The car moved, giving her space to breathe.
“But I love the baby.”
“That’s why you’re doing this, finding it an established home. The baby will be better off. I know you want children someday, but you want your career, too, don’t you?”
Her temples throbbed. “I can’t do this now.”
“I want to understand.”
“A job is a job, Mom. Theoretically, I could work at the clinic for the rest of my life. Sure, I’d rather be a doctor, but…” It’s not like love. “Just, how would you feel if you…” Didn’t have Julie. “Never mind.”
At least Julie was safe now in an apartment with a job. Maybe soon her parents would call off that private investigator who checked on her every month.
When Julie had called Cora out of the blue a few weeks ago, she still sounded paranoid. The voicemail had only been weird because Julie hadn’t left a number. But when she called back and asked if Cora had told their parents about the call, and then said she wouldn’t be calling again because Cora had told them, that was weird. That was awful: holding the phone after Julie had hung up, abandoned by her again.
She didn’t want to say goodbye to her baby.
Her mom might disapprove of the baby journal she wrote in every night. She would undoubtedly disapprove of how Cora would fall asleep cupping her hands around her belly, holding her daughter as much as she could—the closest thing she’d known to being whole.
CORA
Monday, May 9, 2016
Usually, when Cora was on campus near places Aiden used to hang out, she prayed for God to put him in her path if it was His will for her to tell him about the baby. She had yearned for an answer, a direction, some clarity about what God wanted her to do. All she’d gotten was silence.
Aiden would be leaving soon for Seattle, though. It had to be time.
So, she strode down the corridor where the teaching assistants’ offices were and only prayed for strength, zipping up her yellow raincoat. But the closer she got to his office, the weaker she felt. And when Aiden’s voice drifted into the hall, she almost walked past.
Cora hesitated near his doorway, and he spotted her from his desk chair, swiveled to face the little round table for students, where a woman sat. The student turned back, but Cora couldn’t focus on her face. His eyes, shadowed, were all she could see.
“Why don’t you start there?” He flipped the papers closed and handed them to the student, standing. “Check in with me tomorrow if you get stuck, okay?”
The woman left, glaring a little.
“Have a seat?” Aiden swung an arm toward the chair, moving closer.
“Sorry I’m interrupting.” The office was too tight, and she stepped to the bookshelf while he fixated on the door he shut behind her.
“Please don’t apologize.” He waited for her to accept the vacated chair, then, back at his desk, he leveled his strained eyes with hers. “I’m the one who needs to apologize.” Shaking his head and smiling a little, he said, “This is weird. I was just thinking about you yesterday.”
Oh no. “This is a bad time.” Cora clutched her purse handles.
Aiden raised his hand. “I’m not obsessing about you—anymore,” he tried to laugh. “Sorry. It was about making amends to the people I’ve harmed. It’s really good to see you. You look great.”
“That’s kind of you to say.” To be polite, she wanted to reciprocate, but he looked haggard, and small talk didn’t feel like an option. She also didn’t want to encourage him. “Can I just be super blunt?” she sighed, bracing her spine against the hard chair.
“Please.”
“But I need you to just sit there and not touch me.”
“Shit, Cora.” His voice cracked like a kicked dog’s.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean that like you’re a bad person. I’m just trying to have healthy boundaries.”
He swiveled to face his desk and gazed past it. Out the window behind him, tree branches popped with deep pink blooms. “Go ahead.”
“I have a big decision to make, and it involves you. Us getting back together isn’t part of this, okay?”
“Wait.” Aiden spun toward her. “Are you pregnant?”
She couldn’t breathe, swept into the undertow of his blue eyes. Was he excited? He looked hungry again, but not like he had in the hot tub. This was a bad idea. And he knew. How? Had he meant to—?
Knock knock.
“I should go,” she said, standing.
“No, please.” He almost touched her arm as he passed on his way to the door, but he didn’t. “Stay?”
Because he hovered at a respectful distance, she nodded despite the hairs, like hackles, alert on her neck.
“Thank you.” At the door, he spoke louder: “Sorry, I had to shut down office hours early. Can you email me, and we’ll set up a time?”
The voice said, “Sure, no problem.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” And a pen squeaked while he scribbled a note on his whiteboard.
Cora tensed, anticipating his return. She needed a plan.
“We shouldn’t be interrupted now.” Sitting, sighing, he stared at the purse in her lap.
Her heartbeat drummed in her ears.
After a thick, awkward minute, his frown made her feel better. He couldn’t have meant this to happen. He’d said it was an accident. And he looked the farthest thing from happy.
Voices laughed in the hall.
When their eyes met, his darted down again, and a breathy laugh fell out. “Anytime you want to put me out of my misery…”
“What?”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Oh. Sorry. Yes.”
This time when he found her eyes, his were tighter and more haunted than she’d ever seen them. “Are you okay?”
A swell of something rose inside her: not nausea this time, not nerves, not desire. She was okay. Now. She would have liked to have heard that question, seen that concerned face when she learned she was pregnant—she hadn’t been okay then. Then, they could have been scared together. If the pregnancy had been a consensual mistake, she would have even let him hold her. But this was her grim, frightening, lonely reality—and she was okay. No thanks to him.
Cora nodded. “Mm-hm.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She nodded again.
“What are you going to do?”
Fiddling with the straps on her lap, she said, “My parents want me to put the baby up for adoption. An open adoption.”
Aiden nodded, slumped.
The vicarious gut punch curled Cora incrementally in. This was all wrong. It was his daughter, too, and she hadn’t even—
“I haven’t committed to anything,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I just—”
His frown changed, and he looked stronger. “You have nothing to apologize for, Cora. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’ve come to me at all. Okay?”
She nodded back.
“What do you want?”
“I want to do what’s best for her.”
Through his fist, he rasped, “It’s a girl?” and his eyes welled with tears.
Glimmering like sun-kissed summer water on the lake, his eyes broke something in her. As she watched him take slow breaths through her own tearful eyes, she didn’t feel selfish anymore about wanting to keep the baby. Her bond with her daughter wasn’t something she could take or leave. It wasn’t an emotion to ride out. Aiden sensed the connection, too, and he didn’t even have the baby inside him.
Since the pregnancy test, Cora had felt like she was in a scene from a bad adventure movie, clinging to vines off a cliff. The idea of adoption broke off in her hand; that couldn’t be a way out of this. Aiden’s eyes made that clear somehow. The weirdest part was, instead of being weaker, she now had the strength to pull up.
She wiped her eyes. She opened her purse. And she found the slippery black-and-white ultrasound photos no one else had seen.
“Do you want to see her?”
CORA
Friday, May 13, 2016
The tires squawked, scraping against the curb, so Cora straightened them, cringing, and shut off the Prius.
Holly’s little ranch house was perfect, but not showy perfect. Its navy paint with its thick creamy white shutters and trim grounded the cheery yellow front door. The porch light shone unnecessarily in the bluish dusk. Two tall Tuscan pots with flowing plants framed the gateway to good tidings.
Cora was not in the mood. Her week had left her exhausted with school and work and seeing Aiden on Monday. She had half-expected him to text or call, but the ball was in her court to reach out when she knew how he could help. He wasn’t crossing any lines.
Which made things more complicated. Last night, she had even dreamt about him and woke up longing and confused. The worst part was that her wishy-washiness about Aiden made her doubt herself. Her conviction to keep the baby was being gnawed at; fear and self-doubt had scuttled in like rats.
And now she was supposed to be social? Picturing Holly’s confident smile, she white-knuckled the steering wheel. Maybe she would text—she was sorry but couldn’t make it after all. Her stomach was upset; that wouldn’t be a lie.
Headlights blasted her rearview mirror as a truck pulled up. When the door slammed, she scoured her purse to look busy and not like a loitering weirdo.
Tap-tap. A woman with glasses grinned through the window. “Cora, right?”
With no means of escape, she smiled, grabbed the pan of brownies, and opened the door.
“I’d shake your hand, but Holly will kill me if I drop these,” the woman said, lifting her plate of deviled eggs. “I’m Paige.”
“Hi.” Something about her earnest smile made Cora feel at home as they ambled toward Holly’s driveway.
“Sorry I got stuck in surgery and couldn’t come to lunch.”
As Cora opened her mouth, the front door vanished, and Holly appeared on the raised cement step, wiping her hands on an apron like a mother in a 1950s sitcom. The white apron’s bib sported a Wendy’s Old-Fashioned Hamburgers logo.
“My ladies!”
Paige let Cora pass first into her outstretched arms.
She’s a hugger.
“I’m so happy you came!”
“Thanks for inviting me.” Cora stepped in while Paige went through the hug turnstile.
“You brought them!”
“I wouldn’t dare not.” Paige grinned.
“Cora, you have to try one of these.” When Holly peeled back plastic wrap and airplaned a deviled egg toward her, sulfur assailed Cora’s sinuses.
Dodging back, she suppressed an urge to swat it away like a toddler. “Maybe later. Thank you, though.”
Holly shrugged and bit into it. “Mm! Paige.” She covered her mouth. “So good. Come in.”
Cora followed them between the white farmhouse coffee table and the flat-screen TV on the wall.
“You brought brownies!” Holly reached to embrace the dish. “Yum! Thanks, Cora! Courtney’s running late. Erica’s in the kitchen.” Clutching the chocolate loot, she added, “Meena can’t make it.”
Paige followed her toward the source of a buttery, fruity aroma like piping hot pie.
But Cora’s social anxiety and the distant bay windows drew her forward, past them. A silver briefcase lay on the dining room table. A glass door led to a darling deck with cozy colorful places to sit by a verdant backyard.
The trees on the periphery were too gracious to throw much shade. Their tops scalloped the edge of the darkening sky where ribbons of coral clouds had come to rest, mildly sunburned from their long day playing in the heavens.
The beauty pulled on her heart, blending something familiar and something new, precious and perfect and alien. She imagined a playground structure erected in the yard with a girl swinging. Holly was perfect mother material, and she wanted to adopt. Was Holly in her life for a reason? What if she adopted Cora’s baby instead of Emily and Gabe?
The imaginary girl kicked skyward on the phantom swing set, and a ghost of Holly came onto the deck in her apron, wiping her hands as she’d done on the front porch moments before. There were smiles. There was happiness. It was home—a perfect home.
Queasy, Cora spun from the backyard vision, faced with Holly being a perfect hostess. Holly would be a phenomenal mom. Her daughter deserved a phenomenal mom.
“Hey, Cora!” Holly trotted from the kitchen, holding out pink and yellow soda cans. “Do you want some sparkling water?”
An hour or so later, sitting at the dining room table among friends who weren’t hers, Cora felt better. Even though Holly and her home might look like an ideal setup for a happy child, it didn’t mean Holly should mother her baby. Maybe when she was Holly’s age, her life would be put together, too.
Erica, whose perfect balayage made Cora a little envious, played a third Jack—higher than Paige’s three of a kind—and sat back with an extra gigantic smile.
“Nice one, E,” Holly said.
Unruffled, Paige observed the cards for a moment. Then she moved forward and, with a smug side-eye to her presumptuous friend, laid down a second humble deuce: full house.
Erica’s “What?” preceded a whoop from Holly. Laughter and mumbles—some accusatory, some incredulous—were interspersed with satisfied chuckling from Paige.
After the riot subsided, Courtney asked, “Why are men with the biggest dicks the biggest dicks?” Holly’s lanky blonde friend was like a stretched-out fun-house version of Holly with sharper physical and emotional edges.
“Wow, Courtney.” Paige reached across the table, claiming the heap of poker chips. “That’s deep.”
“That’s what she said.” Erica smirked into her glass of sparkling water.
Paige leaned toward Cora, “That may not sound very scientific, but Courtney’s methodical about her sexual conquests. You have a spreadsheet, right?” She winked.
“Spread sheets?” Courtney asked.
The four friends exchanged a look, and their shaking heads established consensus.
Courtney’s sigh sounded chagrined but not contrite about either her failed joke or her failed relationship. “I’m going to miss it.”
“Him,” Erica helped.
“Not Mack.” She jabbed her toothpick into the lime wedge trapped at the bottom of her glass. “Just his cyclopean cock.”
Holly gaped. “You were so excited about him.”
She shook her head. “That ‘love conquers all’ stuff is a load of crap.”
“If you love him—” Erica began.
“I’m over it.” Courtney set the toothpick on the napkin, giving the poor lime a reprieve. “Some loves need space to breathe, or somebody dies.”
“I call bullshit,” Holly frowned. “Do you actually love him?”
“Call it whatever the fuck you want.” Draining her glass, she stood and smoothed her clingy yellow dress on her way to the kitchen.
Holly whispered to Paige, “Do you know what’s going on?”
She shrugged.
The cards fluttered and arced in Erica’s manicured hands. “Your deal,” she said, passing the deck to Cora.
Paige crossed her arms. “How did brunch go?”
“Not so well,” Holly sighed. “Bull: 1; China Shop: 0.”
“You’re the bull?”
“My mom didn’t appreciate being put on blast.”
“I thought she was ‘sex-positive,’” Paige sneered. “Doesn’t she like being the center of attention? I wish your dad could help.”
“He feels bad enough.” Holly turned to Cora. “My mom’s a hussy—a bigger one than I’d realized. I knew she’d cheated on my dad when I was eight. She left my dad for that shitbird, who dumped her later. Apparently, I’m a bastard.”
“Holly?” Courtney’s voice echoed from the kitchen.
“Uh-huh?”
“Where’re your limes, love?”
Smiling at Paige and Cora, she said, “Be right back,” and pranced over to Courtney. “I gotchu.”
“You’re the best.”
Cora shuffled.
In the kitchen, Holly’s voice quieted. “Can I mom you for a second?”
