Immaculate, page 29
With that I could feel every last block Izzy and I had built between us falling away. I felt lighter than I had in months, as if there was nothing, no one pressing me down. Before I could analyze that feeling, second-guess whether I was letting go too fast, forgiving too hastily, I floated over to my bed and wrapped my arms around her. She squealed as she pressed up against my belly, cupping her hands around my baby for the first time.
“Really, I just couldn’t stand the idea that Hannah would be the godmother over me. I’ve always expected the co-godmother role, like an avant-garde lesbian godmother couple.”
We both lost it over that, collapsing on my bed in hysterical giggles.
“So can I join in on the party, ladies?”
I jumped to see Hannah leaning against the doorframe, a massive smile nearly splitting her face across the middle.
“Thanks, Hannah, for inviting this wench to my party,” I said, lazily hitting Izzy over the head with my pillow. “You can escort her out now, please.”
“Even I’m impressed by how well I worked my magic,” Hannah said, hopping up onto the bed and wriggling in between us. “This feels right, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t feel too awful, I suppose,” Izzy said, propping herself on her elbow as she smiled over at us.
“As long as you brought a ridiculously nice present, I guess I’m okay with you being here.” I reached across Hannah and grabbed Izzy by the shoulder, pulling the three of us together in a tight huddle. “Promise me that this won’t ever happen again. Promise me that whatever absolutely crazy and absurd things happen in our lives, we don’t run away from one another. And we don’t let any of us run away, either. Each of us could have tried harder.”
We all reached our pinkies out and squeezed them in a knot, our sacred, unspoken oath.
“Well, then, now that we have that cleared up, I do believe there’s a baby shower happening downstairs for you, Mina,” Hannah said, hopping up from the bed. “Dr. Keller and Mrs. Lewis are here already. They’re waiting for the guest of honor to make her appearance.”
“Ugh. My hair looks like shit.” I pushed myself up and tried frantically to smooth down the frizz.
“You’re pregnant. Your hair’s allowed to look like shit,” Izzy said.
“Man, how I’ve missed your brilliant humor.”
“Get used to it, Mama. You’re going to be hearing it for the rest of your life.”
• • •
I could feel my dad hovering throughout the shower, a static buzz in the background that I couldn’t ignore. I was surprised that he was there at all, really, and not tinkering out in the garage or huddled up in his room with the door closed tight and some sort of sports news on the TV. He looked painfully anxious, as if he was just waiting for the shower to end and the ladies to leave. I couldn’t shut him out of my peripheral—couldn’t stop wondering what it was that had him so worked up. But I was in the middle of a circle of women, oohing and ahing over fuzzy onesies and miniature stuffed animals, and any sort of momentary escape was impossible.
As soon as the last present was opened, I excused myself for the bathroom and ducked into the hallway, hoping that my dad would still be poking around in the kitchen where I’d last seen him. He was there, luckily, standing by the large bay window with his back to me as I walked into the room.
“Dad?” I asked quietly, to avoid startling him. “What’s wrong? You seem so tense.”
He turned to me, his face gray against the dark blue of his sweater. My stomach swelled with dread. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“I’ve been following things online, Mina, and there’s been a sort of leak today about some plans that people have. Angry people. People who can’t accept that you’re sticking by your story. I think they’re making plans to all come together, to meet in Green Hill maybe, some kind of crazy protest mob. The details are a little hazy online, but I think it’s happening soon. More than a few people are referencing the plan. I don’t like it, Mina. I don’t want these people anywhere near you. Anywhere near our family.”
“Can you . . .” I choked, the words constricting in my throat. “Can you call the police?”
“Of course I can call the police,” he grunted. “And I will, but they’ve been pretty damn useless so far. Driving a few rounds during the night to make sure everything’s looking normal, but other than that, what have they done?”
Police weren’t the only ones patrolling at night, keeping watch over our house—I’d heard my dad shuffling and creaking around downstairs off and on for the past few weeks, and I’d seen the dark circles under his eyes, the new flecks of silver in his hair. The fear was taking its toll on all of us, but it was hitting him the hardest. He wanted to be our protector. He needed to be.
“People still call,” he said. “People still write. They’re a crew of small town cops up against an enemy they can’t begin to compete with, and an enemy they may even agree with.” He looked apologetic about that last part, but kept going. “We need to find out as much as we can on our own first. We need to find out what we’re really up against before we can decide on anything else. But we’re not going to sit around and do nothing, goddamn it. We’re not just going to let them win.”
“What’s going on?”
I turned to see Izzy and Hannah standing in the doorway.
“Who’s not going to win what?” Izzy asked, her eyes shifting from me to my dad.
“My dad thinks there’s going to be some sort of protest. An organized event in Green Hill, maybe.”
Hannah gasped, her eyes widening with alarm. Izzy reached an arm around her shoulders to steady her.
“So what are we going to do?” she asked. “What’s the plan?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I have to think about it,” I said, dropping into a kitchen chair. “I guess I shouldn’t be completely surprised that this is happening. I mean, really, it’s only been building up to this, right? The more pregnant I am, the closer I get to having this baby, the more the tension is rising, and they couldn’t possibly just let it all go. Not now, not after they’ve put this much attention on me for the last few months.”
“I don’t think it can just be you versus them,” Hannah said, her voice shaky, barely above a whisper. “Or even us versus them. I don’t think we can stop them from meeting, not if they’re not technically doing anything illegal. But maybe we can help bring out other voices, too, the people who have been supporting you, especially since the video went out. The people who believe you—the people who would be outraged that this, this . . . this hate group . . . is taking it so far. What if they came, too? What if they all came?”
Izzy whistled and sagged against the doorframe. “That sounds like an epic battle, Han. A little too explosive, maybe.”
“Maybe, but maybe an explosion is what we need to blow everyone else away. I mean, it can’t keep going on like this, can it? Something has to be done. And if we can’t stop them from coming, the least we can do is make sure it’s a balanced fight, right?”
“Jesus, Han, you’ve certainly changed in six months.”
“It’s been a long six months, Izzy.” Hannah sighed. Izzy’s cheeks flamed, and she looked down at the tiled floor.
“I don’t know, Han, it does sound a little risky.” I looked up at my dad, waiting for his vote.
“She might be right,” he said, turning back to stare out the front window. “If we can’t stop them, we do the best we can to show that we’re not alone. It will at least make me feel like you’re less vulnerable if there are other people standing in front of you. It’s either that . . . It’s that, Mina, or we take you away from here. You leave Green Hill and hide out, at least until everything cools off. Protecting you and the baby is my first priority.”
It wasn’t as if this idea were new to me—it was exactly what I had promised myself I’d do if necessary on that dark, gloomy car ride back from Long Beach Island. And I had thought about it the very first time Gracie told me that she was scared for our safety. But now that I was getting so close to the end, now that Izzy was back, I wasn’t ready to let go of my life here. I wasn’t ready to surrender. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “That seems like giving in to them. Everyone will be fine, no matter who comes and who doesn’t come. The worst they can do is hold signs and scream names at me, and trust me, there’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
My dad dropped his fist against the wooden table, banging a few times without saying a word. Knocking on wood. The action, so subconscious and immediate, made me shiver. I usually laughed when he did that, an old family joke, since none of us were actually superstitious enough to believe in jinxes. But no one laughed this time. I was actually thankful he had done it. Just in case.
I needed anything—any kind of luck or good fortune I could get.
Anything that would keep me and my baby safe.
chapter nineteen
Once word of the official meeting was leaked, none of the details were hard to come by. One of my more fanatical critics had rented out the Green Hill Firehouse for the meeting, and since there wasn’t anything technically illegal about the protest, the powers that be at the firehouse couldn’t stop it from happening. Or maybe they didn’t want to stop it in the first place, since they very well might have been at home painting their own anti-Mina signs and T-shirts.
And as it turned out, when word spread and the media picked up on the event, I didn’t have to do much to rally my supporters. They were outraged enough as it was, and once a leader seemed to emerge, the voice of Team Mina—a feisty fiftysomething woman named Stella from Philly with a background in social advocacy—it was clear that they would be coming to the meeting, too.
“We’re going to be there for you, Mina,” Stella had said to me on the phone a few days after the shower. “Don’t you worry about that for a minute.” I’d reached out to her after she’d first spoken up online about the protest. I was thankful, but even more, I was curious. Curious about how a stranger could care this much about my cause, about protecting me from “injustice.”
“It’s not right what those people are doing to you, and it’s about time they realize how far they’ve overstepped.” She’d paused then and took a deep breath that I could hear rattle against the phone. “Look, Mina, truthfully, I’m not sure what I believe about all this, but that part doesn’t matter to me. I believe in your right to privacy. And there are plenty of people who do believe you. Good and honest people who have more faith in this world than I may have. But I have faith in the fact that it’s the right thing to do, standing up for you. Faith is all different things to all different people. Faith is trust. And I feel the trust in my bones, Mina. You can’t always explain feelings like this. You just do. You just act.”
I’d hung up feeling stronger than ever. But more nervous than ever, too.
I couldn’t let Stella down. I couldn’t let any of these people down.
The big day—Saturday, February 16—arrived sooner than I would have liked, but time was moving strangely in general, too fast and too slow all at once. I was officially full-term, just three weeks left before March 7, though really it could happen at any time now—a crazy idea that made my heart race and my palms sweat every time I thought about it. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was ready for the baby to be out, ready to have my body back, ready to not feel so tired and achy and stretched to the absolute limit. But I was also not ready at all—not ready to put my mothering skills to the test, not ready to see how the media would react once there was an actual child, breathing, crying, laughing. Existing.
We had decided not to go anywhere near the firehouse, of course, but the local news and possibly even national outlets would be covering the event and airing it live, so we wouldn’t miss any of the action. Two police officers were stationed in a car in our driveway, just in case any stragglers made a pit stop here on their way to the main event. I still couldn’t really comprehend the purpose of physically meeting—why the online forum wasn’t enough of a space to bash me. What more was there to say? Why could they not just move on and get back to the business of living their own lives? The time and the effort they funneled into this, it never ceased to amaze and horrify me—their single-minded, long-term dedication to this cause.
Hannah and Izzy, Jesse, my parents, were all there in the living room with me, hunched in front of the TV, waiting for any news updates to come in. Gracie was staying over at Aunt Vera’s and was strictly forbidden from following any of the coverage. My parents had thought it would be too much for her, and they had stuck to their decision, no matter how many times she had begged them to change their minds. As much as I wanted her calming presence, my parents were right. She’d already grown up too fast in the last six months.
I was glad Jesse had come, though. He hadn’t set foot inside of our house since first showing us the footage, though he still insisted on driving me to and from school. He sat with us at lunch, too, but his mind seemed to spend most of the period somewhere else entirely, that distracted, distant look back in his eyes. In the tense moments we found ourselves alone together, in the car or between classes, I had made a few awkward attempts to apologize for New Year’s. But he always cut me off, changed the subject, or cranked the stereo louder. I gave up then on trying for forgiveness. I didn’t deserve it, for one, and maybe it was easier for him to hold on to his grudge. Maybe it was helping both of us to let go gradually, to make the inevitable ending less abrupt.
Because the truth was, once the baby was born—once things settled down and my world felt at least a little bit safer again—his obligation as my guardian could end, any promise to Iris more than fulfilled. He would go off to college, and I’d still be here, in Green Hill. Jesse didn’t owe me anything. He certainly wasn’t duty bound to me for life.
But he was here today, and I was thankful for that much.
At exactly noon the live coverage started, and my stomach burned at the image on the screen: hundreds of people squeezed into the firehouse, and from what I could see, bursting out the door and into the parking lot. I could only hope that some of them at least were Stella’s supporters, because the thought that every single one of those people on the screen was against me—it was inconceivable. T-shirts, banners, posters with my name on it, bright and bold, were broadcasting their messages of hate and anger. I could hear chants, too, rippling under the loud hum of voices echoing in the large, brick-lined hall. I had read hundreds, maybe thousands of messages online, but none of that had prepared me for this—a living, breathing mass of people, actual faces to go with the names, the slurs, the threats. My enemies were no longer black-and-white words and thumbnail photos on my computer screen or hollow voices on the other end of the phone line. They were there, together and unified, just a few streets away.
“I just don’t get it.” Hannah sighed. “I don’t understand what they really want to get out of this. Like, what does yelling and bitching about you all in one room together really accomplish?”
“Unless there’s more to it than we know,” my dad said quietly. The thought gave me chills, and I leaned closer into Hannah to warm myself.
“So you think there’s an ulterior motive to meeting today?” Jesse asked, the first time he’d really spoken up all day.
“I just get the sense that there’s something bigger. Why else come all the way to Green Hill? It just doesn’t add up.” My dad frowned at the TV and reached for the remote to turn up the volume as the reporter came on-screen.
“We’re told that a speech will be starting momentarily, to be given by longtime Green Hill resident Tana Fritz.”
I sighed out loud, shaking my head in bewilderment. Another strike from the Fritzes. The petition—which must have failed, seeing as Green Hill High still hadn’t booted me—the website, now Tana, heading up a protest. Taking it upon herself to be the voice of the town, the public defender of morality and ethics. But she, like her daughter, had never once in all these months reached out to me directly—never once tried to fill in the other half of the story. Her own life must be very sad and very pathetic if she could spend so much energy trying to tear mine down.
“That woman,” my mom muttered, squinting at the screen. “I swear, she thinks she’s the damn mayor of this town.”
We sat in silence while the reporter walked outside of the firehouse to show us the parking lot, which was even more crowded than I could have imagined—a rowdy line of people winding around the side of the building, others bundled up and crammed in lawn chairs set outside of their cars. One man actually seemed to have some sort of electric grill propped up on the bed of his truck, a handwritten sign on it advertising two-dollar hot dogs and sausage sandwiches. It was surreal, completely surreal, like some sort of bizarre tailgate leading up to the big event, only there was no epic sports game or performer set to hit the stage. They were there for me—to attack me or to support me. I did, thankfully, see some pro-Mina banners hovering on the outskirts of the main line. Some of them had shown up at least, driving who knows how many miles just to make sure their voices were heard, too.
We were shifted back into the main room, which Tana was now presiding over, standing behind a makeshift raised podium in the front. She had on a crisp tweed pantsuit and pearls, and I’d have bet money that she’d gone to the salon for a blowout in honor of the big day, with her brassy gold hair so flawlessly bobbed around her chin.
“We are here in this town today”—she looked around the room, hands raised in welcoming—“for one reason. We are here because of Mina Dietrich—because of the lies and the slander of our religions, the abomination of our sacred beliefs that has persisted for months now. Despite our different backgrounds, our different faiths, and our different scriptures, we are here because our morals and our ethics align. We are here because together we are stronger—together we can help to put an end to the lies. Together we can succeed in cleansing this town, our nation, the world. Mina Dietrich must come to understand that her lies must end, especially as we continue to watch others fall blindly into her deception, the increasing number of supporters who are even here amongst us today. They have deceived themselves into honoring this false idol, making a mockery of the truths of our religions that we hold so dear.
