The Lies We Told (28 page)

By the time we reached the house, she was clearly in agony. I didn’t have to tell her to go to her bedroom. From the bassinet in my room, I grabbed the Easter basket, where I’d stored the sterilized scissors and other supplies. By the time I’d scrubbed my hands and put on a pair of gloves from my backpack, I found Simmee already lying on her bed, underwear stripped off, legs bent and spread above a layer of towels.

“Make it come fast!” she said.

“It’ll come when it’s ready, honey.” I spoke quietly to try to calm her down. I gently felt the baby through her belly. “Head down. Bottom up,” I said, hoping to reassure her. “Perfect.”

She started to push. I wished I had some idea what was going on inside her, but I didn’t want to do an internal exam and
increase the risk of infection. With her water broken, her wild trek through the woods and the less than pristine environment the baby would be born into, the fewer risks I took, the better. All I knew was that there was virtually no time at all between her contractions now.

“Swear to me you’ll take the baby,” she moaned.

“We can talk about it later,” I said. Simmee would be saner later, when the pain and fear had worn off.

“Now!” she said, and it came out like a howl.

I saw the baby’s head crowning. “Don’t push!” I said. “Pant.” I demonstrated. I didn’t know if she obeyed me or not, I was so intent on carefully delivering the baby’s head without tearing her. Simmee started to scream, the first truly violent sound she’d made, and she turned her head into her pillow to catch it. Within moments, the baby’s head was cradled in my hands, and the little body still inside its mother rotated a quarter turn as though it had been born a thousand times before. After one more ferocious contraction, the baby slipped into my hands. He was big and loud, already crying, and suddenly everything—
everything
—made sense. Wiping the infant’s face clean with the damp cloth at my side, I took in his full, perfect lips, his broad nose and black, curly hair and understood all too well the source of Simmee’s desperation.

Simmee reached for him, and I laid the baby on her belly. Crying quietly, she held him close—so close that for a second, I was afraid she was hurting him.

I tied off the cord, feeling the warmth of the infant’s skin against the back of my fingers. The warmth of Simmee’s skin.
I love this baby with my complete heart,
she’d told me.

“Let him nurse if he will,” I said to her after I cut the cord. She wept as I helped her raise her dress above her breasts. She wore no bra, and I watched in awe as instinct took over and
the baby latched on with ease. Simmee gasped, then leaned forward to press her lips to his head. The familiar surge of envy I always felt when witnessing intimacy between a mother and her child swept through me.

She looked at me. “I didn’t think he’d be so…this color,” she said.

“He’ll get darker,” I said. “It’s hard to say how much.”

She ran her hand over his hair. “Tully’ll kill me,” she said softly. “He’ll kill the baby.”

“No, Simmee, I’m sure you’re wrong.” But I wasn’t sure at all.

She lifted her head from the baby, but looked down at him as he nursed. “Sweetheart,” she whispered, “you look just like your daddy, an’ I love you. You gonna have to forgive me.” Abruptly, she pulled him from her breast and held him toward me. “Take him now,” she said, as the baby whimpered. “Put him in the basket. You gotta take him now before Tully comes back.”

I hesitated, absolutely frozen, as she held the baby toward me.

“You need to deliver the placenta,” I said finally, gently pushing the baby toward her breast again. “The afterbirth. The nursing will help it come out.” I didn’t know what Tully would do, but I knew what Simmee needed from a medical perspective—and that felt like the
only
thing I knew at the moment. I would focus on that and that alone. Otherwise, I would go crazy myself.

Simmee hugged the baby to her breast again with a sob. “You don’t understand, Maya,” she said. “Tully kilt Jackson!”

“What?”

“He made up that lie about it bein’ an accident. He knew Jackson was sweet on me and he kilt him.”

“No,”
I protested.

“He told me exactly how he done it. And the reason he won’t go to no hospital? The reason I’m the one who goes to
the store with Larry? The reason Tully come out here in the first place, livin’ in that tent and all? The reason he don’t never leave Last Run? It’s ’cause the police want him, ’cause Jackson ain’t the first person he kilt.” She leaned over again to press her lips to her baby’s curly dark hair. “He done this to me, too.” She touched the scar on her eyebrow. “He said I was too beautiful and he just took the butt of his rifle and whacked me.”

“Oh, Simmee.” I leaned back, horrified.

“He saw me kiss Jackson. I said it was just a friendly kiss, on account of us knowin’ each other all our lives, but that was a lie and he knew it. He already ’spects this baby is Jackson’s even though I told him no way that could happen. That we never done it. We done it a zillion times, though. I loved him so much, but it was all wrong.” She let out a whimper so soft that at first I thought it had come from the baby. “He said he’d kill it if it come out black,” she said.

Fear overwhelmed me, a fear so old it felt ancient. It was the fear from that horrible night in my childhood driveway and from the restaurant in Durham. For a moment, I thought of myself instead of the woman and baby in front of me. By now, surely everyone thought I was dead. No one would miss me if I were to simply disappear.

“He’ll kill
me,
Maya. Please.” Simmee hugged the baby, rocking him back and forth. “I’ll tell him the baby was sick, and the boat washed back up and you took him to the hospital.”

“I…he won’t believe that,” I said. “And I can’t leave you here if there’s a chance he might hurt you.”

“He won’t hurt me if you go now. Go
now!
” She started to pull the baby from her breast again, but I held him in place with both hands and she didn’t fight me. I saw the war inside her. The desire to hold her baby close as long as she could, and the longing to protect both him and herself from danger.

“How would you explain the boat coming back?” I asked.

“I’ll think of something.” She stroked her baby’s skin, trying to squeeze a lifetime of touches into a few brief minutes. “He probly already left Lady Alice’s by now and is out huntin’. Don’t make too much noise. He can hear a rabbit munchin’ weeds a mile away.”

If I hadn’t already been caught up in her panic, I was now.
Don’t think about it,
I told myself.
Don’t think about Tully.

“The pains are comin’ again,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “That’s the afterbirth. Go ahead and push.”

“Please, Maya.” She groaned with the effort of pushing. “Just go. I’m all right.”

“I need to be sure the placenta—” Even as I spoke, I saw her belly contract.
“Push,”
I said.

She did, and the placenta slipped onto the towel. I scooped it and the towel up and carried it out into the yard. Into the trees. I placed it on the ground, and my gloved hands shook as I checked to be sure the placenta was whole. Then I left it and the towel to the animals and rushed back inside.

When I returned to the bedroom, she was again holding the baby out to me.
“Go! Go!”
she shouted.

I stared at the baby. Her perfect, beautiful son. “I’ll get him back to you,” I said. “I promise. Somehow.”

“No! Don’t ever try. He’ll kill him. I planned this perfect. You got to
leave!
” She held the baby in the air between us, and after two seconds’ hesitation, I reached for him. Even so, she didn’t let go at first. She clung to him, her face drenched with tears. “Love him for me,” she said.

“I’ll keep him safe,” I whispered, and she released him gently into my arms.

T
HE BATHROOM IN THE TRAILER WAS INSANELY SMALL
,
THE
shower nearly claustrophobic, but she wished she had the time—and a large enough water supply—to stand under the spray for the rest of the day. She was on her lunch break and she’d dropped off a list of supplies to Dorothea, then taken a much needed run. The clinic had been crazy all morning and even though she’d only had two beers the night before, she’d been battling a minor hangover. Or maybe it was just that she and Adam and Dorothea had stayed up too late talking the night before. They’d talked about DIDA and Maya and Louisa and nothing and everything, the conversation often bittersweet, and Rebecca had been glad for Dorothea’s presence. It wouldn’t have been a good night to be alone with Adam. She’d felt too close to him and entirely too vulnerable. Although they’d switched to iced tea and bottled water once the beer had run out, she’d felt as buzzed as if she’d been drinking tequila, and this morning had passed by her in a fog.

She stepped out of the shower and was toweling off when
the bathroom door suddenly burst open and Adam took one step into the room.

“Whoops!”
He backed out quickly, and she heard him chuckle on the other side of the door. “Didn’t know you were here,” he said. “Sorry.”

Rebecca stood in the tiny bathroom, the towel clutched in her hands. He’d seen her for two seconds, maybe less, but that had been long enough for her to feel the quick sweep of his gaze over her body. She leaned back against the wall, holding the wadded-up towel to her chest, her mind spinning back to the conversation she’d had with Dorothea less than an hour ago. She’d found Dot in the kitchenette of her trailer, up to her elbows in paperwork, and Rebecca felt as though she was looking at her future. It was not a pretty sight. Maybe she and Brent
should
direct DIDA together, she’d thought as she surveyed the mess on the table. She would give him all the paperwork. She’d go out of her mind if she had to shuffle papers all day.

“Brent told me you turned him down,” Dorothea had said when Rebecca handed her the list of supplies.

“Oh,” she said. “How’d he sound?”

Dorothea shrugged. “He’ll live.” She glanced at the list of supplies, then set it aside. “It was the right call on your part.”

“I know.” She reached for the doorknob. “I’m going for a run and then head back to the school.”

“Did you feel this way about Adam even when Maya was alive?” Dorothea asked.

Rebecca’s hand froze on the doorknob. She turned back with a frown. Dorothea was innocently pushing papers around on the table.

“
What
way?”

Dorothea raised her head, giving her a look that said it all.

Busted
.

Rebecca had sighed. She’d walked the two steps to the table and sank onto the settee. “No,” she admitted. “Not like this. I was always crazy about him—you know, as Maya’s husband. Who wouldn’t be? But I—”

“It’s not a crime, babe.”

Rebecca had lifted one of the papers from the table and looked at the text without reading it. “Well, it feels like one. Maya’s body hasn’t even been found,” she said, then added quickly, “And we have
not
slept together, so don’t even go there.”

“Who was going there?” Dorothea tried and failed to look guileless.

Rebecca dropped the paper to the table and let out a breath. “It’s way too soon and it’s one-sided, anyhow,” she said. “I think I’m just—”

“What makes you think it’s one-sided?”

“Well, for starters, he’s grieving for his wife.”

Dorothea had shaken her head. She’d folded her arms and leaned hard on the table. “You’re so busy looking at him,” she’d said, “that you haven’t noticed how he’s looking at you.”

Well, now she
had
noticed. She’d felt his eyes sweep over her. He may as well have been touching her. She
wanted
him to touch her. It still felt wrong, though. Whether it
was
wrong or not, she couldn’t get past the way it felt.

Stop thinking, then.
She wrapped the towel around her body, tucked it in above her breasts and left the bathroom.

He was closing the refrigerator door, a bottle of juice in his hand. “Sorry ’bout that.” He gave her an apologetic smile. The window spilled a sliver of light down his forehead, his cheek, his chin. It pooled in his left eye like honey. Turned his brown hair gold on the left side of his head. He was her family and he’d quickly become her closest friend. Now she wanted more than that.

She walked toward the refrigerator and stood in front of him.

“Adam?” she asked, and she hoped he understood the question she was posing without her having to explain.

He did. He set down the bottle of juice and rested his hands on her sides, his thumbs close to her breasts through the towel. He leaned his head down and she felt his lips on her neck. She drew her head back so that his lips would meet hers, and when they did, she felt the rush of heat between her legs. The point of no return. His fingers lightly grazed the tops of her breasts as he freed the towel, and it slipped down her body to the floor.

Two weeks,
she thought.
Maya’s only been gone two weeks.

She caught his hands in hers and pulled away, shaking her head in apology.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is so wrong, and it’s totally my fault. And I just…I can’t.”

He was slow to nod. He bent over, his hair brushing her thigh as he picked up the towel. “I know,” he said, as he wrapped it around her. “It’s okay.”

She tucked the loose ends of the towel above her breasts again, her fingers shaking. “I’m so…” She looked to the left. The right. Anywhere but into his eyes.

Images filled her mind: Cradling phantom babies. Kneeling next to the Maya look-alike lying in the school hallway. Spotting her parents on the bleachers. Squeezing her hands around Tristan’s delicate rib cage while she lost herself in Adam’s dark eyes. Recoiling from the stack of paperwork on Dorothea’s table.

“Bec?” Adam ran his hands down her arms. “You all right?”

She lifted her hands to her face and began to cry. “I’m so screwed up,” she said.

“Hey.” He pulled her close. “No you’re not.”

She pressed her fingers against her eyes. “I am,” she said. “I’m a mess.”

“Come on.” He led her over to the couch and she sat down, lowering her hand from her face to hold the towel tightly against her breasts. “You have a right to be a mess,” he said. “We both do.”

He didn’t understand. He couldn’t.

“It’s not just Maya,” she said.

“Tell me what it is then.” He took one of her hands from where it clutched the towel and held it on his knee. “Tell me,” he said again.

“I don’t know who I
am
anymore.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Remember what you said about my family story?” she asked. “Maya’s and mine?”

“Yes.”

“How I’m…I don’t remember exactly what you said. Tough and wild. I sleep around. I—”

“I never said that.”

“You know that’s part of the story, though,” she said. “How I don’t want kids. How I’ll be the director of DIDA someday. Right? That’s all part of the story, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Well, lately, I feel…” She didn’t know how to put it into words. “Sometimes I feel like I’m anything but tough. Like I’m a total wimp. More like Maya than myself.”

“I don’t see that.” He looked solemn. “You are seriously the strongest woman I know.”

“Everyone has all these expectations of me, Adam! I have to jump out of planes. I have to fly off to God knows where at a moment’s notice. I have to take over DIDA. I—”

“You love all that stuff,” he interrupted.

“I do! But I feel locked into it all. It doesn’t feel like my choice anymore. I’m living the life everyone else expects me
to live, when what I might really want…” She shook her head. “Maybe I
do
want kids. How would I know? I’ve never even allowed myself to think about it because kids don’t fit into the life I’m supposed to live. But ever since Maya’s miscarriage, all I can think about are babies and kids, and lately all I can think about is…I keep thinking about
you
.” She looked down at her bare knees. “I feel close to you, and that feels good and it’s terrible for something to feel good when Maya is gone.”

He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “I know,” he said, and she could tell that this was one thing he
did
understand.

“I feel fragile right now, Adam. Where did the tough woman go? She’s gone. I’m like an eggshell, cracking into a million pieces.”

He smiled. “I like that image,” he said.

She pulled her hand away. “Well, I don’t!”

“I do.” He put his arm around her. “Come here and I’ll tell you why.” He reached for her, and she let him pull her closer to him on the couch.

“Why would you say that? Why do you like that image?” she asked.

“Because sometimes cracks in an eggshell just mean that a new chick is trying to be born.”

“Oh.” She went still in his arms, touched. He rubbed her back and she pressed her face to his shoulder. Then she smiled to herself, giving him a mock slap on his thigh. “Did you just call me a
chick?
”

He laughed. Leaning away, he smoothed his hand over her damp hair. Her cheeks. Her throat. He kissed her again and everything inside her began to melt. But she
was
stronger than she’d given herself credit for. She didn’t want to regret this moment.

She drew away from his arms and stood up. Taking his hand in hers, she leaned over to kiss his cheek.

“Thank you,” she said, and she walked toward the bathroom, knowing she’d made the right choice. This was not the time. Not today. Not yet.

Someday soon, though, it would be.