Within These Walls (28 page)

42

Monday, August 2, 1982

Seven Months, Twelve Days Before the Sacrament

A
VIS DIDN’T NEED
to take a pregnancy test to know. Between feeling sick for what felt like the past three weeks and missing another period, the signs were unmistakable. She was anxious, uneasy, precariously balanced between forced smiles and completely falling apart. She needed to tell someone, so she told Lily, the most levelheaded of the group.

Having been pulled by Avis into the girls’ communal room, Lily sat on the edge of the bed in total silence. She looked befuddled, as though not understanding how pregnancy worked. As if thinking,
How could Avis be pregnant? How could that be possible?
What Avis wanted to know was how could she be the
only one
who was going to have a baby? Everyone was sleeping with everyone, and as far as she knew, nobody was using protection. Unless . . .
That’s crazy,
she thought.
Of
course
they aren’t using protection. Why would the boys not use protection with you, but use it with the other girls?
Before Avis could pose the question, a look of revelation crossed Lily’s face. Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted in awe. She had put something together.

“We have to tell Jeff,” she said, nearly gasping at the thought. She jumped up and clapped her hands together in a strange sort of
joy. “Avis, this is
wonderfu
l
! This is exactly the way it’s supposed to happen, written in the stars. Jeffrey promised us, he said the time would come, and now it’s here. It’s here and it’s
you
. We have to tell everyone—a big announcement, something they’ll never forget.”

Avis’s stomach turned at the thought. She was nervous, but she couldn’t keep it a secret. By Christmas she’d start to show, growing bigger around the middle with each passing day. Besides, to keep something so important hidden was to defy her faith in Jeff. If
she
didn’t make the announcement, Lily would do it for her, and then it would be less about
congratulations, you’re a mom
and more about why Avis hadn’t said a word.
Why hide it when it could be celebrated?
she wondered.
This is good. Perfect. Exactly what I want.
Because, despite not knowing who the father was, anonymity seemed appropriate.

They shared everything here.

The child would belong to everyone and, in turn, would promise Avis a place among its members forever.

·   ·   ·

Lily handled everything. She cooked all through the next day, her long red hair piled atop her head like a tangle of fire. She shooed Avis out of the kitchen every time she offered a hand. When the group questioned the special occasion, Lily waved a wooden spoon at them and told them to be patient. Eventually, they let Lily do what she would, which ended up nothing short of Rockwellian when it came to a dinner spread. She arranged food on serving dishes abandoned by Audra’s mother, poised the plates on a lace tablecloth that had been left on the top shelf of a hallway closet. She made a makeshift centerpiece with wineglasses, candles, and wildflowers. When she finally called the group to dinner, they paused at the mouth of the kitchen to stare at the beautiful scene set before them. The lights were dimmed and the candles flickered. The silverware glinted despite its tarnish.

She planned the evening right down to where everyone would sit, marking everyone’s spot with a small teepee of scrap paper, their names carefully printed in tiny capital letters. Naturally, Jeffrey got the head of the table, but to Avis’s surprise, Lily assigned her to the other end. Avis would have liked to sit next to Jeff during such a special occasion, but she couldn’t deny her spot was fit for a queen—a queen who sat across from her king. The rest of the court was sanctioned to fill up the left and right sides of the table.

She was too nervous to eat, pushing food around her plate while smiling at Kenzie’s jokes. She listened as Sunnie and Robin discussed the vegetable garden, and watched Jeffrey from the opposite end of the table as he swirled wine in his glass.

The boys ate. The girls waited.

The boys finished. The girls began their meals.

Before dessert but after Sunnie and Robin had cleared the plates and silverware, Lily rose from her seat and held up her glass. Avis’s heart sputtered to a stop when Lily gave her a thoughtful smile.

“I know you’re all curious about the occasion,” she said. “But once I reveal it, you’ll all come to realize that the fanfare was more than necessary. An expectation for an expectation. A grand event for a grand prediction.”

Someone pulled in a sharp intake of air, as if catching on to Lily’s clues. Avis didn’t see who it was, too busy studying the knot of pine through the lace where her plate had once been. She hadn’t understood what Lily had been talking about the night before, and she still didn’t get what any of it meant. All she knew was that this was important, fulfilling some sort of prophecy. She was the bringer of a kind of divination that had yet to be explained. And again she was left to wonder: why hadn’t she been told of this all-important prediction before?
Still on the outside,
she thought.
Looking in on your own party. Still Audra, no matter what they call you.

“Avis?”

Her gaze snapped up to meet Lily’s. The entire table was staring at her with bated breath. Jeffrey looked smug on his end of the room, like a guy who knew the punch line before the end of the joke. Their eyes met, and he gave her a knowing look, then leaned back in his seat and relaxed while everyone else waited for her to speak.

“Yes?” The word was parched, hardly audible. Her eyes darted back to Lily’s expectant face.

“Would you like to . . .”

Sunnie lifted her hands to her mouth, holding back a gasp. Clover and Gypsy exchanged a secret look and grinned simultaneously. Unsure as to why she would notice such a small detail at that very moment, Avis couldn’t look away from the empty spot at the hollow of Gypsy’s throat. For the first time, Gypsy wasn’t wearing her ornate cross. When she finally managed to pull her gaze away, she noticed Noah staring at her with his alien eyes, wide and disbelieving. Kenzie, however, looked confused. Leave it to Kenzie to not understand what was happening while the rest of the group was clearly in the know.

It was Deacon who spurred her into speaking. Sitting to Avis’s immediate right, he reached beneath the table and placed his hand on her knee in reassurance.

Go on,
it said.
Have faith.

Avis licked her lips, cleared her throat, and squared her shoulders.

“I’m pregnant,” she told them.

The room buzzed.

All heads turned from Avis to Jeff, as if waiting for him to say something in turn. But rather than speaking, he rose a single shoulder up in an easy shrug and lifted his wineglass as if to say
I told you so.
It was such a casual motion, so heartbreakingly gorgeous paired with his crooked half grin. He brought the glass to his lips and took
a sip, and as though that drink had sealed some unspoken promise, the table erupted into jubilant cheers.

Sunnie and Robin rushed to Avis’s side with hugs and kisses, eager hands pressing against her stomach.
But why isn’t anyone else pregnant?
The question continued to spiral through her head. The boys moved toward Jeff, who was quick to receive manly hugs and handshakes.
Why am I the only one?
Clover and Gypsy murmured to each other, but their smiles were steadfast. Nobody made mention of the fact that Avis had slept with every man seated at that table, just as all the other girls had. There was an unspoken understanding: Jeffrey was the father. For some reason, there was no doubt about that in anyone’s mind.

“It’s a miracle.” She heard Robin say it to one of the other girls.

“I always knew she was the one,” Sunnie said.

“It’s perfect,” Lily chimed in.

“Bring life,” Robin whispered.

“Bring life.” The other two joined in. “Bring life, bring life, bring life.”

Avis remained in her seat, afraid to ask them about their quiet chant. She stayed where she was, feeling more unsure than ever before.

After dessert, she retired to the girls’ room while the others stayed downstairs. Because of his waning interest, the last thing she expected was for Jeff to join her. It seemed to her that over the past month, Jeff was far more interested in keeping Maggie and Eloise company than wasting his time on her. And so she was surprised to see him slip into the room and lean against the doorjamb with a sly sort of smile. He said nothing, so Avis broke the ice with a quiet confession.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know,” he said. “Just have faith. Love will be our salvation.”

She frowned, looked away. She could feel his expression fall.

“You’ve been unhappy lately,” he concluded. “Tell me why.”

Avis chewed her lip, tugged at her fingers, considered keeping her silence if only to keep the peace.
Tell you why? Are you really that blind?
She didn’t want to upset him, but it was the first time she felt as though she actually had some power. Having sat at the head of the table for a reason,
she
was the source of that evening’s joy. Perhaps now was the time to demand a few answers.

“Why wasn’t Maggie here tonight?” she asked, daring to glance up at him from behind stringy strands of hair.

“Is that what’s been bothering you?”

“You two look like lovers when Eloise is between you.”

Jeffrey leveled his gaze on her, then pushed away from the door to meet her next to the bed. The backs of Avis’s calves bumped the mattress as he placed his hands on her shoulders. “She isn’t one of us. I promise you that.”

“Then what is she to you?” Avis had no way of proving it, had no reason to suspect, but every bit of her intuition told her that Jeff and Maggie had slept together, just as Jeff had slept with all the other girls. And that would absolutely have initiated Maggie into their circle.

But you don’t know that,
the voice whispered inside her head.
You’re just jealous, and jealousy makes people angry. Unbalanced. Insane.

Unbalanced. That’s what the pills had been for. Pills that Jeff seized from her and poured into the kitchen sink, the toilet, the ocean, out the car window as they drove home from the clinic.

“Maggie is . . .” Jeff paused, considered his words. “She’s a protector, a mother. She has an innate need to take care of things, and we need a few things taken care of by someone outside the family.”

A mother.
Avis clenched her teeth.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like things we’ll leave undone when we leave this place.”

Her face flushed hot.
Leave?
She thought that had been decided, thought it was clear that they were going to stay in Pier Pointe long-term. She shook her head, toeing the line of tears. They were going to leave her alone and pregnant. They were going to abandon her like the butt of a terrible joke.

“But the baby . . .”

“Avis . . .” Jeff began, but she didn’t want to hear it.

“Don’t call me that!” she yelled, pushing him away, moving for the door. “All you do is leave me out of everything!” He grabbed her by the wrist, wrenching it so that she either had to face him or break her arm.

“Avis,” he snapped, annunciating the name to hammer it home. It didn’t matter what she wanted. He’d call her by the name he’d given her. “Don’t be
weak.
” His eyes were hard.

“You slept with her!” It tumbled out of her like morning sickness. She tried to pull herself free, but he wouldn’t let go. The sobs came shortly after. She turned away from him, not wanting him to see her cry.

“Avis, stop it.” His tone was stern, his grip on her wrist fierce. When she failed to quit weeping, he twisted her arm behind her back and shoved her down onto the bed. She cried out in pain.

“You’re hurting me!”

“Good,” he said. “Pain is what you need to get your head on straight. Maybe I was wrong about you.” He twisted her arm harder, and she exhaled a clipped yelp. “Maybe you aren’t as strong as I thought. Maybe you aren’t meant to be part of this family after all, especially not as the mother of my child.”

Her head whipped around. She stared him in the face, ready to scream, to tell him to go to hell. If she wanted to be subjected to such
abuse, she had two parents who would be happy to oblige. She didn’t need it coming from him.

But the moment she set eyes on him, her anger teetered toward helpless guilt. Not understanding how she could go from furious to culpable so quickly, Avis let out a wail. Perhaps Jeff was right. She wasn’t as strong as he had thought, as she had wanted to be; she needed those goddamn pills after all. Something about the way he was looking at her—the disappointment in his eyes?—was too much. She crumbled. He jerked her forward, crushing her against his chest.

“Hush,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s all right. Be strong. Trust me, Avis. You have to—”

“—have faith,” she finished for him, air hitching in her throat.

“Yes,” he said. “Exactly. You have to trust me. Trust in me with your whole heart and I’ll give you things beyond your wildest dreams.”

She breathed out, her sobs stammering to a slow stop. She wanted him to tell her that he loved her, that he was as happy as everyone else about her big announcement, that he was excited to be a father. She wanted to hear that he had been so drawn to little Eloise because he wanted his own child, not with Maggie but with
her
. She pictured their baby—a dark-haired boy like him, or a blond little girl like her. Or perhaps she’d be a mix of both. A blonde with a mysterious soul.

“I’ve been searching for you for what feels like my entire life,” he told her. “And tonight, I’ve been assured you’re the one. You see, I’m on this earth to usher a select few to a perfect world—a world of kindness, happiness . . . of unconditional love. And you’re here to help me achieve that.” He placed his hand on her stomach with a thoughtful glance. “This baby will save us all from a world of ugliness and pain, Avis. And you are its mother. You
have
to be strong. For us. For me. Can you do that?”