Shivering Mind

Chapter 24

  Having torn all the matches out of two different packs, I go to work on the bread basket, ripping off pieces, tearing them into smaller pieces, shoveling them in my mouth. Calvin—I freaking hate that name—stirs a little, frowns, but dozes on.

“Anyway . . . you were there and . . . kind of sad too.”

I plunge another chunk of bread into the butter, ignoring the butter knife, take a bite, and then pause. “Please tell me this wasn’t a mercy f— I mean, that you didn’t have s*x with me out of some kind of pity, Hester. Tell me you didn’t screw up your life—and mine—and frickin’ create his—because you felt sorry for me.”

She twists at this little ring on her pinkie. “No. It wasn’t like that. We talked. A lot. We went to Ward’s room and we talked for, like, hours. You were charming and goofy and, yes, sad, but that’s not why I . . . why we . . .”

Again with the waiter, who recites a long list of incomprehensible appetizers. Hester orders and I mutter, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

“I didn’t really notice how much you’d had to drink. You acted . . . great. I was upset. I wanted to be—not me. I just . . . kissed you. It went from there. It was stupid. I was stupid.”

This little tear slides out of her eye, snakes down the side of her nose. She swats at it, hard enough to make a little slap sound. I wince.

“But, I mean, Hester. Didn’t I even use anything? I can’t believe I was that out of it.” However badly I’ve generally messed up, this is a new low. I thought I’d stuck to being Thoughtless Bastard, rather than Complete Sack of s**t. I mean—I have a sister, after all.

“Oh, you did. You were very insistent on it. Made sure I got your . . . your wallet and all that,” she assures me, turning red. “It’s just that, afterward, you sort of, well, fell asleep without—” She makes this indecipherable waving gesture with her hand.

I decipher it well enough, though. I passed out without . . . removing, disposing of the condom. Which obviously leaked. Or broke. I’m a prince.

“I’m a catastrophe, Hester,” I point out glumly. “You’re too smart for that.”

“Guess not, right?” She takes a gulp of soda like she’s slinging back a shot of tequila. Now the glitter in her eyes comes off more like anger than tears. “I wasn’t smart and you weren’t sober. We made love . . .” She trails off as I cringe.

We made Calvin, not love.

“Then you got kicked out.” She spreads her hands helplessly. “And here we all are.”

“Not qu

ite. Why the hell didn’t you . . . find me, or contact me before things—when you first figured out what was doing. Or why didn’t you ever once—once, Hester—think, maybe you should tell the father? Like, right away?” The waiter, who is approaching with more Perrier, once again scuttles off to a less emotionally volatile table.

“I didn’t know how to get in touch with you.”

“You found me now. You could have found me then. Instead you just went on ahead and had this baby on your own. Decided to keep him long enough to show him to me so now I’m guilty for the rest of my life.” The words are spewing out. “You didn’t give me any choices here.” I almost can’t see Hester; it’s like the whole world is red and swirling, tight and hot as the feeling in my gut.

“Well, I didn’t have a whole lot myself, Max.” She’s definitely angry now. “You were a mess, like you said. Was I supposed to hunt you down and say, hey, mind putting down that liter of rum and the joint so we can have a rational discussion about our baby?”

I try to imagine what I would have done if she had. Got no clue. The Max Mason I was back then is like some loser roommate I had years ago. Except that that guy came over last night and nearly moved back in. The waiter plops down our appetizers, flees without a backward glance.

“Besides,” Hester adds. “I . . .” She circles her index finger around the rim of her water glass. “I—”

I look down at the appetizers. Uh . . . what are they? Never mind.

“What?” I ask, poking with my fork.

“It’s kind of personal.”

I just stare at her. Though I barely know her, we are way past personal.

“I know. Silly, at this point. I have these irregular periods, and I didn’t have any, well, morning sickness, so it took me a long Maxe to figure out.”

“How long?” She can’t have been one of those chicks you hear about who thinks she’s maybe gotten kinda chubby and then gets a stomachache and pops out a baby.

“Ten weeks. Then I went and had a sonogram. He was sucking his thumb . . . he was . . . I couldn’t make any choice except to have him.”

“Oh, Hester. Jesus Christ.” My appetite is gone, but I eat a bite of whatever just to do something other than puke or say I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry over and over and over again.

“This tastes better with lemon.” She hands me a dish of lemons. Like what I’m really concerned about here is the right seasoning. “It wasn’t that bad. Really.”

“You can’t tell me it didn’t suck ass being a pregnant senior at Ellery.”

“Well, good news.” She raises her glass of ginger ale as if she’s toasting me. “It took a long Maxe to be obvious. Of course, a ton of Scarlet Letter jokes after that, but . . . my real friends, they stuck by me. So did Grand, of course.”

“Yeah, and I’ve heard actually delivering a baby is a blast,” I mutter.

“I went for drugs.” Hester actually smiles. “Too bad you never got into epidurals recreationally. They’re the best.”

“I can’t believe you’re joking about this.”

“Well . . . here we are, Max. Things could be a lot worse.”

How? Searching . . . searching . . .

The waiter comes back, practically on tiptoe. I decide to change the subject for a while.

“So, uh, how, uh, old is the kid?” The words sound twisted, bizarre, like I’m some stranger in a checkout line inquiring about a random baby, instead of the one plopped right in front of us, ours, fidgeting slightly in his sleep. “I mean, him, Calvin.”

“He was three weeks early, I think, so now he’s almost five and a half weeks. Beyond his birth weight by two whole pounds.”

“Oh. That’s nice. Uh . . .” I eat more whatever these round things are. They taste chewy and weird. The waiter advances with the wine list. Can’t he tell we’re frickin’ underage? I wave him away with a scowl. Hester toys with her fork.

“So,” she continues in nearly a whisper, “he was born and . . . I ended up finding your address in the yearbook.”

“Wait—did you go to my parents’ house first? With the kid, I mean?”

“No! I called, and I got this girl? She gave me your new address.” The waiter whisks away our appetizer plates, replacing them with yet another plateful of unidentifiable stuff.

I sniff at it suspiciously. This girl. Nan, obviously. She could have given me a heads-up. But then, even though my twin usually fears the worst, how could she guess that some random girl on the other end of the phone would chuck my life into a wood chipper like this?

“So,” Hester says, all businesslike suddenly. “We should talk about the details.” She swishes whatever the hell she’s eating around in whatever that gloppy white sauce is, takes a tiny nibble, sets it back down.

“Yeah, that . . . how exactly do we work this?” And how long do we have to? I gulp more water, draining the glass. At this point, the waiter is totally MIA, avoiding eye contact, standing with his arms folded, eyes cast to the ceiling. “I mean, I’m pretty booked—I have a job, and I’m getting my GED . . . and . . .”

Don’t have Maxe for you, kid. Calvin gives this little flicker of a frown.

Hester looks down at her plate. “We can figure it out. We can get the adoption thing rolling right away,” she says quickly. “But before that’s taken care of, it’s not all on you. I mean, I’ll help, and Grand can too. He wants to meet you, by the way.”

Yeah, I’ll bet.

Wait, did she say she’d help? Am I supposed to be the primary parent here? Hell, no. The baby stirs again, kicking a foot, and then quiets down. f**k. He’s so small. His hand is, like, the size of one of the cherry tomatoes in my salad.

“Don’t think I’m a bad person,” Hester warns. “But I can’t just drop my whole life till I fix things.”

“Obvious who the bad guy is here, Hester. Hey, I’ll work around my schedule. I mean, I’ll babysit, of course, because, because”—I swallow, set my jaw—“he’s my son, after all.”

She nods, blinking rapidly. “He is. Yours.”

Undeniable. I might not get the fatherly bond, but the facts are the facts: I was wasted. I didn’t use a condom right. There’s a baby. Health class 101.

Suddenly, her shoulders start quivering and there’s a complete tsunami of tears, ragged sobs that get louder and louder with each one. Her voice rises and she points a finger at me, jabbing in the air. “I know you don’t want this. But you can’t possibly know what it’s like for me . . . He’s tiny—he was born early and he’s eating all the Maxe to catch up and . . . and . . . he never ever sleeps. He’s always pooping and crying and I have no idea why, what’s wrong. Why can’t he just be quiet? Isn’t it all enough without that? For days after he was born my breasts were swollen and leaking, and I had to have stitches because of vaginal tearing. I’m eighteen years old . . . It’s just wrong.”

Jesus God. Kill me fast. All these other people are staring at us.

“All you did was get your rocks off! You don’t even re-re-member it. And I’m fat now—aren’t I?”

This seems the slightest of her problems, but at least I know the answer to that one. “No! No. Of course not. Not at all. You look just the same.”

As the girl I can’t remember.

Sweat rolling down my forehead. “Better! You look better!”

She gulps, looks around for her napkin, which she must have dropped. I start to hand her mine, and then remember that I spat one of the scallops out into it.

“Better . . . really?”

“Totally.” The waiter is in the corner, examining the ceiling some more. The bunch of women drinking cosmos at the next table look like they want to shoot me in the nuts, chop me up with dull knives, and throw my body in a sinkhole. Go right ahead, ladies, please.

I shove my chair back, come around next to her, pat her on the shoulders. “Shh, Hes. It’s no problem. I got this. I don’t sleep all that well myself, so that’s probably my fault too. I’ll just . . . I’ll just deal. I mean, uh, do you want me to take him—uh—tonight?”

What am I saying? I can’t have a baby at the garage apartment. Overnight? Next to the Garretts? To Matilda? This is like a car pileup that keeps rolling on and on, like some replay Satan shows on a panoramic screen when you get to hell.

“I’ll make sure he has everything he needs, don’t worry,” Hester assures me, her voice even lower and raspier than normal.

That kid is entire universes away from having everything he needs.

Somehow Calvin has managed to sleep through all of this. He stays conked out when we head to Hester’s car, me lugging the car seat, Hester paving the way, somehow having recovered from total breakdown. If these are hormones, they suck.

The entire backseat of Hester’s car, and her whole trunk, are jammed with baby stuff. How can he need so much? He’s the size of a tennis racket.