Beyond Summer (45 page)

My mind raced ahead, clumsy and sluggish, tripping over itself. Maybe it was better that this had happened while Cody was gone.

Nobody would ever have to know. . . .

I wished Dell didn’t know either. . . .

Would she be willing to keep the secret?

I swallowed hard, croaked out, “I don’t want to call Cody. I don’t want to call anybody.”

Dell’s eyes went wide—dark circles surrounded by white until her eyebrows came down over them. Her head tilted to one side. “We have to call him, Shasta. He needs to know.”

“I’m fine. The nurse said it’s . . . no big deal.” I swallowed hard,
no big deal
burning on the way down.

“Shas,” Dell said softly, stroking my hair in a way that reminded me of Mama. I wanted my mother so bad it hurt. I wanted Mama to promise me that everything would be all right. “You can’t keep it a secret.” She fussed with the sheet, and I noticed there was a ring on her finger—an engagement ring.

I grabbed the chance to change the subject to something less painful. I didn’t want to talk about the baby, or Cody, or what’d happened. I couldn’t. “Is that what I think it is?” I pointed to the ring, and Dell nodded. All of a sudden, her visit and my brother’s traveling to Juilliard to help her with her project made sense. He wasn’t there to help her with a project—he was giving her a ring. She was headed to Oklahoma after her conference so they could tell everyone they were engaged. She’d probably planned to spring the news on me when she came to my house. I’d screwed that up along with everything else.

Dell’s lips twitched, like she thought it’d be wrong to look too happy right now. I stared at the ring and tried to smile, and had the fleeting thought that, when Cody saw that ring, he’d feel bad. He’d always wanted to buy me a ring like that one. “It’s really pretty,” I choked out. “When did you guys decide?”

Dell stared at her hand, her face glowing. “A couple months ago, when Jace flew up for our spring concert. We wanted to keep it a secret until I could come down, so we could tell Jace’s kids first.”

“They’ll be thrilled out of their minds.” Who wouldn’t be? For a stepmother, my niece and nephew were getting a girl who did everything right—college, dating, marriage, maybe a baby or two sometime in the future. All in the right order. Completely unlike Aunt Shasta’s screwed-up life.

At that moment I hated Dell, my future sister-in-law, even though I loved her.

But I knew it wasn’t her I hated; it was myself. I couldn’t do anything the way it was supposed to be done. Now I couldn’t even get pregnant right.

I let my head sink against the pillow. “Give Willie and Autumn a kiss for me when you see them.” My voice was scratchy, the words warped by the lump in my throat. “Tell my brother I said he did a good job.”

Dell’s smile fell flat. “Shasta, your mom and Jace are probably on their way here by now.” She shot a guilty look at the door, like she expected my mother to show up any minute.

The pulse monitor did a rapid-fire leap. The fog burned from my mind and a desperate feeling replaced it. “Mama knows what happened?” Suddenly, everything was crashing down at once, and I couldn’t stop it.

Dell’s forehead knotted. “I had to call somebody. Your neighbors didn’t have any phone numbers for your family. They’d left messages trying to track Cody down through the police department, but it’s a big place, and only the night shift people were there. I thought your mom or Jace might know a faster way of getting in touch with Cody.”

A fresh batch of tears stung my eyes. “Tell them not to come. I don’t want them here.”

Dell’s mouth hung open. “Shasta, why in the world not?”

The tangle of emotions inside me broke loose and threads ran everywhere. “It’s just . . . the house is . . . Everything is . . . It’s wrong. I messed up everything. I don’t want Mama to see the house the way it is, and the . . . the plaster’s all cracked in the boys’ room. . . and the pictures are on the . . . on the floor. . . . and I didn’t get the quilts . . . on the red wall. I don’t want everyone to see it . . . to see it like . . . this way. I don’t want them to see my house like this, and . . .” I threw my hands over my face. I wasn’t making any sense.

Dell slipped her arms around me, her head resting over mine. “Shasta, they don’t care what your house looks like. They just want to be here for you.” I heard Tam come back into the room and ask what was wrong. Dell’s chin moved as she mouthed something. I didn’t want to guess what they might be saying without saying anything. I was too tired to care. My mind and body and soul were worn to the core.

I couldn’t do anything but close my eyes and mourn for the baby girl who was real whether the doctors called her
viable
or not. I couldn’t imagine why, when we were in danger of losing everything else, God would take her away from us, too. I’d always been taught to believe that He had a plan, that He knew what was best, that everything worked out for our good.

But none of this was good. Nothing so painful could possibly be good. I closed my eyes and let sleep take me for a while.

When I woke, everything passed in a fog. The talk with the doctor, the paperwork for the billing, waiting forever to finally be discharged, the nurse helping me into a wheelchair, Tam picking me up in her car, Dell saying she’d go get some food and bring it over to the house—it all felt like it wasn’t real. Even the drive home seemed to be happening to somebody else. We passed the church and the Summer Kitchen. I thought about the reading class, but it didn’t matter anymore.

I wondered where Sesay was now. I remembered chasing her away from my house.

Was she the one who went for help? Was it her, or was it Benjamin?

I let my head fall against the window, imagining how scared the boys must of been. What might of happened to them if I’d passed out sooner? What might of happened to me if I’d lain there until morning?
You’re a lucky girl
, the doctor’d said.
An ectopic pregnancy can lead to a fatal hemorrhage.

I watched the church pass by. Teddy was outside with Pastor Al, trimming rosebushes in the memorial garden.

Memorial . . . I wanted a memorial for my baby girl. Nobody would understand that.

She wasn’t really a baby. She never was meant to be. She was only a dream I had.

“You okay?” Tam asked softly.

I shook my head, asked, “Who called the paramedics?”

“Sesay went to Elsie’s house for help. Benjamin let them in the door. You would have been proud of him. He kept his little brother calm and helped the paramedics find your information in your purse. He was a real little man.”

“Benji.” Pride and pain mixed inside me until I didn’t know how to feel. My son was taking care of me when I should of been taking care of him. “Who’s with the boys now?”

Tam glanced sideways with a half smile. “Elsie and Aunt Lute . . . oh, and Barbie. Now, there’s a combination. Barbie left the kids home with my dad. That’s a first, too.”

The night came back to me. I remembered what I’d discovered right before I heard Sesay outside the window. “I saw you and your father on the Internet. There was an article about Householders.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Tam stiffen. I didn’t even turn toward her. I didn’t want to.

“I know. The article was on your coffee table.” Her voice was flat, hard to read. “I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry.”

A laugh pushed past my lips. It tasted bitter. If she knew I’d found out the truth, then why was she here? Why were we still pretending? “I thought you were my friend.”

She pulled away like I’d slapped her. “I am your friend.”

“Yeah, right,” I spat. “What does it matter now, anyway? What’s done is done.” I wanted to hurt somebody. I wanted to hurt her. “Y’all can just move back to wherever you came from—go play tennis and do whatever you people do.”

She leaned forward over the steering wheel, tried to see my face. I felt her watching me as we turned onto Red Bird Lane. “It’s not like that, Shasta. I know that’s maybe what you think, but it’s not like that. Barbie and I talked to my father for a long time yesterday. I took him by the Broadberry Mission. I wanted him to see where some of the families from this neighborhood were ending up. I really don’t think he knew what kind of damage Householders was doing. But he understands now. He watched his own family bottom out when he was nine years old. He knows what that feels like. He wants to help make things right here in Blue Sky Hill, and he has some ideas. There are ways to work against Householders—a class-action suit about the predatory nature of the loans, for one thing. Dad knows some lawyers who lost money with Rosburten, and they might be interested in exacting a little revenge. But lawsuits require time, and even if you win, that only takes care of Householders. While you’re tied up in court, they can sell their assets off to another developer, and the same thing happens all over again. But you can—”

“What does it matter now?” I turned further away, curled into the space between the seat and the door. My stomach ached. My heart ached. I was hurting everywhere.

“Come on, Shasta. It matters, and you know it. My dad said that in the past, Rosburten had some development projects stopped cold by neighborhood associations. You get a big group of property owners and community members together, and organize and form a coalition. The coalition looks after the interests of the neighborhood. They oppose bad projects and support projects that are good for the neighborhood. If the coalition is vocal enough to the press and to city council members, they can make it almost impossible for developers to get the approvals they need at city hall. City council members are elected, for one thing. Public opinion counts. If it looks like they’re supporting development corporations at the expense of the people . . . well, like I said, they have elections to worry about.”

I didn’t answer, just watched the creek pass by as Tam’s car pulled up to the curb in front of my house.

“We can talk about it later.” She put the Escalade in park, then reached over and popped my seat belt. “When you’re feeling better.”

I turned, and Mama’s car was in the driveway. She and Jace were on the porch before Tam and I could make our way there. Jace smiled, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered, “Hey, sis.”

Mama shook her head and spread her hands wide, and without even meaning to, I fell into her arms, just the way I had with a hundred skinned knees and hard knocks and broken hearts before. In spite of all the ways we drove each other crazy, I should of known that Mama would always be there to patch me up. “Shasta Marie,” she whispered against my ear. “Why didn’t you call me? What in the world am I gonna do with you?”

I shook my head, blubbering on her shoulder like a little kid. Mama just patted my back, and rocked me from side to side, and whispered, “Ssshhh, now, don’t cry, baby girl. Don’t cry. It’s gonna be all right. Mama’s here.”

By the time I finally got my head together, I’d soaked her shirt clean through, and Dell was back with a box of fried chicken from the grocery store. She handed it to my brother, and he kissed her, and they looked at each other like they’d forgotten there was anyone else within a mile.

Mama put her arm around me, and we walked through the door. Except for a LEGO tower on the coffee table, the living room was spotless as could be. Someone’d finished hanging the Choctaw baby quilt on the red wall, and laid a woven blanket over the torn spot in the back of the sofa, and put a vase of cut flowers on one of the end tables. Hollyhocks from the backyard. The room looked beautiful.

I stared at it with my mouth hanging open, wondering if I was still back in the hospital, dreaming. This wasn’t my house. My house was a disaster area.

Tam gave me a private little smile, and from the sofa, Barbie winked. Beside her, Elsie nodded and Aunt Lute put two thumbs up. For some reason, her thumbs were baby blue and spring green.

Mama took my purse and set it on the back of Cody’s favorite chair. “You want to lie down in your bed, or sit here awhile?” she asked, fussing over a wrinkle in the neck of my shirt and smoothing my hair behind my shoulder. “I could fix you a little cocoa, or some tea.”

“I don’t want anything.” I forced what I hoped looked like a smile. “Thanks for coming, Mama.”

“Where else would I be?” That sounded more like Mama. Inside that sentence, like the filling in a burrito, was,
Why didn’t you tell me about this house, Shasta Marie?

I turned toward the sofa, toward Barbie, Aunt Lute, Elsie, and Tam, to keep from looking at Mama. “Thanks for helping me last night. Thanks for looking after the boys.”

Elsie batted a hand. “Why, a’course. You’re my neighbor, after all, and my teacher. Who’s gonna teach me if you’re laid up?”

“The little knights have gone to the land of Nod for a nap, I’m afraid,” Aunt Lute chimed in, with a flourish toward the hall. The boys’ door was closed. “They had a long night last night.”

I felt my chin tremble with leftover emotions. My boys. This house would only have two boys in it, at least for now, but I was so lucky they were here. Some people wanted babies and never got them at all. “I need to see the boys, okay?”

I started toward the hall, and Mama followed, catching up and holding me around the waist, like I shouldn’t make the trip on my own. “Cody called,” she said quietly. “He’s flying home.”

I bit my lip, stopping next to a grouping of family pictures that had magically found their way onto the wall. I glanced back toward the living room, and everyone was clustered around the sofa, watching me look at the photos. While Dell was at the hospital waiting with me and helping me slog through all the paperwork, Tam must of come home and gotten everybody busy on fixing up the place, so I wouldn’t be embarrassed when Mama got here. Only real friends would do that for you.