Next to You (Life) (19 page)

“Somehow, I doubt long process means the same to you as it means to the rest of the world, Dan.” She shakes her head giving me what I think is a condescending smile. “Yeah let’s go and check out the place, and there better not be any signs of construction there or… I got nothing. My insufferable man, I love you.”

Chapter 34

“
T
hat’ll be us
soon, Baby,” I whisper to Becca, who stiffens, after Tyler and Ash announced they are pregnant. The timing to announce the good news seemed perfect, Sunday brunch. They invited us today; they’re making it official to everyone in the family. Later they’ll be having dinner with Ash’s parents. “You okay?”

She’s nods, but I still worry. Her head says yes, but I don’t believe that she is okay. Becca’s odd behavior for the past few days has me guessing at what’s going on inside that head of hers. If the pattern continues we might have to have a serious talk or hit the couples counseling section of the yellow pages.

“Congratulation,” I say. “I’m guessing Ashley will stop tying ties around your office’s door handle?”

“Until it’s time to make number four,” she beams. “I should thank you, Daniel, for not buying our children a crazy present. That’s your new routine every time you visit.”

“Becca,” I blame her for not letting me go overboard, she stopped me several times before I bought an electric car for Mattie or that expensive porcelain doll for Angie. “She wanted educational, and simple.”

Becca fakes a smile, raises up from the couch and starts picking up the wrapping paper and the toys from the floor. Then, along with the kids, they take the toys to the upstairs play room.

“Are you two okay?” Tyler questions. I hope so, I want to answer but instead I shrug. “Just making sure, she’s acting weird.”

At least he confirms I’m not crazy, but since we’re visiting I decide to let it go. For that purpose, I talk with Ty and Ash about the construction of our house. We broke ground a week ago and poured the foundation two days ago. The construction will officially begin next week and from there it’ll be a matter of months before it’s ready to move in. That’s not exactly what Becca has planned, but we’ll cross that bridge when it’s time, not now.

After a couple of hours, I venture to the second story of the house where Becca disappeared to without saying a word. There I find the three of them playing with the toys they received earlier today. Mattie is building some Lego ship with the help of Becca, while Angie sits on her lap coloring in the thick princess book we bought her. As I observe them I think to myself that this should be it. The outcome of our lives in a few years, her playing with our children… no, us playing with them during Christmas morning after we’ve opened all the presents and had the official Christmas breakfast, and on Saturdays, Sundays and evenings during the week.

“Why are you dissecting me?”

“Dissecting?” I ask her, and she nods without even looking at me. “I’m just enjoying the view. Imagining you doing this in a couple of years with our own children at our home. I love the niece and nephew but—“

“Sometimes you expect too much from me, Dan, you should lower those expectations,” she says, pointing at some diagram and the piece of Lego Mattie holds. “Maybe I’m all you’ll get, and if you can’t live with that, you should rethink all the work you’re pouring into our relationship.”

Where the hell did that come from? But before I can ask or jump into the conversation and find out what exactly is bugging her, Ash joins us.

*

Six days, and I haven’t seen my so called girlfriend. After Sunday, she disappeared from the face of the Earth. Between babysitting for Ashley, visiting with Buddy and helping with the new shelter that she plans to open come August, I haven’t seen Becca. Our texts go from I’m not home yet, to I’ll stay at Ty’s tonight and can you keep Rusty. If the texts didn’t follow the customary I love you with the usual hug and kiss, I would think she’s about to break up with me. Among those six days and her busy schedule, she found time to visit her shrink five times. A detail I learned from Tony, who’s been following her everywhere she’s been going to—a caution since her kidnapping. That’s where I am at the moment, leaning over her car and waiting for her to finish her appointment. Like a truly stalkerish boyfriend wondering if she’ll hand me yet another restraining order.

So far I only know that something is wrong, her lack of communication concerns me and pisses me off. I wonder if I should let her go, following her advice from six days, three hours and about twenty seven minutes ago… I need to get a hobby. But then, there’s that part that she’s my other half. If I plan to take that for better or worse, I have to confront her and work the shit out. I relax after talking myself into doing the right thing, sure of the outcome after we have a long honest conversation. In that moment, my cell phone chimes. A text.

Becca: We need to talk.

Dan: You think? At least this time you’ll do it face to face.

Becca: It’s not what you think, but you might send me packing after you hear what I have to say.

She appears with red, swollen eyes and a tissue in hand. Fuck I thought we passed that stage long ago, except, that’s how she looks as she paces toward me. I want to hug her once she closes the distance between us, but her stiff body warns me not to even try it.

“Keys.” I push myself from the car and extend a hand. She hands over the car keys and opens the passenger door for herself. “Your place or mine?” She shrugs and gets in the car.

The silence inside the car is killing me and I have no idea what to say without starting a fight.

“Is there another secret you forgot to tell me, Rebecca?” I ask at the stoplight, the last one before we arrive at the subdivision where we live. She nods and I can’t think what can possibly have her on the verge of losing it yet again. “I thought we had come clean.”

No, I remind myself. I thought about sitting down with her and finalizing the chapters that included all the drama of our past life. However, between making love to her, enjoying the moment and planning the future I set it aside. Instead of parking in front of my house, where Rusty is at the moment, I open the garage door of hers and drive Becca’s car inside. She jumps out of the car before I turn off the ignition and after closing the doors, I follow her inside.
Give her some space,
I tell myself when I step inside the living room, and I find a letter addressed to me.

Chapter 35

Dear Dan,

There’s one more thing, one last piece of information I’ve been holding and I think I’m ready to let it go. After this there are no more secrets. This was—is—the most painful one. A secret so dark—I thought—hell was the only thing I deserved.

Remember that time I told you I was a bad person, that you don’t know me? You brushed it off, saying there wasn’t anything else I could surprise you with. There was, is…semantics. Back then of course, I considered myself an evil character—worse than Snow White’s stepmother.

There’s this scientific thing about the birds and the bees, the urban legend about the stroke is a myth. Of course there are plenty of books to support the explanation of how children are made and how you can prevent them.

Girl + boy + sex – protection = baby

The thing about being raped by a drugged-drunk asshole, is that of course they don’t give a crap about protection. I assume none of them carry any condoms with them. If they do, well I bet at the time they sodomize their victim, the last thing that goes through their head is to cover up.

“Rebecca,” I stop reading the letter and call her. “I’m done with the fucking letters. You have something to tell me, say it to me. Have the courage to do it face to face.” I’m shaking, and I’m not sure if it’s the rage that she won’t talk to me or what I’m thinking this is all about. “I swear, if you’re not here after I count to five, I’m leaving and you won’t see me ever again. Ever. No matter how much I love you, we’re over.

“What the fuck happened?” I flutter the letter I’m holding when she appears before I start the countdown. “We’re occupying the same space, Becca, there aren’t thousands of miles separating us. As far as I know, we wiped that emotional gap, until last Sunday when you began to pull from me—again,”
when Ash and Ty told us they were expecting a baby.

“The first time Ian raped me,” she took a deep breath and sustained my gaze, “nothing happened. But the second… well of course my luck had run out or it hit the right time of the month. A few weeks after Ian and Lisa died, I got the flu. Four days after not being able to hold down any food, I went to the nurse’s station at my high school. No fever or any other symptoms clued her into giving me a stick to pee on. Needless to say, the test came back positive. Those commercials where they have a couple hugging each other and looking as if life couldn’t get any better, were the entire opposite of what my mind had going on.

“I was seventeen, as you know, my grades and standardized test scores didn’t entice schools to give me a scholarship and on top of it, I had a life form growing inside me.” She changes her gaze to the floor and begins to draw circles with her foot. Becca suddenly clutches her stomach and now not only her choking words, but her body are telling me I’m an asshole for making her do this. “One I didn’t ask for, the product of an unspeakable act. There was no one to support me—emotionally or financially. The desperation didn’t allow me to think straight.

“You know what the nurse said?” She lifts her chin and chuckles humorless. “’You’re pregnant.’ As if I hadn’t been able to read the test myself. She wanted to call my parents, like that would’ve helped me. I said no, and ended up having to beg her not to do it. I made up a story that after Lisa’s death, the daily pain they lived in, that my news wouldn’t sit well at that moment. She asked me questions and tried to find out who the father was and if I would have support from anyone. That freaked me out so much.” This is too much information for me, the news of the baby is a direct hit to the gut. I’m not sure what to tell her, I want to soothe her but I know there’s a lot more of the story she has to tell. Two pages front and back that I should’ve read instead of making her talk. The hitching breaths continue, and I let her relive another chapter of her fucked up life. “Not once had I ever done something terribly stupid in my life, that day I did. I took my stuff out of my locker, got in my car and headed to Boston skipping the rest of my classes. When I got there, my teenage brain saw yet another door slamming right in my face. If I told you, you’d find out about everything.

“No, don’t,” she says, as I’m about to say something. “Let me finish, you want me to `rehash it, now you listen. I went to the library, the one that’s close to your old office. That’s where I found out that a seventeen year old single mother has little to no options without her parents’ support. Being underage has more disadvantages than you can imagine.” She huffs and shakes her head. “I had no options and no way to survive. If Donna didn’t sign my driving permit or my driver’s license, I doubted she’d sign a release for a medical procedure. I didn’t have a high school degree yet, the option of going to college was close to impossible. The thought of having a baby from such a violent act was inconceivable. It appeared as if I had no other choice.”

What the fuck? I want to yell at her, what did she do?
I could’ve helped her.

“The plan was set and there are a couple of states right next to Massachusetts that didn’t require parental consent for an… abortion,” she whispers the last word. I run a hand through my hair to stop myself from shutting her up. I don’t think I want to hear the rest of this shitty story. “The cost of 500 dollars would hit my bank account hard, but it had to be done. I’d drive to Connecticut on a Friday and I’d be back home the next Sunday.” Her blank stare remains as she wets her lips and continues. “Annie gave me the weekend off. I told her I’d be visiting you. For a week I used those prayers grandma taught me when I was little. Anything and everything to ensure things would work out, a sliver of luck to fix my messed up life. Images of struggling with a kid I didn’t love for the rest of my life haunted me. Obviously my fear overpowered my thoughts.

“Something happened, but not the way you think.” She finally looks at me, as if knowing my instant disapproval. “I lost it—the baby. Two days before my appointment. During the night I had cramping, back pain and by the end of my second period class, my classmates mocked me for staining the seat with blood. The nurse helped me, again. She gave me clean clothes and drove me to a free clinic outside of Boston where they did some procedure. She tried to convince me to call my parents or at least seek a counselor, but I refused, holding onto that story that I didn’t want them to suffer after Lisa.

“In my mind, I had killed him, Dan, with my hate, my prayers and the poison I carried inside.” She shakes her head and hunches her shoulders. “That made me ten times worse than Donna; the person who hated her own child.

“There’s my very last secret.” Her trembling body can barely keep her standing, her words come out shaky. “One of the many things I carried with me for so long. It’s just another reason why I told you that you could find better than me. You said you want kids, a family and during those days I thought… I made myself believe I was a murderer. After what I had done, I didn’t deserve happy, or a chance to have another kid.

“In September of last year, a little boy that looked so much like Ian got lost in the crowds of the mall.

“‘Mommy,’ he yelled and cried right in front of me.

“I froze, Dan.” Becca releases her arms and begins to tug her sweater. “Instead of helping him my body numbed itself and my chest tightened. He brought that memory back, the one of the child I murdered—lost. The next thing I knew, the paramedics were asking me questions about my family. Who to call and other things I couldn’t remember because the mother and the child remained in front of me, staring down and I felt judged by them. Crazy, of course, their reasons to stand and watch had to do with something else. From there, the bad dreams intensified and my mind couldn’t get past the ideas I set in stone years ago. Then I met Ryan—Ian’s nephew. The idea that I got rid of someone just like him haunted me too. If I hadn’t wished him dead, I would have a six year old child, but my selfishness had won and he died.

“I forgave myself,” her tearful voice continues. I take a step forward to hug her, and she takes one backwards and holds a hand high as she shakes her head. “Not for killing the baby, but for being stupid. Years later, extensive and expensive therapies and the maturity to understand what happened back then has allowed me to forgive. It’s clear now that everything was the result of a sequence of events outside of my control, including getting pregnant and losing the baby. Did the prayers help? Perhaps they did work but in some different way, like keeping me sane and burying everything that happened, because God knows what would’ve happened to me if I had to face my nightmares back then. Losing the baby that way was a blessing in disguise. Not that losing a life is, but… Would I have survived physically or mentally after doing it?

“It is clear to me, that a baby back then isn’t the same as one today. I wanted to believe that when I was ready, it would happen. That I’d have a baby, a product of love.” I don’t like the past tense, and now I’m worried because adding the speech she gave me over at the Sanders’, she is giving me the notion that either she doesn’t want them or… “I was late, for a week. I had this internal discussion going inside my head about it. What will you think about the baby? Would you freak out, how many steps would you skip?” She scratches her chin. “Last Saturday, I went to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test.” Then she pauses. “They had four shelves with like six different brands and types and… the trip itself overwhelmed me. As I arrived home I took one and it came out inconclusive. I told myself to wait another day. However, around midnight, when I was getting ready for bed…” She got her period, I remember and also the sad face and the moment she collapsed on the bed and said she was too tired for anything.

“I Googled.”

“How many times have I told you that it’s not a magic eight ball?” I flap my hands, because she likes to diagnose herself with that damn thing. “Enlighten me, what the hell is wrong with you according to Dr. Google, that is about to break us up again?”

“If they didn’t perform the procedure at the free clinic correctly,” she sighs, “chances are I might not be able to have a baby or will have difficulties. Everything was fine, until Ash gave us the news and you jumped on the baby train. That’s going to be us soon, you said…or something along the lines. My point is that I—“

“That I love you, Rebecca,” I interrupt her because the hormonal train she jumped on when I jumped the baby train hasn’t stopped yet.
Can PMS last an entire week?

“First, don’t do this to yourself, Bex.” I finally approach her and envelop her into a tight hug. “We’re not even trying to have babies yet. When have I not delivered, Princess? Don’t forget the insta-family I want…triplets right?” She chuckles after that pathetic joke. “I always get the job done, even under the worst conditions.” She growls and laughs and I decide to stop the stupid jokes. “In all honesty, don’t forget that science these days can make everything possible. Nonetheless, we have another option, adoption. Look at Ophie and Rich Swanson. They couldn’t have children but they are the parents of two rowdy men. Bud and I will always be thankful to them.”

“You don’t hate me?” she whispers. “I saw the rage in your eyes when I told you—”

“I’m sorry, I have no right to judge, but just so you know, I would’ve been there for you.” I rub her back to smooth the stiffness accumulated after making her talk. Yes, I’m an asshole, but talking face to face brings us together on a deeper level. “You were a kid yourself, one who had gone through hell and barely came out alive. Let me assure you that even back then you had a support system; Ash, Ty and of course me.

“You know how I think it would have played out. You go to the clinic, freak out about it and call me right before you go inside the room. Either Nate or I would’ve picked you up. At the end, we would’ve found a way to work things through—together.” I kiss the top of her head. “That’s the Becca and Dan way—us against the world. I’m not saying you’d be a mom, most likely we’d have given the kid to a couple that wanted it. Thank you for telling me, now I get what happened back on September twenty first of last year.” She pushes herself a little and stares at me. “That’s when the domino effect took place and everything crumbled down. A part of me wishes you had stayed next to me, so I could have been there for you while fighting all these dragons, warlocks and witches, but it seems that you were smarter and took the mature way to fix your crap. I don’t like that you shut me down, baby, but I get you had to work it out before confronting me. From now on, talk to me, like I do every time something is bothering me. So, you want to go upstairs to practice that baby making thing?”