Every Little Thing in the World (6 page)

I cleaned Rebecca up and slathered her with Butt Balm—she always had a screaming red rash, which I knew came from wearing the cloth diapers instead of the disposable ones. As soon as I had her all diapered and fresh, she started screaming, like she'd just realized she was hungry and knew there was nothing I could do for her in that department.

“Okay, okay,” I said, carrying her downstairs to her mother. If Rebecca were my baby, I thought, there would be no one to hand her off to. If I had a baby next year, she would barely be one year younger than my own sister. The idea would have made me wail right along with Rebecca if it still didn't feel so untrue. In my heart, I couldn't quite make the idea of a baby seem real. I felt totally normal, not at all like my body was busy spinning little fingers and toes and internal organs.

I carried the crying baby out into the bright sunlight, back into the arms of her rightful owner.

When my dad's truck pulled up that evening, I was waiting
for him in the driveway. Kerry worked in the kitchen, basting a free-range chicken while the twins played with wooden blocks underneath the table. I had Rebecca on my chest in a BabyBjörn. Kerry had filled her up with mother's milk before strapping her onto my body and shooing me out the door.

Dad climbed out of the truck and squinted at us, his two daughters, as if trying to remember exactly who we were. “I have to talk to you,” I said to him. “I spoke to Mom today.”

“She told me.”

“She did?” The thought of my parents talking—maybe even agreeing—was as unbelievable as my pregnancy.

“She called after you spoke. I told her what I had in mind for you, and she thought it sounded like a good idea.”

“Listen,” I said, the panic rising again. “I think the best thing would be for me to go home and start my job. I can probably still get it back. What if I promised that I'd give everything I made to Mom to pay for school?” As soon as I spoke, I saw my money for the abortion flying out the window. But as long as I could get home, I knew I would find the resources to take care of myself. It was only being out here, stranded, that made me helpless.

“I don't know how much they're paying you at the country club, but I don't expect it would make a dent in your tuition.”

“But you know,” I said, “it would be good for me, to work and to make sacrifices.”

“I don't see sitting on your ass watching rich people swim as much of a sacrifice,” Dad said. I stared at him. He almost
sounded angry, which was at least an emotion. I reached up and took hold of Rebecca's hands, which she had been waving in an effort to get his attention. So far, he hadn't seemed to notice.

“I could help Mom around the house,” I said, my voice getting fainter, the fact of my losing battle more and more apparent. Dad just stood there squinting at me, like a cowboy in some black-and-white Western.

“Remember I told you yesterday about Bob Pearson's friend who runs canoe trips in Canada? It's called Camp Bell Wilderness Adventure.”

I could hear a cow, lowing off in the distance. A quieter, mewling sound answered its call. A mother, probably, searching for a wayward calf.

“Well, Pearson's friend—his name is Campbell—has a farm not far from here, just a mile or two up the road.”

“Campbell,” I said. “I get it. Camp Bell.” Dad put his hands in his pockets, and I could tell even he agreed this was unspeakably cheesy.

“Pearson takes care of his place in the summer, when Campbell's up in Canada,” Dad said. “I've worked out a deal with them. You can leave next week to spend July in Canada, canoeing on a lake in Ontario. Then when you return you'll work at Campbell's farm in August to pay him back. You'll live here and spend the day working in his vegetable gardens, weeding and picking, and selling produce at his roadside stand.”

I tilted my head. “I'm going to spend a month canoeing?”
A quick time line formed in my mind. Five weeks plus one week plus four weeks.

“You used to like it,” he said. “Being on the water.”

The first three summers after my parents divorced, Dad had taken me river rafting on the Green River in Colorado. We went with one of his friends, a divorced father who had two kids close to my age. We would spend a week winding our way down the river and camping every night in tents on the bank. Before I'd discovered boys, and beer, it had been the most fun I'd ever had in my life. It surprised me that my father knew this. It surprised me even more that he'd want to give it back to me now. From his perspective, it must have seemed more like a gift than a punishment. And even though I knew the idea should send me into a giant panic—weeks lost, farther and farther from any chance of abortion—for some reason it flooded me with calm.

“I think it will be good for you,” Dad said, as if reading my mind, “to get back to something healthful, something physical. It will be good for you to go to sleep outside with aching arms. No cell phones. No Internet. No TV. Just campfires and constellations. I'll give you a map of the summer sky to take with you. It seems to me you've got so much noise in your head, you can't even remember who you are. Maybe this will remind you.”

My eyes filled up with tears. I pictured myself as the person I wanted to be—not pregnant and escorted home by the Overpeck police, but strong and wholesome, my arms cut and brown from a month of rowing and living on the water.
I wondered what the other kids would be like, the ones on the trip, and imagined the cool new friends I'd make. It was so unexpected, this sudden adventure. I couldn't believe my dad would think of it, that he'd want to send me on a trip like that instead of making me work at his place—the Cinderella stepsister, tending babies and sweeping out the fireplace.

I thought about myself just floating down a river. Not worrying about where the water would take me, but just letting myself be carried away. It seemed so easy, so effortless.

“That sounds amazing, Dad,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

He smiled. Probably he'd expected me to be indignant instead of grateful. He patted me on the head, an awkward attempt at affection, and I stepped forward and hugged him. I put my arms around his waist and pressed my face into his chest. Rebecca squeaked in protest, squished between us.

Dad thumped my back in an uncharacteristically natural gesture. “Come on,” he said. “I'm starving.” He didn't know that dinner was more than an hour away.

Which didn't bother me, because I wasn't hungry in the slightest.

That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I snuck downstairs and risked my dad's phone bill review by calling Natalia. Unfortunately, her cell phone had been canceled. The next morning, after Dad went to work, I asked Kerry if I could call my friend. “Sure you can,” she said. “I know how it is.”

Of course, they didn't have so much as a cordless phone. My
only chance at privacy was their bedroom, while Kerry played downstairs with the kids. “Hello, Mrs. Miksa,” I said, when Natalia's mother answered.

“Seed-ney, dahling! How is the farm?”

Several niceties later, Natalia came on the line and I told her about my father's plan.

“Oh my God,” Natalia said. “We have to come up with something. I'm going to find a way to get my mom's car. I'll come out and get you, and take you to a clinic. Then we can spend a night in a hotel somewhere. They'll know we ran away, but they never need to know why.”

I twisted the phone cord around my finger. If we ran away, there was no way I'd be allowed to go on the canoe trip. I told Natalia this.

“Fuck the canoe trip,” Natalia said. “You need to get that baby out of your body.”

“Shhh,” I hissed, not knowing whether her parents could hear her. “And don't call it a baby.”

“A baby is exactly what it's going to be if you don't do something very soon.”

“That's not true,” I said. The way I figured, I had plenty of time. Postponing my abortion four weeks—even, worst-case scenario, seven weeks—should not be a problem. “I've got till, like, twelve weeks,” I told Natalia.

“You're crazy.”

“Anyway,” I said, “I don't have any money.”

Natalia paused. Through her parents, she had regular access
to small amounts of cash, but nothing like what we'd need for the abortion. “Maybe I could take something from around here,” she offered. “Steve could sell it for us. There are so many knickknacks, they'd never miss one or two.”

“Well,” I said, “maybe we can plan that for when I get home. The beginning of August, when I get back from Canada, you can come get me and I'll have the abortion.”

“That would give me more time to collect money,” Natalia said. “I can just keep putting cash aside, and maybe sneak some from their wallets here and there. I should be able to save a few hundred in a month.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then it's all set.”

“Another idea,” she said, “is that I could come on the trip with you.”

I hated this immediately, which surprised me. Usually distance from Natalia made me feel lost and panicked. But if she came along on the trip, I would have to talk about being pregnant every day. I realized that one of the things I'd really been looking forward to was just not thinking about it for a while.

“If you come on the trip,” I said, “how would you get the money?”

“I'll think of some way.”

“Your parents would never let you come.”

“Maybe not,” Natalia said, instead of arguing. I could tell she felt a little hurt that I hadn't jumped at the thought of her coming along. “Do you feel all right?” she asked. “Do you feel sick?”

“Not a bit,” I said, which was true. I felt light and airy, as if the pregnancy had already been terminated. “I'm just fine.”

“Sometimes I worry,” she said, “that you're going to turn into one of those girls who pretends she isn't pregnant and then throws the baby into a Dumpster.”

A cool summer breeze drifted in the window, making the fish mobile over Rebecca's crib sway and circle. Her tiny patchwork quilt was tangled around the worn, eyeless bunny that Aaron used to chew on constantly. He'd called it the Love Bunny.

“I would never do something like that,” I told Natalia.

We spoke for a few minutes more. I told her I'd try to call again before I left next week, but that I couldn't make any promises. It was only after we'd hung up that I realized I'd forgotten to ask about Switzerland, or if she'd had a chance to rendezvous with Steve.

I walked downstairs to see Kerry and the kids. She was sitting on the floor stacking wooden blocks with the twins. Rebecca sat in her lap, chewing on a splintery red triangle.

“How'd that go?” Kerry asked.

“Fine,” I said, and she smiled.

“Do you ever think about using disposable diapers when Dad's not around?” I asked, thinking about how Kerry loved to be sneaky, and how she still loved being on the receiving end of girlish gossip.

She sighed. “I sure do,” she said. “But I've never figured out a way to hide them. One goof would be all it took, and he'd hit the roof. I'd wind up canoeing with you in Canada.”

I laughed. “That might not be so bad.”

“That's true,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Forget the mosquitoes and the rocky ground. It would be the first time I'd slept in three years.”

She pushed lank blond hair out of her blue eyes. Her pretty, plump face suddenly looked to me like it belonged to a rebel. When she and my dad met, she'd been a marathon runner and a vegan, as passionate about organic food as he was. Like Aaron and Ezra, Kerry was an identical twin, and her sister—who didn't have children—still looked spare and athletic, a weird ghost-version of the woman Kerry used to be. Clearly Kerry's new, fleshy body was a way of thumbing her nose at Dad and his impossible principles.

I could tell her right now
, I thought. I moved my tongue around, testing the words inside closed lips.
Kerry
, I could say,
I have something to tell you
.
I'm pregnant.

Maybe she would stand up then and there, brushing off the dust and flour that always clung to her clothes. She would go to some cookie jar, or underneath her mattress, and come back with the money I needed. We would drive together to the town called West Falls, and Kerry would sit in the waiting room with the three kids while I underwent the procedure. From inside the doctor's office, I'd be able to hear their familiar whines and chatter. Kerry would check in on me in the recovery room and get all the directions from the nurse about taking care of me. Then she would help me to the car and drive me back to the farm. Maybe on the way we could pick up some soup that
she could pretend she'd made herself.
Sydney's not feeling well
, she would tell my father when he came home.
I'm just going to heat up this soup for dinner and take her a bowl in her room
. I would recover for a couple of days while Kerry secretly tended me, and then I would go off on my canoe trip without a care in the world, all my problems—or at least the worst of them—solved.

“Kerry,” I said. She looked up again, her eyes bright and expectant.

It was too big. I knew that if I told her, she would definitely get to her feet. But she would march directly to the phone and dial my father's cell phone number, the one we were only supposed to use in case of emergency. Or worse, she would call my mother. The whole world would come crashing down on my head.

“I'm really looking forward to this trip,” I said, and she smiled.

chapter four

surprise, surprise

Mr. Campbell, the guy who ran the camp up in Canada, sent a list of things I needed to bring: no more than could fit into a single, midsize pack. My dad loaned me camping equipment, and my mother mailed a box with my passport and some warm clothes (Mr. Campbell's letter warned that Canadian summer nights were chilly). Although I didn't want to hear anything Mom had to say, it was a reflex to sift through the package and look for some kind of card.