The Wall (The Woodlands) (4 page)

I walked over to him and held the glass to his l
ips. “Thank you,” I whispered, my own body trembling. This couldn’t be it. It wasn’t enough. Cal managed a tiny nod and looked up at me with his kind, hazel eyes.

“
Is this it?” I repeated, this time aiming my question at Matthew, who had collapsed in a vinyl chair. His face showed stress for the first time. He pinched his eyebrows and stared at the tabletop like it was talking to him.

“
There’s one other, but it’s complicated.” He pushed the words out. They had a bitter edge to them.

“
What… what’s complicated about it?” I ignored their faces, even though I could tell there was something deeper going on. I was trying to boil my blood. Change it to O. I wished I could give Joseph my heart. I would have given him anything.

Alexei stormed out of the room, slamming the door
weakly behind him.

“
Is it Alexei? Let me talk to him. I’ll change his mind. I’ll make him see….” Desperation was clear in my voice.

Matthew still wouldn
’t look at me. He shook his head. “No, it’s not Alexei. It’s Apella.”

I felt myself shrinking, m
y body condensing into a scrunched-up ball. “Well, she owes me at least this,” I whispered sharply.

Matthew stood up and looked at me
or almost through me. His eyes changed from kindness to judgment. I leaned away from him, scared. I knew I could take things too far but I didn’t think it was unreasonable to ask for this. She could give me some blood.

“
Does she owe you her baby?”

“What does her baby have to do with it?” I snapped, not quite grasping the link between the two.

Matthew’s words pierced right through me as he said, “Apella is forty-three. She’s underweight from the journey and she’s high risk as it is. The amount she needs to donate would put her body under a great deal of stress. It’s not a certainty but giving this much blood will put her baby in danger.”

Oh no.

No.

Not even I could ask that. Pain swelled in the room. Everyone could feel it. It was hopeless. Apella would not give her baby up. I would never ask her to. It was over.
I started to sink.

Deshi spoke,
“Ease up, Matt. She’s not that kind of person. Even Rosa has her limits.”

I crouched down on the ground, feeling a physical pain li
ke being stabbed in the stomach. The knife was twisting back and forth but stayed in my gut, all jagged and rusty.

The hopelessness of it threatened to crush me. I was going to lose him.
“Oh God…” I whimpered. “I’m going to be sick.” Matthew ran to me with a bowl and I threw up. He looked surprised. I think he expected me to run after Apella and demand she do it. “I could never ask her to do that,” I said, sliding myself towards a wall so I could lean against it.
Let me turn to stone here
, I thought
. I’ll become part of the mountain. I’ll never leave. I’ll never grow. I’ll just stop, with him.

“
You don’t need to,” he said softly. “She’s already decided.”

My back straightened.
“What? No!” This was a debt I could never repay. “Where is she?” I was searching the room like she would jump from behind a curtain. I had to find her and talk her out of it. “Will you look after the baby for me? I’ll be back soon,” I said to Deshi. He nodded, adding an eye roll. He was getting sick of watching the baby for me. I didn’t have time to placate him. “Last time, I swear,” I threw over my shoulder.

I stood up and walked briskly out of the room.
I had an idea of where she might go. I climbed down the ladder and made my way to the big, metal door, composing my speech as I went, changing it several times.

I stood at the
big, metal door. The one they had hauled my screaming, pregnant body through six weeks ago as I watched them drag Joseph’s lifeless body past me. A lifetime ago. Something needed to change. For too long, we had been stuck in a nowhere land. I took a deep breath and unwound the cog, pushing hard.

I could feel her hand linked in mine, pulling me backwards. A warm breath on my neck
made me pause and a deep rumbling voice whispered, “Don’t do this.” I shook them both free.

The moment I breathed in the cold
air, everything hit me at once. This was where I was supposed to be. I had lost myself to my grief, to my struggles with the baby, and to Joseph. This was not who I was. This was not the girl he fell in love with. My heart ached at the thought, a splinter of grief for my own losses splitting me open. My eyes found the landscape unrecognizable. I had craved winter, so long ago. Back in the Classes, I’d wanted the peace and quiet to wander the garden without kids staring at me. This was more beautiful than an arboretum. This was real. It was breathtaking but harsh and cold, bitingly so. Nature never waits; it layers the world, changes it, circles it, and brings it back again.

The woods were heavily laden
with white snow. Glimpses of evergreens sparkled with crystal icicles. It filled me. I crunched onto the snow, my feet instantly frozen. I quickly jumped towards the cabin, snow up to my knees. I could see a faint path, the thin slip cut into the snow only someone as small as Apella could have made. She must have been inside.

I poked my head in
the door. Everything was exactly as we’d left it. A circle of beds, backpacks stacked neatly in the corner. A pile of firewood. I fought back tears as I looked at the pile of stones on the floor. An unfinished puzzle dropped the second we saw Joseph walking towards us. Apella was huddled in the corner, shivering. I sighed. The wood was
right
there. If I hadn’t come, she would have frozen to death. She looked up at me with an expression I couldn’t read—sad, expectant, angry? Maybe all of those things.

I retrieved a backpack and pulled out a lighter, building a fire. Memories of
orange and yellow warmth flooded through me. But it was an unpleasant memory. That jagged knife was turning around and around, sending veins of pain creeping through my whole body. This place was no good. It felt like it held all our dashed hopes, all our fears. The fire warmed the corner but with no door, it was still horribly cold.

I took one of the blankets
, draped it around her slight shoulders, and sat close. I wanted to speak but I wasn’t sure what to say.

“
Don’t do this,” I stammered. My teeth were chattering, from the cold and from the fact my body was trying to stop my mouth from moving. It didn’t even make sense to me but I desperately didn’t want her to do this. I knew what it meant if she didn’t, but I couldn’t put the two outcomes together. I couldn’t owe her this. The debt would crush me. I wondered in the blackest corners of my mind whether she would regret it and resent us. Of course she would.

She looked at me,
her big, blue eyes unblinking, and her hand on her stomach. “Rosa, do you know how many girls I watched them hurt?”

I didn
’t answer. I didn’t need to. I remembered the sickening rosy cheeks. That glow of pregnancy that sat so wrongly over the unaware girls. Their skin stretched thin over their stomachs and their faces, like it was all they could do to hold themselves in. Those girls were probably still walking around the roped-off yards, still fighting the oppressive fog of drugs, stuck in their own contained nightmare. They were so young. I was so young.

“
I did nothing. I let them treat those precious, young lives like animals, worse than animals, and I did nothing. I was selfish,” she continued.

I put my hand on hers. It was cold as ice and still as stone. I watched her face
—watched it change.

“
I understand now. I don’t get to have a baby. I don’t deserve one. I have to let it go.” She had no tears. Her face was accepting.

“
But I can’t…” I started to say, feeling hysteria pulling me down, the weight of too many lives sitting on my tiny shoulders. “I don’t know how… it’s too much.” I burst into tears. She put her thin arms around me and held me close, wrapping me in a paper-thin cocoon, making shushing noises and stroking my hair.

“
It’s all right. I’ll be all right,” she said calmly.

“
You’ll hate me. If you do this for me, you will end up hating me.” I wasn’t even sure why I cared so much. I had hated her. I blamed her for so much.

Apella laughed a soft, sad, gasp of a laugh.
“I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Joseph and for our strange, little family.”

I nodded, still unable to control my tears
, sniffing and shaking. We couldn’t lose anyone else. But this sacrifice was more than anyone could ask. And I guess that’s why no one would. This was her choice. I had to abide by it.

“
How did this happen?” I asked

“
How did what happen?” Her voice was serene.

“
All of it.”

“
It’s like you said, Rosa. We always have a choice,” she replied, dipping her chin and staring into the fire.

Damn it! My own words
were coming back to bite me. I smiled, genuinely. Tears froze on my cheeks. We picked up a few things and left, our arms around each other. Apella would give her blood and might lose her baby in the process. We just had to hope it would be enough and that Alexei would forgive her.

Apella
insisted on having it done straight away. I urged her to stop and think it over but she wouldn’t listen. We looked for Alexei but he was still hiding. Apella wasn’t upset, but I was. She needed him. He should have been there.

They sat her in the
beige, vinyl chair, its oversized arms and back dwarfing her tiny body. Cal was lying in a bed next to her, still looking quite white but his color was returning with every passing minute.

Matthew
put the needle in, pressing the cold metal hard against her skin and puncturing her willowy arm. I observed the tattoo she had stolen from the dead girl at the Classes and truly wondered if she could ever make up for all the horrible things she had done. But I sat with her. If she was letting go, then so should I. I held her hand, watching her dark red blood track up a tube and into the bag. There was a bond growing between us I had never expected. That was what bonded us, blood. Clara’s blood, her child, Apella’s gift of blood to Joseph. We were becoming a family.