This was previously titled "Accidental Babies" after a Damien Rice song, but it is now titled "But I'm thinking of what Sarah said..." after a Death Cab for Cutie song. If you're familiar with the song and you read this chapter, you'll know why.
“But I’m thinking of what Sarah said…” (REVISED)
Ramona spotted Anderson stepping
through the front door of the Venice coffee house she had been sitting, waiting
for him at for the last half an hour.
She saw him run a hand through his long dirty-blonde surfer hair. And, as he took off his black-framed
sunglasses, she immediately felt that part inside of her that foolishly melted
at the sight of him melt. She told
herself to stay strong. It was two weeks
since her best friend Liz’s wedding, two weeks since she had told Anderson she
was pregnant with his baby. This was the
first time they were meeting face to face.
She expected him to be his usual relaxed
self, but when he got closer, she saw he was anything but. She stood up, suddenly not knowing the proper
decorum in which to greet her newly appointed baby-daddy.
“Hi,” Anderson said, reaching for a
handshake as Ramona went in for a hug.
They stepped back from each other awkwardly.
“Sorry,” Ramona said, covering her
face, embarrassed.
“Totally my fault. Let’s just…sit, should we?”
“Yes, let’s.” They both took a seat across from each
other. Ramona was overcompensating for
how nervous she was by attempting to make direct eye contact with Anderson. “Thanks again for meeting me,” she said.
He shrugged, avoiding any contact at
all with her. “Ain’t no thang,” he
replied. “Do they have beer here?”
“I don’t think so, Andy. It’s a coffee shop.” She could feel herself losing patience with
him now. “But you can order something to
eat…totally on me.”
“Thanks, I’m not hungry, just
thirsty as hell.”
“They have water right over there,”
said Ramona, pointing to a large water dispenser at the end of the coffee bar.
“Sweet.” Anderson got up and went to get a glass. “You want one?” he asked.
Ramona shook her head. “No, thank you.”
He came back to the table with his
glass and that’s when she saw his hand was trembling. They sat in awkward silence.
“So…” said Anderson finally. “What’s the plan…exactly?”
Ramona shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation before…have
you?”
Anderson immediately shook his
head. “No, never. And not to be a dick, but are you sure it’s
m---.”
“Yes, it’s yours, Andy. You’re the only person I’ve been with this
year.” He nodded, believing her
completely. “Unless of course, this is
Immaculate Conception, which would be really fucked up since I’ve never been to
church a day in my life, except for once for my mother’s funeral.” Ramona started to tear up all of a sudden, no
doubt a side effect of the rush of hormones now coursing through her body. “Andy, I don’t want you to think I did this
on purpose or that I had some sort of plan to trap you.” She broke down and couldn’t continue.
Without skipping a beat, Anderson
reached across the table, putting a now steady hand on her forearm. “Mona, I don’t think that at all,” he
reassured her. “These things happen and
we’re gonna figure out a solution, all right?”
Ramona wiped the tears from her
eyes. Anderson never ceased to amaze
her. She was shocked at how supportive
he was being. And she liked that he
could call her “Mona” so easily. The
only other person who ever called her that had been her mother.
* * *
It was her junior year of high
school and Ramona was in a rush to get ready that morning. She couldn’t believe she had been able to
raise and maintain a 4.0 grade point average considering how fucked-up and
unrecognizable her home life had become over the last eight months. She was never an academic over-achiever, but
studying gave her something else to focus on.
Lately it took Ramona hours to fall
asleep at night. There were the sounds
of endless coughing followed by agonizing moans coming through the thin walls
and A/C vents of her family’s house.
Ramona thought about all the nights as a child she had run into her
parents’ bedroom when she had a bad dream.
Her mother would sweep her up into her arms and Ramona would press her
head to her chest, feeling her heartbeat.
It seemed so childish and naïve to her now. What did that little girl know about true
fear and all that was to come? Now the
real nightmare was her mother and
there was no safe place or person left to run to.
Ramona looked at herself in the
mirror, noting the dark circles that had settled under her eyes. She silently wished that if her mom was going
to die, it would just happen already so that she could finally have a good
night’s rest. She raised a hand to her
mouth to muffle a gasp, feeling the guilt of that death wish crush her once
again. Ramona closed her eyes, mentally
pulling herself together as best she could so that she could sneak out of the
house before her father noticed.
“Come on,” she said, walking into
the kitchen to her younger brother, Justin.
“If you want to ride to school with me, we have to leave now.”
Normally, Justin would have stalled
for no reason at all, just to give her a hard time. But these days he knew, even at the age of
fourteen, how tightly wound up everyone in the house was and did his best to
fall in line and not cause waves. Ramona
never thought she was say it, but she missed bickering with him and having
their mom or dad rush in to break it up.
Justin just nodded, gathering his books and backpack from the kitchen
table.
As they were each about to get into
opposite sides of Ramona’s car, they saw their father, Winston, come out to the
carport. He looked the way you’d expect
a man in his 30’s about to become a widow with two teenage kids to take care of
would look. Ramona saw how much weight
he had lost in the last few months and she despised how pasty white his skin
had become. He must have heard them shut
and lock the back door when they were leaving.
She tried to be so careful.
“Kids, get back in here!” he called
out to them. Winston was the one who sat
up through the night with his wife. He
was the one who changed her bedpan and checked her forehead to make sure she
wasn’t running a fever. If anyone
deserved to wish for all of this to be over, it was him. But he never did.
“Dad, we’re late!” Ramona protested, hoping this would convince him to
let them go.
“I said, ‘get back here!!’” he
shouted again. Justin and Ramona both
looked at each other before closing their car doors and walking back to the
house. As they were passing, Winston
stopped them. “I know this is hard on
you two,” he said, his bottom lip quivering, “but your mother…she’s not getting
better…and all she wants is to say goodbye to you both before you leave for
school in the mornings. Can you please just
do her that one goddamn thing?” Winston
never used to curse.
Justin couldn’t hold back his words
any longer. “But she won’t even know
we---.”
“Go!” Winston shouted, pointing to
the house. They both jumped, startled.
Ramona put her hand on Justin’s
shoulder to let him know she would be right behind him. They walked upstairs to their parents’
bedroom, every step feeling like it took all the strength they had. When they opened the bedroom door it took a
moment for them to adjust to the darkness.
All of the windows had to be blacked out because their mom’s eyes were
now too sensitive for any light. Ramona
hated the sight of the oxygen tank next to their bed. It was in the spot where Ramona used to sit
on the floor and let her mom brush her hair.
She sensed her children
approaching and did her best to open her eyes a slit.
Justin stopped as close to her
bedside as his feet would allow him to go.
“Bye, Mom,” he said softly, leaning down to kiss one side of her ashen,
gray face. Before she could even feel
the sensation of his warm lips, he was out of the room and not even Winston
could stop him.
Ramona took a deep breath and
stepped forward. Her mother’s glassy
brown eyes looked up at her then. Ramona
wanted to weep into her mother’s breast the way she had done as a child, for
her to take Ramona into her arms and assure her everything was going to be all
right, but Ramona willed herself to be brave and stay strong now for the both
of them. Her mom inhaled painfully and
reached out her hand. Ramona took it,
but it didn’t feel familiar to her anymore.
The skin she touched felt dry as paper and deathly cold. It was the hand of a stranger.
“Mona,” her mom said, breathlessly. Ramona shut her eyes tightly, the tears
running down her face like faucets now.
Her mother’s eyes rolled back in her head the hand Ramona was holding
went limp. She couldn’t stay conscious
for too long anymore.
Ramona looked back at her father now. All he did was nod and she knew she was
excused. That was the last time Ramona’s
mother was able to say her name to her.
* * *
Ramona and Anderson still sat
silently in the coffee shop. A million
thoughts were running through her head, some making sense and others sounding
absolutely bananas.
“I think…I want to keep it,” she suddenly blurted
out and it was as if they both paused to make sure they had heard her right. She looked at him, expecting he would pull his
hand away. But again, he surprised her.
“Okay, Mona,” he replied, nodding. His blue eyes finally met hers. “If that’s what you want…I’m there.”
No comments:
Post a Comment