The In-Between by Stewart Barbara

Author:Stewart, Barbara [Stewart, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2013-11-04T23:00:00+00:00

forty-two

Tonight after dinner, before we cleared the table, my mother said she had something to tell me. I knew it couldn’t be good. She’d hardly touched her chicken.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

The clock above the sink ticked. The kitchen faucet dripped. I silently sat there moving peas around my plate. Eventually I managed, “Are you sure?”

My mother said a test confirmed it. She went to the doctor today. “I’m about three months,” she said. “It must’ve happened right before the accident. The baby’s due around late April, early May.”

“Are you happy?” I asked. A stupid question. Her napkin was shredded and her eyes were filled with fear and sadness. Anger, too, that here she was again, picking up the pieces of our family alone without my dad.

She bobbed her head around, refusing to commit. “I will be,” she said. “What about you?”

I shrugged. A baby. Life will be different. Things will change. Another New Beginning. Another Adjustment Period. We’re not even out of the one we’re in.

“In case you’re wondering, we weren’t trying.” My mother reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “You’ll always be my little girl.”

I wasn’t thinking about that. Right then I was worried about more practical stuff, like how we’re going to do this, how we’ll manage. My mother has to finish school to get her Realtor’s license. She’d said it herself: The life insurance won’t last a year.

“I’ve been going over it,” she said. “They say pregnancy is nine months, but it’s really more like ten. I’m taking the exam in March. As long as I pass…” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’m really going to need your support. If this baby is anything like you were, I was sick the whole time.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“I know.” My mother started collecting silverware and stacking plates. “You’ve been a big help to me since your father died.” She put down the pile of dishes and rubbed her belly. “You’re the reason I think I can do this. You’ve really changed.”

Not really, I thought. Giving up cheese-filled pretzels doesn’t make me a new person. I wish my mother understood that. It’s Madeline who does the dishes and folds the laundry and picks up my room. Me, I’m constantly slipping, slacking off.

I don’t know who I am, what I want. That’s not true. I’m Madeline’s sister and I don’t want to waste my time with stupid stuff. I dropped out of Key Club. Not officially—I just stopped going to their lame meetings. They were probably going to kick me out anyway. I never sold any ads for that program like I was supposed to. Today I tried to quit cross-country, and I would’ve done it, too, but Coach Buffman refused to accept my resignation. I’d put it in writing and put it in his mailbox because I was too chicken to tell him face-to-face. It didn’t work. He called me out of study hall and read me the riot act.

“What’s this?” he said, pinching the letter by its corner, holding it out like a dirty diaper.

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