A Little Bit of Everything Lost (16 page)

“Sure. Let’s go get a beer.” He reached for her hand to pull her up from the bed.

More frat parties and late nights led to another night with Tyler, but this time it was on her terms and she knew what she was doing, sort of. Marnie did like him, but it wasn’t like it had been with Joe. Just as she knew when she was with Joe, she felt it might never be that way with anyone else. Ever.

Joe who?
She kept trying to tell herself. That’s all she had to say until she could believe it. It wasn’t working. And that was a problem.

And there was another problem.

Marnie tried to remember, but couldn’t pinpoint it. Her last period. The unexpected queasiness she had been experiencing couldn’t be pregnancy symptoms. It had to be nerves. She needed to talk to someone. Collette was the only one who was there during the summer. She was the only one who knew how Marnie really felt about Joe.

When Collette answered the phone, Marnie said, “I didn’t get it yet.”

“Well, hey to you too!” Marnie could hear The Outfield’s
Say It Isn’t So
blaring in the background. “Hang on and I’ll turn the music down!”

“What’s going on?” Collette asked.

Marnie broke down. She sobbed and sobbed, and confessed how scared she was, that she didn’t know what to do; and that her period was now, most definitely, positively, two months late.

“Listen. You have to get a test. You can’t sit around and wonder. If you get a test, then you’ll know, and you can figure out what you guys should do.”

“There is no ‘you guys.’ I haven’t even talked to him.”

“He hasn’t called you?” Collette asked incredulously.

“Well, uh… It seemed like we would talk, but, then, well… no, he hasn’t called. I don’t know what to think.”

“I can’t believe the bastard hasn’t called you! After all this summer! Why haven’t
you
called him?”

“What am I supposed to say?” Marnie whispered.

“God Marnie, sometimes I just wish you would get some nerve, take the initiative, go after something you want, not waste all your time worrying about the ‘what ifs.’”

Marnie knew Collette was right. Marnie had always been the agreeable one, the one who would go anywhere, do anything, just to appease whomever she was with. She wasn’t necessarily a door mat, one to be walked on, but sticking up for herself had never been a strong trait. It was almost as if she preferred the passenger seat. She always went along for the ride, but never took the steering wheel into her own hands, to decide which way to go.

Until now, Marnie hadn’t been bothered by her own passiveness. She was okay with not making decisions. But this time, things were more serious than deciding on which party to attend, which movie to see, who would pay the deposit for the keg. This time, though, others were involved. Joe was involved.

And possibly, very possibly, a baby.

**

Collette made Marnie promise her she would get a pregnancy test, and she kept that promise and bought one. But it stayed in the bathroom, hidden under the box of panty liners and tampons she hadn’t needed.

“What’s this for?” Whitney came out of their shared bathroom one night, holding up the pregnancy test box, shaking it, looking back and forth from Marnie to Devon.

Marnie looked up from the TV and she could feel Devon’s eyes on her.

“What do you think it’s for?” Marnie snipped at Whitney, “A biology project?”

“Christ, I was just asking. Well, at least it explains why you’ve been such a bitch this semester.” And Whitney flung the box onto Marnie’s bed and stomped off to her own room, most likely to share the news with Lindsay. The words stung Marnie and tears sprung from her eyes.

“God, Whitney you’re such a bitch!” Devon shot back at Whitney, went over to Marnie’s bed, and pulled her close.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Devon asked. “Now I totally get why you’ve been acting so weird.”

Marnie couldn’t make any words come, so she just nodded and cried more.

“Do you know for sure yet?” Devon asked. “Have you told Tyler?”

Marnie shook her head. “It’s not Tyler. It’s Joe.”

“This summer’s Joe?
That long ago? God, Marnie, you have got to take this test. If it’s been since summer… well, you might not have any time. Do you want to take the test? I’ll stay here with you.”

“I don’t think I can.”

**

On Friday night, after she had done a load of laundry, after Devon left for Kyle’s for the night, and the bopsy twins scampered out to their sorority mixer; while every other student on campus was out barhopping or shacking up, Marnie sat on the toilet, surrounded by an avalanche of makeup, perfumes and hair products strewn across the vanity, and peed on the stick.

Two lines.

Two fucking lines.

She calculated it. And figured she hadn’t had her period since the beginning of August. More than two months along. She was too late. It was too late. Too late to do anything at all but go into a dark, deep cavern of denial. Marnie decided right then and there that she would deny it until it went away.

After all, really, this couldn’t be happening to her.

Chapter
Thirty-Four
The Pregnancy – March 2004

Stuart had turned his back on her. Immediately. He didn
’t console her, or dry her eyes or pull her close when she told him she was pregnant. He didn’t tell her how excited he was that they were going to have another baby and that he couldn’t wait to hold a newborn in his arms. He got out of bed, and went into their bathroom. Marnie heard the water in the shower turn on and she fell back into her bed and wept.

Stuart had ba
rely spoken to her, and he hadn’t even said a word about the baby. He had left for his shift that next day without so much as a goodbye.

How could she have done this to her husband? Why had she kept this from Stuart? Even tho
ugh she was pretty sure he didn’t want another baby… well, she knew he didn’t want a baby, but she didn’t think he would turn his back on her and their family like this. That he would actually literally forsake his own offspring.

How could he not be excited at the prospect of bringing a new life into the world together? How could he not care that Jeremy and Trey would soon have a sibling? But he was not happy. She feared she had completely ruined a relationship that was already tinkering on the edge of imperfection by trying to make it what it wasn’t. She had been deceptive, and she knew she had crushed Stuart.

**

Stuart returned home from his shift unexpectedly on Wednesday during dinner rather than Thursday, and entered the kitchen, looking tired and withdrawn from a day of flying. The boys scrambled from the table to jump into his arms. Marnie stood timidly at the refrigerator, surprised that he was home a day early.

“Hey guys!” Stuart took turns ruffling each boy’s hair, then lifting them up and flipping them upside-down.

“
Mommy’s making breakfast for dinner!” Trey yelled.

“Great, buddy,” Stuart said, and gave Marnie a half-smile.

“Are you hungry?” Marnie asked, choking on the words.

“
Nah, not really. Actually, I’m in early because I’m taking an extra shift this weekend. They asked, and I’m taking it. I’ll be back next Thursday, so we can talk then.”

Marnie nodded, stunned.

“We both need time to think anyway, don’t you?”

The boys moved back to the table and were now devouring pancakes slathered in syrup.
“What are we thinking about?” Jeremy asked. “Are we thinking about the kind of dog we’re going to get, because I think I want a brown and white one.”

“Black one!” Trey mumbled through pancake bites. “I want a black puppy!”

“All right then.” Stuart took a deep breath. “So, I guess I could use a shower. It’s been a long few days of flying. And boys, I’d love to tuck you in and then I’ve got to hit the sack myself. I’ve got to get to the airport at four-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“
That’s so early Dad!” Jeremy said.

“
Airplanes don’t sleep.”

“
Aw, Dad, you always say that!” Trey laughed.

“
I’ll be upstairs. You guys come on up when you’re ready for books and a tuck-in, okay?”

He kissed each boy on their forehead, hesitated for a moment, and moved toward Marnie.

“How are you feeling?” he whispered to her.

He
r eyes welled up and she couldn’t speak so she nodded quickly. Stuart gifted her with a kiss on her forehead and then went upstairs.

After Marnie had cleaned the kitchen and locked up the house, she went upstairs and saw that both boys had been tucked into bed and that Stuart was in bed as well, already asleep. In the morning he left her a note that said:

Marnie,

Please, do some soul searching while I’m away. About what this all means to you. Why you thought this was a good idea for you not to share this pregnancy with me. Why it was so important that you keep this from me for so long.

Stuart

Chapter Thirty-Five
October 1988

At night, in her college dorm twin bed, she felt the flatness of her stomach, but it hurt her to touch herself, to know that there was a baby inside, a baby brought on by stupidity and lust, and she began to hate herself, and even more so, she began to hate Joe for doing this to her, for not knowing about it, for not knowing he had put this baby inside of her, all because of stupid, stupid summertime lust. And now, this was happening.

And he didn’t even know it.

She imagined him at school, at his fraternity, drinking with his frat brothers. Perhaps he mentioned to them about a girl he met over the summer, about the stuff they did together, laughing it up as he recalled the tale of the lemon, how he made her scream and come over and over again, drenching her in the fruit’s juice. She imagined them all laughing about it, about a girl being so stupid, so quick to open herself to him the way she had. She let him see the most vulnerable side of her, a side she had never shared with anyone. And now, because of her vulnerability, she was pregnant.

She skipped classes, dodging a concerned call from her photography professor, and then Marnie decided to go home the week after she took the pregnancy test.

When she showed up at home, Marnie told her parents she had mono, and her parents believed her. Marnie brought all her assignments with and told her parents she spoke to her professors. When her mother suggested she go to their family physician, Marnie assured them she’d already been to the school’s health center, and all she could do for mono was rest.

She slept and tried to seek the comfort that was once there, in her home, but she couldn’t escape Joe. They had spent hours together in her bed, and most likely, this was where she conceived. Her sheets still smelled of him. Everything about her room reminded her of him. She could almost feel him there with her. She couldn’t find the comfort she was so desperately in search of. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, and about the events that had led to a pregnancy. One that was too far along to terminate, she was sure.

She lay in bed, pretending to sleep whenever she heard the doorknob turn. Her mother would come in, feel her forehead, and then return with a cool cloth. Marnie wanted to tell her mom, but knew saying the words would make it real, and a decision would have to be made. She knew it was incredibly stupid to spend day after day doing nothing in the hopes it wasn’t true, and hadn’t she already been stupid enough to last her the rest of her life? Still, she denied anything was wrong save a severe case of mononucleosis.

Marnie was tricking herself into delirium, convincing herself she r
eally was just sick. She couldn’t eat anything but crackers and sometimes the bowl of chicken soup her mom forced upon her. When she was awake, her thoughts ran circles nonstop, and the ‘what ifs’ tumbled through her mind. She even imagined being face-to-face with Joe again:

“I’m pregnant,” she would tell him, agonizing over the words.

A smile would spread along his lips. “Let’s have it.”