Saving Grace (2 page)

I could hear Justin pacing behind the truck. After a couple of minutes he came and opened the driver's door. “Can't you get her to stop?” he asked.

“Shut up,” I said.

Justin looked out the windshield and then back at me. “This was a mistake, Evie. We have to go back.”

“No!” My heart started beating so hard it seemed like I could hear it. “I'm not going back.” I wrapped both arms tightly around Brianna. “I'm not giving her up again. I won't do it.” The baby started hollering even louder.

“Geez, you're going to squish her,” Justin said. “You're holding her too tight. Even I know that.”

I loosened my grip a little. “The only place I'm going is Montreal. Nobody is taking my baby from me.” I stared hard at him so he'd know how serious I was.

“Christ!” he said finally. He slammed the door and walked away again. I could hear him kicking gravel at the back tires.

I set Brianna back in the car seat. I had little packages of baby cereal, plain or with banana. Maybe she'd eat that. It was the organic kind, so it had to be good for her.

I found the little baby spoon and the bowl with dancing bears on it I'd bought at Wal-Mart and opened the box
of banana-flavored cereal. It smelled pretty good.

Mixed up with water, the stuff reminded me of that goopy paste we'd used in art class in about grade five. I offered Brianna a tiny spoonful. She turned her head from one side to the other, trying to get away from the spoon.

“C'mon, sweetie, try it, please.” I pressed the spoon against her mouth—not too hard. She made a face and swatted at it with one hand.

Justin opened the truck door again and leaned against the seat. I couldn't get Brianna to open her mouth. Then I remembered something my mom used to do when she looked after the kids down our street. I held the spoon up in the air. “Here comes the airplane, flying home to the airport,” I said. I made the spoon do loops in the air. “Ready for landing. Open hangar doors.” It didn't work. Brianna's lips stayed pressed together. “Oh c'mon, Brianna,” I said.

Just then Justin leaned over, swiped his finger through the bowl and stuck it in his mouth. He made a face. Then he turned and spit on the ground. “That's crap!” he said, wiping spit off the side of his mouth with his hand. “I don't blame her. I wouldn't eat that crud either.”

I reached over and slapped the side of his head. “You are so stupid,” I yelled. “You put your dirty fingers in her food.”

“Geez, relax, it was just one finger,” Justin said, holding it up. “Don't get all freaky. It's not like I spit in the dish or something.”

“Well, I can't feed her any of that now. It's all full of germs.”

“In case you hadn't noticed, she wasn't eating anything.”

“You're such a pig,” I said. “It's... it's...all contaminated.”

“Great. I guess we won't be needing this anymore then,” Justin said. He grabbed the bowl and whipped it like a Frisbee across the ditch and into the
bushes. “We're going home,” he yelled. “You're giving that baby back. This is a freakin' disaster.”

I couldn't help it. My eyes filled with tears and some of them spilled over and slipped down my face. I tried to wipe them away but they kept on coming. There was a lump in my throat I couldn't seem to swallow away.

I put one arm across the front of the car seat. “Please, Justin, please,” I begged. “I love her. I can't give her to someone else. I'm her family. We're her family. Not them.” My nose was running. I wiped it on the edge of my sleeve. “Please. I can't go back.” I took a couple of jerky breaths.

Justin's eyes were angry and his teeth were clenched. He turned away, slammed the door and then kicked the truck a couple of times. I heard him walk away. Then there was nothing but silence.

Brianna had stopped crying. She'd fallen asleep again. Her head was kind of slumped forward. Her nose was running too. I found a Kleenex in my pocket and carefully wiped her nose first, then my own. She didn't wake up. I wiped my face with the edge of my sweater because I didn't want to waste any more Kleenex.

I started putting the rest of my stuff in my bag. I'd meant what I'd said to Justin. I wasn't going back. I couldn't. I opened the truck door on my side and climbed out so I could check around on the floor to make sure I had everything.

Justin grabbed my shoulder from behind. I sucked in a breath and almost fell onto the dirt. “What the hell are you doing, Evie?” he said.

“Let go of me!” I gave him a shove. He stumbled back but kept his balance.

“What are you doing?” he said again.

I glanced inside the truck. Brianna was still asleep. I turned to face Justin. “I'm not going back,” I said, hands jammed in my pockets. “You want to go back? Go ahead. Brianna and I will be fine without you.” My mouth was suddenly so dry my lips were sticking to my teeth. “I'm going to Montreal, Justin. I'm not going home and I'm not giving up my baby.”

“How're you getting to Montreal?” Justin asked.

“I'll hitch.”

“With a kid? Yeah, sure. There's a good idea.” He made a face and rolled his eyes.

“Okay, so I have some money. We'll take the bus.”

“You don't even know where there's a bus stop or what time the next bus is,” Justin said.

“Well, it's not your problem, is it, Justin?” I said softly.

He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes for a second. “Get in the truck, Evie,” he said at last, not looking at me.

I turned away from him and felt around on the floor. My water bottle had rolled partway underneath the seat. I stuffed the bottle in the side pocket of the backpack.

“Stop,” Justin said, grabbing my arm. “I'm not going to just leave you here.” He let out a breath. “I'll drive you, okay? I'm sorry. Just get in the truck before she starts crying again.”

I didn't say anything or even look at him, but I climbed onto the seat and fastened my belt.

We drove for I don't know how long without talking. I didn't want to talk anyway. All I wanted to do was look at Brianna. I leaned my head back against the seat and touched her tiny fist. She grabbed my finger. Her own little fingers were so strong. I smiled. My baby was strong. She coughed a couple of times and made a face but went on sleeping. I closed my eyes and thought about the wonderful life the three of us were going to have in Montreal.

I woke up with a kink in my neck. And my left foot was asleep. I hadn't meant to doze off. I peeked at Brianna. She was still asleep, and there was a tiny spit bubble between her lips. I sat up a little straighter and stretched. “How long was I asleep,” I asked Justin.

“I don't know. An hour or so,” he said. “You snore.”

“I do not.”

He grinned. “Yeah, you do.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. Even though Justin and I had done it a lot,
we'd never
slept
together—I mean in the same bed, all night. There was a lot of stuff I didn't know about him, or him about me. It didn't matter though. There was lots of time for all that once we got to Montreal.

“What are you gonna do for money when you get to Montreal?” Justin asked after a while.

“I have some money,” I said.

“How much?”

“Enough until I get a job.” Actually I had a lot of money. My mom used to put money in a bank account in my name ever y month—“for your education,” she'd say. The bankbook had been in my dad's box in the closet with the adoption papers. I'd gone to the bank and taken all the money out of the account. Brianna was more important than my education. My mom would have understood that.

Justin shot me a quick look. “You're fifteen and you don't speak French. What kind of a job can you get?”

“They speak English in Montreal too,” I snapped. “And for your information I'm going to get a job working for a fashion designer.”

Justin gave a snort of laughter. “What do you know about fashion?” he said. “You can't even sew. You cut off the bottom of your jeans and left them all ragged. You put tape on the bottom of your skirt.”

“I didn't say I was going to make clothes, you dink. I said I want to design them. You know, draw. Eventually. I have to work my way up. Ms. Carrington said I have a lot of artistic talent.”

Justin laughed. “Yeah, like Gorilla Legs would know.”

“Shut up,” I yelled. I reached over to smack him and bumped the car seat. Brianna started to cry. “See what you did?” I said.

“Shush, shush,” I crooned to the baby, stroking her head. “Mama's here.” She wouldn't stop. The twisted lump in my stomach came back.

“Can't you shut her up?” Justin said.

“She's a baby,” I said. “They cry, asshole.” I felt around in my pack and found the bottle of formula. Brianna didn't like it any better this time than she had before. I couldn't get her to take even one drink. She just kept spitting the nipple right back out again as fast as I got it in her mouth. And it wasn't easy getting it in her mouth in the first place. My ears were ringing from her crying. I knew she had to be hungry, so why wouldn't she eat? Were kids picky eaters even when they were this little?

I caught sight of the water bottle stuck in the side pocket of my bag. I grabbed it, unscrewed the cap and carefully dribbled a bit of water into Brianna's mouth. She sputtered and coughed and some of the water ran onto her chin, but she swallowed and then she turned to me and opened and closed her mouth like a baby bird. I got out an empty baby bottle and filled it a bit more than halfway with water. This
time, when I stuck the nipple in Brianna's mouth, she drank.

The knot in my stomach let go. “See?” I said to Justin. “It's not like you have to go to school or something to be a mother. When it's your own baby it's natural. It just happens.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he muttered.

Brianna drank the whole bottle of water. “You have to pull over,” I told Justin when she was done.

“Again?” he grumbled. “How're we supposed to get to Montreal if I keep having to stop all the time?”

“I have to burp her, so I have to take her out of the car seat. I can't do that when you're driving because it's not safe. Just pull over already, okay?”

Justin shook his head, but he pulled onto the shoulder of the road and put the truck in park. He looked at me. “Well, c'mon. Get on with it.”

I took Brianna out of the seat and put her up on my shoulder again. She fussed and squirmed as I tried to rub her back.

“You know, she's just like you, Evie,” Justin said, watching us. “She can't stay still for even a minute.”

I gave Brianna's back a couple of gentle pats and she made a small
urp
sound. “Yeah, well she's nothing like you, Justin,” I said. “When you burp you sound like a pig.”

The baby lifted her head and looked at me. Her nose was running again. “Get me a Kleenex, Justin,” I said. “They're in the bottom of the bag somewhere.”

He leaned over and felt around in the backpack. “I can't find them,” he said after a minute or so. “Here.” He grabbed a paper napkin from Dairy Queen off the dusty dash. “Use this.”

“I'm not using that,” I said. “For one thing, it's filthy, and for another, it's too rough for her nose.” I held Brianna out to him. “Hold her for a second and I'll find a Kleenex.”

Justin held up both hands. “No way, I'm not holding her.”

“She won't bite or anything. Take her.”

“No.” Justin grabbed the backpack and started shoving things around inside. “Here,” he said after a few seconds, pulling out a Kleenex. “Blow her nose and then put her back in the seat. We need to get going.”

I wiped Brianna's nose. She didn't like that either. She tried to turn her head away, and she scrunched up her face and made a couple of funny grunting noises. That made me laugh because that grunting noise was the same kind of sound Justin made when he drank beer. She was like him after all.

I got her fastened back in the car seat with a new blanket because we'd gotten some water on the old one. She put the end of one fist in her mouth and chewed on it while she watched me. I offered her a finger and she grabbed onto it with her other hand. Justin pulled back onto the road. In a few minutes Brianna's eyelids began to droop. Pretty soon she was asleep again.

There wasn't much traffic on the road. Once in a while a car went by us going in the other direction. I lay my head back against the seat and closed my eyes for just a second. I didn't really mean to fall asleep again, but I did.

I dreamed about my mother. In the dream she wasn't dead. I'd come home and she was in the kitchen making a devil's food chocolate cake—my all-time
favorite. I just stood there in the doorway staring at her. Finally she turned around and smiled at me. “Hi,” she said. “How was your day?” She had flour on the front of her jeans.

“You're dead,” I said.

Mom laughed. “No I'm not. See? I'm right here.” She looked just the way she had the very last time I'd seen her—I mean the last time I'd seen her when she was alive. She was wearing jeans and a red shirt with her hair piled up on her head.

“No! I know you're dead,” I said. “There was an accident. A truck came across the road and...and hit your car. I... we had a funeral. I saw you in the...”

Mom shrugged. “Wasn't me.” She gestured at the counter. “You want to lick the bowl?” she asked.

“I can't believe it,” I said. “I missed you so much every day. I'm so glad you're here.” I rushed across the room and threw my arms around her, but it was like she was made of air. She just faded away into
nothing. I grabbed for her but there was nothing to hold on to.

I woke up with a start. It didn't matter how many times I dreamed about my mom. She was still dead when I woke up.