What You Left Behind (6 page)

I don't want to go to Mom—not yet. If I let her take over the plans, soccer will be the first thing to go.

A thought creeps into the back of my brain: if it's this hard to figure out what to do with Hope now, what's it going to be like when I'm at UCLA? I highly doubt Mom will move to California with me, and I can't leave Hope here with her. That's just…not an option. Even if Mom were willing. And even though it would be easier. It's the same reason I wouldn't consider giving Hope up for adoption—Hope is Meg's baby. There's no way in hell I'm giving away anything—or anyone—that's part of her. No matter that the alternative is pretty sucky. Plus, my mom didn't give
me
up for adoption or leave me with her parents while she went off and did stuff. And I'm really glad about that, even though I know having me made her life really difficult.

Hope's lying in her crib, babbling to herself, swatting at her mobile. At some point while I was on the phone, the crying stopped. I lean over the top of her crib and place my hand on her chubby belly. Her heartbeat pulses under my fingertips.

One of the all-time craziest moments of my unusually crazy life was when Meg and I heard that heartbeat for the first time. The doctor had a machine at the office. Before Hope had arms and legs and everything, she had that heartbeat. It was loud and it was strong. It was the first tangible proof I had that she was real and that she was here to stay.

I pull my hand away and sigh. If I'm going to keep soccer, which I
am
, I need to come up with a solution—for this summer, for the school year, for college, for all of it—and fast.

I stare at the photo of me and Meg on my computer desktop. It was taken at one of my games last season. She looks so happy. And healthy. And alive.

There
is
one other thing I could try…

It's not going to work. But I'm kind of out of options.

I put Hope in her car seat—she starts crying immediately—and bring her into the bathroom with me. I shave, brush my teeth and rinse with Listerine, and pluck the two rogue hairs between my eyebrows. Then I get in the shower. The sound of the water slightly drowns out the sound of her crying, and I stand under the stream and try to focus on each individual drop pounding down on my head.

Today, I wash my hair.

Fifteen minutes later, I'm standing on Meg's front porch. Being back here after all this time makes me want to throw up.

Her house is big, way nicer than mine, and has a fancy brass doorknocker in the shape of a horse's head—but it's all shiny and I don't want to mess it up with my sweaty fingerprints, so I just knock on the door old-school style.

The two brand-new Lexuses (Lexi?) in the driveway stare me down. When did they get those? Meg's parents already had nice cars, and they weren't even that old. I bet they bought them for each other and put big red bows on the roofs like those rich people in the commercials. Meanwhile, I was getting a job and trying to figure out how the hell to take care of their granddaughter.

I knock on the door again and then try the doorbell, which is less like a bell and more like a freaking classical orchestra.

There's no answer.

But I know someone's home because the curtains behind the large foyer window move slightly. I glance down at Hope in her car seat on the porch beside me. She's clearly visible from the window, the bright red of her sun hat standing out like a giant “you are here” arrow. Meg's parents know Hope and I are here, and they don't care. Not like I should be surprised—they haven't contacted me once since Meg died, not even to check up on the baby.

I've never understood them. For two people who don't seem to like each other that much, they sure are perfect for each other. Both are workaholic control freaks, attached to their kids in all the wrong ways—making sure Meg and Mabel were on the Ivy League path, behaved like perfect little clones at their work functions, and kept company with the right people. (I, of course, wasn't the right people.)

But the cancer made them more psycho. They couldn't control Meg's disease. Or her choice to continue the pregnancy. And now I guess her death amped the crazy up that much more.

I knock one last time. Nothing.

“Well, I never liked you very much either,” I say. If they're on the other side of the door, they probably heard me. I hope they did.

As I make my way back to the car, I have an impulse to call someone and freaking
vent
. And for some reason, Joni is the first person who pops to mind. But then I remember that (A) I don't have her number, and (B) she and I are not friends. I don't know her, she sure as hell knows nothing about my life, and we're gonna keep it that way.

I'm about to pull out of the driveway when some movement catches my eye and Meg's younger sister, Mabel, steps out from around the side of the house. She looks directly at me and makes the international extended-pinkie-and-thumb phone gesture. Then she disappears the way she came.

I grab my phone out of my jeans pocket and discover I have one new text.
Meet at the four-way stop sign at the end of our street in five min.

What
the
hell?

I coast down to the end of the block, and a few minutes later, I see Mabel approach in the rearview mirror. I get out of the car.

“Hi,” she says. She's gonna be a sophomore this year. Meg and I hung out with her sometimes, especially when Meg was mostly confined to their house. She's very different from Meg. Lots of sparkly nail polish and pushup bras (not that I was looking) and considers “shopping” a legitimate hanging-out activity. Honestly, if I'd never met Meg, I probably would have ended up hooking up with her sister. Mabel's exactly the kind of girl I used to go for.

“Hi, Mabel.”

She opens the back door of my car and goes to unbuckle Hope out of her car seat.

“Wait, no—” Hope is asleep and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm beginning to think I should just drive around all day. It's the only thing that actually mellows her out. But I'd probably have to sell a kidney in order to pay for the gas.

Mabel lifts her up as if I didn't say anything, grunting a little with the weight of her (six-month-old babies who have been fattened on formula and pureed sweet potatoes are way heavier than you'd think—sixteen pounds at her last doctor visit), and cradles her against her chest. Hope squinches her face up and makes little fists. I brace myself for the inevitable wailing, but she settles in and falls right back into her slumber.

Why does Hope seem perfectly happy with everyone except me? I'm about to reach out to take the baby from Mabel—out of nothing more than spite and jealousy—when I notice the tears running down Mabel's face.

“Hey, you okay?”

She just sniffles and nods and breathes in Hope's baby smell. That smell is pretty amazing, I have to admit.

Remembering my conversation with Alan, I say, “Her name is Hope.”

She smiles. “Good. I know that's what my sister wanted.” She's holding on to the baby like she's the most precious thing in the entire world, and something gurgles up from that place deep inside me. Hope is Mabel's niece. Her family. She's known her for all of two minutes and is already head over heels in love.

I wonder if this is what Meg would have looked like, holding the baby like this, gazing at her with adoration…

No. Stop.

I clear my throat. “Mabel, listen.” She looks up at me. “I'm sorry.”

She blinks. “For what?”

For
forcing
my
way
into
your
sister's life during those early days even though she was clearly trying to hold me at arm's length. For not doing everything in my power to make sure she didn't get pregnant. For not finding some way to convince her to get an abortion.

“For not bringing Hope to see you sooner,” is all I say.

She shakes her head. “Don't say that. I know my parents are being complete jackasses. Do you know they actually
blame
you for Meg dying?”

I stare at her. I did know that, yeah, but no one's ever said it directly to my face before. It's strangely satisfying—so much so that it almost trumps the stab I feel at the sound of her name. Almost. “They're right.”

Mabel rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, because you're the one who gave Meg cancer, right?”

“No, but the chemo was working. The tumors were shrinking. If she didn't have to stop going, she would have gotten better. And guess what? I'm the reason she had to stop going. So, A plus B equals…” Thinking about this, everything hurts. My arms, my legs, my heart, my brain. The pain is physical, debilitating. I want to keel over in the middle of the road and wait for a speeding car to run me over. Too bad there're never any speeding cars around here. Goddamn four-way stop sign.

I sit on the curb.

Mabel sits next to me, stroking Hope's head. “You're wrong,” she says. “And Meg thought so too.”

I lift my head slowly. “How do you know? Did she tell you that?”

“No. But…” She reaches into her purse—one of those giant leather ones with the brass buckles that all the girls carry around—and pulls out a notebook. It has a red cover.

Holy
shit. Is that—

She hands it to me.

It's probably just a regular notebook. Don't get your hopes up.

I open it and am immediately overcome with a feeling I'd forgotten even existed. When exactly what you want to happen, the thing you're wishing for, actually comes true.

This is one of Meg's journals. I flip through quickly. It's full.

It doesn't matter what's written in it. Just the fact that it's here, in my hands, means I get more of her.

I hold it tight against my chest. Sort of the same way Mabel's holding Hope. Like it's the most precious thing in the whole world.

“I started reading this after she died,” Mabel says. “It made everything feel a little better, you know? Like she wasn't all the way dead. She was still here, a little.”

“I know.”

“She wrote this one when she was about seven months pregnant, I think. It was in my room when my parents boxed up all her stuff. That's why they missed it. Everything else went into storage.”

I swallow. “Everything?”

“Her room is a guest room now.” Mabel lowers her eyes. “Like we don't have enough of those already. They painted it this disgusting pea soup color and bought all new furniture. My parents are fucking crazy.”

Have to agree on that one.

“Anyway,” she says. “I think you should have it.”

I should probably say something like,
Oh, no, you don't have to do that. She was your sister. You should keep it
.

Yeah, that's not going to happen.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yep. But, Ryden…” She looks at me, her eyebrows quirked warily.

“What?”

“There's some pretty intense stuff in there. What she was going through… Anyway, I thought I should warn you.”

Guess
what? We were
all
going
through
some
pretty
intense
stuff
then.

“I'm sure I'll be fine.” I make the split-second decision not to read the journal all in one sitting. If I read it slowly, piece by piece, my time with her will last longer. “Thanks, Mabel.”

She kisses Hope on the forehead and passes her to me. “Can I see her more often?”

“Of course. Come over whenever you want.”

She smiles.

Back at home, I hand Hope off to Mom. “I'm gonna go to my room for a while, 'kay?”

“What's that?” Mom asks, nodding to the notebook tucked under my arm.

“Nothing, don't worry about it.”

“We have to talk about—”

I close the door on her and slide onto my bed, backing up so I'm wedged in the corner. I open the book.

January 11.

She wrote this more than seven months after the green journal, five weeks before she died. It's a short entry.

I know Ryden blames himself for me getting pregnant. I wish he wouldn't. It's not his fault. It's not anyone's fault. “Fault” is the wrong word. “Fault” implies something bad, regretful, unfortunate. If he could only see what I see, he would know this baby isn't something to be sorry about at all. It's a happy thing. It's amazing. Maybe someday he'll understand that. I hope so anyway.

I shake my head. Even that late in the game, she was still so sure she was going to make it through. But I know that if she'd opened her eyes and seen what the rest of us saw—that she was deteriorating, fast—she would have felt differently about blaming me.

Just one more, and then I'll stop reading…

January 16.

I told Ryden what I want to name the baby today. Hope Rosa Brooks. I like the sound of that. Pretty. Strong. The name of someone who has her two feet solidly on the ground and knows which direction to walk.

I remember that conversation. We were in my room, under the covers, sharing a pillow, staring at each other. (My mom didn't care. Meg was already pregnant, so what difference did it make if we were in bed together? Anyway, we were fully clothed.) Even seven months pregnant and close to death's door, Meg was so beautiful.

Things were good between us again. The only thing we'd ever really fought about was the abortion, and yeah, that was an enormous fight, and it lasted a long time, right up until it was too late for her to have one and the fighting became pointless. But even through her blatant disregard for my opinion, for my concern for her well-being, I'd never considered breaking up with her. We were in the shittiest of shitty situations, but we were in it together.

I brushed her hair out of her eyes. God, I loved that crazy hair.

But then I felt sick for thinking that, because the fact that Meg still had her hair meant she'd stopped chemo, which meant she wasn't getting any better.

“Hope Rosa Brooks,” I repeated, testing the feel of the name on my tongue, trying to distract myself from Meg's hair and all its implications.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“What does it mean?”

“What do you mean, what does it mean?”

“I know you, Meg. You're the most organized person I've ever met. I know you have a reason for everything. Usually a long, thought-out reason.”

She smiled. “Okay, fine. So, Rosa because of Rosa Parks.”

“That bus lady? Why?”

She rolled her eyes. “I want our daughter to grow up knowing she can do anything she puts her mind to.”

I nodded. “Okay, what about the Brooks part? Shouldn't it be Reynolds?”

“It's traditional for a child to take the father's last name,” she said.

“I have my mom's last name.”

“Yeah, but that's because you don't have a dad.” She gave me a look that gave extra meaning to her words: I didn't have a dad, but maybe I could if I wanted. If I decided to track down Michael.

I shook my head at her. I wasn't ready for the Michael stuff yet. “But this baby will have a mom
and
a dad,” I said. “So that's not a good argument. And since you won't marry me…”

“Ryden, come on, we've talked about this.”

We had. A couple of times, actually. And she kept shooting me down. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I
wanted
to get married. Jesus, getting married at seventeen is nuts. But so is having a kid. And since we were doing that, I wasn't going to leave her when she needed me the most. I wanted to show her how much I loved her. But she kept saying no. She said it “wasn't something she felt she needed to do.”

“I'm just saying, all things being equal, I don't get why the baby automatically has to have my last name.
You're
the one doing all the heavy lifting.” I put my hand on her huge, round stomach. The baby didn't kick, which was fine by me—that shit freaked me out.

“Yeah, I am,” she agreed. “So I get to decide. And I want her to have her father's name. The end.”

I sighed. Whatever. Fine. I wasn't going to fight with her about something as stupid as a last name. “And what about the first name? Hope?”

“Hope.”

“Why Hope?”

She just stared at me, like I was slow.

“What?” I asked.

“Because it's
hopeful
, you dumbass. She's stuck inside here”—she rubbed her hand over her belly, linking her fingers with mine—“in this sick, all-wrong body, not getting the best start, you know? And…” She took a deep breath. “And I really don't know if she'll be okay, Ryden.” Her lower lip started to wobble. “But I really hope she will.”

I gently reached out and brushed my thumb over her quivering mouth, feeling like breaking down in sobs too but really, really trying to stay strong. What Meg said about the baby was exactly how I felt about
her
. I didn't know if she would be okay, but I really hoped she would. She wasn't looking so good lately. Her face was drawn, her skin had lost its luster, and her eyes looked so, so tired.

“Hope is a really good name,” I whispered. And I kissed her.

I close the book when I reach the end of the entry, but something's nagging at me that I can't put my finger on. Meg recounted that conversation pretty much exactly the way I remember it, but though the memory is the same, it feels weird now. Off, like there's something between the lines, something I'm missing. Huh.

It takes every ounce of energy I have—which, let's be honest, isn't much lately—to close the book after the second entry. I'll read more tomorrow.

I bring the book to my face. It smells like her house, like Glade PlugIns and chocolate-cake-scented candles and carpet shampoo. That scent used to work its way into her hair. Whenever I had my arm around her—walking with her in the halls or around the neighborhood in the snow after she got too weak to go to school—I would lean down, kiss her head, and breathe it in. When that delicious, familiar smell hit me, I would have to stop, wherever we were, and kiss her. And every single time, she snuggled closer into me.

I lie down, place the book right next to me on my pillow, and let its lingering scent waft over me.

• • •

I jolt upright.

Shit. It's Sunday night. 7:36 p.m. Soccer starts tomorrow morning, and I haven't figured out what to do about Hope. I'm screwed.

Still half asleep, I reach out for my phone, and before I really know what I'm doing, I call Alan.

He picks up on the second ring. “Yo.”

“Hey. It's Ryden.”

“I know. It was your ringtone.”

Okay, I have to ask. “What's my ringtone?”

“‘99 Problems' by Jay-Z.”

I think about that for a second. Weird, but whatever.
Alan's
weird. Plus, he's off by about a thousand problems. “What was hers?”

“Meg's?”

Punch to the gut. “Yeah.”

“‘Stronger' by Kanye West.”

“Oh.”

“What's up? Everything okay?”

No. “Yeah. Listen, I have a question. Soccer practice starts back up tomorrow, and I haven't exactly figured out what to do with Hope during that time. Any chance you want to watch her?” I clear my throat and spit out the rest before he can say anything. “It's kind of all day, Monday through Friday, up until school starts. I know it's a lot, and I know this is really random, but—”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah. It's not like I have anything else going on. And I'd really like to get to know Hope. Just let me know what I need to do. I've never really babysat before.”

Well, that was easy. Wonder why I didn't think to ask him earlier.

I hang up with Alan and fall back onto my pillow. But it's not as soft as it should be. The journal. Guess I turned around a lot in my sleep, because the book is now half on my pillow, half off, and it's fallen open.

I go to flip it closed but stop. There's something written on the inside back cover. The writing is small, but the letters are clear. It's a checklist of some sort.

Mabel

Alan

Ryden

My heartbeat picks up slightly. Mabel, Alan, Ryden. What does that mean?

I grab the other journal off my desk, the green one from the first day we met, and flip to the back cover. Nothing. I turn to the front cover. Also blank.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial a number I've never called before. Mabel picks up immediately.

“Are there any more?” I ask.

“Any more what?”

“Journals. Meg's journals.”

“No, that's all I have. I told you, my parents put all her stuff in storage.”

“Yeah, but you had time to take this one from her room before that happened. Did you take any others?”

“I didn't
take
that one from her room,” Mabel says. “It was
in
my room. I found it stuck in a stack of books on my nightstand a couple of days after she died. By that time, all her stuff was already in boxes and being loaded onto a truck.”

I think about that for a minute. “You didn't take it,” I repeat.

“No.”

“It was already in your room.”

“Yes.”

“And you had never seen it before?”

“Nope. Or at least not long enough to distinguish it from any of the other books Meg was always writing in.”

“So Meg must have put it there. She
wanted
you to find it,” I murmur, almost to myself.

“I guess so, yeah.” There's a short pause and then Mabel says, “But why?”

“I have no idea.” But my mind is revolving with possibilities.

What if this checklist, this journal,
means
something? What if she left one for each of us, and there are two other journals out there, for me and Alan?

What if there's something Meg wanted us to know?