When I get to the conversation about naming Hope, the one that sat funny in my gut the first and second and third time around, it’s like the words and letters unscramble themselves before my eyes, forming a clear message.
I know you, Meg. I know you have a reason for everything.
But this baby will have a mom and a dad.
Both of those sentences came from me. Absolute, undeniable, written-down proof that I’m an idiot. I knew Meg didn’t do anything without a well-thought-out reason. Of course she’d thought of all the possible outcomes and likelihoods. She knew from the moment she found out she was pregnant she was probably going to die but still decided having the baby was more important.
She was so insistent Hope have my last name because she knew all along that Hope wouldn’t have both a mom and dad. All that “everything is going to be fine” talk was total bullshit. She was lying to me the entire time.
I read through the rest of the journal, this newfound knowledge coloring every word.
Mabel
Alan
Ryden
This checklist means something, dammit. I’m even more sure of that now that I know Meg was keeping secrets from me. Lying to me. And I need to find out what.
? ? ?
I pull up to Alan’s. I texted him on my way over, and clearly he didn’t have any hot Saturday night plans because he’s waiting for me outside. “Hey,” I say, getting out of the car.
“What’s up?” he asks.
I pull Hope’s car seat out of the car, hand it to Alan, and keep moving straight toward his front door.
“Dude, what’s going on?” he asks, keeping up with my pace.
“I need to look through your room. Is that cool?” I stop on the stoop and turn to face him.
He stares at me, looking completely freaked. But he holds the door open. “Be my guest.”
I know he said there were no journals here, but I need to see for myself. I go straight to his room—I’d been here a couple of times before with Meg, back when she was still strong and barely pregnant. It looks exactly like you’d expect: twin bed covered in a neat blue comforter, books stacked, clothes put away, and hip-hop and Korean movie posters covering almost every inch of wall. There’s also a poster of Grace Park in a bikini that is hot as fuck.
I check his bookshelves first. Nothing. Nightstand, dresser…clear. All there is under the bed is a big drawer filled with winter clothes. I rummage through them, but nothing is hidden in the piles. There are a few notebooks lined up spine out on the shelf over his desk, but they’re all three-subject books and filled with Alan’s class notes. Not a journal in sight.
Alan stands in the doorway, Hope in his arms. She’s out of her car seat, awake, blowing little spit bubbles between her lips. She’s as happy in his arms as she is in my mom’s. The kid loves literally everyone except me.
“I need to check the rest of your house.”
Alan wordlessly steps out of the way.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never been in most parts of his house before. But I can’t stop. I’m desperate. I go room to room, looking through bookshelves and under beds and in dresser drawers and in closets. Some part of me knows there’s no way Meg would have hidden one of her journals in Alan’s dad’s underwear drawer, but another part of me says to look everywhere.
When I get to the kitchen, I run into Alan’s mother. I haven’t actually gotten farther than the driveway all the times I stopped by to drop off or pick up Hope this week, so I haven’t seen her in a while. “Mrs. Kang,” I say, stopping short.
She looks more surprised to see me than I am to see her. Which makes sense. She lives here. It’s not that far off that she’d be in her own kitchen. But I’m probably the last person she expected to burst through her kitchen door, red-faced and ransacking her house for my own personal version of the Holy Grail.
“Hello, Ryden! How lovely to see you. Did Alan tell you how much we love having little Hopie spend time with us? She’s such a doll.”
Hopie? “Yes,” I say, trying to calm down. “Thank you so much for taking her in. I really appreciate it.”
“Of course! Any time.” Her face suddenly loses its glow. “We all miss Meg so very much. It’s been quite a comfort to have little Hope around. Don’t you agree, Alan?”
I turn to find Alan and Hope standing behind me. “Yeah. I do.”
“Mrs. Kang, sorry if this is a weird question, but have you seen any of Meg’s journals lying around your house anywhere?”
Her eyebrows crinkle a little. “You mean those notebooks she was always writing in?”
“Yeah.”
She thinks for a minute. “No, I haven’t seen any. Not in quite a while.”
I nod. “Okay. Well, thanks anyway.”
Alan walks me back to my car.
“Yeah, so…sorry about all that,” I say.
“You going to explain now?”