“I mean, even though you were my cousin, and, like, ten years older, I really liked you. Don’t you remember me following you around all the time?”
“You were my shadow,” I said. “I remember anytime I wanted to go anywhere, you wanted to go with me.”
She smiled weakly. “Remember that time I found you? With what’s-her-name?”
I cocked my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In the boathouse. I went in there and caught you making out with that girl. I think her name was Zenia or something. You had your hand right under her shirt.”
“Yeah, I remember that. I begged you not to tell anyone.”
Marla nodded. “I made you take me to the marina, in Dad’s boat, and get me something at the snack bar. I was bought off for the price of a milk shake.”
I shot her a smile. “Yeah. I remember that, too.”
“I should have asked for more, considering what I’d end up doing for you later.”
“What?” I asked.
“That same summer?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t think I know what you’re referring to.”
She waved a hand, dismissed it. “All my memories of the cabin used to be good. It was my happy place, you know? But I don’t think I can ever go back there.” She went silent for several seconds, then said, “That’s where I lost her, you know. Where I lost Agatha.”
“Agatha,” I repeated.
“That’s what I would have named her. I had a name all picked out. Agatha Beatrice Pickens. A mouthful, I know.” Her eyes, which hadn’t had much of a break from crying in the last couple of hours, moistened yet again.
“I didn’t know it happened up there,” I said.
“There was this outbreak at the hospital then, C. diff or whatever they call it, and Mom was worried about me having the baby there. Although she didn’t want anyone to know she was choosing to keep her own daughter out of the hospital. She knew how that would play, sending me elsewhere at the same time she was telling the press that the hospital was perfectly safe, that all precautions were being taken. But she was trained as a nurse and was a midwife for a while years ago—you knew that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So she said she could look after me as well as anybody could. Although she didn’t want to take too many chances, so she got Dr. Sturgess to help out. So they got me all set up at the cabin. I mean, it was a good idea, and it was really nice up there. Relaxing, you know?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Mom stayed up there with me. She had Dr. Sturgess on standby. Like, if the contractions started getting really close together, she’d call him and get him up there. Since she’s the head of the hospital, people, even the doctors, jump when she tells them to.”
“I’ve noticed,” I said.
“So, when it looked like the baby was about to be born, she texted him and he got up there real fast. And things were going okay at first, although I had a lot of pain, you know? Lots of pain.” Her voice drifted off.
I didn’t know what to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything she wanted me to say. Marla just wanted to talk.
“They gave me something for it; Dr. Sturgess did. And that helped. But then things started going wrong. Something really bad. And when the baby—when Agatha—came out, she wasn’t breathing.”
“Was it the cord? The umbilical cord?” I didn’t know a lot about the subject, but I had heard of newborns dying that way.
She looked away and nodded. “Yeah. I’ve read about it online, and it happens a lot, but it’s rare for it to actually threaten the baby. But that’s what happened. It was all kind of surreal, because I was sort of in and out, but even so, I’ll never forget it. Not as long as I live.”
“I’m sorry, Marla. I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been.”
“At least I got to hold her,” Marla said. “To see her perfect little fingers.” The tears were coming now. “Mom says I held her for a couple of minutes before they had to take her away. You have any Kleenex?”
I pointed to the glove box. She opened it, grabbed three tissues, dabbed her eyes, and blew her nose. “Mom blamed herself,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“After, she said it was all her fault. That if I’d had the baby at the hospital, maybe they could have done more to save her. She took it pretty hard. I know she comes across as a total bitch and a half, but she took it almost as bad as I did.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“Do you blame her?”
She took several seconds to answer. “No,” she said finally. “It made sense, doing things that way. I mean, I went along with it. Dr. Sturgess said it was the smartest thing to do. It was just . . . it was just the way it happened. If I blame anyone, I guess I blame God. That’s who Mom says she blames, after she’s done blaming herself.”
I nodded.
“And I’m not a religious person. I mean, I didn’t really believe in God until I needed Him to blame. Does that make any sense?” She searched my face.