Mom takes the polka-dot onesie from me and adds it to the pile in her arms. “They always throw up on the cute ones,” she says.
The Mothers are now unsure about the outing. Mom glances at Aunt Angelina, her concern for her bleeding through her normal poise. But I’m not paying attention anymore.
When Mom mentions throwing up, I start thinking about how I haven’t vomited in a while, which makes my body say, “Wait, yes. That’s a good idea.” Before I can worry about Angelina, I’m needing to find someplace to expel my eggs and sausage.
I can already taste it as I exit the boutique and rush for the trash bin in the main mall.
I thought I was done with this. It had been two days since I’d thrown up.
Twelve hours since I’ve cried.
I barely make it, spewing chunks in an arch as I lean over the trash can.
Finny would be proud of me for that one, I think as I heave again.
“You’re getting really good at aiming your vomit, Autumn.”
I can hear his voice, really hear him say it.
No. I don’t truly think it’s him, though there was a time when I entertained the idea. I’ve accepted this new reality without Finny, yet I can’t stop myself from thinking about him. And when I do? There he is.
My Finny.
“Autumn.”
I gasp for air between heaves. My stomach muscles ache in new mysterious ways, even when I’m not vomiting.
“Autumn?”
“I’m okay!”
“I have a water bottle in my bag,” Aunt Angelina says.
Water sounds amazing, and I hope my body lets me have some soon. I take a shuddering breath but don’t move from the trash can.
“Where’s Mom?”
“Buying the onesie you were holding. Plus another hundred or so other bits of overpriced fabric. Don’t worry, kiddo. I’ll take you to the resale shops and load you up on baby clothes that you don’t have to be fussy about.”
I stand up straight and take another breath, assessing my body. I feel like the captain of a ship amid a squall, telling the old gal to stay steady and ride the waves.
Aunt Angelina hands me the bottle and smiles.
Thank goodness she doesn’t look too much like Finny. Her smile is different, her hair is darker, her chin sharper. I see him in her, but it could be much worse.
Like the way she carries herself, with a constant stoicism.
“Better?” she asks.
“What if I never stop throwing up? I read some women do that.”
She shrugs. “Then you will throw up for another six months and it will suck.”
“I don’t think I could do it.” I swish the water around in my mouth.
“You could and you would, because you’d have to, but you probably won’t,” Aunt Angelina says. “Being a mother is all about losing control and then surviving it.”
I spit into the trash can and take a sip of water, but my throat still feels raw.
“That makes motherhood sound really terrible.”
Aunt Angelina pulls me into a hug. “It’s worth it,” she says.
I feel sick to my stomach in a way that has nothing to do with the baby. I squeeze her tighter.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” I whisper.
“It’s still worth it, Autumn, even if they die.”
My stomach drops again, but she releases me from the hug and smiles sadly at me.
A security guard approaches and asks if we need help or an ambulance. He’s not thrilled about my use of the trash can and points out a restroom on the other side of the courtyard, as if that would have helped. Mom comes out with her shopping bags. The guard eyes my middle before getting on his walkie-talkie and asking for cleaning services.
Mom describes every outfit she has purchased in great detail so that by the time we’re in the car, I almost don’t need to go through the bags. But I do so that I can thank her for each one as we drive home. Our chatter covers the hole in our day’s adventure, the lack of excitement they’d hoped to inspire.
Everything having to do with this baby reinforces the fact that Finny’s not here.
For all of us.
Yet we want this. I want this.
He would want this.
But that doesn’t make doing this without him any easier.
So this is where I live, in a place where every shade of joy must be painted over in the black of Finny’s death, muted to the gray of willfully existing.
two
“This is awesome,” Angie says, glancing up from Guinevere to smile at me. Her face is luminous and shadowed with exhaustion.
I hadn’t planned to tell her so immediately. We’ve hardly spoken in months, but the moment I saw her round face and short figure, my heart leapt, and a feeling of safety came over me.
I suppose it has been a while since I was with a friend.
The tiny basement apartment is cluttered with the lives of three humans and their shoes. I’m perched on the edge of the secondhand plaid couch, which is covered in unfolded laundry. Angie is on the floor changing Guinevere into a “First Christmas” onesie, even though it’s the first week of November. She snaps the last button and looks up at me.
“It is awesome that you’re pregnant, right?” She sits back on her heels.
“It’s good.” I sound like I’m talking about a meal at a restaurant that wasn’t quite what I expected. “It’s scary,” I add, and I still sound like I’m talking about mayonnaise.
“It’s terrifying!” Angie sings as she tickles Guinevere’s chin. She rolls the baby onto her stomach in a square of sunshine cast through the small window. “And it doesn’t stop. Sorry.”
“What doesn’t stop?”
“Motherhood never stops being scary.”
She laughs. I don’t.
Angie stretches her arms above her blond head and groans. She yawns and blinks at me.
“Stand up and let me look at you,” she says.
I oblige, and she nods sagely.
“I can tell,” she says. “I totally see it.”
“No, I can barely feel it, Ang.” The button on my jeans is undone, but my zipper zips.
“I see it,” she says. “When are you due?”
“May Day,” I reply, and then, “May first. Not the distress call.”
Angie smiles and yawns again. “Yes, I can see Auntie Aut’s bump, can you, Guinnie?” She lies down on the floor with a groan. “Sorry, Autumn. I am just so tired.”
“It’s okay. I’m tired too.” I sit back on the couch and watch her coax a smile from her child. The Mothers were thrilled when I said I had reached out to Angie and needed a ride to her place. It’s nice seeing her. It’s weird seeing her as a mother.
There’s this confidence about Angie that startles me. I’d first noticed it at the hospital last summer, but it’s more pronounced now. When she answered the door, she was holding the baby on her hip, and after hugging me and inviting me inside, Angie said, “Sorry. I felt her head, and I need to change her into something warmer,” so she had.
“Is that a trick or hack or something?” I ask her. “What you said a minute ago about feeling her head?”
“No, her head just didn’t feel warm enough.”
“What’s warm enough?”
“How she normally feels.” She yawns again. “Sorry. She sleeps through the night most of the time. But when she doesn’t…”
I wait, but she says nothing more. I gaze around the room, at the crib and queen-size bed. It felt like a lot more space when I visited a year ago, when we were all still in high school.
“Isn’t it weird,” Angie says, “to think about the last time you were here?” She stares up at the ceiling.
“So much has changed since then,” we say at the same time, then laugh.
“I know I sent a text,” Angie says, “but I want to say in person I’m sorry about Finn.”
“It’s his baby,” I say.
Angie laughs so loud she covers her mouth. I’m startled enough that the pain of thinking about Finny is stunted.
“Yeah, of course it is,” she says and giggles. “I mean, who else?” She sits up and looks at me.
I raise my eyebrows. “Some people would have guessed Jamie.”
Angie shakes her head. “You were never going to do it with Jamie. Anyone could see that.”
“I would have,” I say. “If he hadn’t cheated on me.”