Right now, Tina’s already welling up as she slowly approaches Friday’s house. “Oh my lord, I can’t believe you’re here,” she says. Her voice warbles, clearly on the brink of breaking. “I’m so sorry you ever had to step foot back in Port Royal.”
Behind her, another face I recognize climbs out of the sedan: Shane Flood. The tall, reedy guy from high school, always struggling to find pants that would accommodate his ridiculously long legs, appears to be growing out more than up these days. Kids used to give him hell over the three or four inch gap between his ankles and the bottoms of his jeans. The first time I ever saw Callan hit anyone was when he handed out a right hook to a smart-ass basketball player who dared to mock Shane Flood. Shane doesn’t say anything. He climbs up the steps toward me, and by the time he reaches the third step he’s already high enough that he can embrace me and wrap me up in his arms. When I look down, his pants are so long, he’s had to roll them up a couple of times.
“You should have said goodbye,” he tells me softly. “Twelve years is too long to go without seeing your face, Taylor. Just cruel, in fact.”
I’m numb as I reach up and return his hug. “Sometimes you need to be cruel to be kind, right?”
“Kind to yourself, maybe. We’ve all been hurtin’ pretty bad over not knowing what happened to you. One minute you were here, and then the next…”
I let go of Shane, casting my eyes down at the ground. “I’m sorry. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, enough is just enough, y’know? I had to go. If I’d stayed, something awful would have happened.”
“I’ve tried to find you on Facebook,” Tina says. Tears streak down her cheeks, chasing over the constellation of freckles she always hoped would disappear as she got older. I’m kind of relieved to see that they haven’t, though. She would somehow be a different person without them. So much time has passed that she’s undoubtedly a different person anyway, I’m sure, but seeing the spattering of brown flecks across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks is reassuring in a way.
“I know. I never really bothered with the whole social media thing,” I say. “Not my style.” Unless I’m looking up ex boyfriends, of course. Tina nods like she understands, opening her arms to pull me into a hug too. She’s wearing a loose fitting shirt, so I haven’t noticed a bump until now, when I feel it pressing against my own belly. I lean back, surprised.
“Oh, wow! You’re pregnant?”
Tina nods. She looks happy enough that she could burst right here and now. “Twenty-two weeks. Very unexpected, but very welcome at the same time.”
I stare down at Tina’s stomach, amazed and slightly horrified. How strange. Tina takes hold of my hand and guides it to the swell of her stomach, pressing my palm against the small, hard roundness of her, and blood rushes to my face. It would be incredibly rude to yank my hand away, but I’m suddenly gripped by fear. I don’t want to be touching her like this. I really don’t want to.
Tina makes an apologetic looking face. “Sorry, Coralie. I think he’s actually asleep right now. He usually wakes up after I eat, though. Very annoying. We can always try again later.”
“You can…you can tell when he’s sleeping?”
Tina laughs, bright and loud. “Of course. You get to notice when they stop kicking and squirming around. At first it’s kind of scary. Having them do back flips twenty-four seven is frustrating but calming at the same time. You know they’re alive at least. When they stop for longer and longer periods of time, you begin to worry something’s not right. Turns out they just sleep in longer bouts as they grow, though.”
I grimace before I can stop myself. I’m usually a master of hiding my thoughts, but this one slips by me before I can rein it in. Tina notices, naturally. She smiles the smile of a woman blissed out on baby hormones. “It’s not as weird as it sounds. You get used to it very quickly. Most women love being pregnant. It’s such a gratifying experience. I take it you don’t have kids yet, Coralie?”
“No. No, I just…I haven’t had time.” I am a hollowed out husk of a person.
“She just ain’t had the right guy with her yet, s’all.” Behind me, Friday has snuck up on us. The crazy, wiry hair that’s too short to go back in her ponytail is standing on end, pointing every which way. It used to be that that hair was jet black once upon a time, but now it’s pure white. She’s changed out of her housecoat and into a pretty floral shirt and a long, swaying skirt down to her knees. “You people better get on inside now. Calllan’s opened that bottle of wine, and I swear he’s gunning on drinkin’ the whole thing before the food’s even ready.”
“Jesus.” Shane hurries up the remaining steps and into the kitchen, presumably to put a stop to Callan’s drinking before he really does polish off the bottle. Tina follows after him, giving Friday a quick hug before disappearing inside.