It was Saturday morning. I was resting in the window seat in my dad’s hospital room, my journal perched in my lap. He was still comatose, his machines beeping and clicking like they had been for two weeks. His heart hadn’t given up on him yet.
The moment Carla’s name had flashed across my screen, I’d considered not answering. One afternoon at the pond and a few semikind sentiments, and suddenly I was her go-to person. She’d texted me on Wednesday to “make sure I was doing okay” and left me a message on Thursday to “see how I was holding up.” She needed to get a life. Then again, I needed to be meaner.
I answered the phone anyway, because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or be roped into another waterside heart-to-heart. I rued the day I became a good person (see: worst kinds of people).
“I’m a little busy,” I replied, adding a sentence to my entry. “Call one of your friends. Olivia, or someone.”
“You know we aren’t talking anymore.” Her voice quivered like she had been crying all morning. “I want it to be you.”
“Want what to be me?”
“I’m at the hospital,” she said, as a man’s voice demanded a glass of water in the background. “I started having contractions during the night. I need you to come be my coach like you did in birthing class.”
“You can’t be serious.” My disbelieving laugh echoed into the speaker. I paused and waited for her to say that she was kidding. She didn’t. “You’re serious?”
“My stepmom can’t get off work in time, my dad is no help, and pigs would have to fly over a frozen hell before I would let Snake watch me give birth.” She yelled something to her dad away from the phone before bringing it back to her lips. “I just need someone to hold my hand and give encouragements. You did it once before.”
“That was pretend, Carla,” I said. My mom raised a brow at me as she walked into the room with a bag of McDonald’s. She handed me a hot chocolate and mouthed something indecipherable when she noticed my journal.
“Please,” Carla pleaded. I didn’t have to see her to know that she was crying. “I can’t do this by myself.”
She blubbered into the phone, a nurse spewing information behind her. I heard the words dilated and pushing. The reality of giving birth was already making me queasy, and I wasn’t even the one who had to do it.
“Is Snake there?”
“He’s on his way. Please, come.”
Good deeds were the absolute worst. Worse than depression. Worse than waiting rooms. Worse than the worst kinds of people. They were the worst because they were compulsive. And as much as I’d never intended to yell push while a girl I barely tolerated gave birth to the spawn of the guy who made me care, good deeds and pesky compassion trumped my aversions.
“Are you at Central?” I asked.
It was like I could hear her smile. “Yeah. Second floor.”
“I’m on the third floor with my dad. I’ll come down.”
“Thank you!” she yelled. “Thank you so much! You don’t even know.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t decided how encouraging my encouragements will be.”
“I’m sure you’ll say the right thing. You’re not as bad as you think you are.”
The call clicked out.
My mom was digging into a bacon and cheese bagel, highlighting passages in her devotional book. “Who was that?” she asked.
“Carla.” I closed my journal and slid it under the cushion. “She’s having her baby.”
She glanced at me, and where there should have been self-righteous judgment, there was an unbelievable lack of disapproval. Her hand glided along a verse as she painted it neon yellow. “She wants you to be there? I didn’t realize the two of you were friends.”
“We’re not,” I said, though I was starting to lose my footing. If I kept up with these Carla-inspired good deeds, I was going to have to ditch my friendless image. That might not have been such a bad thing. “She doesn’t have anyone else. It’s not right that she should have to go through that alone.”
“Will Snake be there?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
I wondered if I’d heard her correctly.
“Good?”
“Yes. He’s taking responsibility for himself.” She looked at me, the glare from the window making it difficult to see her eyes behind her glasses. “I still don’t like him. But I’ve been doing a lot of praying, and I’ve discussed the situation with Frankie, and you know what they say—?God is the giver of second chances. Who knows? Maybe there’s a good boy underneath all that rebellion.”
“There is,” I whispered.
She smiled. “There better be.”
If it weren’t for the shrill beep of the machines and the sunlight casting heat against my back and my palms sweaty with shock and nerves, I wouldn’t have believed that the woman speaking was my mother. My mother who always kept her distance. My mother who never tried to understand anyone. And she was giving Snake, possibly the hardest heart to learn, a second chance. Maybe I wasn’t the only one getting better.
“He’s not a bad guy,” I said as I moved to the door. She was watching me leave and not trying to stop me. And I think she understood, or at least was trying to. It was all I could ask for. “He’s no more flawed than the rest of us.”
“Maybe not,” she said quietly, glancing at the clock across the room.
“Mom?” I looked into her eyes, and for once I felt like they were really seeing me. “You quit your job for me, didn’t you? To take care of me?”
She didn’t look surprised. I think she knew I’d figure it out eventually, even if it took longer than we both would have liked. “Everything I do is for you, sweetheart.”
Against myself, against reason, I felt the urge to hug her. She didn’t know how to take it when I dove and wrapped my arms around her body, burying my head in her wiry hair. I felt her tremble, but I knew she wouldn’t cry. Like me, she was sick of crying.
“You should go,” she whispered against my neck. “I think Little Carla could use a friend right about now.”
I nodded before running out the door. And for once, I didn’t feel shame in what I was leaving behind.
When I made it to Carla’s room on the second floor, her dad was seated in a chair against the wall. He was clad in a flashy three-piece suit that made him look like a secret service man avowed to protect Carla’s royal baby. His graying hair was combed over with so much force I didn’t question that he was balding and insecure (see: pond people).
Carla perked up when she noticed me in the doorway, her hair plastered to her face with sweat. There was a lump of needles jabbing into her arms. She waved me over. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you,” she said, her makeup-less eyes puffy and bulging. In the past two months, I had come to know many versions of Carla I didn’t know before. Angry Carla. Strong Carla. Independent Woman Carla. But none was as pitiable as Crybaby Carla. Even that version wasn’t too intolerable, though. “They said I’m going to start pushing soon.”