“You hush up.” It is weird and wonderful that I’m going to be this woman’s cousin-in-law. That we’re talking like regular people! Which I am, but she is not! Argh, stop fangirling, you’ve already been busted for that once today.
She took a breath and finished, “But the day we got back from ICC, I got to talking with Jack and I thought—”
“You thought damned if the next generation is going to grow up like this.”
“Yes. Exactly. But another way to look at it is: I saw the cage door start to ease open and I wasted no time slamming it shut again. And I’m fine with that.” Well. “Fine” wasn’t the right word, but she knew Leah would get it. “But my choices don’t have to be yours, just like Archer’s weren’t mine. Whatever you’re wondering, whatever’s on your mind, whatever decision you’re trying to make, I don’t think Uncle Dennis should factor in. And he’d be the first to tell you that.”
“Well.” Leah was studying her the way you’d look at a book you weren’t sure you’d like, only to find it was growing on you. Or maybe I’m just projecting all over the place. “I’m no stranger to family drama, that’s for certain. But even if you won’t take good advice, you certainly give it.”
“‘Family drama.’ Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” Angela shook her head. “I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine what fighting your mother’s killer was like. What? Don’t you think it’s strange that nobody’s talking about this? Well, not strange so much as courteous—I kind of threatened the Horde with dismemberment if they brought it up. But it’s just you and me now. And I don’t like elephants.”
“If you want to ask, then ask.”
“I don’t need the gory details. I’m just trying to wrap my head around having to kill someone to save your own life. Most people know about it but not someone who’s done it.”
Leah waved her hand in a faux casual gesture. “Oh, it was mostly terrifying with a dash of horrifying. I wish I could have saved my mom, though. Even after everything she did. You know how people say ‘I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy’? Well, she was my worst enemy. And I wouldn’t have wished that on her. He sliced her up like a trout. And don’t take this the wrong way, either.” Then she stood, bent sharply at the waist, and threw up in Angela’s recycle bin.
TWENTY-FIVE
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, Archer.” Physically.
“Maybe we should go see a doctor.”
“It’s just morning sickness.”
“At night!”
“You know it’s called that because for most women, it hits in the morning, right? It doesn’t mean it’s always exclusive to the hours between 12:01 a.m. and 11:59 a.m. and that any deviation from that means you need to live in your OB’s waiting room. You’re actually reading the baby books you keep buying me, right?”
“Something’s up,” he insisted, his face set in stubborn lines. His forehead was so laddered with concern wrinkles, a chipmunk could have climbed it. Easily. Archer’s bad luck that his grim face was one of her favorites. “You’re not sleeping well, you’re having nightmares every night—sometimes twice a night—you’re not keeping much down. And reliving what that shithead did to your mom? ‘He sliced her up like a trout’? I cannot fucking believe she asked you about it! Angela’s ears are gonna be ringing for a while.”
“Yes, I heard you ‘discussing’ your concern with her. As did the rest of the house. And it was unnecessary.”
Archer’s pacing sped up, which Leah hadn’t thought was possible. She prayed he wouldn’t trip; he was going so fast he’d probably get a concussion. “Don’t care. She should have left you alone. I told them, I told them not to bug us—you—about that. You wouldn’t believe the heinous shit I threatened them with if they disobeyed.”
“If it was anything like the heinous shit Angela threatened them with, I think they were properly cowed.”
“No! They were the opposite of cowed! The minute my back was turned they threw off being cowed! I am very angry and confused and thinking too much about cowing!”
Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Deep breath. “I sought Angela out, Archer. It’s not what you think.” She squared her shoulders and tried to look firm and uncompromising, which was tricky when you were prone. “Sit down.”
He stopped and stared at her, his eyes so wide she could see the whites all around, like a horse that got a whiff of fire. “Oh, my God.”
“Sit down, please.”
“Oh, fuck. It’s bad, isn’t it? Just tell me.” He whirled and paced faster, scraping his fingers through his hair until it was standing up in shaggy, aggravated spikes. “We’ll figure something out. Whatever it is. Maybe you should go on bed rest? Let’s go see a doc and ask about bed rest. I’m sure you’ll be fine. The baby’s gonna be fine, okay, hon? Don’t worry. Okay? But just tell me. Whatever it is.”
“I will. But first I want you to have a seat.”
“Just tell me!”
She propped herself up on an elbow and glared. “I want you to sit down in this room’s only chair, which is beside the bed, because it will give you proximity to me, which I will find comforting and also because following your pacing is making me feel like vomiting again. Now sit. Down.”
He sat.
She lay back and looked at the ceiling. They’d been there a week, she’d had ample time to stare at it. To think about what to say, and when. Trust Archer to notice but give her time and space to broach the subject.
“We are having a daughter,” she began carefully.
He was already nodding and she was already trying not to roll her eyes. The nod. The patented ArcherNod that said: Everything is fine, you can tell by the way I’m nodding in agreement with you. I wouldn’t do that if things weren’t fine. So nodding is good, nodding is good. The irony? It never calmed her down. “Okay.”
“As far as I can tell, our daughter is perfectly healthy.”
“Okay.” Archer was already fidgeting in the chair, dread and concern fighting for pride of place on his face.
“She’ll probably be beautiful. Not ‘all babies are beautiful’ beautiful. Beautiful beautiful.”
“Okay.”
“And this baby isn’t tabula rasa. She’s lived before.”
“Okay.”
“The reason I know this is because the baby is my mother.”
“Okay. What?”
She repeated herself. Better get used to that. You’re going to be talking about this a lot.
“You’re pregnant with my mother-in-law?”
“Yes.”
“Your mom’s coming back.”
“Yes.”
“Through you.”
“Yes.”
Then he just sat. And sat. It didn’t surprise her—she’d had the luxury of taking a week to adjust to the bombshell—so she stayed quiet.
Finally, he looked up. The concern ladder was back on his forehead. Where’s a chipmunk when you need one? Can I catch one? And train it to walk on Archer’s forehead? Why am I now obsessed with chipmunks? “How do you— I don’t doubt you. But how do you know? And use small words, on account of my brain dumbness.”
She smiled, as he’d intended. Because he didn’t have “brain dumbness.”*
Ugh, really not a fan of that phrase.
Archer was one of the few people who couldn’t see his past lives, one of the few she couldn’t read. He was an utter blank, but in the very best of ways, like a canvas that could be made into anything. Meaning he was either a brand-new soul
(“At least I’m not a rerun like some people,” he teased.)
or he’d lived so long and so well he had earned a clean slate. Archer didn’t know, or care, which it was. She didn’t know—ironic, and she was well aware that made him fascinating to her—and cared, a little. Out of intellectual and spiritual curiosity, if nothing else.
“I know it’s Mom because our baby is dreaming. But they aren’t my dreams.” She paused, trying to find the words to explain how sometimes You Just Know without coming off like a condescending jackass. “I’ve seen other people’s dreams—their lives—when I’m awake. That’s always true, you know that. I can see them even more clearly in therapy sessions after a dose of Reindyne. But never like this. Never while sleeping. In all my life, I’ve never dreamed anyone’s lives but my own.”