She felt closer to Althea, but it was easier to talk with Ada about some things. Her sister was an hour away in Pahrump, living with some guy who grew marijuana for a living. Nobody said that, of course. Russ was a “farmer.” Grew vegetables for some of the restaurants on the Strip. They said stuff like that. But really he grew marijuana, and Coral pretended not to know, and Ada pretended that a multi-ton marijuana operation was some offshoot of the way she’d lived when she was young: when she had followed around a couple of bands and lived in a house where nobody cared what color anyone was, or who slept with whom; where they all raised one another’s kids, and laughed about which ones might be blood related after all. In Ada’s case, it didn’t matter. Her two kids both looked exactly like her, and whoever their dad was (dads were?), he must have hardly had any genes, because Serenity was Ada’s double, and Alabaster—Alabaster, for a black man—was Ada if she’d been a boy.
Ada came to town to bring Augusta flowers. She had filled the back of her car with them, and she called Coral to bring over more vases. It was a crazy Ada idea, but they had ended up laughing harder than they had in years. Coral came right over and got things organized. She separated the flowers by stem length, nipped off the ends of each one, and then filled every pot and glass and bucket in the house. There were bowls of flowers all the same color, and vases filled with daisies and roses and asters. She had tall, spikey arrangements, and flat, floating ones, and little sprays of wildflowers to set by the beds. She was showing Augusta her work, wondering where Ada was, thinking that she’d spent an entire Saturday afternoon finishing one of Ada’s projects, when Ada finally poked her head in the door.
“There you are,” said Coral. “Well, it’s done. They look beautiful. They do. Extravagant—and beautiful.”
“Done?”
Ada stepped through the door, her arms full of more blooms. And they both laughed. Because here was Coral, with the problem all resolved, and there was Ada, with no problem at all.
They ended up giving the rest to the neighbors.
And later, after Augusta had fixed some dinner, and they had sat and talked about Ada’s kids—after Augusta had said she’d turn in early, she was an old lady now, and Ada had said, “Old lady my ass” and Augusta had reminded her kindly not to swear—then the sisters found the cognac left over from Easter, and they sat in the back, in the hot comfort of a summer night, and that’s when Coral told Ada she was pregnant.
“I probably shouldn’t be drinking this.”
“Why, you pregnant?”
Like everything with Ada, it didn’t go as Coral might have predicted.
“Girl, you got pregnant at thirty-six—we’d all about given up—and now you’re going to have a baby. It’s fantastic news. Wonderful. Why haven’t you told Mama? Why aren’t we dancing?”
“I’m afraid to tell Koji.”
“Of course you are. I mean, what are you guys doing? You’re together, you’re not. What’s your deal?”
“Wow, Ada. Easy on the judgment. When did you ever have a normal relationship? With Russ, the drug dealer?”
“Hey, let’s not go there. Come on. We’re having a nice time. You’re drinking, and you shouldn’t be, so let’s not waste it. This isn’t about me. What I did. What my relationships are. I just don’t understand your relationship with Koji. I mean, we all treat him like he’s part of the family, but he’s here, what, one week a month, and you don’t go there, and he doesn’t move here, and what are you doing? I mean, what’s it been? Four years?”
Coral thought about Koji’s family; about why she didn’t go to Japan. Ada would understand this, but she didn’t want to tell her. She didn’t want to tell anyone. She didn’t want Ada or Althea or her mother to know what Koji’s family thought.
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated, Coral. Give that up. Give up that thing you do.”
“What thing?”
“That Coral thing. That everything-has-to-be-right, my-life-isn’t-messy thing. Speaking of judgment.”
“I don’t judge you.”
“You’ve judged me my whole life. And maybe I deserve it. But I’m just telling you, let it go. Whatever’s bothering you, whatever’s holding you back, let it go. Life’s messy. Big fuck.”
Coral looked down at her hands. Ada continued.
“I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now, but this baby’s a beautiful thing. I know you want her. And I want her. And Mama wants her.” Ada stood up. “What we should be doing right now is celebrating!”
So they did.
Her sister hadn’t even stopped speaking, and the euphoria washed over Coral like a wave.
She was pregnant. She was going to have a baby. She, Coral, would have her own baby. She whooped. And Ada flew out of the chair, and wrapped her arms around her, and they both cried. Ada started it—she started the crying—and she said, “Coral, Coral, Coral, I am so happy for you.”
Augusta heard them and got up to see what was going on, so they all sat there, late into the night, talking about Coral’s baby, and what sort of baby Coral had been, and how Ada used to crawl into the crib and make her sister laugh by barking and neighing and mooing in her face.
On Monday, Coral called her doctor for a prenatal appointment and picked up a bottle of maternity vitamins at the GNC on Flamingo. Her mind was full of thoughts of the baby, of whether it would be a boy or girl, of what the nursery might look like, of whether it would be fussy or calm. The baby would be born near Christmas, and with maternity and sick leave, she could probably stay home three months.
She talked with Koji every night, as always, but somehow she kept the secret. He would be home in two weeks, and she needed to tell him in person. She needed to see his eyes, his face. If she didn’t, she might never be sure of what he really thought. She tried not to think of what he would do, of how they might live, of the changes they would make. She was sure of Koji, but she was afraid too, and this fear was deep inside, and she had to be with him in person when he heard the news.
She started to bleed two days before he arrived.
It was a hot gush, unmistakable, in the middle of lunch duty. She made an excuse and ran out the door, leaving behind everything, even her purse. She raced to the emergency room at Sunrise, but it was too late. The baby was gone.
“Miscarriages at eleven weeks are not uncommon. I’m sorry, Ms. Jackson, I’m really sorry. You should talk to your own doctor about when to start trying again. She knows your body best.”
And Coral had cried.
She had sat in the open exam room, nothing but a flimsy cotton curtain, not quite shut, between her and the child with the seizure, the old man with the chest pain, the woman who had been vomiting for days, and she cried. Her cries were great gasping shudders, mortifying cries, which she desperately wanted to stop, but she could not stop them. She sat and cried in this horrifying way, and everyone there could hear her. After a bit, a nurse said she was sorry and asked if there was someone she could call. And Coral said no, and got up, and then remembered that she didn’t have any money, she didn’t have her purse, so the nurse walked her to a quiet hall and gave her a quarter for the pay phone.
Two days later, Koji flew in. He always stayed with her, but she asked him to take a hotel room. She said she was sick, that she would see him in a couple of days; there was no sense in him getting it too.
“What do you mean, Coral? If you’re sick, I want to help you.”
“No, Koji. I don’t want you here. I just want to sleep.”
She knew she’d hurt his feelings, and that he had no idea what was happening, but she was wildly angry at him, afraid of what she might say if he were right in front of her.
She couldn’t think what to do with herself, so she called her sister.
“Ada, it’s Coral.”