“We have to tell Jeff,” she said, nearly gasping at the thought. She jumped up and clapped her hands together in a strange sort of joy. “Avis, this is wonderful! This is exactly the way it’s supposed to happen, written in the stars. Jeffrey promised us, he said the time would come, and now it’s here. It’s here and it’s you. We have to tell everyone—a big announcement, something they’ll never forget.”
Avis’s stomach turned at the thought. She was nervous, but she couldn’t keep it a secret. By Christmas she’d start to show, growing bigger around the middle with each passing day. Besides, to keep something so important hidden was to defy her faith in Jeff. If she didn’t make the announcement, Lily would do it for her, and then it would be less about congratulations, you’re a mom and more about why Avis hadn’t said a word. Why hide it when it could be celebrated? she wondered. This is good. Perfect. Exactly what I want. Because, despite not knowing who the father was, anonymity seemed appropriate.
They shared everything here.
The child would belong to everyone and, in turn, would promise Avis a place among its members forever.
· · ·
Lily handled everything. She cooked all through the next day, her long red hair piled atop her head like a tangle of fire. She shooed Avis out of the kitchen every time she offered a hand. When the group questioned the special occasion, Lily waved a wooden spoon at them and told them to be patient. Eventually, they let Lily do what she would, which ended up nothing short of Rockwellian when it came to a dinner spread. She arranged food on serving dishes abandoned by Audra’s mother, poised the plates on a lace tablecloth that had been left on the top shelf of a hallway closet. She made a makeshift centerpiece with wineglasses, candles, and wildflowers. When she finally called the group to dinner, they paused at the mouth of the kitchen to stare at the beautiful scene set before them. The lights were dimmed and the candles flickered. The silverware glinted despite its tarnish.
She planned the evening right down to where everyone would sit, marking everyone’s spot with a small teepee of scrap paper, their names carefully printed in tiny capital letters. Naturally, Jeffrey got the head of the table, but to Avis’s surprise, Lily assigned her to the other end. Avis would have liked to sit next to Jeff during such a special occasion, but she couldn’t deny her spot was fit for a queen—a queen who sat across from her king. The rest of the court was sanctioned to fill up the left and right sides of the table.
She was too nervous to eat, pushing food around her plate while smiling at Kenzie’s jokes. She listened as Sunnie and Robin discussed the vegetable garden, and watched Jeffrey from the opposite end of the table as he swirled wine in his glass.
The boys ate. The girls waited.
The boys finished. The girls began their meals.
Before dessert but after Sunnie and Robin had cleared the plates and silverware, Lily rose from her seat and held up her glass. Avis’s heart sputtered to a stop when Lily gave her a thoughtful smile.
“I know you’re all curious about the occasion,” she said. “But once I reveal it, you’ll all come to realize that the fanfare was more than necessary. An expectation for an expectation. A grand event for a grand prediction.”
Someone pulled in a sharp intake of air, as if catching on to Lily’s clues. Avis didn’t see who it was, too busy studying the knot of pine through the lace where her plate had once been. She hadn’t understood what Lily had been talking about the night before, and she still didn’t get what any of it meant. All she knew was that this was important, fulfilling some sort of prophecy. She was the bringer of a kind of divination that had yet to be explained. And again she was left to wonder: why hadn’t she been told of this all-important prediction before? Still on the outside, she thought. Looking in on your own party. Still Audra, no matter what they call you.
“Avis?”
Her gaze snapped up to meet Lily’s. The entire table was staring at her with bated breath. Jeffrey looked smug on his end of the room, like a guy who knew the punch line before the end of the joke. Their eyes met, and he gave her a knowing look, then leaned back in his seat and relaxed while everyone else waited for her to speak.
“Yes?” The word was parched, hardly audible. Her eyes darted back to Lily’s expectant face.
“Would you like to . . .”
Sunnie lifted her hands to her mouth, holding back a gasp. Clover and Gypsy exchanged a secret look and grinned simultaneously. Unsure as to why she would notice such a small detail at that very moment, Avis couldn’t look away from the empty spot at the hollow of Gypsy’s throat. For the first time, Gypsy wasn’t wearing her ornate cross. When she finally managed to pull her gaze away, she noticed Noah staring at her with his alien eyes, wide and disbelieving. Kenzie, however, looked confused. Leave it to Kenzie to not understand what was happening while the rest of the group was clearly in the know.
It was Deacon who spurred her into speaking. Sitting to Avis’s immediate right, he reached beneath the table and placed his hand on her knee in reassurance.
Go on, it said. Have faith.
Avis licked her lips, cleared her throat, and squared her shoulders.
“I’m pregnant,” she told them.
The room buzzed.