Another Piece of My Heart (13 page)

“How dare you say anything about my mother,” Emily screams. “You’re not worth the ground she walks on. She’s an amazing, sweet person, and how dare you say she’s drunk. You’re the bitch, you’ve been a bitch since you walked in and stole my father. All you care about is him. You pretend to love Sophia, but I know you don’t. You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met. We were all happy before you came into our lives, and I hate you more than I’ve hated anyone. You’re just this big fake.
Oh, Emily, your hair looks so pretty,
” she mimics. “
That’s a cute skirt, is it new?
You think I don’t know how fake you are, that you only say those things in front of my dad so he thinks you’re nice to me? You have ruined all of our lives.”

There is a long silence as they look at each other, and, as quickly as it appeared, Andi’s rage goes. The fight goes out of her as she stares at Emily, seeing her as a terrified little girl.

“No, Emily,” she says quietly, looking pointedly at Emily’s stomach. “You’re the one who has ruined her life. What are you? Three months pregnant? Four?” She looks back up to see a flicker of fear in Emily’s eyes.

“What are you talking about?” she says disdainfully, but there is fear in her voice.

“When was the last time you had a period, Emily?”

Emily’s eyes look upward for a second, and Andi suddenly realizes that Emily doesn’t know, is thinking about when her last period actually was. Perhaps, on some level, she suspected, but she doesn’t
know,
is thinking perhaps that if she buries her head in the sand deep enough and long enough, it will all go away.

The color drains from Emily’s face. “I’m not pregnant,” she says.

“Wishing it were so doesn’t make it so.” Andi sighs. “So when was your last period?”

“I’m not fucking pregnant, okay?” Emily yells, and runs out of the room, slamming the door.

*   *   *

They drive home in silence, Emily hunched up in the passenger seat, her sweater tightly drawn around her, arms crossed to hide her stomach.

Andi silently berates herself all the way home. How could she not have seen? How did she not realize? She thought it was puppy fat, teenage weight, the freshman fifteen a little earlier than planned. And the throwing up. Now it makes sense. Those times she thought she heard Emily throwing up, putting it down to drugs, or alcohol, she now realizes were due to morning sickness.

And the drugs! The alcohol! What about fetal alcohol syndrome? Andi thinks of the way Emily has abused her body these last few months, the way Andi suspects she has abused her body, and shivers with horror.

There is termination, she tells herself, mentally calculating in her head. What choice does she have, a seventeen-year-old who has been drinking and doing God knows what drugs during a pregnancy. She will have to terminate.

And then,
What if I am wrong?
What if I have jumped to terrible conclusions?
Please, God,
she prays silently, glancing at Emily out of the corner of her eye.
Please, God, for Emily’s sake, for all of our sakes, let me be wrong.

Fourteen

“What the hell’s going on?” Ethan looks first at Emily, then at Andi, seeing an expression in her eyes he has never seen before.

“Are you going to tell him?” Andi’s voice is calm and quiet. She looks at Emily as Emily howls and smashes her hand into the wall.

“Shut up!” she screams. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I hate you.”

Ethan’s eyes widen in shock. He expected a tearful, contrite Emily, not this bundle of rage, and this insane accusation.

“Emily, stop.” He tries to grab her arm, but she tears away from him and starts pulling her own hair, shrieking all the while, “Shut up! I hate you! I hate you!”

“Emily?” Ethan’s pain is obvious, seeing his daughter in a place he can’t reach, and he turns to Andi with fury in his eyes.

“What the hell have you done? What has happened to my daughter? I knew I shouldn’t have let you go.”

Andi is too tired to take umbrage. She’s too tired to be offended. She’s had enough.

“Ethan,” she says quietly. “Look at her. Look at her stomach.”

Emily turns to the wall, screaming, “No!” so he can’t see.

“What? What are you saying?” He is stricken as he pulls Emily around to face him, his eyes dropping. “Oh, sweet Jesus. Emily? You’re pregnant?”

“Leave me alone.” Emily tears herself away, spitting like a trapped cat. “Shut up!” Emily continues screaming. “I hate you! I hate you!”

“Emily!” Ethan roars. “Stop!
Are you pregnant?
”

Emily, with a howl of pain, runs up the stairs, into the bathroom, and slams the door, locking it firmly, where she continues to scream and bang her head against the tiles.

Andi stands, shaking, the shock threatening tears for her, a gulf as wide as Mexico now between her and Ethan.

“Do you have a pregnancy test?” he says finally. Quietly.

Andi nods, and wordlessly she goes up to her bathroom, each step feeling as if she is treading on cotton candy, her whole body woolly and trembling from the force of Emily’s rage and fear.

Ethan is waiting outside the bedroom when she comes out and hands it to him silently. She hears him go down the corridor. More screaming, more sobbing, and finally, a brief lull of silence before the wailing starts again.

An hour goes by. Two. Suddenly, Andi hears footsteps down the hall, and Ethan appears, exhaustion pulling him down, making him seem ten years older than he is.

“Is…?” She looks at him expectantly.

Ethan sits down on the bed, looks at her, nods.

Then he bursts into tears.

Fifteen

Ethan’s body heaves, the only sound being occasional gasps of air as Andi sits wearily beside him, laying a hand on his back, rubbing in small, gentle circles, finding her own eyes filling with tears that spill down her cheeks.

She has never seen him cry before, had not expected to cry herself, but she is crying for different reasons.

Andi sits, silent. Terrified that if she opens her mouth to speak, it will open the floodgates for her to sob next to him, and if she starts, she is not sure she can stop. She wants to put her arms around him, pull him in close, comfort him, but … but … she cannot do more than this right now, rubbing her hand on his back as the sadness pulls her deep, deep down.

She is not done. Not yet. But close. This is too much for her: the drama, the screaming, the hatred and rage that fly around this house, that fill her with dread each time she comes home.

She doesn’t want to think about how she will leave, when she will leave, but listening to Ethan cry, Andi is overcome with exhaustion and numbness. She wants to sleep. Forever. She wants to be in a small, cozy bed, in a quiet apartment, with a cat.

She wants a life that is peaceful. Happy. Simple.

There were such high expectations with Ethan, expectations that haven’t been fulfilled; some of that is okay. She is trying to deal with the fact that they cannot have children of their own, trying to deal with not being a mother herself, but she cannot deal with the daily fact of being hated; cannot deal with the fear that descends upon her every time she pulls into her own driveway—what will Emily’s mood be today, what is waiting for her on the other side of the front door.

Ethan, so accustomed to Emily’s tantrums, cannot understand how they
undo
Andi, who cannot do this for very much longer. That is the only thing of which she is certain, the thing that is now weighing her down on the bed, forcing her eyes closed with sadness and grief.

She isn’t leaving tonight. Nor tomorrow. She needs to figure it out in daylight, when the night terrors aren’t overwhelming, when everything seems more manageable. It is weeks, she thinks, not months. A few weeks.

If she can last that long.

Finally, she leans her head on Ethan’s shoulder, closes her eyes, and allows the tears to fall.

*   *   *

The next morning, Andi manages to avoid almost everyone. Ethan kisses her good-bye, early, as she wonders if he feels the same emptiness. There is a gulf of sadness between them. She assumes he must have a sense of what she is feeling, but they don’t speak other than to make arrangements for Emily.

She and Emily will meet him at her OB/GYN later today. She has not yet made an appointment but, given the circumstances, they will get in.

Ethan calls to Sophia, asking her where she wants to go for breakfast, and Andi hears Sophia’s light footsteps approaching their bedroom. Father and daughter stand in the hallway just outside the bedroom as Andi puts down her makeup brush to listen.

“What’s the matter with everyone?” whispers Sophia.

“What do you mean?” Ethan is trying to make his voice as normal as possible. It doesn’t sound normal. It sounds strained and false.

“There’s a very weird atmosphere in the house. It feels like something has changed.”

“Nothing has changed.” Ethan forces a laugh, but Andi knows he feels it, too. She hears Ethan usher Sophia downstairs, then, from down the hall, Sophia saying, “Wait! I’ll be just a minute.”

Her footsteps run back to the bedroom and into the bathroom, where she flings her arms around Andi.

“I love you!” she whispers into her ear, clasping her tight.

“I know, sweetie.” Andi blinks back the sudden tears, wondering why Sophia is choosing to say it now. She used to say it to Andi all the time, but since becoming a teenager, while still surprisingly affectionate, she no longer says the words themselves.

“I just wanted you to hear.” Sophia looks her in the eye, then picks up her backpack again and runs down the stairs to her father, waiting in the car, leaving Andi in the house, saddened that Sophia must sense that something is wrong. Why else would she offer those words now?

*   *   *

It will be hours before Emily wakes up. She sleeps until lunchtime every day, leaving Andi to enjoy the peace, the only time Andi feels relaxed in her house. She showers, dresses, grabs an apple and a Clif Bar from the pantry, then heads out to her studio, making calls in the car, shouting into the Bluetooth speakerphone that muffles everyone and has never worked properly.

Her phone buzzes as she steps out the car. A text. Deanna.

“How’s Emily? Are YOU okay?”

Andi pauses. Normally she would text back, but today she needs a friend. Today she needs Deanna. She dials and then holds the phone to her ear.

“Want to come to the studio for coffee?”

*   *   *

Deanna glides in, swathed in layers of jersey, two cups of something hot in her hand, one of which she places on the table in front of Andi, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

“Soy chai latte,” she explains. “It’s what I drink when I need comforting.”

“Tha—” Andi starts, then bursts into tears.

Deanna doesn’t say anything. She leads Andi to the sofa, sits her down, hands her a tissue, then sits next to her, sipping her tea quietly and waiting, one hand resting on top of Andi’s, her thumb gently stroking Andi’s fingers until Andi’s sobs reduce to breathy hiccups, slowing down, finally, to sadness.

“I can’t do it,” Andi says eventually, quietly, with tears still brimming. “I can’t do this.” She takes a deep breath before turning to Deanna. “I’ve had enough.”

“What happened last night?”

“It isn’t even what happened last night. It’s everything. It’s this girl poisoning everything she touches. I hate her, Deanna.” Her voice fills with passion. “I hate her. I hate her for destroying us.”

There is a silence as Deanna considers. Finally, gently, she says, “Have you thought that she is just being who she is? That as hateful as her behavior may be, and I’m not saying it’s anything other than that, but that you are the only one who can give her the power to destroy you.”

“Drew and Topher say the same thing, but I don’t know how to detach. She fills the air with her poison, and one drama after another.” Andi’s shoulders slump. “The latest drama? She’s pregnant.”

“She’s … what?” Deanna is shocked.

“I know. Seventeen, drinking and doing God knows what kind of drugs, and pregnant.”

“Oh, Lord. Poor child.”

“She’s not a child,” Andi snaps. “She’s a spoiled, entitled, ungrateful little bitch.”

“This will pass,” Deanna says. “You’ve had dramas before and come out of it.”

Andi shakes her head. “This time it’s different. Every time we have one of these things, every time she screams at me how much she hates me, every time her father defends her and lets her scream those terrible things, I shut down a little more. Everyone has their limit, and I think I may have”—she gulps—“reached mine. I didn’t expect to feel this. I don’t
want
to feel this, but I can’t deal with it anymore. I can’t live like this, with this constant fear. I’m frightened to be in my own house when she’s around. Do you have any idea what this is like for me?”

Deanna shakes her head.

“I love Ethan.” The tears spill over again. “He’s the best man I’ve ever met, but it’s not enough. It’s just not enough, and it’s not enough to sacrifice myself. I’m a good person, Deanna. I spend all my time thinking of what I can do to make Emily happy. All I wanted was a family, and kids, and I was so convinced that I could make this work, that we would all live happily ever after.” She snorts derisively at her own naïveté. “Having Emily is like this poison that seeps into everything, and I kept thinking that she would grow up, move out, go away, and we’d be fine, but it’s not going to happen.”

“What do you mean it’s not going to happen?”

“I mean people like Emily don’t grow up. They don’t stop having dramas. There’s always going to be something. And I’m realizing I could be happier, I
would
be happier, on my own. I just made a huge mistake, marrying someone with kids. I can’t have kids of my own, and now I know, if I’m with anyone at all, I need to be with someone who doesn’t have kids.”

“She will grow up,” Deanna says calmly, trying to calm Andi down, for Andi seems now to be bordering on hysteria, her words tumbling out as fast as light, her energy edgy and nervous. “Emily won’t be in your lives forever and, as you said, Ethan is the best man you’ve ever met. He’s wonderful. You won’t find better.”