Finding Purgatory (18 page)

The technician smiled. “It’s a girl.”

At some point, Ani had hung a noose around her own neck, and the more her sister spoke, the tighter the rope got.

It had started with that question, a damn stupid question in Ani’s mind.

Do you want another girl?

What an absurd thing to ask. She’d had to bite her lip so her automatic response wouldn’t slip out.

She didn’t want another girl. She wanted
her
girl, her baby, her Mara.

In a way, it was ironic. Before Mara had died, Ani had been preparing herself for her child’s burgeoning inquisitiveness. From what she’d seen with her friends, the endless “but why” line of questioning from young children could be maddening. Of course, she hadn’t had the chance to get there with Mara, but Tori’s persistent questioning couldn’t have been so different.

As her friends had often warned, it was threatening to drive her right out of her mind.

“People don’t throw baby showers in this situation, do they? You’re the only one who’s going to care about the stuff you need for this thing.” Tori gestured at her stomach. “Why aren’t you? Why aren’t you thinking about a nursery?”

Ani counted to ten and affected a calm tone. “What’s the point of putting together a nursery if we’re going to move? Besides, I already have most of what you . . . I need.”

Her heart gave a painful lurch in her chest. Mara had only barely outgrown her crib. Ani and Jett had discussed giving it to Goodwill, but then he’d gotten that twinkle in his eye.

“There’s no sense in giving it away if we’re going to have to buy another one soon,” he’d said.

The crib had been pushed off to the side in the garage, where it remained. Before Tori, Ani had been trying to bring herself to donate it. If she donated it, she could stop thinking about how she and Jett had just started trying for another baby.

“Can I ask you a question?” Ani asked, trying to keep one step ahead of the thoughts she didn’t want to acknowledge.

Her little sister looked wary, but she waited.

“Are you still sure you want me to keep the baby?”

Tori blanched. “What do you mean?”

From the expression on her sister’s face, Ani knew she was going to have to navigate this conversation carefully. “It’s just that you have a strong opinion about what I should or shouldn’t be doing. It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind.”

“Is that what your game is?” Tori scowled as she stood up. “You aren’t doing anything to get ready for this baby because you’re going to dump it all on me at the last minute?”

“That’s not—” Ani broke off and took a steadying breath before she tried again. “I want you to understand that you still have every option. One way or another, I’m not leaving you. If you want to raise your daughter, I’ll still help you.”

“You don’t want her,” Tori said, the words an accusation instead of a question. Ani wondered if she even realized she was gripping her little bump, looking every bit the protective mother. “Tell me the truth. You don’t want her.”

Ani couldn’t answer at first. In her fleeting thoughts, what little she felt for the life Tori carried frightened her. At the very least, the baby was her niece. Ani had a sense of responsibility and a need to do the right thing for her the same as she did for Tori. But the emotion she felt when she thought of them was warped at best. She didn’t know if she loved either of them, and they both deserved unconditional love.

“Nothing has changed,” she said. “I meant what I said months ago.” She didn’t have another choice there. She couldn’t betray a girl who’d been betrayed by everyone she knew.

But how could she take a child she didn’t know if she could love?

She really didn’t know if she was capable of that kind of love anymore. She remembered the emotion with perfect clarity, but without Mara there to embody it, that part of her felt broken. Not even broken. Broken pieces might be mended together. That part of her was charred. It was ashes and the acrid smell of smoke.

That couldn’t be fair. Avoiding something like that was the whole reason Tori was giving the baby up in the first place.

It was a problem without a solution, at least not one Ani could figure out.

Ani changed the subject again, finding a safe tangent. “The Realtor already has buyers interested in this house. If we’re lucky, things will happen fast, but that means we need to be ready to move. You should come with me to look at houses this weekend.”

Tori crossed her arms over her chest, her stance moving from protective to defensive. “It’s your house.”

“It will be your house, too.”

“Not for long.”

Ani studied her sister, feeling the pressure around her heart lessen a degree. This, at least, she could deal with. “I would like it if you could consider the new house your home.” She kept her tone even and unassuming. “I want you to feel comfortable there for as long as you need. There’s no rush, no deadline. You don’t have to move out after the baby comes. In fact, I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation anyway. For one thing, where would you go?”

Tori shifted her weight and shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”

Taking a chance, Ani angled her body toward the girl. She scooted as close as she dared. “The baby is due at the end of September. That gives you time to apply for the semester that starts at the end of January.”

“You mean school? Like college?” Tori scoffed. “What the hell would I do at college? More importantly, how would I pay for it?”

“Well, since I know what you’d say if I offered to pay for it . . .” She smiled so Tori would know she was teasing. “Consider this. You could go to the community college. I’m sure you would qualify for aid. You could cover your tuition credits with financial aid, take your general education courses there, work on your GPA, and then you’ll be able to transfer to whatever college you want.”

“And live with you?”

“Is living here so much worse than any other place you’ve lived?”

“I’m not going to be a moocher. As soon as the kid is born, I’ll look for a job. I’ll get out as soon as I can.” She cocked her head, her expression far off as she muttered, “People are looking for roommates all the time. I could do that.”

“Tori, you are such a smart girl.” Again, Ani cut herself off and closed her eyes. She knew from well-earned experience going down this road would not end well for her. “Please understand you have options. If it makes you feel better, when you’re up to it, you can find part-time work, and I’ll charge you rent while you go to school. Let
me
be your roommate. We’ll work it out.”

“I told you at the beginning, I don’t want anything from you.” The girl’s voice was harsh but also tired. Ani wondered if her will was wavering, if she wanted to give in and accept her help.

“This is what family does. We help each other. And I know what you’re going to say. What I did to you was the opposite of helpful, but I’ve never lied to you. I only left you because I thought you would have what you deserved. Helping you get on your feet is the least of what your family should do for you.” She hoped her fervent tone would convey her sincerity. Tori’s wariness made her heart ache. As much as she didn’t understand how she felt about her sister, Ani wanted to see her succeed.

When Tori didn’t have any comeback, Ani had to force herself not to belabor the point.

“I’ll go with you to see houses,” Tori mumbled under her breath.

“Really?” Ani hadn’t expected even that slight win.

“Yeah, whatever. It’s your house. It’s your choice. But it could be fun to see stuff. What some people think is good decor is hilarious.”

Ani struggled to keep the smile off her face. “Okay.”

“Hey, Ani,” Tori called just before Ani could make it out of the room.

“Yes?”

“You really want to do something for me?”

“Yes.”

Her sister leveled her with a challenging stare. “I want you to take me to where our parents are buried.”

Ani’s heart skipped a beat.

It wasn’t that she had a problem taking Tori to see their parents’ graves. What had her stomach twisting, her heart in her throat, was the fact that Jett and Mara were buried in the same cemetery.

She hadn’t been back there since the funeral. Everything inside her was screaming, throwing a worse tantrum than Mara ever had. She didn’t want to go. No one could make her.

Ani nodded anyway. “Of course.”

Chapter 17: Elegy

T
ori was upset when she saw how overgrown her parents’ grave was. It was obvious Ani had buried them and never looked back. It seemed to be a reoccurring theme with her.

Ignoring whatever excuses her sister was spewing, Tori dropped to her knees and pulled at the weeds around the single headstone. After a minute or so, Ani sighed and kneeled beside her, helping her clear the weeds and grass.

They worked in silence because if Tori opened her mouth, she was going to start yelling. That seemed disrespectful in a cemetery. When they’d cleared away the greenery, she overturned her water bottle to wash away the excess dirt so she could see the writing of the flat granite clearly.

Eric Aaron and Chelsea Audrey Kane

She traced the words. Her fingers lingered over
beloved parents
. There was a raw ache at the center of her chest. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she held a mental impression of soft hands and tender voices that whispered sweet words. She’d been loved once upon a time, and these were the people who’d loved her.

Tori closed her eyes as she fought to keep her emotions in check. Feeling sorry for herself was one of the few things that made her more aggravated than her thousand mood swings a day. Anger was easier. She could concentrate on that—being angry at her sister for keeping her away from this spot for so long. Worse yet, Tori should be angry at Ani’s blatant neglect.

Their parents deserved to be remembered.

But the constant fury she carried, an extra ninety-pound dead weight on her shoulders, made her so tired. Sometimes it seemed that anger owned her, kept her bound with shackles around her ankles and wrists so she could never run free.

Surrounded by the loss of the childhood she had been denied, Tori found some perspective. After all, Ani had lost her parents, too. She’d lost her entire family once only to have it happen all over again.

Maybe it was her overactive imagination, but Tori felt a gentle admonition, as though her mother or father had a hand on her shoulder. Her bitter anger had no place here. This place knew only loss, and of all the people above ground and below, hers was probably not the saddest story. That day, for the time they spent there, Tori allowed her fury to take a backseat. When she spoke to her sister, her voice was softer than normal. “Can I maybe have a minute?”

Ani pushed to her feet and went to lean on the car.

A strange feeling came over Tori. It was part heartbreak, part twisting nerves, and all longing. She had the bizarre impulse to lie down, as if lying on the cool grass would be the same as resting her head on her mother’s lap.

She had sixteen years of things to tell her parents but no words in her head. And too many things she was ashamed for them to know.

“So, um. I guess I was thinking about the kids going in and out of the foster system,” she said, her finger still tracing her parents’ names. “I used to think they were idiots. A lot of them thought their parents were awesome, and that’s just dumb. I mean, how great could their parents be if they ended up in the system to begin with? Most of them weren’t like me. Their parents were out there. They were just assholes.”

Tori ran her hand over the grass, feeling the rough blades against her palm. “Guess I’m not much different. I don’t really know you. I didn’t get to know you. You’re kind of perfect in my head. No one is perfect in real life, right?”

But she still couldn’t help thinking she was wrong. Because she held her parents on a pedestal. She hated disappointing the image she had of them. They would have raised her to be better than what she was—a pregnant teen going nowhere fast.

One of her foster mothers, Mrs. Bui, used to tell her, “There’s no point in feeling sorry for yourself. It’s a useless thing. Two tears. Two tears is what you get. One for each eye. Then you’re done with self-pity and on to something more useful.”

Tori closed her eyes and let the tears that blurred her vision spill over—two tears in twin trails down her cheeks. Then she pressed her lips to her palm and her palm to granite. She split the flowers she’d brought in half, arranging them in the little holder provided.

“I’ll come back, okay? I promise.”

Climbing to her feet, Tori refilled her water bottle at the spigot nearby before walking back to Ani. “Okay. Where are Jett and Mara?”

Ani blinked at her. “What?”

Tori just waited, glancing at the flowers still in her arms, hoping her sister wouldn’t make her spell it out. All the blood drained from Ani’s face, but she started walking. They crossed the street to a shaded area beside a stone bench.

Mara and Jett’s graves sat side by side, their stones not at all dirty. There were already flowers in the provided pot. Mara’s grave was decorated with colorful pinwheels at each corner. These two had not been neglected. They hadn’t been abandoned because they had someone other than Ani to look out for them.

Sinking once more to her knees, Tori divided the remaining flowers between both graves.

Jethro Tyler Novak

Mara Jayne Novak

Beneath each of their names was a lyric. Mara’s was sweet—a few lines of a Billy Joel song, if Tori wasn’t mistaken. She didn’t recognize the words below Jett’s name, but they were poignant and full of love. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a few toy cars which she placed along the sides of her niece’s headstone.

“Hey, kid. I figured, as your aunt, I shouldn’t come empty-handed to meet you for the first time. I loved these things when I was little. I bet you would have, too.”

She didn’t know why it was easier to talk to the little girl she’d never known than the parents she’d wondered about all her life. The words tumbled out without thought, without effort. “You know, for the record, I think what happened to you really sucks. It should . . .”