The Lies We Told

  She jumped. “What did I hit?”

  “Turn it off!” Adam shouted.

  She tried to read the lettering above each toggle switch, but the ambulance was bouncing from pothole to pothole and she couldn’t make out the words.

  “I have no idea which one to press!” she said.

  Adam glanced at the console, but quickly jerked his eyes back to the road as they dove into another hole in the pavement. The siren squawked above their heads, and the cars and trucks in front of them drove onto the shoulder of the road to let them pass.

  Rebecca toggled the switches on the console, feeling as if she were in a comedy sketch, and before she knew it she was laughing. By the time she found the right switch and the interior of the ambulance filled with a welcome silence, they were both laughing so hard they could no longer see the road.

  Adam called the hospital to check on the Maya look-alike as they walked back to their trailer after their shift that evening.

  “Fantastic!” he said into the phone.

  “She’s doing okay?” she asked as he flipped his phone closed.

  “No major damage,” he said. “Now we’ve got a good excuse to celebrate.”

  They’d picked up a six-pack of beer, a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa after the siren fiasco, and she’d been looking forward to indulging in them all afternoon. Now, though, she was not so sure.

  “We should invite Dot over,” she said, knowing perfectly well why she was making the suggestion: she didn’t want to be alone with Adam, especially not with a couple of beers in her. She’d do something stupid. Something they’d both end up regretting. This was not some guy she could quickly bed and forget, nor did she want to. Family. That’s what he wanted and what they both needed. Her feelings for him felt both right and wrong. Until she could sort them out, she wouldn’t play with fire.

  “She’ll drink on duty?” he asked.

  “Hell, yes,” Rebecca said. “As long as she’s not working in the clinic. She’ll drink us under the table.”

  Adam looked reluctant as he dialed Dorothea’s number and issued the invitation. He got off the phone with a shrug. “She’ll be over in a little while,” he said, as they stepped into the trailer. “She asked why we didn’t buy a six-pack for each of us.”

  Rebecca poured the salsa into a bowl, while Adam pulled two beers from the refrigerator. They climbed onto the double bed and sat opposite one another, their backs against the trailer walls. Rebecca crossed her legs and took a sip from the bottle. She would talk about Maya. Safe subject. She’d keep Maya foremost in her mind.

  “Okay,” she said, “did that woman today look like Maya’s twin or what?”

  “Totally freakish,” Adam agreed.

  Thank God it wasn’t Maya.

  The thought slipped into her mind so quickly she couldn’t stop it. She lowered her eyes to her beer bottle, her face hot again, as though she’d said the words out loud. She started peeling the label from the bottle, unable to look Adam in the eye.

  She was ready to let Maya go. She had to let her go. She could no longer tolerate the uncertainty.

  “I keep feeling she’s not dead,” Adam said suddenly.

  She couldn’t quite read his tone. She glanced up from the bottle. “Intellectually, though, you know she’s gone, right?” she asked.

  He looked thoughtful as he leaned forward to dip a chip in the salsa. “Well, I guess if I didn’t think that, I’d still be out there looking for her.” He chewed the chip. Took a swallow of beer. “Where do you think she is?” he asked.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Do you mean…her body? Or her…”

  “Her soul.” He looked suddenly shy, and so, so vulnerable. The open, trusting beauty in his face made her throat ache again, as it had in the ambulance. You are so beautiful, she wanted to say. So beautiful, I don’t know what to do.

  “I can’t think about it.” She tore the label clear off the bottle. “When my parents died, I tried to convince myself that they were in heaven together. That’s what I was brought up to believe—by my mother, anyway. My father was totally…faithless, I guess you’d say. But it all seems like magical thinking to me.”

  “Well, I choose to believe that’s where she is,” Adam said. “I choose to believe she’s an angel, singing karaoke with a good voice.”

  “What?” Rebecca laughed. “She didn’t have a good voice.”

  “No kidding.” Adam smiled. She loved the way his overgrown hair curled over the tops of his ears. “Maybe in heaven, though, she could have one.”

  Rebecca remembered Maya and their father singing along with the tape deck in the car. Their father had a good voice and Maya did not, though that didn’t seem to matter to him. They sang stuffy old show tunes. To this day, any rendition of “Oklahoma” or “Edelweiss” could make her toes curl.

  “Didn’t she tell you about the wedding we went to where she sang karaoke?” Adam crunched down on a tortilla chip.

  “No way. She’d never…I can’t picture it. And she really couldn’t sing.”

  “This is true,” he said. “But you know how funny she could be when she had too much to drink?”

  “Actually, no.” One more thing she hadn’t known about her sister.

  “She was a little tipsy at the reception, and we egged her on and she finally got up and did it.” He laughed. “God, she was terrible, but she got points for being a good sport.”

  “What did she sing?”

  “‘Dancing Queen.’”

  “No!” Rebecca said. She already had the beginning of a buzz, and it felt good. Excellent, actually. It was a relief to shut down her thinking for a while. “Tell me you’re joking,” she said.

  “I’m not.” Adam held the bottle in front of his mouth and started singing, waving his free arm dramatically through the air. “Dancin’ queen, la la la la, dancin’ queen!”

  “Oh my God, I wish I’d seen that!” Rebecca laughed. “Although, seeing this impersonation is nearly as good.”

  Adam chuckled as he leaned back against the wall, and Rebecca watched him take a long pull on his beer. “How ’bout that siren?” he asked, and they both cracked up again. She was laughing so hard she didn’t even hear the trailer door open. Adam must have, though, because he lifted his head toward the trailer’s interior, where Dorothea stood in the dim kitchen light, hands on her hips.

  “I see you two have reached the hysterical laughing stage of grief,” she said.

  She was smiling, but Rebecca felt a stab of guilt, and she sat up straight. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “You know,” Dorothea said. She walked straight to the refrigerator and took out a beer. “Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grieving?” She kicked off her shoes and joined them on the bed, sitting cross-legged on Rebecca’s side of the wall. Aging hippie, Rebecca thought. Except for the beer she was swigging, Dorothea looked like a yoga instructor for seniors.

  Adam began ticking the stages of grief off on his fingers. “Denial—check. Anger—check. Bargaining.” He looked at Rebecca. “Did we do that one?”

  “Definitely,” Rebecca said. “Remember? If we got her back, I was going to talk to her every single day.”

  “Right. What’s the next one?”

  “Depression,” Rebecca said soberly. “We’re still there.”

  “Right. And acceptance?” He shook his head. “We’re never going to get to that one.”

  I’m nearly there, Rebecca thought. Was it wrong to reach acceptance so quickly?

  “Well, Kübler-Ross, brilliant though she was, left out the hysterical laughing stage,” Dorothea said. “That’s where the two of you are. I could hear you out in the parking lot.”

  “You should have heard us in the ambulance today.” Adam’s legs were stretched out in front of him, and he tapped Rebecca’s knee with his toes.

  “Did you go through that stage after Louisa died?” she asked Dorothea.

  “Hell, yes. I’m still in it,” she s
aid. “Every time I look at the damn purple cabinets in my kitchen, I get hysterical.”

  Rebecca laughed.

  “If I didn’t laugh,” Dorothea said, “I’d cry.”

  “Exactly,” Adam said. He passed the bowl of chips to her, and she took one and dipped it in the salsa.

  “Getting serious for a moment,” Adam said, his gaze on Dorothea, “I’d like to join DIDA full-time.”

  “What?” Rebecca asked.

  Dorothea cocked her head at him. “Now’s not the time to make that decision,” she said. “You’re tired. You’re living in a situation that feels a thousand times removed from the real world. You just lost your wife. And you’re drinking. Not the time.” Then she added, “And there’s no money working for DIDA.”

  “I don’t care about the money,” Adam scoffed. “It might not be forever. It might only be for a year or two. But right now, this is what I want to do.”

  “’Cause you can fill up the empty place with this work,” Dorothea said.

  He hesitated. “I suppose that’s part of it.”

  Rebecca wondered if that’s why she liked working with DIDA herself. She’d always said she loved the challenge. Loved being able to help where help was so desperately needed. The physical risks. The excitement. Was she trying to fill an empty place inside her? She remembered Dorothea telling her she was like a well that was impossible to fill.

  “I hope you do decide to stick with DIDA, Adam,” she said, with none of the emotion she was feeling, “but Dot’s right. Now’s a bad time to make the decision.”

  “Call your office,” Dorothea said to him. “Tell them you’re not coming back for a while. Piss them off. Then stay here and see how you feel in a few more weeks.”

  “I will,” he said, “but I don’t think I’m going to change my mind.”

  Rebecca smiled at him across the bed. She rested her hand on the top of his foot, giving it a squeeze, and for the second time that day, felt an unabashed sense of joy.

  40

  Maya

  I WAS ALONE IN THE CHICKEN COOP, TENDING THE CHICKENS on my own for the first time. I’d risen in the near dark of early dawn, surprised to find I was first to be up, and I went about the business of gathering the eggs and feeding the chickens, only a little worried that something was wrong. Simmee was always up long before me.

  I heard the squeak of the screen door and looked up to see Tully walking toward the coop, his rifle slung over his shoulder.

  “Morning,” I said coolly. I hadn’t forgiven him for not telling Larry about me.

  “You turnin’ into an ol’ hand at this stuff, ain’t you?” He motioned toward the chicken coop.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “Where’s Simmee?”

  “Got a bellyache.” He looked toward the path. “She’s sendin’ me over to take care of Lady Alice’s roof. Givin’ me a hard time about it. I’ll try to get us somethin’ for supper, so we can save what I smoked yesterday. But you check on her for me, will you?”

  “All right,” I said, wondering if Simmee’s bellyache could be the start of labor. It would be like her not to put two and two together.

  I’d fed the chickens and put six eggs in the basket by the time the screen door squeaked open again. I waited for Simmee to appear around the corner of the house, but she didn’t. I was about to call her name when she called mine.

  “Maya?” Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. Quickly, I left the coop and walked toward the house. She stood on the stoop in a sleeveless blue dress that ballooned over her belly, and she leaned heavily against the doorjamb. Her cheeks were florid, made even more so by the pallor in the rest of her face.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Is Tully gone?”

  “Yes,” I said, hurrying toward her. “Do you want me to go after him?”

  She shook her head, then screwed up her face as though she might cry. “Oh, Maya,” she moaned. “Them pains started in the middle of the night. I think the baby’s comin’.”

  In the middle of the night? “Tully just said you had a stomachache.” Could Tully be that dense?

  “That’s what I told him,” she said. “I been tryin’ to hide the pain from him.”

  I stepped closer to her, confused. “Why, honey?” I asked. “Why do you want to hide it from him?”

  She gave a quick shake of her head, and I knew I wasn’t going to get the answer now. For the first time, I noticed she had the ball of twine in her hands, the one I’d cut lengths from to tie off the umbilical cord. Why was she carrying it around with her?

  “Has your water broken?” I asked. “Did a whole lot of water come—”

  “In the bed.” She suddenly cringed, nearly doubling over. “Oh!” she said.

  I glanced at my bare wrist to begin timing her contractions, forgetting that my watch had died in the floodwaters. “Do you know how often the pains are coming?” I stepped past her to open the door. “Let’s go back to the bedroom, all right?”

  “No.” She stood woodenly on the stoop. “Not now. We got to—”

  “Then let me get Tully,” I said. “He should be here with—”

  “No!” she said. “I sent him to Lady Alice’s on purpose, ’cause I had a feelin’ the baby was comin’.”

  Was she embarrassed at having Tully with her during labor and delivery? I had to remind myself that we were not in Raleigh. This was a different culture. Nearly a different era. “It’s okay,” I said. “Come on. Let me check you and see what’s happening.” I tugged a little at her arm, but she squirmed away from me, nearly toppling off the stoop.

  “Maya!” The word exploded from her lips on a puff of air. “I’m so scared.”

  “I know,” I said. “But you don’t need to be. I’m sure you’re fine. If you’ll let me examine you, I’ll be able to see the baby’s position. Then I can reassure you that what happened to your mother won’t happen to you.” I prayed that was the truth and that I would find absolutely nothing amiss.

  “I don’t…” Simmee shook her hands in front of her like a kid who was excited or anxious, the loose end of the ball of twine flapping in the air, and again I thought she was embarrassed. She’d probably never had a gynecological exam before. Most likely she’d never seen a doctor in her life. “I figgered wrong.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I should of told you things before now, but—”

  “Told me what?” I wondered if she knew something about her condition that I needed to know.

  “I was too scared,” she said.

  “What, honey?” I said. “Tell me now. It’s okay.”

  Her gaze darted toward the woods. Toward the path to Lady Alice’s. “We need to go someplace.”

  I nearly laughed. “Not today, we don’t,” I said. “You’re going inside and we’re going to figure out how soon this baby will be born.”

  She shook her head. “I need to show you somethin’.” She stepped off the stoop and waved toward me to follow her. “C’mon.”

  “No, Simmee!” I said firmly. She was acting so childish and strange that I thought the only approach to take with her was parental. “Nothing you need to show me can be that important. I want you to get in the house now!”

  She turned and smacked me on the arm with her fist. Not hard, but hard enough to let me know she meant business.

  “You gotta come with me!” she said. “I’m sorry! You’re gonna be so mad at me.”

  I grabbed her shoulders. “Simmee, listen to me.” Beneath my hands, I felt her body tremble. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not going to be mad at you, okay? I care about you. I care a lot. You’re a wonderful girl. A wonderful woman. You nursed me back to health. Now you need to let me take care of you. Please. Let me check the baby’s position. Then we can—”

  “No!” She nearly shouted as she pulled away from my grasp. “Come with me!” She marched down the path toward Lady Alice’s, disappearing around the first bend, and I saw no choic
e but to follow her.

  She was moving quickly and I hurried to catch up. It suddenly occurred to me it was Lady Alice she wanted. Not me. That was why she thought I’d be angry at her. Why she was apologizing. When I reached her, she suddenly stopped on the path, clearly in the throes of another contraction, and I lightly touched her back. “I understand you want Lady Alice with you, Simmee. And that’s just fine. You go back to the house and I’ll get—”

  “No!” she growled. “Shut up!” Her face was red, streaming with perspiration and knotted with pain.

  “Breathe slowly,” I said. “Take long deep breaths. It will help with the pain.” I’d lost track of the contractions. Were they about seven minutes apart? Five? I had no idea. All I knew was that they were too close together for comfort.

  She ignored my suggestion to breathe deeply, letting the contraction play itself out, and then continued walking, hugging the ball of twine to her chest as if it were an infant. I followed, confused and helpless. Walking would hurry her labor, and I didn’t want to go too far from the house, but Simmee showed no sign of stopping. She plowed ahead, suddenly turning off the path into the undergrowth.

  “Where are you going?” I stopped on the path. In the distance, I could hear the tapping sound of a hammer: Tully at work on Lady Alice’s roof.

  She didn’t answer, and I had to follow her into the brush or I’d lose her.

  “We shouldn’t go this far from the house!” I quickly raised my arm to prevent a branch from smacking me in the face.

  “Hush!” She turned to glare at me and, as if remembering her manners, added, “Please.”

  “I don’t want you to end up giving birth in the woods,” I argued, but she ignored me.

  I followed her deeper into the brambles and ankle-grabbing vines, slapping mosquitoes Simmee didn’t seem to notice. Was she having a psychotic break? That was the only explanation I could think of. All I knew was that she seemed to be picking up speed while I lagged behind, uncertain of where in the morass of weeds and vines I should place my next step. I tripped once. Twice. She turned only long enough to tell me to hurry, and I tried my best, but this was her turf, not mine. I was lost, in more ways than one. I should have tried harder to take control when I still stood a chance of doing so. I was so turned around in the woods, that even if I decided it would be best to make my way to Lady Alice’s to get her and Tully—and I was now certain that would be best—I wouldn’t have known which way to go. One tree trunk looked like another. Each long, twisted vine was just like the next. I thought of calling for Tully, but we had moved far from Lady Alice’s house by now. I was certain of it, and I knew my shout would be swallowed by the trees.