Heartbeat - Elizabeth Scott

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decided that the baby was worth more than Mom and how scared she’d been about the pregnancy. About dying.

      And he didn’t even ask me what I thought. Not about Mom. Not about the baby.

      Not once.

      He just decided the baby was worth everything.

      10

      I wake up in the middle of the night and I can’t fall back to sleep because I remember the day Mom came home with the official news that she was pregnant. Dan was with her and he was smiling so hard I thought his face must hurt. I’d never seen anyone so happy.

      Mom didn’t look like Dan did, and when he ran up to the nursery to get the sketches he’d been doing, she sat down at the kitchen table.

      “Hey,” I said. “So what’s it like to be knocked up?”

      “Scary,” she said, and then bit her lip. “I just...I’m not young like I was with you, Emma. It was easy then. I never thought about what could happen. How I might lose you.”

      “Where am I going?”

      “You know what I mean,” she said. “Being pregnant is risky. And it’s really risky for me.”

      “Yeah, but you’re disgustingly healthy. That clot didn’t even slow you down even though you were supposed to rest. It’s like when Dan and I got the flu. What did you get? Nothing. Not even a cough.”

      “You two were the worst,” she said. “Couldn’t even have a fever at the same time, but what can I say? I love you.”

      “What’s that?” Dan said, coming into the room.

      “The flu,” Mom said. “Remember?”

      “How could I forget?” Dan said. “Emma and I suffered, and you never even coughed.”

      “That’s what I said!” I said and Dan grinned at me. I looked over at Mom. She was staring at the kitchen table, but she wasn’t looking at it. It was like she was looking at something far away.

      “Mom?”

      “Hey,” she said, blinking and looking at me. “I spy a family.”

      “Yeah, you do. Three, soon to be four.” I grinned at her.

      She blinked again. “I think I’d better go sit down. I don’t want to take any chances.”

      “Oh honey,” Dan said. “You’re already sitting down.”

      “I mean somewhere...I just...” Mom trailed off.

      “Everything’s going to be fine,” Dan said.

      “Promise?” Mom said, and her voice was shaking a little.

      “Promise,” Dan said and kissed her.

      I smiled and said, “You guys,” like I always had, like I thought I always would and the thing is, Mom was scared.

      She was scared and I didn’t see it. Not like I should have. I just thought it was the idea of the baby or the fact that she was over forty or maybe even giving birth itself, which sure didn’t sound like fun to me.

      But now I think Mom knew. I think that somehow, she knew that something was going to happen to us. That something was going to break our family.

      I grit my teeth and close my eyes. I don’t want to think about this anymore.

      I stare at Olivia’s dark ceiling and remember Caleb Harrison looking at me. Asking me what my problem was, and then staring at me and Mom and her stomach and then Dan and me.

      I think about what I saw in his eyes before I looked away.

      Anger.

      And, weirdly, understanding.

      11

      I get back to the house in the morning and find Dan sitting in the kitchen, hunched over a stack of papers. He’s still there when I come back from showering and getting dressed.

      “I need a ride,” I say, looking at the muffins he’s made, which are cooling on the counter. Chocolate chip, my favorite.

      I ignore my stomach’s rumbling.

      Dan looks at me.

      “Do you want a muffin?”

      “No. I need a ride, like I said.”

      “I’d still pick you up after school even if you’d gone with Olivia,” he says. “I know how much you want to see—”

      “I’ll be in the car,” I say, cutting him off. Having Dan take me to school sucks, but I want him to remember that I’m still here because after what happened to Mom, what’s to stop him from deciding I’d be better off somewhere else? Maybe he really would ship me off to some boarding school or worse, Mom’s parents. Not that I know they’d take me, which makes it even crappier.

      Dan comes out in a few minutes, shuffle-walking like he’s an old man.

      “I need to tell you something,” he says when we’re on the road. “It’s about your mother’s hospital bills.”

      That stops my worry fast, fast, fast. “Let me guess. Someone else is paying them.”

      He blinks. “How did you know?”

      “I saw the stack. How else could you?”

      “I—well, I’ve been working, or trying to, but I’ll never earn enough to pay for the house and everything plus your mother’s care.”

      I look away from him, stare out the window. “Her care?”

      “Yes,” he says, and I rest my head against the glass because he sounds like he means it, he really does. He really thinks that what he’s done is caring. “Luckily, some people have set up a fund. It’s for the baby and your mother.”

      Something in his voice makes my stomach hurt, like it’s being twisted around and then shoved up toward my throat. “And what do they want in return?”

      “There’s a court case in Florida. A woman just passed away. She was pregnant and her husband wants to try to save the baby, but her parents—”

      “Let me guess, her husband wants you to talk to them,” I say, cutting him off. “Or are you going to talk in court about what you’ve done?” I turn to stare at him, and Dan’s cheeks blaze bright red.

      “It’s not that simple,” he says slowly. “He wants the baby, and her parents—”

      “Fine. You should go down there and cry and say how sorry you are about Mom, how much you loved her, and how you’re only trying to keep your little boy alive. Throw in something about how you know Mom would be so proud of you, covering your pain to focus on the baby.”

      “I am in pain,” he says, his voice cracking. “I loved her, and I’ll love her forever. I understand that you don’t want to hear this, but your mother wanted this baby, and I know she’d—”

      “She’s dead! You can’t ask her what she thinks or how she feels and you never, ever did. You remember her being pregnant and happy. You don’t remember how scared she was. You don’t remember how things really were.”

      “I do, and—”

      “She knew,” I say. “She knew something was going to happen. You don’t remember how she looked when she had to go on bed rest. You don’t remember how she’d just sit in her chair at night and hold her stomach like she knew it was going to break her. But you know what? I do. And I get to see what broke her every day. I get to see it and you want it and you’ll get it and I hope...”

      I trail off because Dan has pulled over, stopped on the side of the road, and is staring at me, white-faced.

      “You

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