Beauty from Ashes

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

“Well, I didn’t mean it like that. All I’m saying is you’ve got your schoolwork to focus on.” Patricia’s on the phone with her daughter, Jake’s twin. I’ve never met Abby, but at this point, I’m not sure how well we’d get along. I mean, I can only imagine all the junk Patricia’s told her about me, and heaven knows I’ve heard enough about her to fill a whole two-page spread in a tabloid.

“He’s a distraction. And you and I both know you don’t need another one of those in your life. Not after Ian.”

I don’t know all of Abby’s history, but I’ve put enough pieces together to understand that she was engaged to this Ian dude, but something happened and the wedding was called off, and not even Jake can come up with a satisfactory explanation about what went wrong.

I’m bored listening in to this phone call, but Patricia’s cleaning up the kitchen after making us all chicken pot pie for dinner, and I’m stuck here watching Natalie in case she needs to be suctioned. Believe me, you can’t talk on the phone and handle a suction tube at the same time. Once I had to spend an hour on hold with Medicaid. There was some problem with Natalie’s paperwork. One of the therapists wrote down her number wrong, and the state was threatening to make us foot the entire bill.

As if.

I was on hold so long, and Patricia went out to pick up Jake from work, and Natalie started to choke so I turned on the machine to slurp all her gunk out, and that’s when the service rep picked up the line. Of course.

Anyway, now Jake’s in the shower, and Patricia’s been yakking at Abby for half an hour. The kitchen’s perfectly spotless, cleaner than it was the day Jake and I moved in to this trailer park, but she’ll be going at it for another sixty minutes, I’m sure. Jake might be in the shower that long, too. I swear, out of all the things Patricia picks to gripe about, I wish one of them was my husband wasting so much of our hot water.

“Oh, she’s as good as you could expect, all things considered.” Patricia lowers her voice and slips her back to me. Subtle, lady. I wonder if they’re talking about me or the baby. “No, she’ll probably have that tube her whole life.”

The baby.

It’s funny. In theory, I agree with Patricia completely. Even if we end up finding that miracle cure for Natalie, I still act like she’ll have that feeding tube until the day she dies, and that way I’ll never end up disappointed. So it’s not the words Patricia’s using, it’s the way she’s saying them. Like she actually believes that since she was an LPN working at a plastic surgeon’s office back in the nineties, it makes her an expert on newborns with brain injuries. I wish there was somewhere I could take Natalie, but my bedroom is so messy there’s nowhere to sit, and she’s asleep anyway, so I don’t want to bother her.

“Ok, well, I need both hands now. You want to talk to your brother?” Patricia yells for Jake, as if she couldn’t hear the shower water running for the past twenty minutes. “Jake!” she shouts again, and I wince at the grating sound. “I think he stepped out.”

She catches my eye, and I feel a groan about to escape from the pit of my gut, still uneasy from that saltless pot-pie dinner and unseasoned rice. Before I can grab the suction tube and look like I’m in the middle of something, Patricia thrusts her cell in my face. “Here’s Tiffany,” she shouts to her daughter.

I stare at the phone as if she’s just handed me a fat, hairy tarantula. Why does Jake have to spend so stinking long in the shower?

“Hi, Abby.” We’ve talked once before, a day or two after the wedding. She called Jake up to congratulate him, told him she was happy for us both, then actually asked to talk to me. It wasn’t an awkward conversation at all. Maybe if it weren’t for the way Patricia insists on poisoning us against each other, the two of us could be on good terms.

“Hey, Tiffany. How are you?” She doesn’t know that everyone calls me Tiff, and I don’t bother correcting her. It’s not like we’re going to turn into the kind of sisters-in-law that talk regularly or anything.

“Pretty good. Tired.” I laugh. For a second, I feel somewhat normal. Aren’t all new moms sleep-deprived?

“How’s the baby?” she asks, and her voice is hushed and sort of pitying, the same tone you’d use at a funeral home.

Still alive. That’s what I feel like telling her. But even though Patricia’s got her back to me and is scrubbing the inside of my microwave, I can almost see her ears sticking out from the sides of her head, straining to hear what I’m saying.

“She’s doing well,” I lie. “Getting a little stronger bit by bit.” What else am I supposed to tell her? Natalie hasn’t changed since the day we brought her home, and that was two months ago. She hasn’t gained weight, hasn’t cried, hasn’t met any of those baby milestones the mommy magazines tell you to watch out for.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Abby’s voice is stuffed with false cheer, and I wonder if she hates her mom as much as I do for forcing us to chat like this.

There’s an awkward pause, like Abby doesn’t know what else to talk about with someone whose baby is as fragile as mine. I feel sorry for her and ask how school’s going.

“Busy,” she says, just the way she’s supposed to. Like I’m supposed to say I’m tired when she asks me how I feel.

Another pause. I wonder what she’s thinking. You know, I heard all these things growing up about how twins are supposed to be so close. Like you hear these stories where two twin sisters marry two twin brothers and they all live together in the same house? Someone should turn that into a sitcom. I think it has potential. But even in real life, stuff like that happens. Or you hear stories about one twin who maybe lives a thousand miles away from his sister, but the day she gets into a really bad car accident is the day he coincidentally decides to show up for a surprise visit, and he ends up donating his kidney to save her life or something dramatic like that.

Anyway, Jake and his sister aren’t like that at all. I mean, they’re polite when they talk, but they usually only call each other on birthdays or holidays or things. And then they chat for ten or fifteen minutes and go back to their separate lives. Abby’s so busy with school and now this boyfriend her mom hates but who sounds like a decent enough guy as far as boyfriends go. Part of me wants to find someplace private to talk, tell Abby she shouldn’t feel guilty for being with this computer whiz because he’s smart so he’ll probably make plenty of money. And if she’s a lawyer ... all I have to say is that’s a family that would never have to wait an hour on hold with Medicaid to get a seven-hundred-dollar medical bill covered by the state.

Jake turns off the shower and steps out, and I glance down the hall at the steam following him from the bathroom. Man, he looks good today. I mean, he’s no body-builder or anything, but that’s never been my type. I want him to look up at me, give me his little cheesy grin that used to get my insides quivering like that glass of water in Jurassic Park. But instead he shoots me a questioning kind of glance, like he’s not sure if he’s going to be mad at me or not when he finds out why I’m on his mother’s phone.

It’s your sister. I mouth the words to him before he turns around. I stare at his back as he disappears into our room and shuts the door behind him.