Heroine(21)

“Oh,” I say, a quiver of concern in my belly. I can’t say I like Devra, but I do know how excited Dad has been about his second family, and as a member of his first one, I’ve got a stake in this, too.

I stretch out my bad leg, bending the knee a little to get some blood flowing to my foot, which has fallen asleep.

“Honey, you should just go home,” Mom says. “It could be hours yet. You’ve got school tomorrow, and you can’t be doing yourself any good right now.”

I’m definitely not doing myself any good. I realized that around Jeopardy! time, the waiting room TV posing unanswerable questions at me as tendrils of pain took a firm grip. The one 40 I managed to buy from Edith is down in the parking lot, ready to make it all go away if I cave and take it. But then I’d be out, and with no cash left. I decide to grin and bear it, just like Mom, sitting here for the sake of solidarity while Dad’s second wife delivers his first biological child.

Mom’s fading into sleep, her head nodding to one side, when her phone goes off, making us both jump and sending a hot wire of pain that runs from my hip down to my little toe.

“Shit,” we both say at the same time. She turns her phone around so I can read the message from Dad.

emergency see section

“Isn’t a C-section, like C as in cat?” I ask.

“Yes,” Mom says. “But I don’t think he’s overly worried about autocorrect mistakes right now.”

“Right,” I say.

“Although,” Mom adds, rubbing the crease on her face where she fell asleep against the couch, “you do see a lot.”

“Oh my God, Mom,” I say. “You’re so bad.”

She starts laughing too, holding her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound as tears leak from her eyes. “Do not tell your dad I said that,” she says. “That was horribly insensitive.”

“You earned it,” I tell her.

The sun is up by the time we’re allowed back to Devra’s room, my little half brother—or adopted half brother, or I don’t even know what—asleep in a plastic crib near her bed. Devra is refusing pain medication, even though she’s as gray as the wall behind her, and her mouth is set in a firm line that I know too well. It’s the only way to stop yourself from screaming. Mom and Dad are in the hallway, arguing. I lean my head against the wall, able to pick up the hiss of their intense whispers.

“If she says she doesn’t want them, then she doesn’t want them, Geoff. It’s her decision, period,” Mom says.

“What if it’s too much?” Dad argues back. “What if she can’t take care of the baby?”

“I guess you’ll have to take the leap of parenting your own child,” Mom says, and I bite my lip so that I don’t laugh again.

“That’s not . . . I can’t very well breastfeed him, can I?”

“Neither can she, if she’s got painkillers in her system.”

I hear Dad’s heavy sigh, one that filled the house often before they split up. “It’s been a really long day, Annette. I just saw my wife’s intestines, for Christ’s sake.”

“I see intestines at least once a week. Suck it up.”

In bed, Devra reaches into her mouth, pulling the one pill she conceded to take under the vigilant eye of her nurse out of the pocket of her cheek.

“Don’t you think you should . . . ,” I begin, but she shakes her head.

Our eyes meet, and I know that look. She can’t even find words right now, all her brain is overrun by agony, every nerve she has singing a song that has no lyrics. Pain can come in a quick rush, fading off into something bearable after that initial peak. But pain that endures doesn’t give you that break, the moment of air that you need before you’re pulled back under. And under is all there is right now for Devra.

She reaches for me, pill in her fist.

“Get it the hell away from me,” she says, each word coming out low and tight, every syllable fought for.

“Devra . . .”

“Addict,” she says, cutting me off. I tighten in my seat, blood rushing to my face at the accusation. Then she touches her own chest, eyes closed tight in shame.

“Recovering,” she manages.

We’ve never touched before, but when I slide my fingers under hers and she drops the pill, slick with her spit, into my hand, I feel like I know her better than anyone in the world.

I slip into the bathroom and take it myself.





Chapter Sixteen


steal: to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully

I get a free pass from school, something I’m only too grateful for. I don’t think I could handle it right now. Whatever the nurse had given Devra, it definitely wasn’t Oxy. It took the sharper edges off, but the comfortable numbness I’ve come to depend on is nowhere in sight.

Mom and I head over to Dad’s new place, to get a few things for Devra. We go through their drawers, Mom matter-of-factly folding Dad’s underwear and packing a bag, instructing me to find comfortable, loose clothes for Devra. I feel weird, going through her stuff. But I’m surprised to find she’s more like me than I thought, veering toward sports bras and cotton undies. I toss some things together, and am about to join Mom downstairs when I see the sharp edge of a twenty-dollar bill sticking out from under Devra’s jewelry box.