Saving Grace Read online

  I didn’t say anything or even look at him, but I climbed onto the seat and fastened my belt.

  We drove for I don’t know how long without talking. I didn’t want to talk anyway. All I wanted to do was look at Brianna. I leaned my head back against the seat and touched her tiny fist. She grabbed my finger. Her own little fingers were so strong. I smiled. My baby was strong. She coughed a couple of times and made a face but went on sleeping. I closed my eyes and thought about the wonderful life the three of us were going to have in Montreal.

  I woke up with a kink in my neck. And my left foot was asleep. I hadn’t meant to doze off. I peeked at Brianna. She was still asleep, and there was a tiny spit bubble between her lips. I sat up a little straighter and stretched. “How long was I asleep,” I asked Justin.

  “I don’t know. An hour or so,” he said. “You snore.”

  “I do not.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, you do.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him. Even though Justin and I had done it a lot, we’d never slept together—I mean in the same bed, all night. There was a lot of stuff I didn’t know about him, or him about me. It didn’t matter though. There was lots of time for all that once we got to Montreal.

  “What are you gonna do for money when you get to Montreal?” Justin asked after a while.

  “I have some money,” I said.

  “How much?”

  “Enough until I get a job.” Actually I had a lot of money. My mom used to put money in a bank account in my name ever y month—“for your education,” she’d say. The bankbook had been in my dad’s box in the closet with the adoption papers. I’d gone to the bank and taken all the money out of the account. Brianna was more important than my education. My mom would have understood that.

  Justin shot me a quick look. “You’re fifteen and you don’t speak French. What kind of a job can you get?”

  “They speak English in Montreal too,” I snapped. “And for your information I’m going to get a job working for a fashion designer.”

  Justin gave a snort of laughter. “What do you know about fashion?” he said. “You can’t even sew. You cut off the bottom of your jeans and left them all ragged. You put tape on the bottom of your skirt.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to make clothes, you dink. I said I want to design them. You know, draw. Eventually. I have to work my way up. Ms. Carrington said I have a lot of artistic talent.”

  Justin laughed. “Yeah, like Gorilla Legs would know.”

  “Shut up,” I yelled. I reached over to smack him and bumped the car seat. Brianna started to cry. “See what you did?” I said.

  “Shush, shush,” I crooned to the baby, stroking her head. “Mama’s here.” She wouldn’t stop. The twisted lump in my stomach came back.

  “Can’t you shut her up?” Justin said.

  “She’s a baby,” I said. “They cry, asshole.” I felt around in my pack and found the bottle of formula. Brianna didn’t like it any better this time than she had before. I couldn’t get her to take even one drink. She just kept spitting the nipple right back out again as fast as I got it in her mouth. And it wasn’t easy getting it in her mouth in the first place. My ears were ringing from her crying. I knew she had to be hungry, so why wouldn’t she eat? Were kids picky eaters even when they were this little?

  Chapter Five

  I caught sight of the water bottle stuck in the side pocket of my bag. I grabbed it, unscrewed the cap and carefully dribbled a bit of water into Brianna’s mouth. She sputtered and coughed and some of the water ran onto her chin, but she swallowed and then she turned to me and opened and closed her mouth like a baby bird. I got out an empty baby bottle and filled it a bit more than halfway with water. This time, when I stuck the nipple in Brianna’s mouth, she drank.

  The knot in my stomach let go. “See?” I said to Justin. “It’s not like you have to go to school or something to be a mother. When it’s your own baby it’s natural. It just happens.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” he muttered.

  Brianna drank the whole bottle of water. “You have to pull over,” I told Justin when she was done.

  “Again?” he grumbled. “How’re we supposed to get to Montreal if I keep having to stop all the time?”

  “I have to burp her, so I have to take her out of the car seat. I can’t do that when you’re driving because it’s not safe. Just pull over already, okay?”

  Justin shook his head, but he pulled onto the shoulder of the road and put the truck in park. He looked at me. “Well, c’mon. Get on with it.”

  I took Brianna out of the seat and put her up on my shoulder again. She fussed and squirmed as I tried to rub her back.

  “You know, she’s just like you, Evie,” Justin said, watching us. “She can’t stay still for even a minute.”

  I gave Brianna’s back a couple of gentle pats and she made a small urp sound. “Yeah, well she’s nothing like you, Justin,” I said. “When you burp you sound like a pig.”

  The baby lifted her head and looked at me. Her nose was running again. “Get me a Kleenex, Justin,” I said. “They’re in the bottom of the bag somewhere.”

  He leaned over and felt around in the backpack. “I can’t find them,” he said after a minute or so. “Here.” He grabbed a paper napkin from Dairy Queen off the dusty dash. “Use this.”

  “I’m not using that,” I said. “For one thing, it’s filthy, and for another, it’s too rough for her nose.” I held Brianna out to him. “Hold her for a second and I’ll find a Kleenex.”

  Justin held up both hands. “No way, I’m not holding her.”

  “She won’t bite or anything. Take her.”

  “No.” Justin grabbed the backpack and started shoving things around inside. “Here,” he said after a few seconds, pulling out a Kleenex. “Blow her nose and then put her back in the seat. We need to get going.”

  I wiped Brianna’s nose. She didn’t like that either. She tried to turn her head away, and she scrunched up her face and made a couple of funny grunting noises. That made me laugh because that grunting noise was the same kind of sound Justin made when he drank beer. She was like him after all.

  I got her fastened back in the car seat with a new blanket because we’d gotten some water on the old one. She put the end of one fist in her mouth and chewed on it while she watched me. I offered her a finger and she grabbed onto it with her other hand. Justin pulled back onto the road. In a few minutes Brianna’s eyelids began to droop. Pretty soon she was asleep again.

  Chapter Six

  There wasn’t much traffic on the road. Once in a while a car went by us going in the other direction. I lay my head back against the seat and closed my eyes for just a second. I didn’t really mean to fall asleep again, but I did.

  I dreamed about my mother. In the dream she wasn’t dead. I’d come home and she was in the kitchen making a devil’s food chocolate cake—my all-time favorite. I just stood there in the doorway staring at her. Finally she turned around and smiled at me. “Hi,” she said. “How was your day?” She had flour on the front of her jeans.

  “You’re dead,” I said.

  Mom laughed. “No I’m not. See? I’m right here.” She looked just the way she had the very last time I’d seen her—I mean the last time I’d seen her when she was alive. She was wearing jeans and a red shirt with her hair piled up on her head.

  “No! I know you’re dead,” I said. “There was an accident. A truck came across the road and...and hit your car. I... we had a funeral. I saw you in the...”

  Mom shrugged. “Wasn’t me.” She gestured at the counter. “You want to lick the bowl?” she asked.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “I missed you so much every day. I’m so glad you’re here.” I rushed across the room and threw my arms around her, but it was like she was made of air. She just faded away into nothing. I grabbed for her but there was nothing to hold on to.

  I woke up with a start. It didn’t matter how many times I dreamed about my mom
. She was still dead when I woke up.

  I straightened up and stretched. My head had been slumped over against the car seat, and my mouth was all sticky inside. I felt around on the truck floor, found the water bottle and drank what was left. It wasn’t very cold anymore.

  “Where are we?” I asked Justin. My ponytail had come half undone. I pulled the elastic loose and raked my fingers through the knots in my hair.

  “We’re getting pretty close to Edmundston,” he said.

  “How long before we get to Montreal?”

  “Hours.”

  “You know, we’d make better time on the highway,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Except the cops are probably looking for you by now. We have to stay off the main roads. You did kidnap a baby, you know, Evie.”

  “Don’t say that,” I said, twisting my hair back into a ponytail again. “She’s mine. You can’t kidnap your own kid.”

  Justin had turned the radio on low while I’d been asleep. “Hey, that’s our song,” I said.

  “What do you mean, ‘our song’?” Justin said.

  I turned the sound up just a notch and sang along, keeping my voice low so Brianna wouldn’t wake up. “...when you touch me, I can hardly breathe, when you touch me, I still believe.” I looked at Justin. “I can’t believe you don’t remember. That’s the first song we danced to, the very first time we made love.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Justin! That’s the night we met. How can you not remember?”

  “I remember meeting you. I just don’t remember dancing and songs and stuff like that.”

  How could he have forgotten? I’d told my dad that I was sleeping over at Jade’s that night. She’d been my best friend since grade two, except now her mom didn’t want Jade hanging around with me anymore because I got pregnant. Jade’s mother said I was a bad influence. But back then we hung out all the time. I’d say I was staying at Jade’s, and she’d tell her mother she was sleeping over at my place. That way we could go out and no one would ask where we were going and when we would be home. That had always worked because no one ever checked, and most of the time when one of us said we were sleeping over at the other’s house we really were.

  That night we’d gone to a party Evan Kelly was having out at his parents’ camp. Most of the kids at the party were in high school, but Jade had been invited by this guy, Dylan, who she’d met at the Y pool, and he’d said she could bring a friend. And that was me.

  So anyway, Dylan had grabbed Jade as soon as we got there. Someone gave me a beer and I just wandered around at first. I didn’t really like beer—I’d sneaked a few sips of my dad’s and the taste was gross—but I couldn’t say no because I didn’t want it to look like I wasn’t cool.

  I didn’t really know anybody, and Jade was already in Dylan’s lap, so after a while I went outside on the deck because it was just too loud inside. There were steps that went all the way down to the beach, and Justin was sitting on the top one smoking a cigarette.

  I didn’t usually go for guys who smoked because when they stuck their tongue in your mouth it tasted really raunchy. Plus I hated the smell in my hair. I’ve always spent a lot of effort on my hair, and I never bought cheap shampoo or conditioner, and I didn’t want to smell like some old, stinky cigarette when I was spending fifteen bucks a bottle for conditioner. But Justin was blowing these totally cool smoke rings, perfect circles that just floated away into the dark.

  I didn’t know who he was then. I mean, I’d seen him around the Y pool and at the Burger Barn and the mall, and I’d noticed him because how could you not? But I didn’t even know his name then. He was so cute, tall with strong arms, and he had his hair long then too, thick and blond and almost touching his shoulders. So I just watched him for a while and didn’t say anything. Then he turned around and smiled at me, and it was just like in the movies—for a second I couldn’t breathe.

  He put out his cigarette on the end of the railing and then he pulled a pack of gum out of his pocket and offered me a piece.

  “Thanks,” I said. I leaned against the railing, peeled off the paper wrapper, popped the gum in my mouth—it was spearmint—and hoped I didn’t look too much like a cow when I was chewing.

  Justin slid over on the stairs. “Have a seat,” he said.

  I sat down next to him. The step was so narrow our legs touched. I hoped he couldn’t feel mine shaking.

  “I’m Justin,” he said.

  “I’m Evie.”

  “You here with anyone?”

  I knew he meant a guy. I shook my head. “Just my friend Jade. She’s inside.”

  “I’ve seen you around,” Justin said. “At the pool, right?”

  I nodded. “Uh-huh.” He’d noticed me. We just started talking then. About how it wasn’t fair that now you had to buy a punch pass to swim at the Y instead of just paying three bucks every time. And how the parking lot at the Dairy Queen up the hill was getting too crazy to hang out in.

  We talked for maybe an hour. It was getting cold, and Justin took off his sweatshirt and gave it to me to wear. It was so romantic. A while later we went inside to find something to eat. After, Justin said, “You wanna dance?” and we did. That’s how “When You Touch Me” got to be our song because it was playing on the radio.

  I had my head on Justin’s shoulder and I could smell his aftershave and I thought, I could die right now and I’d be happy. Then later we went for a walk down the beach and found this spot beside a big rock, kind of back in the bushes. We sat on the blanket that Justin had brought and we started kissing, and soon Justin had his hand on my bare back. He was whispering in my ear how much he wanted me, and my insides were melting.

  I didn’t just put out like that, though, especially for someone I’d just met, but with Justin I knew it was different. We were already falling in love, you know, like love at first sight. I pulled back for a second. “We don’t have any...you know, protection,” I said.

  “I sort of do,” Justin said.

  “What do you mean, sort of?” I asked.

  “My buddy, Cameron, him and his girlfriend, they’re in love and everything. I think they’ll probably even get married some day, but his parents are really religious and strict and all, and so he asked me to hold onto his—you know—protection, because if they found it they’d freak.” He ran his finger down my cheek and across my lips. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said. “And if you don’t want to...”

  I thought my heart was going to burst right out of my chest, it was pounding so hard. “I want to,” I said.

  Chapter Seven

  After that night, Justin and I were together all the time. We had to kind of keep things secret. I was fourteen and he was nearly seventeen. My dad would have gone ballistic. I couldn’t even tell Jade, which I hated because she was my best friend and I wouldn’t have even been at the party and met Justin if it hadn’t been for her. Justin said that as soon as I turned sixteen we could tell everyone, but then the condom broke.

  We were in Justin’s truck back in the woods off the road to the landfill. He sat up and I heard him say, “Oh crap.”

  “What is it?” I said, pulling on my underpants and jeans.

  “It broke.”

  “What broke? What do you mean?”

  “The condom. It broke.”

  “I thought they weren’t supposed to break.”

  “Yeah, well this one did.” Justin hauled up his pants and fastened his belt.

  I counted back in my head. “It’s probably okay,” I said. “My period’s gonna start in about a week.”

  Justin was pulling his hand back through his hair the way he always did when something was bugging him. “Isn’t there some kind of pill you can get from the doctor?” he said. “That can keep you from getting pregnant?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Anyway, I can’t go to the doctor. The first thing he’ll do is call my dad.” I put my arms around Justin’s neck. “I’m sure it’
ll be okay. I’m really, really regular. You’ll see.”

  And my period started right on time on the fourteenth, though it only lasted a couple of days. Justin and I were super careful after that, but the next month I missed my period altogether, and then a couple of weeks after I should have gotten it, I thought I had the flu. I got up and puked even before I’d washed my hair. It happened the next morning too. The third morning my dad said he was taking me to the clinic because I couldn’t keep missing school.

  The doctor was a woman. Dr. Marriot. She was filling in because Dr. Tracey was away. She had on a long floaty skirt and flat sandals with her white doctor coat, and she reminded me of Ms. Carrington, my art teacher. Except Ms. Carrington usually wore her sandals with socks. The doctor had blue polish on her toes and a silver toe ring.

  I sat up on the table in the examining room while she looked down my throat, felt my neck and listened to me breathe. I told her how I’d heaved, first thing, for the past three mornings. “Are you sexually active, Evie?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure whether I should tell her. I didn’t want my dad to find out and get Justin into trouble. If it had been Dr. Tracey, I wouldn’t have said a word.

  “Anything you say to me stays in this room,” she said when I didn’t answer.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and nodded. She gave me a little bottle and sent me into the bathroom to pee.

  “It has to be a mistake,” I said when she told me I was pregnant. “Because we’ve been super, super careful. Okay, there was that one time last month, but— I mean, I got my period so how could I be pregnant?”

  “Was it a normal period?” she asked.

  “Well, it was kind of light and it only lasted a couple of days.”

  The doctor explained that what I’d thought was just a short period really hadn’t been one at all.

  “Would you like me to tell your father?” she said.

  I nodded. I could have puked right then, but there was nothing left in my stomach.

  Dad didn’t scream at me, which I’d known he wouldn’t do with someone else around, but his face got so red I thought for a second the top of his head would blow off. “How could you have been so goddamn stupid, Evie?” he said finally in a quiet voice. He kept squeezing his hands into fists and then letting go again.