Katie Cotugno - How to Love

Shelby smiles. “I could never hate you, dummy,” she tells me. “I love you too much for that.” She sighs a little, squeezes. Waits for me to quiet down. “Shh, Reena. You’re okay.” She says it again a minute later, just quiet: “You’re okay,” she promises softly, and there’s something in her voice to make me believe.

Before

I sat on the floor of Shelby’s bathroom for a long time, forehead on the edge of the tub, not talking. The porcelain felt cold and clean against my skin. Shelby leaned her back on the door, cross-legged and patient, dragging the edge of the cardboard box beneath her nail. I could hear her mother moving around in the kitchen, making dinner and singing along to the radio, the sound of life spinning on.

I was pregnant.

Me.

“Jesus Christ, Shelby,” I finally whispered, bracing my hands on the tub and looking up. My head, as I lifted it, felt heavy enough to snap off my neck entirely. I wished for a swamp to swallow me. I wished for my mom. “What am I going to do? ”

I had to tell Soledad.

I had to tell my father.

I had to tell—

Oh God.

I splashed some water on my face and drove south down 95, toward Sawyer and the crumbling stucco house. It was past twilight, palm trees silhouetted gray and graceful against the darkening sky. I sped. I sped a lot , actually, and also I was crying again, and when I made the left turn onto Powerline Road I came within centimeters of smashing into a canary-yellow pickup truck and very nearly killed myself.

I very nearly killed myself and my kid.

The blaring horn faded in the distance and I pulled over as soon as I could, two hands shaking on the wheel. I thought of Allie and near misses, wondered why on earth things happen the way they do. I missed her more than I ever had, if that was possible. My breath came in crazy gulping sobs.

“Congratulations,” I said suddenly, talking to her like she was sitting in the passenger seat beside me, feet up on the dashboard and singing along to the radio, her head thrown back to laugh loud and hard. I’d never done that before, not in all the months she’d been gone. “You were right. I couldn’t handle it. I can’t handle it, and it just—it would have been great of you to stick the hell around and help me out.”

Cars whizzed by on the avenue. Allie didn’t reply.

Finally I pulled it together enough to make it the rest of the way to Sawyer’s, gliding silently up to the curb across the street. I shut off the engine and got out, flip-flops sinking into the dry, brittle grass. The remains of two broken beer bottles were scattered on the pavement, green and sharp.

I had a long stare at the low, sprawling house: It looked worse than I’d remembered, dirty aluminum awnings over the windows and a weird rusty stain creeping up the exterior near the door. A random orange traffic cone sat overturned on the lawn. I’d thought it was some exotic clubhouse, romantically shabby. Now it just looked bleak.

The windows were dark but Sawyer’s Jeep was in the driveway, and I was talking myself into crossing and ringing the bell when the front door opened and there he was: slouching and feline, angry and sad. I hardly even recognized his face. He’d lost a startling amount of weight, I realized. I hadn’t noticed that before. His shoulders jutted oddly beneath his T-shirt, fiberglass or shale.

Actually, I thought as I stood there: They looked sort of oddly like wings.

He didn’t see me. He wasn’t looking. He was holding a backpack, some ridiculous old camping number I happened to know was his father’s, because my father had one, too. They’d bought them together when they were teenagers, back when they used to do things like camp.

Sawyer crossed the lawn, threw the pack in the backseat of his Jeep and slid into the driver’s seat. I stood there and watched him, struck dumb. I didn’t know where he was going. I didn’t know how long he’d be gone. I waited as the engine turned over, loud and cranky—Reena in the background, watching as usual. The taillights glowed like two red coals.

Wait , I almost shouted, but didn’t, and that would be my burden to bear. Instead, I stood on the curb and I watched him disappear, lights fading in the distance like waking up from a dream.

I stood there for a long time, feet rooted to the sidewalk, and in my head the stillness began to make a sick kind of sense. I wasn’t going anywhere , I realized numbly—not college, not Chicago, not off into the sunset to see the great wide world. This was it. Sawyer was gone— gone gone, I knew already, the way you know you’re hungry or that it’s about to rain—and I was going to have to stay in Broward. I was going to have to do this—whatever this was—on my own.

I was crying again, silent and stupid, right there on the curb like the worst kind of fool. All that careful planning, all those maps and magazines, those nights I’d dreamed myself to sleep. The places I was going to explore, the stories I was going to write when I got there—and for what? I looked down at the damp, cracked pavement, felt the boundaries of my life constricting around me. The air was heavy and oppressive, pushing against the surface of my skin.

At long last, I pulled it together, wiped my eyes and scrubbed my palms against my jeans. I took a deep breath and headed for the only destination that made sense at this particular juncture:

I got back in the car and drove toward home.

After

My father gets released in the middle of August, twenty pounds lighter and considerably worse for wear. He spends most days in the living room or at physical therapy, groggy or annoyed, but he is alive, and that is good enough for now. We settle into a new routine, all of us Monteros, full of medicines and lists. I start cooking dinner. Silence descends like a shroud. A few times a week, Sawyer’s Jeep rumbles to the curb and he takes Hannah to the park or the zoo for a couple of hours.

“How are you?” he always asks, when I bring her outside.

“Fine,” I always tell him, and watch him disappear down the road.

During the day I am a dutiful daughter. I weed the garden. I salt the soup. At night I read my atlas like a Bible, imagining my escape.

It goes on like this for a while, a steady drone and the hum of the central air, until one afternoon when I come downstairs after putting Hannah down for a nap and find my dad sitting on the couch, flipping the channels. “Do you need anything?” I ask automatically. “You hungry?”

“I’m all right,” he says. Then, clicking the TV off: “Come here for a minute, daughter of mine.”

I feel the nerves stir in my stomach—a warm prickly rush of guilt and anxiety, though I know there was a time when I felt safer with my father than with anyone else on earth. “What’s up?” I ask, trying not to sound afraid. My hands move in front of me like butterflies. My toes curl down against the rug.

“Sit down,” he tells me, and I do, perching on the edge of the sofa beside him, feet still planted on the carpet like at any second I might jump up and bolt.

“I want to talk to you about that night at dinner,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I say immediately, trying to avoid the inevitable lecture: If he’s going to lay into me again, I’d rather just take the blame right off the bat and be done with it, preempt the whole affair. My textbooks are piled on the desk in my bedroom. I’ve got finals starting next week. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.”

“It’s not that,” he says, which is surprising. He shakes his head, sighs a little. “I owe you an apology.”