Becky heard Cal bellow for the kid to stand still no matter how scared he was and let them come to him. Which sounded like a good plan, if only her idiot brother would let her catch up. She was winded, she was wet, and she was for the first time feeling truly pregnant. The good news was that Cal was close, on her right at one o’clock.
Fine, but my sneakers are going to be ruined. In fact, the Beckster believes they’re ruined already.
“Becky? Where the hell are you?”
Okay, this was strange. He was still on her right, but now he sounded closer to five o’clock. Like, almost behind her.
“Here,” she said. “And I’m going to stay here until you get to me.” She glanced down at her Android. “Cal, do you have any bars on your phone?”
“I don’t have any idea. It’s in the car. Just keep yakking until I get to you.”
“What about the kid? And the crazy mom? She’s gone totally dark.”
“Let’s get back together—then we’ll worry about them, okay?” he said. Becky knew her brother, and she didn’t like the way he sounded. This was Cal being worried and trying not to show it. “For now just talk to me.”
Becky considered, then began to recite, stamping her muddy sneakers in time. “There once was a guy named McSweeny, who spilled some gin on his weenie. Just to be couth, he added vermouth, then slipped his girl a martini.”
“Oh, that’s charming,” he said. Now directly behind her, almost close enough to reach out and touch, and why was that such a relief? It was only a field, for God’s sake.
“Hey, you guys!” The kid. Faint. Not laughing now, just sounding lost and terrified. “Are you looking for me? I’m scared!”
“YES! YES, OKAY! HANG ON,” her brother hollered. “Becky? Becky, keep talking.”
Becky’s hands went to her bulge—she refused to call it a baby bump, that was so People magazine—and cradled it lightly. “Here’s another. There once was a woman named Jill, who swallowed an exploding pi—”
“Stop, stop. I overshot you somehow.”
Yup, his voice was now coming from ahead. She turned around again. “Quit goofing, Cal. This is not funny.” Her mouth was dry. She swallowed, and her throat was dry, too. When it made that click sound, you knew you were dry. There was a big bottle of Poland Spring water in the car. Also a couple of Cokes in the backseat. She could see them: red cans, white letters.
“Becky?”
“What?”
“There’s something wrong here.”
“What do you mean?” Thinking, As if I didn’t know.
“Listen to me. Can you jump?”
“Of course I can jump! What do you think?”
“I think you’re going to have a baby this summer, that’s what I think.”
“I can still—Cal, stop walking away!”
“I didn’t move,” he said.
“You did, you must have! You still are!”
“Shut up and listen. I’m going to count to three. On three you put your hands over your head like a ref signaling the field goal’s good and jump just as high as you can. I’ll do the same. You won’t need to get much air for me to see your hands, ’kay? And I’ll come to you.”
“Oh, whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad,” she thought—no idea where it had come from, something else from freshman lit, maybe—but one thing she did know was that he could say he wasn’t moving but he was, he was getting farther away all the time.
“Becky? Beck—”
“All right!” she screamed. “All right, let’s do it!”
“One! Two!—” he cried. “THREE!”
At fifteen Becky DeMuth had weighed eighty-two pounds—her father called her “Stick”—and ran hurdles with the varsity team. At fifteen she could walk from one end of the school to the other on her hands. She wanted to believe she was still that person; some part of her had honestly expected to remain that person for her entire life. Her mind had still not caught up to being nineteen and pregnant—not eighty-two pounds but a hundred and thirty. She wanted to grab air—Houston, we have liftoff—but it was like trying to jump while giving a small child a piggyback (when you thought about it, that was pretty much the case).
Her eyeline only cleared the top of the grass for a moment, affording her the briefest glimpse back the way she’d come. What she saw, though, was enough to make her almost breathless with alarm.
Cal and the road. Cal . . . and the road.
She came back down, felt a shock of impact jolt up through her heels and into