that sounds pretty accurate, don’t you think?”
Cleo hung up the phone and threw it at the couch. Then she started to really let herself cry, with big, indulgent, dramatic sobs. She waited for her mom to call her back, but all she got was an e-mail an hour later.
Cleo,
I’m upset at the way things were handled today. I understand that you are upset as well, so when you’re ready to talk in a calm manner, I’ll be available.
Mom
“Do you believe this?” she screamed. She ran into the bedroom to show it to Max, holding her phone right in front of his face until he took it from her and read it. Her first instinct had been to hide it, to hide the fact that she had a mom who was such a monster. But then her rage had taken over and she didn’t care about that.
It sounded like a fucking business e-mail: The way things were handled. I’ll be available. Good God, her mom was a crazy person. She didn’t even know how to talk to people normally, didn’t even know how to act when her daughter told her she was pregnant.
“I’m never talking to her again,” Cleo said. “She can die alone.”
“Okay,” Max said. “You’re upset.”
“Of course I’m upset. My mom is a horrible person. And can I just point out that she also got pregnant by accident? With me. You’d think she’d be a little more understanding.”
“She’s just surprised.”
“I’m surprised too,” Cleo said. “Didn’t she think about that?”
CLEO WAS STILL THROWING UP almost every day. They kept waiting for it to stop, but it never did. Max read the pregnancy books they bought and reported back to her. “It says it’s normal for some women to be sick through the whole pregnancy. Mostly it’s just the first trimester, but some people have it the whole time.” He looked up at her with wide eyes.
“What a relief,” she said.
In class, her lips were red and raw from all the retching. She could feel her professors looking at her, probably thinking that she was on a bender, that she was perpetually hungover, that her life was spiraling out of control. The last part was true, of course, just not for the reasons they thought.
As soon as she got home in the afternoons, she’d lie on the couch and watch TV. Sometimes she’d try to eat saltines, but the only thing that ever had any chance of staying down was Fig Newtons, which she’d never liked before.
“Our baby is going to grow up to be a fig,” Cleo said. She was kidding, but Max looked worried.
“Maybe I’ll call my mom to see if she has any ideas,” he said.
Weezy had called them before they’d even gotten back to school. She apologized for the way she acted, Max relayed to Cleo. She was sorry that they’d already left. And she wanted them to know that the whole family would be there to help them through all of this.
Max was relieved, and Cleo was too. She was. For the most part, anyway. She still wished that her own mom would have come around, and if not, it would have almost been nicer if she and Max could have commiserated on how awful their parents were being. Instead, he talked to his mom every single day, filling her in on doctor’s appointments and asking her advice on every little thing.
Cleo was tired. More tired than she’d ever been in her whole life. Sometimes when she’d be walking to class, she’d think that she was going to fall asleep standing up, because she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and they would close and her head would bob. One night, after dinner, Max came in the room to tell her that Weezy had said that her nausea would be worse if she lay down after meals. “She said to stay upright, just walk around or sit up until you’ve digested.”
Cleo was lying on the couch when he told her this, and she opened one eye to look at him standing there, so eager. “I’d rather throw up all over myself, than sit up right now,” she said. She closed her eyes again and heard Max walk out of the room.
Sometimes Max would be talking to Weezy and he’d just hand the phone to Cleo, without giving her a chance to say no, or even just prepare. She wanted to tell Max that it hurt her feelings, that it made her feel sad when she heard Weezy’s