Something in the Water

EMMA:

I stare at that wild look in Ben's eye, and realize I should be very concerned. "Ben, I..." He waits eagerly for my answer. I hate to disappoint him. "No."

He loses half of the emotion he brought with him. "No?"

He's just explained his specific plan to keep me and my baby safe - false identity and marriage included - and I just can't understand how he expects me to go along with it. "I'm not going through with all that drama. I've had enough of it."

He looks at me like I've given an unrealistic answer. "You won't do it?"

"No, I won't." I state my position on the matter and stand up from the sofa, giving myself an extra push off the back. "It's crazy."

"Emma, you don't really have a choice here." He follows me close behind.

I purposefully change the subject. "Did you visit Sam today?" I know for a fact that he didn't, but I want to see if he'll tell me the truth.

His answer is delayed. "I'm not finished."

I let him see my eyes roll. "Go on, then."

It makes a vein start to surface in his forehead. "I thought you would do anything for the baby?"

I feel bad, because he has it all wrong. "I would do anything for him, but what you're asking of me is just...stupid." I don't hold back. "It won't help anybody."

He decides he's had enough with holding back, too. "Emma, they're going to take your baby away. You know that, right?"

I roll my lips and look down at my bump. "It's our baby. Maybe they'll change their minds."

"They won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because they've already decided that you are no exception to the law."

That hits me in a funny way. "How do you know that?"

His gaze drifts in a guilty way. "Your dad told me a while ago."

Suddenly, all that pity I felt earlier vanishes. "Oh, okay then." I feel a weird sense of humor, and chuckle with it. "So I guess you and my dad are like best friends now, right? Designing secret plans that will turn my life upside down, and keeping secrets from me that involve my baby?"

"I thought it was our baby?"

It annoys me that he caught my mistake. "I don't want our baby to come into the world to delinquent parents. That's what it used to be like, and babies were raised by criminals! That's why they put birth control in the water!"

He chuckles. "Now you're just being dramatic."

"I'm not the dramatic one. You are."

He doesn't respond to my attack. "Well, what else are you going to do?"

"I don't know, I'll figure something out."

"You don't have much time."

Now he's just getting on my nerves. "I know that, Ben."

He's ready to rip my head off, and I'm thinking about doing the same thing to him. I don't think I've ever been this frustrated with him in my whole life. He doesn't listen to me like he used to.

"What else do you know about this that I don't?" I start to interrogate.

He keeps his head down. "They'll send the baby to be raised by someone else until you turn twenty. Then you can have him back."

It's not as painful as I expected. "That's all?"

His head snaps up at my comment. "That's all? They'll take a newborn baby away from his mother for the first three years of his life, and you think that's all?"

"It's not enough for me to see the necessity of changing my identity like some secret agent spy running from the law!"

"But you are, Emma! You are running from the law!"

"I can't run! They'll find me! There's no use in making things worse than they already are. Besides, we won't lose him forever. We should be lucky he even exists, knowing what they could have done to him! I can wait three years if it means I can raise my baby in peace." I become emotional as I recall the man crying in the hospital wing, and the terrible feeling I had. "I don't want him to grow up and suffer some sort of consequence for something I did. And how could you drag Sam and Sara into this? It's between us, Ben. It should stay that way."

He wipes a hand across his reddened face. "We just want to help you."

"Well, I don't need help. I'm practically a grown woman, almost a mother, and I don't need you or my dad protecting me like I'm a child. That's what they wanted from me, isn't it? To grow up and act like an adult? If I agreed to your ridiculous plan, I'd consider myself childish and immature. That's not where I want to be, and if you think going down that path is right for this baby, then by all means go ahead."

I see the twitch of hurt in his eyes, but I don't regret saying what I did. I was honest, and I know I can trust myself to make the right decisions in the benefit of the baby, even if that means disagreeing with everyone else.

"It's late." I mention, glancing at the clock in the kitchen. "I think you should go home."

He's drained, and I can tell just by the way he's standing. His shoulders are slouched, his mouth probably taking a permanent frown. He was right when he said people change. I just didn't think it could happen to us.

. . . . . . . .

Sara wasn't exaggerating when she said Sam has glued himself to the family room couch, flipping channels on the television like he's being paid for it.

I've waited to visit after lunch, though I haven't eaten yet. I didn't want to get sucked into eating another peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but my baby says I'm definitely not hungry now. "Sam?"

He waits for me to step into his side view so he doesn't need to turn his head. "Sara's upstairs." He mutters.

"I'm not here to see Sara." I sit myself down, easing myself into a seat far enough away but close enough to speak with him personally. "I wanted to see you."

I watch his thumb press the channel button and the hazy look in his eyes. I snatch the remote from him and power it off.

He sighs, dropping his head back on the cushions. "Excuse me?"

"You're welcome." I sniff out alot of food coming from the kitchen. "It smells...good." I lie, because nothing smells good to me unless it's banana bread or cucumbers - those are my weird cravings.

"Help yourself." He says. I see the containers of pasta and cakes and everything else people send when someone in your family is sick. I feel an uncomfortable roll in my stomach.

"No, thanks." The silence between us is much thicker without the television filling it. I play with my pantleg. "I think Ben and I declared a war last night."

"I heard." Sam finally turns his head in my direction. "Was it bloody?"

"Not as bloody as it could've been."

"Sara said you cried."

I did call Sara right after Ben left, because I was so angry with the way he thinks he can make hasty decisions for me and how he expects me to go along with them. I didn't share the details, but she got enough of the picture. "I didn't cry. I was ready to rip my hair out."

"Are you sure you didn't cry?"

"You know what? I don't remember."

He smiles and rolls his head back on the couch. "At least tell me you kicked him out?"

"I did, actually!" I exclaim proudly. "I kicked him out."

"Good, Sully. I'm glad."

I can't lie, I love being with Sam. He's the only person in my life that treats me the same way he did four months ago, like nothing's changed. I think it's alot harder to stay the same when everyone else is different. I think he might be the reason I haven't completely lost my mind yet. It's nice to have someone with a neutral opinion, but he doesn't see the significance of my situation. He'll never understand how serious this is.

"Maybe I should run away." I suggest jokingly.

"It's a little cliche, but go right ahead." He thinks to himself. "Maybe Sara and I will come with you."

I notice the printed sheets of paper with that white house on them displayed across the coffee table. "Do you know when you're moving yet?"

I feel bad for putting him back in his slump. "Beginning of August."

I frown, seeing that I only have two months left with him and Sara. "That's really fast."

"I know."

I try to think of something to make him feel better. "Will you come back and visit in October, after the baby gets here?"

He pretends to think really hard. "Only if you send a picture and I decide that it looks more like you than it does Ben."

"No promises."

. . . . . . . .

I was brushing my hair before bed when I came across the little blue baby book again. I've noticed that it catches my attention when I need it most, like it speaks to me. I blame the hormones.

I follow my instincts and open to a random page. It's a specific list on what to have prepared when the baby comes home. I haven't even thought of anything like that - I don't have a crib, or a high chair, or even a pack of diapers. I'm completely unprepared.

But, in the end, will I even need those things? If I'm not the one raising my baby for the first three years, he won't need them. By three, he'll be big enough to do most of those things by himself, or he'll outgrow them. I won't have to do anything.

Mom walks in on me crying. "Emma?"

"I don't want to miss everything." I sob, hiding my face in the pillow on my bed. "I don't want him to be raised by someone else."

She doesn't say anything, allowing me to get the sobbing out of my system. I feel her weight drop to the corner of my bed, and she rubs my leg to comfort me.

She speaks once I've quieted. "I wish this was different for you. I know you would have passed the Evaluation after you were married, and there wouldn't be a problem. You'd be able to enjoy this."

I briefly reconsider my other option, the one that's beyond illegal, but I know it isn't right. That's not what I want. "Why won't they give me a chance?"

"You have another meeting with your Evaluator scheduled in two weeks." She tells me. "Maybe you can organize something to change their minds, show them that you're ready to be a mother."

I sit up to face her. "But I don't even know if I'm ready. How do I show them?"

She shrugs, letting me figure it out for myself. "You tell me." She kisses my forehead and carries herself from my room with that vague comment left behind.