Page 20 of Near Miss

I wonder what I look like.

He shrugs, reaching forward and grabbing a beer from the perspiring bucket our father left on the table. “Good. I’ve got some really great kids I’m working with. And the other week—we found a new kidney for that girl I told you about. Actually, Beckett’s special friend came through and operated on her.”

Sarah furrows her brow, but before she can say anything, our mother leans forward, green eyes just like ours practically bugging out of her head when she drops her chin to her palm, propping her elbow up on the table. “Beckett’s special friend?”

Nathaniel nods enthusiastically while he sips from his beer. He practically fucking chokes trying to hurry up and speak. “Dr. Roberts. She’s a transplant fellow. She’s taken Beck under her wing.”

Our mother bats her eyes at him, her special little star who fixes daughters just like hers before her eyes swing to me. She’s still looking at me like a mother looks at a child, like she loves me, but it’s not the same.

My mother looks at Sarah like she can’t believe she’s real—like she’s the most precious thing in the world to her. A shooting star she saw in the sky and chased to the ends of the earth.

As she should.

She looks at Nathaniel with this sort of understated reverence. Her smile softens and her eyes go watery, like she mightprostrate herself at his feet and thank him for saving kids like Sarah for the rest of her life.

As she should.

She looks at me like I’ve done her a sort of favour. Held open a door for her, picked up something she dropped in the grocery aisle. She’s thankful for me, but she doesn’t really understand my value. What I did to change or shape her life. Like she can’t see the future and she doesn’t know that if I hadn’t held that door open for her, the handles to all her bags would have broken, and everything she had worked so hard to be able to afford to buy would have shattered on the floor. That if she hadn’t stopped to say thank you to that stranger who took a few minutes out of their day, she would have left the grocery store a few minutes earlier and she would have gotten hit by a car, and life as she knew it would have ended.

She looks at me like I’m something—not nothing—but she’s not quite sure what.

As she should.

Because I think I look at myself like that—I’m something, not nothing—but I’m not quite sure what either.

She’s looking at me right now like she’s amused by the whole thing. She means well. But sometimes, her well hurts.

“Oh?” My mom smiles, scrunching her nose up, barely sparing my father a glance when he drops a glass of wine in front of her. “Who’s this Dr. Roberts, Beck? When do we get to meet her?”

“I’m not sure you want to meet her, Mom.” Nathaniel snorts, kicking one foot up on the table for a minute before Sarah reaches across and shoves it off. “She’d scare the shit out of you.”

My dad pulls out a chair beside Nathaniel, pointing at me and the bucket of beer. I shake my head. “No. Preseason starts on Saturday. I need to be at the stadium early tomorrow. And she wouldn’t scare the shit out of you. She’s just a friend, helping me out.” I narrow my eyes at Nathaniel, tempted to reach out underthe table and kick him in the shins. “Quit saying shit like that. She’s not mean. She’s nicer to me than most people are lately.”

Nathaniel pulls his head back, our mother deflates, our father looks awkward, taking a too-long sip of his beer, and Sarah blinks.

No one tells me they don’t hate me. That it’s okay. That it was a mistake, that humans are allowed to make them and that’s the beauty of being alive—that it was just a kick, and it was just a record and it was just a stupid trophy and just a stupid game.

They’re looking at me like they feel sorry for me in the face of my public humiliation.

I bite down on my lip and shrug, leaning back in my chair before throwing them a grin. “Gatorade commercial’s still crushing though.”

Everyone lightens at once, like whatever my feelings have done to weigh them down, gets picked up off their shoulders and put on mine.

I sink in the chair a bit, I think. But no one notices, because I’ve been smiling while I carried a mountain for them for years.

Our mother gives me a small smile, and then she turns to Sarah, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear again even though she doesn’t have to. “How’d it go at the specialist?”

It’s a weighted question. Sarah wants nothing more than to have a baby she can give the childhood she never had, but she’s too nervous to try and get pregnant because she’s scared of her own genetics—so I paid a dumb amount of money for something that should probably be fucking free for more than one round so her partner Lily could try to get pregnant through IVF.

I didn’t mind. I’m glad I can do it. But I hate that every failed embryo makes her feel like this, and I hate that I feel like I’m failing her, too.

“We’re out of embryos.” My sister looks down, picking at a loose stitch in the blanket she’s still wrapped up in.

“Oh.” Our mother’s voice falls, and her eyes start to go glassy. She reaches out, a hand finding Sarah’s shoulder, fingers feathering there before she snatches it back. She pauses, thumbs digging in and picking at cuticles that already spent a lifetime raw before she looks at me. “But that’s okay. There’s always the chance to try again with another round.”

She’s not looking at me because she’s a mother looking at her son, hope and desperation pouring off of her and out of her.

She’s looking at me like she needs me to hold the door open for her. To pick up the box of cereal she dropped.

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