Page 98 of Just Say (Hell) No
“You know,” Tom said, “there’s another answer.”
“I know,” Ella said. “If at first you don’t succeed, blah blah. I get it. Moving on to Number Two on the list. I’ve got fourteen weeks to go, probably, if I make it to thirty-six like the doctor says. That’s more than three months. Heaps of time to find the right ones. I just have to believe. You don’t have to say it.”
“No.” Tom glanced at Marko, then back at Ella. “You could keep them yourself, if that’s what you want to do. I could help you do it.”
Nyree thought Marko was going to stand up and turn the table over. That was how hot the pulsating color felt coming off him. “No,” he said flatly. “That’s a hard no.”
“Excuse me?” Ella said. “It’s not your life. It’smylife.”
Nyree put a hand on Marko’s arm. “Wait. Give her a chance.”
He subsided, but his face was at its most grim. Nyree wouldn’t want to be the one trying to stand up to that.
Tom, to his credit, didn’t back down. He said, “I’m telling Ella it’s an option, because it is. Do you want her to think, five years from now—‘I could have done it. Why did I give my babies away?’ She can choose, but she should know itisa choice.” He told Ella, “If that’s what you want to do, if that’s the real reason it didn’t work today—I’ll do it with you. I’ve got little brothers and sisters of my own, I’m earning a good wage, and I’m here, putting my hand up.”
Ella had abandoned her eggs and had both hands pressed to her head. “Whoa,” she said. “Wait.”
Tom wasn’t the only one who waited. You could call the air “tense.” Nyree, for one, longed to say something. More than one thing. That how you felt at almost-seventeen—or even at nineteen, like Tom—was likely nowhere close to how you’d feel ten years later. That if Ella thought being pregnant was hard, raising two babies while you finished high school and went on to University would be so much harder. That a couple this young would have a rough enough roadwithouttwo babies. But Tom was right about one thing. Sixteen or not, this wasn’t anybody’s choice but Ella’s.
Ella, for her part, sat up straighter and took Tom’s hand. It was as if somebody had pushed the Mute button on the Sunday-brunch crowd, because all Nyree could hear, all she could see, was whatever would come next. She grabbed Marko’s hand herself and pressed it tight, maybe to help him wait, too.
It took Ella another moment to start. What she finally said, she said to Tom. “I love you. Not just because of this, but—yeh. Because of this, too. Marko’s going to say I can’t know what that means, that I’m too young, but I’m not. But the thing is—I need to make the choice that’s right for the babies, too. And it’s not me.” Her chin wobbled for a second before she went on. “I think that’s what being a mum means, isn’t it? Doing the best you can for your kids? And that’s this. I know it is. Ifeelit is. It hurts so…” She stopped and took a couple breaths. “I lie there at night, when they’re moving around inside me, and I feel like it’s too hard, but there’s no choice, not now. And I know it’s better for me, too. I thought, at the beginning—this was something I could do for somebody else, somebody who wanted a baby more than anything. It’s been harder than I ever knew it could be, though. I know it’s going to get even harder, and I’m… I’mscared.”Two tears had spilled over now and were making their slow way down her cheeks, but she plowed on. “So, yeh, I’m scared, but I’m still right. It’s better for me, too. The babies will have a better life, and so will I. It’s a… a win/win. Or it will be. I know it will. I just have to hold on. But ithurts.”
Nyree was going to lose it. Her hand was over her mouth, her chest aching with the pressure of the tears inside. Tom’s handsome face twisted, and he had to try twice before he said, “I love you, too. That’s all.” Then he took Ella in his arms. Her shoulders heaved, and finally, she cried.
She cried like her heart had already broken. Like it was going to keep breaking, and she knew it. And like she also knew that she’d have to keep going anyway. She’d started on her road, and there was no choice now but to keep walking to the end, and then to leave that road behind and turn onto another one.
But maybe, just maybe… she’d have somebody’s hand around hers, walking the road with her. And when she couldn’t take another step, maybe he’d carry her until she could walk again.
More than one somebody, of course. If anybody had ever had a whole squad of somebodies standing behind her, it was Ella. But one who mattered most of all right now, because he was showing her that therewasmore life to come. That there was another road after this one, and it might even lead somewhere beautiful.
There were storms, Nyree thought, and then there was this. Too much sadness, and that light, barely a glimmer, at the end of it.
But when Ella had gone to the Ladies’ and come back again, the tears were gone, proving that what she’d told the Wrong Couple had been true. There was more than one kind of strength, especially for girls. Surely, this took more strength than a sixteen-year-old should have to produce.
This particular sixteen-year-old proved it by sitting down at the table again and saying, “So that was pretty awkward, crying and all, but at least I know what I need to do. I need to find somebody better, that’s all.”
Marko said, “I have an idea. First, though, I need to say the same thing as before. You’re the buyer, not the seller. It’s your choice. But I think we should give it a try. It’s even on the way home.”
“What?” Ella said.
“Just—meet some people for me,” Marko said. “No expectations, no pressure.”
He wouldn’t say anything else until they were on the motorway, when he finally said, “I realize this could be awkward, which is why I didn’t mention it before. Could be, though, that I realized today that anything you do would be awkward.”
“Geez, thanks,” Ella said.
“No,” he said. “I mean that it’ll be tricky, with anybody you choose, to know who they really are. Even though Nyree sees in color, and even though I’ll be looking and listening as well. Only so much you can learn from emails and phone calls, eh, or even from a meeting. Which made me think that you may want to go with somebody who’s already vetted. People who haven’t rehearsed what to say to you, too.”
“OK,” Ella said slowly. “So—who?”
“Hugh Latimer,” Marko said. “The skipper. Somebody I ought to know, since I’ve been playing with him on the All Blacks for years. I know him at training, I know him with the younger boys, I know him under pressure, and I know him at the pub after the match. Top player. Even better man. And Josie Pae Ata, of course. And wait,” he said when Ella would have interrupted him. “They wouldn’t fit on your matrix, I know. They have kids already, and they’re as flash as they come. But let’s meet them anyway.”
“But Imether already,” Ella said. “She won’t even look at me. She’s snotty as. That’s not who the babies need. That’d be evenworse.”
Nyree said, “Huh. Are you sure, Marko?”
“I’m sure it’s worth checking out, anyway. If you don’t want to stay, Ella, we won’t stay.” He was off the motorway and into the charming peninsula town of Devonport now, inching along Lake Road in the Sunday traffic with Tom following behind. “We don’t even have to say that’s what we’re there for. I’ll make something up, and then it’ll be down to you. If you still think they’re wrong for this, we leave again with nobody the wiser.”
