Briana's Gift Read online

  “Melody says she’s thinking about going to the University of Georgia,” he tells me.

  When did they talk about that? I thought our threesome talked about everything together. “So I hear,” I say, knowing I’ve never heard it from her lips.

  We’re at Shelbyville High and the bus starts unloading. The team trots off to the locker room and our band trudges toward our designated area in the bleachers, already filling up with fans. Lights shine, making the grassy field bright as day. The air is crisp and smells of burnt leaves. I can see my breath as I huff up the steps. Across the field, the Shelbyville cheerleaders are jumping up and down, and their band is giving an impromptu rendition of a popular country song.

  “They sound terrible,” I say.

  “They sound like us,” Stu says, making me laugh.

  We are partway up when my foot slips on a step and I tumble backward. Stu catches me and saves me from falling. His strong arms right me and I turn to thank him. Maybe it was a play of the lights or the cool autumn night, I can’t say, but suddenly, I see him through new eyes. I look up into the face of a blond, good-looking guy with a square jaw and bright blue eyes. He’s both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time: his face the same one from childhood, yet somehow different. His hair curls on his forehead. I want to reach up and touch it. A funny fluttering sensation sweeps through my stomach, and my skin feels on fire.

  “You okay?” Stu asks, looking concerned.

  My breath stalls. “I—I’m fine,” I stammer, feeling dumber than a brick. This is stupid! This is Stu. We’ve been best friends forever.

  He brushes my hair off my shoulder and rights my band sash.

  My stomach does a flip-flop.

  “You two want to move it!” Gilbert, our tuba player, shouts from behind us.

  Quickly I turn and sprint up the steps and take my seat, my heart beating like a drum—not from exercise, but from some mysterious malady that struck me when I stared up into Stu’s face. I fumble with my flute, wondering if I can catch my breath enough to blow into it. I’m going crazy! I think. All during the game, I wonder if these feelings would have happened if Melody had been on the bus with us. I have no way of knowing. And worse, I know there is no way I can tell her either. No way at all.

  Our football team goes down in flames, even as I am going up in flames over Stuart Ableman—figuratively speaking. I come back down to earth during the week, after giving myself a couple of stern lectures and a reality check. We’re friends. He’s a boy, and my hormones, those pesky controllers of mood and body, are going full tilt inside me. I tell myself that I’m all caught up in Bree’s situation and feeling gooey because babies make girls feel gooey.

  On the very next sonogram Bree brings home, she points to a particular spot on the still indecipherable strip of paper and tells me and Mom, “It’s a girl.”

  I could swear Mom’s eyes mist over, but she shakes her head and asks, “How are you ever going to take care of her, Briana?”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Haven’t I got a job? Aren’t I doing all I can to help around here?”

  She’s right about that much. The old Bree, the one who liked to sneak out and run around with boys and who dropped out of school and never paid any attention to Mom’s lectures, didn’t come home that day in the truck. I think my sister is trying real hard to be a grown-up. She’s stopped smoking too, but she’s told me that she wants a cigarette bad and is planning on having one just as soon as the baby’s born. It makes me glad I don’t smoke because I wouldn’t like something having a hold on me that way.

  Mom says, “Yes, you’re helping, but how long will that last? Babies are full-time, you know.”

  “Mom, please back off! I’m trying hard! Besides, what guy’s going to look at me now? I waddle like a duck and I’m getting as big as a blimp.”

  “Maybe we should talk about fixing up a room for the baby,” I interrupt, and they both look at me. I forge ahead. “Now that we know it’s a girl, we can paint Grandma’s old bedroom and turn it into a nursery. The baby should have a nice place to sleep in and play in, don’t you think?”

  Mom sighs and Bree folds her arms across her chest. “I already put a crib and baby furniture on hold at the Wal-Mart. I’m paying for everything myself.” She adds the last part as a special dig at Mom.

  “I’ll paint the walls,” I say eagerly. “We can pick out the color together.” I painted my bedroom last spring, and the bright lime green color looks pretty enough to lick.

  “I’m thinking about lavender,” Bree says, turning toward me. “And maybe putting some of that lime green of yours on one wall. You have any left over?”

  This is the first time Bree has made me feel like my ideas matter. She likes my color choices. “I have enough for one wall.”

  “Good. When I get off tomorrow, we’ll choose the prettiest shade of lavender in the store.”

  Mom says, “The room has junk in it. It’ll have to be cleared out before you paint.”

  I know that her underlying message is that she can’t do it because of her arthritis, and that Bree shouldn’t because of her pregnancy. “Stu and Melody and I’ll do it.” I volunteer my friends without hesitation, knowing they will help. And now that I’ve had a mental course correction in the way I think about Stu, it will be easier to be around him.

  Mom nods. “Drag it all out to the barn. We’ll have a yard sale in the spring.” She leaves the room, limping from her bad knees.

  On Saturday my friends show up, along with Melody’s oldest brother, who’s as big as a moose. We make short work of emptying out the room and finding space for the old furniture out in the barn. Mom feeds us cookies fresh from the oven; Bree stays out of the way. Whenever I’m near Stu, my palms sweat and my heart beats faster. I figure I’m not as on top of my feelings as I thought. I’m careful not to look at him much—what if someone sees my silly crush stamped on my face?

  I try talking my friends into staying on to help me paint, but neither Stu nor Melody will. “Other plans,” they tell me.

  Later I start taping the baseboards while Mom drives Bree to her job. I’m stirring a paint can containing a luscious shade of lavender when the doorbell rings. I gallop downstairs. Through the glass door, I see a woman with a briefcase in a business suit standing on the porch. She smiles at me through the glass, calls out, “Hello. I’m looking for Brenda Scanland.”

  “Mom will be right back,” I tell her, remembering I’m never to let a stranger inside.

  “Are you Briana?”

  “She’s my sister. Who are you?”

  “Sheila Watson.” She reaches into her briefcase, takes out a business card and presses it against the glass for me to see. It reads: SHEILA WATSON, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW.

  “Why would you do that?” Bree is shouting at Mom while I listen from my perch at the top of the stairs. “Why would you think I’d give up my baby?”

  “It’s only an option, Bree…something to consider. I’m not advocating private adoption, but maybe it’s something you should explore.”

  “I won’t! I’m keeping my baby and that’s that.”

  I hear tears in Bree’s voice, and my own heart is pounding. So that’s what Sheila Watson and Mom discussed behind the closed door of Mom’s office that afternoon! I couldn’t hear a thing through the wood door—not that I didn’t try—but they spoke quietly. Sometimes Mom’s bookkeeping clients come to the house, but I knew deep down that Sheila Watson, Attorney-at-Law, was not one of Mom’s clients. Now that I know why she came, I’m as shocked and angry as my sister.

  “There are so many couples who can’t have babies, Bree,” Mom says, her voice calm and reasoning. “There are women who’d give anything to have a newborn of their own. They may have been on adoption agency waiting lists for years.”

  “You want me to sell my baby?” Bree screeches. “I’m not selling my baby to some lawyer!”

  “Oh, stop it! Don’t be dramatic. That’s not what this is all about. The attorn
ey is just a go-between for a birth mother and clients who desperately want a baby. They’ll pay all your expenses and provide the baby with a good home. Ms. Watson explained that it can be an open adoption where you still have contact with your baby for as long as you like. You can even have some say in who gets your child. Ms. Watson says it’s done all the time.”

  “Well, not by me! This is my baby, and I’m keeping her.”

  I hear Bree scrape back her kitchen chair, so I jump up and run into my room. I’m not proud of eavesdropping, but how else am I going to find out what’s going on? I pace the floor, both scared and creeped out. What is Mom thinking to try and make Bree give up her baby to strangers? I’m going to be her aunt, but Mom is going to be her grandmother—Mom’s first grandchild! We can’t give her away like a kitten from an unwanted litter.

  I hear Bree storm down the hall and slam into her bedroom. I pace, steaming about the conversation I’ve overheard. In desperation, I pick up my flute and play random pieces of music, put it down when I realize I’m playing one of my earliest practice pieces—“Three Blind Mice.” Is that what we are? Three people who can’t see things the way they are? Is Mom right? Can Bree really raise a baby? Will she get tired of the responsibility? And how about Bree’s feelings? Can she truly take care of a child for eighteen years? That’s a long time for her to be “responsible.” And why are they ignoring me? Don’t they know how much I want to be a part of the baby’s life?

  I put down my flute, glance at my Christmas cactuses sitting in pots on my windowsill. With a jolt, I see that they look droopy, and I quickly poke a finger into the soil. Dry as a bone. I rush the pots into the bathroom, hold them under the tap until each is soaked with water. “Perk up!” I command. “Don’t you dare die on my watch.”

  With football season officially over, Mr. Mendoza trots out the music we’ll be playing at the school’s annual Christmas-Chanukah-Kwanza event. Duncanville’s holiday extravaganza is the highlight of December in our little town and is performed on the Friday night preceding our long holiday break. The band, the chorus and all the classes from kindergarten through high school perform music, dances and skits in the city auditorium downtown, packed to overflowing by relatives and friends of the students. When the music is passed out in October, the entire band groans in unison.

  “Isn’t it too early for this stuff?” someone in the string section asks.

  “I hate this music,” another person grumbles.

  I’m already dreading hearing and playing “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” umpteen times.

  “Can’t we do some Christmas carols?” Trudy McClellan asks. She’s very religious.

  “You know we can’t,” Mr. Mendoza says. “But cheer up. This year we’re going to do a few pieces from The Nutcracker.”

  This makes all of us feel better. Tchaikovsky is a whole lot more challenging than “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” And The Nutcracker has some great parts for flute and piccolo, an instrument I also play. We work on the music every day during class, and I practice it at home too. By two weeks before Halloween, I can play my part from the Chinese dance segment perfectly. Oh, and my Christmas cactuses have revived too. By the end of October, I also have my feelings for Stu back under control. In short, I’m feeling pretty good inside and out.

  “You want me to get us some DVDs so we can watch movies tomorrow night?” Melody and I are waiting by the gym for her mom to pick us up after school. Halloween is this weekend, but we’re too old for trick-or-treating. We did the scary movie thing last year with Stu and really had a good time.

  “I heard Mom and Dad making some family plans,” Melody says vaguely.

  “Maybe Stu would like to watch movies with me.”

  “He told me his parents were having friends over for a dinner party.”

  This is news. I haven’t figured on not being with my friends on Halloween night. “You mean I’m stuck at my house? You know no one comes to our place.” We live far enough out of town that kids never come our way. Over the years it’s saved Mom a fortune in candy costs, but left me to either be with Mom and Bree or go into town to hang with my friends. And now that option is closing. “You’re dooming me to aloneness!”

  “Sorry,” Melody says. “I can’t help it.”

  “This stinks!”

  “Come over Sunday afternoon. I’ll be home all day.”

  “What fun is that? Watching scary movies in broad daylight.”

  Melody shrugs, looks genuinely sorry. “I’ll call you if my plans change.”

  “Why can’t you and Stu come to my house?” I get the feeling Melody isn’t telling me everything.

  “I told you, I have to be with my family. And Stu said his folks expect him to pass out candy during the dinner party.” It makes sense, but I still don’t like it. I’m working on a good sulk when Melody asks, “How’s Bree doing? When’s her baby due? You said it was a girl. Has she picked a name?”

  Melody’s just trying to make up with me—I recognize the tactic of asking a ton of enthusiastic questions to make another person feel better after being shot down. “She hasn’t decided on a name yet, but she’s got until January,” I say coolly.

  Just a week ago, Bree had read a part from her “how babies develop” book aloud to me, which said that at twenty-four weeks a baby’s “auditory functions are completely formed. They can hear your voice and respond to music, which calms them.”

  “That’s cool,” I told my sister.

  “All she’s hearing is the sound of the Wal-Mart cash register opening and closing,” Bree noted.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “‘At twenty-nine weeks, your baby can remember the music you play during your pregnancy after she’s born.’” Bree read. “Gee, who knew? Maybe I should pick out some new tunes and listen to them. You know, some classical stuff. You got some CDs?”

  Struck by a sudden inspiration, I said, “I’ll play my flute for her.”

  “Try it. She’s jumping all over the place and I need some sleep. It’s hard to sleep when something’s trying to kick its way out of you.”

  I got my flute and, holding it close to Bree’s tummy, I played a couple of soothing songs. “It’s working,” Bree said, looking surprised and cupping her hands under her swollen belly. I played more music until Bree insisted that the baby had stopped hopping around. “Thanks, Sissy.” Knowing I’d helped pleased me. So now I play for the baby whenever she’s especially restless, or if Bree asks me to.

  I decide against telling Melody any of this. Why should I? My friends are deserting me on Halloween and all Melody can say is “sorry.” Plus, I’m working to keep my feelings about Stu in check, mostly because I don’t want Melody teasing me about it. Stu isn’t exactly Mr. Warmth around me these days either. I can’t put my finger on what’s going on with the three of us, but something is different. Sure, we still do things together, but something has changed since the summer. I sense it like a deer senses danger. I just can’t figure out what it is.

  So I stay home on Halloween feeling sorry for myself. Bree is working an extra shift at Wal-Mart, and Mom’s watching some old crybaby movie on TV. She asks me, “Do I need to run you over to Melody’s?”

  How bad is it when your mother notices that you’re excess baggage? “Not necessary,” I tell her. “She’s doing something else. Family stuff.”

  “Oh.” Mom turns back to the TV. “You want to watch this movie with me? It’s a classic.”

  “Naw. I think I’m going to paint the woodwork in the baby’s room.”

  “I thought you decided against doing that. Too much work.”

  “I changed my mind.” I really hate the tedious job of painting baseboards on my hands and knees, but I’m really bored. So I go upstairs, drag out my painting supplies and am putting on a fresh coat of white paint when I hear the phone ring downstairs. For a brief second, I imagine it’s Melody or Stu offering me a reprieve, but seconds later I hear Mom yell, “Sissy, come quick! Bree collapsed at
the Wal-Mart and an ambulance is taking her to the hospital in Chattanooga!”

  “What happened to her?” We’re in the car, hurtling through the night toward Chattanooga.

  “I don’t know. All her manager said was that she collapsed at the cash register. The paramedics were called and they worked on her, then put her into an ambulance and headed for the city.”

  In the headlights of the few cars that pass us on the highway through the mountains, I see Mom’s frantic expression. I ask, “Do you think it has anything to do with her baby?”

  “I don’t know, Sissy! Stop asking me questions I can’t answer.”

  Tears slide silently down my cheeks. How can this be happening? What’s wrong with my sister? Will her baby be all right? I bite my tongue to keep from asking anything else.

  I’ve never seen Mom drive so fast, and the usual forty-minute ride only takes us twenty-eight. We squeal into the hospital’s ER parking lot, hurry into the waiting area, me running, Mom limping behind. She tells the admittance nurse who she is and asks Briana’s whereabouts. The nurse lifts a phone receiver and makes a call. “Have a seat,” she says. “Someone will be down in a minute.”

  “Down from where? I thought she was in the ER.”

  “She’s been taken upstairs, Mrs. Scanland, into ICU.”

  “She was pregnant. Do you know—”

  “I don’t know anything,” the nurse says sympathetically. “Please just wait for the doctor.”

  We stand like statues, and people in the waiting area stare at us. A little boy is dressed up like a goblin, clutching a jack-o’-lantern candy pail and wearing a makeshift sling on one arm. A man wearing a Zorro costume holds crutches between his legs. Just an hour ago I was feeling sorry for myself because I was stuck at home. Now I’m glad I was at the house, not over at Melody’s watching movies and believing that our world was in order when it wasn’t.