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Chapter Thirty
Agatha had been therefor her all week. Agatha had brought her food and water, and Agatha had dragged the TV from her own room down to Lucy’s. Agatha had sat and watched what she called shitty TV with Lucy, and it was Agatha that brought her news of the outside world.
She brought news that Sera had stopped by, though Lucy hadn’t wanted to see her. News that Buzz was at the house, but Lucy had sent her away. News that Sera had brought home her good headphones, which she would no longer need for work. News that the world just kept turning without Lucy, because Lucy didn’t matter.
Agatha was also ready to quit her job of taking care of Lucy after a week. Though Agatha was secretly a great caregiver, even she had her limits, and that line was Julia Roberts movies. How had the sisters lived together for so long and Lucy not know that Agatha had such a deep hatred for a hooker with a heart of gold?
But watching the dark-haired woman in the plain gray T-shirt give her the double bird as she walked out told Lucy everything about her sister. One, that she had her lines, and Lucy had crossed one. Two, that Agatha was sadly eating more than she was, and Agatha wasn’t supposed to be supporting three lives. And three, that Agatha had stopped wearing the T-shirts with the misspelled words on them. Lucy hadn’t seen one since she came home. And four, that her sister loved her and was doing everything she could to help Lucy.
Everything except watch Pretty Woman with her, but after her dramatic exit, Lucy really didn’t want to, either. Shutting off the TV, she sat in the silence of her bedroom and wondered again what she was going to do with her life. For now, she was home until she had babies. But once they were gone, she had to live her life.
All her past jobs had involved food, but she was over food. She was not to be trusted around food anymore. Cleaning offices again was probably where she would end up forever. At least she had a place to live, because her new wages wouldn’t bring in enough for housing.
She tapped on her stomach, then stopped and ran a hand over it. Since her fall off the stage almost two weeks before, she had done what the nurse had predicted: popped. No longer would she be able to hide the little guys. Maybe because everyone knew about them, they wanted everyone to see them. Or maybe because Lucy had done little but lay around and think about them, they were trying to get away from her. Just like everyone else.
“How did I not know you were pregnant, Luce?” Maby asked from the door.
It seemed doorman Agatha had quit along with movie-watching Agatha. Lucy wondered if food-handler Agatha was still around.
At her twin’s voice, Lucy turned away from her and looked out the window. She didn’t want to see anyone, least of all the more successful version of herself. It just reminded her how much she had failed.
“Really, Lucy? You’re just going to ignore me?” Maby hadn’t moved from the door.
Turning back to her sister, she put on her best fake smile. “No, sorry. What do you want?”
“You happy again.” Mabel took a step into the room.
“I am fine.” She used her old response, but she had no fake smile to pair with it.
“Yeah, I can tell.” Maby’s eyes took in the mess of her room, from tissues everywhere to dirty clothes covering the floor. “Sera says you’re putting the babies up for adoption.”
Pushing a small mountain of tissues onto the floor, Lucy asked, “Did she send you to talk me out of it?”
“Yes, she wouldn’t be Sera if she didn’t.” Maby didn’t meet her eyes, just started picking up the clothes. “Are you going to?”
Lucy just watched her sniff-test every shirt she picked up. Maby tossed a red one toward the closet, then grabbed another.
“No, because I know you well enough to know you can’t give these babies away. You love them too much.”
“I can’t raise them, Maby, not alone. I have no money, no job, nothing.” She pointed at the closet as her twin picked up an orange shirt, hoping she wouldn’t smell it first, but Maby made the mistake and started to gag as she tossed it at the basket, then quickly grabbed another and wiped her hand on it.
“And we both know that that isn’t the reason you are doing this.” She tossed the shirt, no sniffing.
Lucy couldn’t look at her sister, so she started picking at her blanket. “I’m not smart enough to raise them, Maby. We both know that. You have always been the smart one, and I have been, well, me.”
At her admission, a gray shirt hit her in the head and fell to her lap, a direct hit. Because Mabel was perfect at everything, including throwing laundry. Looking up at her sister, their eyes finally met.
“And what is wrong with you, Lucy? What has ever been wrong with you? You were the one who found Cliff, and it took me a year to see what a great guy he was. You knew right away.” Mabel stopped with the laundry and sat on the bed, a black T-shirt in hand.
“That doesn’t count; I wasn’t there.” Lucy dismissed it. Finding Cliff had been dumb luck, and her sister falling for him had nothing to do with Lucy. They did that all on their own.
“Lucy, you were there every step of the way. I let myself fall for him because of how he treated you, protected you. How much he loved you. I fell for him because of you.” Maby folded the shirt on her lap, then straightened it under her hands.
“We were friends.” Lucy shrugged.
Maby’s eyes never left the shirt and her efforts to remove the wrinkles. “You were the one who told me that I should get my degree in literature, even if Mom and Dad had the same degrees. That it didn’t matter what they did, because I was going to do it better. That I needed to do what I wanted to do.”
“And you did, but it was you, not me,” Lucy said, because of her sister’s love of reading was such a defining trait that her not teaching it would be a waste. Maby never questioning her decision again told Lucy that she had chosen right.
