Page 69 of On Fire Island
He was right. He went from starting a family to burying one in an instant.
Then he said something that shocked me.
“I have a lot of guilt about the baby. You know, I didn’t really want a family. I liked the life we had together and didn’t see where a baby would fit into it. When we lost him, I was devastated and felt maybe it was my fault. It was like I didn’t want him enough until I realized I couldn’t have him.”
His words were just what I didn’t know I needed to hear. I never really expressed my true feelings on the subject and didn’t even realize that I was still holding on to them. I was angry at him for his initial apathy, and taking that anger to the grave was really an awful feeling. Especially since my love for Ben and his for me was truly my greatest gift in life. As he spoke I felt that anger drift from my heart like a swirl of smoke from a campfire.
“It was a boy?” Bea asked.
“It was a boy,” Ben echoed.
“I know how you feel—about not wanting a baby until you realize you can’t have them. I sort of lost a child too, a girl, though through much different circumstances.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, noting that once again his heartache implored others to spill theirs.
“Do you know what happened between me and Veronica?”
“Just how that lifeguard Logan Chase got between you. He’s still here you know—tends bar at the Old Pelican and seems to drink up his tip money. She may have done you a favor.”
“There’s a lot more to the story than that. No one really knows all of it, especially now that my mom’s gone.”
She took a beat before asking, “Want to hear it?” It was clear she wanted to tell it.
“Sure,” he said, patting her on the knee for encouragement.
“It’s a long story,” she warned.
“I don’t know if you know this, but my first novel was seven hundred pages.”
“I know, I read it.”
“So there you go—consider this your revenge.”
She laughed, leaning back against the higher stair like Ben, avoiding eye contact. I’m sure Ben was thankful for the shift. She took in the sky before beginning.
“So yes, Veronica stole my boyfriend—my first boyfriend mind you, Logan Chase, and while he may not seem like anything special now, he was the hottest guy on the beach back then. It was a big deal, because you may be shocked to know that I was not the hottest girl on the beach—that was my sister.”
Ben interjected with the requisite, “I doubt that,” to which Bea patted him on the arm appreciatively and continued.
“I was so angry that I went up to school early and refused to come home for Thanksgiving. I was depressed and exhausted all the time, and just wanted to sleep for the break. My parents were upset. It was a big deal not to come home, but they figured I would be back for Christmas soon enough and they would deal with the fallout between me and Veronica then. About a week later, my best friend from the city, Dana Blum, showed up at my door. She was one of the few home friends I had confided in about the shit that went down with Veronica, and she was worried about me when I hadn’t come home.
“I’ll never forget it. I was wearing vintage railroad-striped Guess overalls and Dana wanted to try them on. I felt like I hadn’t taken them off in a week. When I did, she freaked out. I wasabout five months pregnant with a belly the size of a small basketball. I hadn’t even noticed it or realized that I hadn’t gotten my period since the summer.”
I was surprised that Beatrix could be like one of those girls who goes to the bathroom with a stomachache and comes out with a baby. From my experience in the short time I was pregnant, I didn’t get it—but it happens.
“Dana made me call my mom, whom I made promise not to tell my dad, which I am pretty sure she took to her grave.”
“Wow.” Ben finally spoke.
He was an awful secret keeper, which was most likely the source of his “Wow.” He couldn’t keep a single thing from me—let alone hold on to something like that for life.
Bea continued, “I know. I feel guilty about it now. Making her hold something back as big as that from her husband must have been awful. She arrived in Gambier the next day. I’d never even been to the gynecologist until my mother took me then.”
“No wonder you’re still mad at Veronica.”
“That’s not even all of it. I carried the baby to term, hiding my pregnancy the whole time from everyone but my mom and Dana. It wasn’t so hard; I’m on the heavy side, and the trend at the time was oversize flannels and leggings. I got a research job for one of my professors over winter break, so I had an excuse to stay put.
“The baby was born about two weeks before graduation. My mom flew down in advance—‘Bea is depressed again,’ she told my dad. I gave birth at a birthing center in Mount Vernon on May 3 to a beautiful baby girl. Six pounds, three ounces with a thick patch of black hair and a dimpled smile just like mine and my dad’s. I held her for a few minutes before they swiped her away from me. And that was it. I graduated two weeks later with a big fat Kotex pad stuck between my legs.”
