Someone to Drive Me Home

Chapter 23

Ruby met me outside the building when I arrived at six thirty. She was tall, thin, and had short, dark hair. She looked my age, and at first I wasn’t even sure if it was her or not.

She was smiling and held her hand out to me as I approached her.

“Lucy?” she asked.

“Yeah, hi.” I shook her hand.

“I’m Ruby. Nice to meet you,” she said, pushing up her thick-framed glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“You too,” I answered.

“Come on in.”

I followed her into the building, down a hallway and into a large room. The wall closest to me, which caught my eye right away, had a bulletin board covered in pictures. Most were of babies and toddlers, and some with young, smiling mothers.

I turned my attention to the room full of girls, then. Ruby was already introducing me to them.

“Girls, this is Lucy. She just came today to sit in on our meeting, to see what we’re all about.”

A girl with blonde hair and a big tummy held out her hand to me. She was sitting on a sofa, with two other girls.

“Nice to meet you, Lucy, I’m Sam,” she said.

I shook her hand. “Nice to meet you too.”

Besides Sam and Ruby, there were six other girls in the room. Ruby pulled me up a chair and I sat down next to her, across from the two sofas. I felt awkward but also strangely comfortable. All of these girls were going through or had gone through exactly the same things as me.

“So, Lucy, I’ll let everyone introduce themselves, then you can ask questions if you have any,” Ruby told me.

I nodded, as the girl sitting next to Sam began talking.

“I’m Carrie. I’m seventeen, and I’m eight months pregnant, my first…” she said, smiling.

Next to her was a petite, very pregnant red head, with freckles covering her nose and cheeks. She looked very young as well. She waved at me.

“I’m Nicky, I’m sixteen, and I’m actually due any day now.” She rubbed her stomach.

The next three girls, on the other sofa, were Ashley, Tamara and Stefanie. But it was the girl furthest from me, sitting on a chair on the other side of Ruby, who really grabbed my attention. She had dark hair, pulled back into ponytail, with a lip piercing. She was quiet, and she didn’t really look pregnant. Everyone was looking at her.

“Oh, hi,” she began, looking at me, “I’m Jada. I’m only five months along… and I’m eighteen.”

“It’s nice to meet you all,” I said, glancing between the girls.

Already, I was feeling like this place – this building, these girls – were going to help me through the remainder of my pregnancy.

I stayed for just over an hour, listening to the girls talk openly about their situations, issues with their pregnancies, and many other things. They talked about the fathers of their babies, both good things and bad, as well as a couple of new discoveries like how Jada was trying to get used to her baby kicking more often. I also found out that Jada had just joined the program three weeks prior, and the rest of the girls had been together for months.

Ruby was nineteen, and had an eighteen-month-old daughter, named Shayna. Ruby began the program after Shayna was born, when she realized that she hadn’t had any real support from people who knew what she had gone through. Ruby’s ex-boyfriend, Shayna’s father, was twenty-two, and wasn’t very involved. He paid child support and took Shayna for a day, twice a month. Ruby and Shayna lived with Ruby’s mother in a two-bedroom apartment.

When I was getting ready to leave, around eight o’clock, Ruby pulled me aside and asked me what I thought about the program, so far.

“You know, I didn’t know what to expect coming into this, but I’m really glad I came. I can actually see this place as somewhere I would look forward to coming to,” I told her.

“I’m glad to hear that. I think you’ll fit it perfectly with us. We meet again Saturday if you’re free, and again next Wednesday. We’ll look forward to learning more about you and hearing your story,” she smiled.

“Thanks,” I replied.

Ruby hugged me then, just as I saw Jada approaching us. She looked nervous, and bit her lip ring as she waited for Ruby to walk away.

“Hey,” she said to me, and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Hi,” I replied. “Jada, right?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “I just wanted to say that, I don’t know, I guess that I think we’re kind of in the same boat here, and maybe we could hang out sometime?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.” This time I wasn’t faking it, like I used to when I first met Tara. Tara and I were so different, and it seemed like Jada and I were strangely alike.

“Awesome. See you Saturday?” Jada finished.

“Saturday,” I agreed, nodding.

I was on the bus, on my way home, when my phone went off, vibrating in my pocket. Expecting it to be Drew, I flipped open my phone and said hello without checking the caller ID.

“Hi, Lucy.” It was my mother.

This completely threw me off guard. I had basically forgotten about her calling me, and the conversation I had had with my father. I wanted to be prepared for this, speaking with my mother after so long, and I most definitely wasn’t.

“Oh. Hi, Mom,” I replied, with as much enthusiasm as I could.

“Lucy, how are you?” she wanted to know.

“I’m good. I got your message yesterday, and called you back. I talked to Dad, but he sounded a bit… odd,” I explained.

She took in a deep breath. “Yeah, uh, Lucy, I don’t know how to say this to you… it’s so hard…”

“What is it, Mom?” I knew something wasn’t right.

“Your dad and I, we haven’t really been getting along lately, as I’m sure you’re aware of. He’s just not he same person he used to be… he works twice as much now, and when we are together, all we do is argue –“

“What are you saying?” I asked, even though it was now becoming sickeningly clear.

“Lucy, we’ve separated. We’re getting a divorce. I’ve been staying at Susan’s, you know, from work, for the past few nights. She has a spare room, so –“

“You’re getting divorced? Are you serious?” I snapped, interrupting her. The people sitting around me on the bus were looking at me funny.

“We just decided it was the best thing for us…” she went on.

“But Mom… shit… I’m sorry. I’m sorry if this is even partially my fault,” I told her.

“Lucy, it’s not. Your father and I just have different ways of coping with the tragedy we’ve had to deal with. We weren’t happy together anymore.”

“Okay,” I said, after taking in this information fully. My parents were getting divorced, after twenty-five years, and there was nothing I could do.

“You’re okay, right, honey?” my mom asked then, now switching over to mother-mode.

“I told you, I’m good. Drew is taking care of me, and I’m working quite a bit, and I’m just starting to show… I’m four months pregnant now,” I told her.

I heard her gasp slightly, as if she had completely forgotten that her seventeen-year-old only daughter was pregnant. It took her a moment to think of the right thing to say.

“As long as you think you’re doing the right thing, and you will be able to support a baby, then I’ll support you in your decisions,” she finally said.

“Thank you, Mom. That means the world to me.”

“Well, Lucy, you mean the world to me. I’m so sorry that I haven’t shown you how much I love you over the past… well… since the accident. I understand why you got in with the wrong crowd, why you were acting out… you lost your big brother… and your father and I didn’t deal with it well. How could we have expected you to deal with it?”

I was not expecting her to say something like this, and I was not able to control the tears that filled my eyes before she was finished talking.

“Mom, I’m sorry I was such a bad daughter for so long. But you’re right, I had no idea how to deal with Kyle’s death. Really, I only partied and did the things that I was doing because I wanted to forget and ease the pain,” I told her. I never thought I would be saying these words to her, not in a million years.

“I know, Lucy. I know,” she answered, crying now, as well.

We were both quiet for a couple of minutes that followed, but it wasn’t awkward, it was nice.

“What are you going to do, Mom? Where are you going to live?” I finally got the courage to ask.

“I’ll get an apartment. I’ll be fine, honey. I just wanted you to know what was going on. I don’t expect you to want me back in your life, after all these months.”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I was the one who ruined our relationship by never being around, dropping out of high school and being high all the time. My mother hadn’t done a single thing wrong.

“Mom, of course I want you in my life. You should be the one not giving me another chance,” I told her.

“Lucy, you’re my daughter, my baby. I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would make me not want you in my life,” she replied.

What was I supposed to say to that? I had been waiting to hear her say those words to me for what felt like my whole life.

Finally, I knew at that moment that I had my mom back.

I got home ten minutes later, and found Drew lounging on the large sofa. He was barefoot and shirtless. His hair was messy and his smile was huge, when he laid his eyes on me, in the doorway.

“Hey, baby.”

I slipped off my shoes and walked towards him. “Hey you,” I replied, now running my fingers through his hair.

“How was the meeting?” he asked.

For a moment, I wondered how he knew where I had been. But soon I remembered that I had left him a note, explaining that I’d made the call and was going to see what this program was about.

Drew looked anxious to hear all about it, but for some reason I didn’t feel like talking about it much.

“It was good. I think I’m going to go back on Saturday,” I told him.

“That’s great. I hope it’s something that can help you, even a little bit. Were the girls nice?” he wanted to know.

All I could think about was my mom, and how she was alone, and had now lost her only son and her husband in the same year. I could not believe my parents were getting divorced.

“Yeah, they were nice,” I said plainly to Drew, sitting down next to him.

“What’s the matter?” He knew something wasn’t right. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. But I talked to my mom, on my way home.” I paused then, but Drew didn’t say anything. He knew there was more. “The reason she called yesterday, and the reason why my dad was acting funny on the phone is because… they separated.”

Drew’s eyes went wide, as they always did when he was surprised about something. He cleared his throat.

“Wow… babe, I’m sorry.” He wrapped his arms around me, placing one loosely on my stomach.

“It’s fine… it was just a shock, I guess. She’s okay. She’s been staying at a friend’s place. But… there’s more.”

“More?”

“Yeah. My mom, she said that she supports me in my decisions about the baby… and she wants to be in my life again,” I told him.

“Lucy, that’s awesome! I’m so happy for you,” Drew smiled. “Wait, does your mom know we’re in a relationship now?” he added.

“Yeah… I told her when I first told her that I was pregnant.”

“And…”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter what she thinks. I’m sure it’ll be weird for her at first, but she’ll be fine with it,” I told him.

“I hope so.”

“I promise.”

Drew leaned in and kissed my lips, smiling at the same time. I was the happiest I’d been since before Kyle died, and in that moment I somehow knew that everything was going to be all right.