Blackout,
Book One Excerpt: “That’s Not How This Works”
©Copyright
2019 Janine Infante Bosco
Learning
our baby might be born with a heart defect if Lacey remains on her medication
was the final card to fall. Now, all that’s left is a mountain of debris and I
don’t know how to drudge through any of it.
“Just go,”
Lacey says, keeping her back to me as she fills a water glass. It’s the third
time she’s poured herself a refill and I wonder if she’s wishing it was
something harder. God knows I’m fixing for something.
Scotch.
Whiskey.
Tequila.
I’d fucking
drink turpentine right now.
“I’m not
going anywhere, Lace, that’s not how this works,” I tell her, bracing my hands
on the kitchen island. We both know what happens if I leave, the problem is
she’s too wrapped up in her grief to realize she’s sending me straight to hell
because if I do as she says, I’ll either go to a bar or drive out to Queens to
score some drugs.
“Stop pretending
like either of us know how anything works,” she hisses, dropping her glass into
the sink. There’s truth to her words. A truth we’ve both been too fucking naïve
to accept.
She turns
to me, crossing her arms over her chest as she gives me her dark eyes.
“Every time
we take a step forward, we take three back. We’re a fucking joke, Blackie. Two
lost souls who will never get it right and now, we’re bringing a baby into the
world. If that’s not fucking selfish, I don’t know what is.”
“You didn’t
think it was selfish the first night I came in you,” I fire back, slamming my
fist against the counter. My anger gets the best of me and I lose my patience.
Everything, all the shit with the club, Jack’s failing mind, my addictions, and
her fucking illness, it all comes crashing to the surface.
“I told you
that night, I was worried about you getting pregnant and not because I thought
we didn’t deserve to be parents or because I didn’t want to have a baby. I was
concerned for you, for your fucking mental health but you told me there were
people like you all over the world having kids.”
“People
like me,” she repeats.
Ignoring
the hurt in her eyes, I continue my rant.
“You
fucking promised me you’d get in touch with your shrink. You swore you’d tell
her we were trying for a baby—”
“I didn’t
know I’d get pregnant so quickly,” she spats.
“You pissed
on your fucking word,” I shout over her.
As soon as
the words leave my lips, I regret them, but there’s no taking them back.
Maybe she
was right.
Maybe I
should’ve fucking left.
At least
then I wouldn’t have to watch the painful expression fill her pretty face.
It’s funny.
I can take
pain, but I can’t take hers.
Exhaling, I
swipe a hand over my face and bow my head.
“Shit, I’m
sorry, Lace.”
“Don’t be
sorry for expressing how you truly feel,” she spats, furiously wiping at the
tear that escapes the corner of her eye.
“I don’t
know what the fuck I feel,” I admit, gripping the edge of the counter again.
Frustration claws at me as I keep my eyes pinned to her. “All I know is the
last thing I want to see is you lose yourself to your maker. I don’t understand
why you won’t just talk to the doctor before you make a decision.”
“And I
don’t know what’s so hard to comprehend. You know, it’s my body, therefore it’s
ultimately my decision, but it’s our
baby, Blackie. It’s not a dream anymore. It’s not a what if—I’m pregnant and I
can’t understand how you would risk our child being born with a heart
defect.”
Her words
slap me in the face, and I clench my jaw, trying to keep my emotions in check.
There shouldn’t be a choice. We shouldn’t have to choose between Lacey’s mental
stability and bringing a healthy baby into the world, but once again life’s got
us by the balls. No one gets a say in the cards they’re dealt. You get what you
get. You either play your fucking hand or you fold. Some people, go all in.
They risk everything they got and pray they don’t lose. Others, they’re more
cautious and maybe that’s because they’ve lost in the past. Maybe, just maybe
they want to hang onto what they got and don’t want to press their luck.
I already
visit one wife in a cemetery.
I don’t
want to visit Lacey in the fucking psych ward.
“Let me ask
you something,” I say hoarsely, pausing to swallow the lump suffocating me.
“Have you thought about what happens after the baby is born? More specifically,
have you taken a fucking second to think about what happens to you?”
She doesn’t
answer me as she diverts her eyes away and I take the opportunity to paint her
a picture.
“The baby
is born, and she’s perfect. She’s got a full head of dark hair and the
prettiest brown eyes either of us has ever seen. She’s everything we dreamed of
and yet, I’m the only one living the dream. You don’t look at her the way I do.
You don’t hold her and feel the same things I do. To you, she just exists, and
you don’t understand why. You forget the sacrifices you made bringing her into
the world. You forget the dreams you had for her. You forget it all.”
“Stop,” she
orders, balling her fists at her side.
“No,” I
growl. “I won’t stop. You won’t get to experience the joys of motherhood,
Lacey. You won’t hold her in the middle of the night when she wakes. You won’t
get to watch her grow or teach her how to walk. You won’t even give a fuck
because you and your maker will be one. She wins and your child, the precious
baby you fought to bring into this world, she fucking loses.”
Suddenly,
Lacey spins around and takes the glass from the sink. Before I realize what
she’s doing, she turns back to me and throws it across the room. It misses me
by an inch and crashes against the floor.
“Get the
fuck out of here,” she cries.
When I
don’t move, she advances towards me and stands across the other end of the
island.
“I want you
to leave!”
“I’ll go,”
I tell her. “But I won’t fucking apologize for a word of what I just said.
Children are born with birth defects every day, Lace. Sometimes the doctors
catch them early on and sometimes they don’t find out until the baby is already
in the mother’s arms. That don’t make them broken or any less loveable.”
About D. KELLY
