Chapter 210

#Chapter 210 – Rest and Restitution Beta Stephen drives us for hours that day, long into the night. The charms of the RV even wear off for the boys after a few hours, and they sit quietly at the table, playing a board game on the table. As I look at it, I frown in confusion to see that they’re using pieces from chess, checkers, and parcheesi on a magnetic table.

Another game of their own devising, I guess. My frown turns into a smirk.

Victor and I sit across the room from them on the little lounge built there, with his back up against the padded wall and me leaning against his chest, his arms wrapped against me.

The day has been harder than I thought it would be.

Not hard in the way that it is for the boys – they struggle against the boredom. I’ve had years of learning how to do that. But physically, I am starting to feel the strain of whatever ceremony Victor and I started.

Yesterday, this morning, it had been easier to ignore. It had been a tiredness of the limbs, then, a shortness of breath that I could put behind me and focus on tasks. But now, I feel it dragging at me from inside.

Off and on, I feel Victor doze behind me, his breath falling into a steadier, slower rhythm, his head drifting down to rest on mine. It makes sense to me, really, that I’m still stronger than him, even though we share a life force now – whatever that is.

His body was ravaged by illness before we performed that ceremony. Mine was fresh, strong. I had more to work with from the beginning. So if I’m starting to feel dragged down, having given him half of my strength and taken on half his weakness…

Well. It does make me worried to wonder what happens if our mutual weakness continues at this pace.

I can’t stop thinking about it as I stare out the window and watch the yellow and white lines of the highway flick by. Even as I carry hope, I carry my worry alongside it.

After a few hours, Stephen surprises me by slowing down and pulling off the highway. I blink, waking myself from a little daze – perhaps it was a sort of waking nap? – and turn towards him in the front seat. I feel Victor react to the change in pace as well, waking from his own slumber.

Stephen looks at us in the rearview mirror and gives us an apologetic grimace.

“I’m sorry,” he says to us. “It’s nearly midnight, and I’m starting to get bleary. I don’t want to keep driving if it’s dangerous.”

“Of course,” Victor says, sitting up straighter behind me. “You shouldn’t push yourself, Stephen.”

But in my heart, I know that Stephen needs to push himself. When I lock eyes with him in the rearview mirror, I know he knows it too. Perhaps we should have brought a second Beta to drive when Stephen cannot. It feels, in so many ways, like there’s not a minute to lose.

But when I look over at my boys, slumped against each other at the dining table, I know that we all need rest.

Real rest. The kind of rest that doesn’t come from being heaped in a moving vehicle.

“All right,” I say, willing energy into my limbs, pitching my voice loud and eager enough to cause the twins to shake out of their nap. “Let’s get ready for night! We need dinner, after all.”

“There’s a campground, Sir,” Stephen says over his shoulder. Victor moves to the front of the RV to consult with him as the boys get up, Ian heading for the bathroom. Alvin just lays still, rubbing his eyes.

I glance over at the little kitchen, considering what we’ll do for dinner – Burton packed us a lot of heat-

and-eat food, I know, so it shouldn’t be too hard. I glance at my cell phone as I consider my choices.

Just one missed call, but my stomach sinks to see it.

Bridgette.

I lift my phone then, flicking through it until her number is on my screen. I feel a great deal of guilt, then, realizing that I let the rest of my life – you know, my imminent death and the orphaning of my children –

take center stage in my mind.

But I’ve neglected my friend, and I owe her better than that. So, as soon as Stephen pulls into the campground and parks our RV in our secluded little woodland spot, I step out and give her a call.

She picks up on the fourth or fifth ring. “Hello?”

“Bridgette,” I say, my voice heavy with my guilt. “I’m so sorry – I owed you a call long before this –“

“No,” she says, dismissive, but I can hear that her voice does not carry its usual carelessness. “No, Evelyn, I understand that you’re so busy – please don’t be sorry.”

“Where are you?” I ask, brushing a strand of hair behind my ears. There’s so, so much more I want to ask her – but I also know that it’s important for her to tell me her story on her own terms.

“I’m at Annabeth’s,” Bridgette says, her voice a little more cheerful now. “She’s so nice, actually.” She laughs a little. “She’s kind of like a mom – she’s really been fussing over me. And I can’t say that I hate it.”

“Good,” I reply, a genuine smile forming itself on my lips. “You deserve a little pampering.”

“I guess so,” Bridgette says carefully, wonderingly. “I’m not…used to people being nice to me.”

“I wish that wasn’t true, Bridge,” I say, my heart in my throat. This poor girl, treated so roughly, when she has such a sweet spirit.

“So, I think you already know,” Bridgette says in a rush. “I mean – I think you figured it out that night.

But…I’m not pregnant.”

I bite my lip, wondering what the right response to that is. “How do you feel about that?” I ask carefully.

In reality, I want to shout how sorry I am for her, how angry – but it’s not fair for me to write my feelings onto my friend. Perhaps she is happy – I don’t really know.

“Honestly, Ev, I don’t know.” I can almost see her shaking her head as she thinks it over. “I’m just so…

confused. And I feel so stupid. Because everyone – Rafe, and the doctor – they were just telling me in such certain terms how pregnant I was, and how it was going to be triplets, and how well I was responding to the pregnancy. I really …I really did believe them.”

“I would have too, Bridge,” I say, putting my hand on my heart. “When the people you love, and the professionals you trust, tell you something – you’re supposed to be able to believe them. It’s such s**t that they did that to you.”

“Yeah, I know,” she says, and I’m glad to hear a little anger in her voice now. “They were seriously such jerks to me!”

“Well,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “You just let me know how I can help you make things right. If you want me to come and help you strap them to a rack and rip their eyeballs out, I’m here for it. Or –

whatever you need, Bridgette. Seriously, I don’t want you to hesitate to tell me.”

“Um…,” Bridgette says, and it breaks my heart to hear her hesitate, despite my encouragement. “Well, I mean, Rafe and I aren’t together anymore. So you don’t have any like…ties to me. Like. I’m not…your sister-in-law. Not anymore.”

“That doesn’t matter to me, Bridge,” I say, getting choked up. God, I could kill Rafe all over again, for putting this girl in a spot where she believed people would only want to help her because of her relationship to him. “You’re my friend, my sister, with or without him. Forever.”

I hear her sniff a little over the phone and can’t help the tears that spring to my own eyes. “Okay,” she says, simply, and I can tell she’s overwrought. “Thank you, Evelyn. No one’s…I don’t think anyone’s ever been this nice to me.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” I say, leaning into my anger so I can feel less sad. “Because you deserve the world, girl. And I’m going to help you get it.”

An idea comes to me then, and I wonder why I didn’t think of it sooner.

“Actually,” I say, feeling instantly more cheerful. “Let me put you in touch with my friend Delia. We still have a lease on a little cabin in the woods that I think might suit you very nicely right now, if you’d like some space to yourself.”

“Oh my god,” Bridgette says. “That would be – that would be amazing, Evelyn – seriously!? I mean, Annabeth is so nice, but I can’t stay in her house forever.”

“I think it’s perfect,” and I really do smile to think of her there in that quiet pleasant cabin. “And check the driveway – there should still be a car there with a trunk full of cash to keep you very comfortable.

Don’t worry – we’ll take that out of Rafe’s pay. Call it restitution.”

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