Did Not Survive by Ann Littlewood Page A

got me through sophomore year, my last, and I got her through a breakup that left her man-shy and un-paired, until she hooked up with Denny. He was the last man on earth I would have chosen for her, but she didn’t ask.
    I had to admit, she looked happy. Sexy, actually. Voluptuous rather than chubby, comfortable with herself in a way I hadn’t seen before. For now, being with Denny was working for her. He was more than casual in a faded purple tee shirt and jeans. He looked pretty cheerful himself, but who wouldn’t after that meal? The pie was springtime itself.
    â€œYou should drink red raspberry leaf tea and not that caffeinated stuff,” Denny said.
    â€œIt’s decaf,” Marcie said.
    â€œBuzz off,” I said.
    â€œThey can hear negativity. Impairs their emotional development. Raspberry tea tones the uterus.”
    â€œMy uterus is
so
not your business. And not a ‘they.’ Only one. Don’t frighten me like that.” I scraped off the last gooey sweetness and decided I really must not lick the plate. Life was, if not good, at least much improved. Clean, fed, no impossible expectations coming at me out of the blue…I relaxed for the first time in a week.
    â€œIf you won’t tell us whether it’s a boy or girl, it’s gonna be a ‘they.’ I am not going with ‘it’.”
    Marcie nodded agreement. I’d kept this secret from her, too, because she couldn’t keep it from Denny.
    I sagged back in my chair. “Denny, if I tell you, you’ll be off and running about genderness and what I should be doing about it.”
    â€œI haven’t researched that yet. I’ve seen a lot of warnings about golden seal and dong quai. Pennyroyal is not good either. Stay away from all of those.”
    â€œI have never consumed any of those to the best of my knowledge, and I promise not to start now. Meth and cocaine, ditto.”
    â€œYou think therapeutic herbs are
addictive?
”
    Marcie stood up to clear the dessert plates, waving a hand at me to stay seated. “Denny, please. She’s pulling your chain. Could we attempt a normal conversation?” She would never adapt to our habitual bickering. A limitation of being compulsively nice.
    Denny handed over his plate and filled the empty spot on the table with his forearms. He leaned forward toward Marcie. “What she really needs is something to keep her stress level down. You didn’t see her after she found Wallace, and she’s been totally reactive about it ever since. It’s got to be affecting her pH balance. Not good for Rick, Jr. At this stage of gestation, they—”
    â€œ
Drop it
,” I snarled. Wallace, Rick, and the baby thrown into a heap ignited an unsuspected pile of emotional gunpowder. They both flinched. After a frozen moment, I said, “I’d better go,” and got up from the table. Blinded by tears and unbalanced by new weight, I stumbled. Marcie set down the plates hard enough to risk breakage and grabbed my arm.
    â€œI brought a couple of DVDs,” Denny babbled. “We could watch one.”
    Marcie towed me into her pristine living room and pressed me down onto her white sofa. “Sit for a minute. Pet a cat. Digest.” She enforced these commands by plopping The Princess, a rickety old Siamese, in my lap. Princess stood stiff-legged on my thighs, sniffed around to orient herself, and carefully collapsed into a round warm pillow. I stiffened for a moment, thinking about toxoplasmosis, and remembered that cats weren’t the threat, only their droppings.
    Marcie waved Denny away. “Go do dishes or something.” She sat next to me with a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me.”
    â€œI’m tired, that’s all, and it
is
a boy and, and I’m suddenly starving all the time…Rick and Wallace…The nightmares are back.”
    Marcie produced a tissue and nodded as though this made sense.
    I wiped my