Before You Were Mine: the breathtaking USA Today Bestseller. Em Muslin
on the promise I wouldn’t say a word. No mention of the fact I’d often smell booze on her breath and I’d hide her in my room, ’til she passed out and then finally awakened, her eyelashes aflutter, just in time for tea.
Don’t get me wrong, my Ma had begged and pleaded to know who he was, but as I curled up sobbing on my bed, the grazes still on my knees, I couldn’t bear to pick the scab. I was desperate for it to heal.
It had gone two in the morning, when the pain I believed couldn’t get any worse took it upon itself to prove me very, very wrong. I tried to hold off pressing the emergency button at the side of my bed for as long as I could – as the last thing I wanted was to be was more trouble – but to say I were scared doesn’t come close.
Within minutes of the alarm going off, doctors and nurses flocked into the ward, and I guess taking one look at my face they knew something was wrong. Now, I ain’t under the impression that they didn’t care, but I think it was more the thought of a dead fourteen-year-old girl on their hands that made them rush in so fast. Even in my half-conscious state and not exactly being experienced with going through labour, I knew something wasn’t quite right.
I don’t know how many hours had passed, or how many times they had changed the drip, but I knew it had been a while, as it had become light again. In the end, they had to cut me up right there and then and pull you out. As soon as they lifted my baby girl from my tummy, I thought about my Ma and how she chased the matron from the room with the surgical scissors and I knew – when I saw the pinky-blue little girl, my little girl, in the nurse’s arms – exactly how she felt.
Wanting to hold you in my arms, I leaned forward to take you. I held you for a moment, your fingers curled around mine, but before I knew it, the nurse had snipped the cord and walked right out of the room, taking my baby with her. As she walked away, I stared at the door, and there she was, my Ma, staring right at me; but as soon as I caught her eye, she looked away.
The nurse who’d taken you soon returned and I tried to steady myself so that I could hold my little girl, but her arms were empty. In her hand she held only a clipboard and pen and she handed them to my Ma. Hesitating only momentarily, my Ma signed whatever the nurse had passed her. Without giving me a second look, my Ma turned on her heels and walked away.
‘I saw her.’
Tommy was already halfway up the stairs when Eli called to him from the kitchen. She should have worn a groove into the floor with the amount of pacing she’d done, waiting for him to get on home. Eli stood sweating in her cornflower dress, stinking of pickles, the Alabama spring already beginning to rise.
‘I think I saw her.’ Eli’s voice faltered a little.
‘Who?’ Tommy continued on up.
‘I think I saw her, Tommy. Today. At the store.’
Her husband poked his head over the banister at the top. He was dressed in his usual oil-stained blue overalls, black-greased fingers clutching on to the railing.
‘Who you talkin’ ’bout?
Eli felt her eyes glass over.
Tommy paused on the stairs and walked back down.
‘What’s goin’ on? Saw who?’
Eli stared at Tommy, her vision blurred.
‘I went to the store an’ …’ She lifted her bandaged hand.
‘What the hell? What you do?’
‘Nothin’. I slipped. Tommy, it were her; I’m sure of it.’
Tommy stood, a smear of grease or something on his stubbled chin, lost for words.
‘I know what ya’re thinking, but she were there. In front o’ me,’ Eli said.
Tommy shook his head, obviously trying to compute what the hell was going on. He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a tin of beer. Eli followed him.
‘Just listen.’ Eli placed her bandaged hand against his chest.
Tommy clicked open the tin and took a long slurp.
‘I was marinadin’ the chicken this morning, ’n’ I were just going through everythin’ for tonight, an’ I was cleanin’ and I remembered I didn’t have any pickles, an’ you know how Pa loves his pickles, so I drove over to the store –’
‘You drove all the way to the store for pickles?’
‘You ain’t listenin’, Tommy.’
‘I’m listenin’ all right. You’re tellin’ me you drove all that way for a jar of darn pickles. You know how much gas –’
‘Tommy, stop. I drove over – I don’t know what I were thinkin’ – somethin’ ’bout the marinade or such like and I were runnin’ late, my mind elsewhere. I slipped on somethin’ or other on the floor –’
‘Where?’ Tommy took another slurp of his beer.
‘At the store. The pickles, they just flew everywhere –’
‘Could sue them for that.’
Eli took a deep breath. ‘The next thing you know, I’m on the floor, lying in picklin’ vinegar, my hand all cut up on the glass an’ there she were. Right in front of me. She bandaged my hand, Tommy.’ She held out her arm, her last words pronounced.
Tommy stared at her, incredulous.
‘She were there, Tommy. I’m sure of it.’
‘Sure you didn’t hit your head?’
‘Tommy, I think it were her.’ Eli felt her eyes glass over again.
‘Honey, calm down; it’s ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.’
Eli shook her head and said nothing.
‘It’s been what …’ Tommy furrowed his brow, calculating the time ‘… thirty-two years, an’ you think ya saw her, jus’ like that.’
Eli raised her eyebrows towards him and looked away.
‘Look, I know.’ Tommy raised his hand to calm her. ‘But think about it, you’ve never seen her –’
‘That’s not true. I held her,’ Eli said. She snapped her jaws together.
‘I know. Not what I meant.’ Tommy wiped the sweat on his brow with his upper arm. ‘I’m just sayin’, think about it. You’ve not seen her … since … hell, since she were born. You don’t know what she look like and why in hell’s name would you go bumpin’ into her in the goddamn store? She don’t even live in this state no more.’
Eli looked towards the floor. A tear snaked its way down her cheek.
‘I was sure it was her,’ Eli said, almost to herself.
Tommy took the last swig of his beer, crushed the can, and threw it in the trash.
‘It looked like her.’
‘Jesus, Eli, you don’t know what she look like.’ Tommy laughed.
Eli’s eyes welled up. ‘She looked like me.’
Tommy stifled his laugh this time. ‘Honey, it weren’t her.’ He leaned back into the fridge and grabbed another tin of beer.
‘You think I just paddled up from crazy creek, don’t you?’
‘I think you just got yourself all worked up over nothin’.’ He rubbed his hand against her arm. He looked at the marinated chicken on the sideboard. ‘What time they say they’re comin’?’
‘Just after six.’ Eli’s mouth crumpled at the side.
Tommy walked towards the stairs and turned.