“Oh, get out,” Charlotte said. “I’m too old to be flirted with.”
“Forty-four is the new twenty-two.”
“Yeah, well, talk to me when you’re my age.”
“Charlotte, I’m only two years younger than you!” I laughed and took a sip of my own beer. “God, we’re pathetic. He’s probably thinking, Those poor middle-aged women; the least I can do is make their day by pretending I find them even remotely sexy.”
Charlotte lifted her mug. “Here’s to not being married to a guy too young to rent a car from Hertz.”
I was the one who’d introduced your mother and your father. I think it’s human nature that those of us who are married cannot rest easy until we find mates for our single friends. Charlotte had never been married-Amelia’s father had been a drug addict who’d tried to clean up his act during Charlotte’s pregnancy, failed miserably, and moved to India with a seventeen-year-old pole dancer. So when I was pulled over for speeding by a really good-looking cop who wasn’t wearing a wedding band, I invited him to dinner so that he could meet Charlotte.
“I don’t do blind dates,” your mother told me.
“Then Google him.”
Ten minutes later she called me, frantic, because Sean O’Keefe was also the name of a recently paroled child molester. Ten months later, she married the other Sean O’Keefe.
I watched Moose stack glasses behind the bar, the light playing over his muscles. “So how goes it with Sean?” I asked. “Have you managed to convince him to do it yet?”
Charlotte startled, nearly knocking over her beer. “To do what?”
“The rodding surgery for Willow. Hello?”
“Right,” Charlotte said. “I forgot I’d told you about that.”
“Charlotte, we talk every day.” I looked at her more carefully. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I just need a good night’s sleep,” she replied, but she was looking down into her beer, running one finger along the rim of the glass until it sang to us. “You know, I was reading something at the hospital, some magazine. There was an article in there about a family who sued the hospital after their son was born with cystic fibrosis.”
I shook my head. “That pass-the-buck mentality drives me crazy. Pin the blame on someone else to make yourself feel better.”
“Maybe someone else really was at fault.”
“It’s the luck of the draw. You know what an obstetrician would say if a couple had a newborn with CF? ‘Oh, they got a bad baby.’ It’s not a judgment call, it’s just a statement of fact.”
“A bad baby,” Charlotte repeated. “Is that what you think happened to me?”
Sometimes, I let myself run on without thinking-like right now, when I remembered too late that Charlotte’s interest in this subject was more than theoretical. I felt heat flood my face. “I wasn’t talking about Willow. She’s-”
“Perfect?” Charlotte challenged.
But you were. You did the funniest Paris Hilton impression I’d ever seen; you could sing the alphabet backward; your features were delicate, elfin, fairy-tale. Those brittle bones were the least important part of you.
Suddenly Charlotte folded. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, honestly, my mouth shouldn’t be able to function unless my brain’s engaged.”
“I’m just exhausted,” Charlotte said. “I ought to call it a night.” When I started to get up off my stool, she shook her head. “Stay here, finish your beer.”
“Let me walk you out to the car-”
“I’m a big girl, Piper. Really. Just forget I even said anything.”
I nodded. And, stupid me, I did.
Amelia
So there I was in the school library, one of the few places where I could pretend my life wasn’t totally ruled by your OI, when I stumbled across it: a photograph in a magazine of a woman who looked just like you. It was weird, like one of those FBI photos where they artificially age a kid who’s been kidnapped ten years, so that you might be able to recognize him on the street. There was your flyaway silk hair, your pointy chin, your bowed legs. I’d met other OI kids before and knew you all had similar features, but this was really ridiculous.
Even more weird was the fact that this lady was holding a baby, and was standing next to a giant. He had his arm around her and was grinning out of the photo with a really heinous overbite.
“Alma Dukins,” the text below it read, “is only 3'2''; her husband, Grady, is 6'4''.”
“Whatcha doing?” Emma said.
She was my best friend; we’d been best friends for, like, ever. After the whole Disney nightmare, when kids in school found out I’d been shipped off to a foster home overnight, she (a) didn’t treat me like a leper, and (b) threatened to deck anyone who did. Right now, she’d come up behind my chair and notched her chin over my shoulder. “Hey, that woman looks like your sister.”
I nodded. “She’s got OI, too. Maybe Wills was switched at birth.”
Emma sank into the empty chair beside me. “Is that her husband? My dad could totally fix his teeth.” She peered at the magazine. “God, how do they even do it?”
“That’s disgusting,” I said, although I had been wondering the same thing.
Emma blew a bubble with her gum. “I guess everyone’s the same height when you’re lying down doing the nasty,” she said. “I thought Willow couldn’t have kids.”
I kind of thought that, too. I guess no one had ever really discussed it with you, because you were only five, and believe me I didn’t want to think about anything as repulsive as this, but if you could break a bone coughing, how would you ever get a baby out of you, or a you-know-what in?
I knew if I wanted rugrats, I’d be able to have them one day. If you wanted kids, though, it wouldn’t be easy, even if it was possible. It wasn’t fair, but then again, what was when it came to you?
You couldn’t skate. You couldn’t bike. You couldn’t ski. And even when you did play a game that was physical-like hide-and-seek-Mom used to insist that you get an extra count of twenty. I pretended to be bent out of shape by this so you wouldn’t feel like you were getting special treatment, but deep down I knew it was the right thing to do-you couldn’t get around as fast as I could, with your braces or crutches or wheelchair, and it took you longer to wiggle into a hiding spot. Amelia, wait up! you always said when we were walking somewhere, and I would, because I knew there were a million other ways I would leave you behind.
I would grow up, while you’d stay the size of a toddler.
I would go to college, move away from home, and not have to worry about things like whether I could reach the gas pump or the buttons on the ATM.
I’d maybe find a guy who didn’t think I was a total loser and get married and have kids and be able to carry them around without worrying that I’d get microfractures in my spine.
I read the finer print of the magazine article.
Alma Dukins, 34, gave birth on March 5, 2008, to a healthy baby girl. Dukins, who has osteogenesis imperfecta Type III, is 3'2'' tall and weighed 39 pounds before her pregnancy. She gained 19 pounds during her pregnancy and her daughter, Lulu, was delivered by C-section at 32 weeks, when Alma’s small body could not accommodate the enlarging uterus. She weighed four pounds, six ounces, and was 16½ inches long at birth.