Chapter 5 - The Truth in the Pines
Eli drew his knees tighter to his chest, burying his face in his soggy hood. "She didn't lie! You're the one lying! You just want me gone so you can have your new baby!"
The raw, unadulterated pain in his voice echoed through the dark woods. I shifted my weight, fighting through the sharp ache in my back, and sat all the way down on the damp pine needles next to him. I didn't care about the cold mud soaking through my leggings. I didn't care that my thirty-nine-week pregnant body felt like an anchor.
"Eli, look at me," I said softly.
He refused, keeping his face hidden.
"Do you remember six months ago," I began, my tone quiet and conversational, "when you had the stomach flu on a Thursday night?"
Eli didn't move, but his small shoulders went still.
"Drew was stuck at an architectural conference in Indiana," I continued, staring out into the dark shadows of the trees. "You were throwing up every thirty minutes. You were so miserable you were crying under your covers. Do you remember who stayed up all night sitting on the bathroom floor with you, rubbing your back and giving you tiny sips of ginger ale?"
Eli's breath caught in his throat. Slowly, very slowly, he uncurled his head from his knees. One dark, tear-stained eye peeked out from under his hood.
"You did," he whispered.
"I did," I nodded gently. "And do you remember who made forty-two paper airplanes with you when you had chickenpox three years ago, even though half of them looked like crumpled trash?"
"You," he admitted, his voice barely audible over the rustling wind.
"I did that because I love you, Eli," I said, turning my body so I was facing him directly. "Not because your dad asked me to. Not because I was trying to be your mom. I did it because you are an incredible, smart, funny kid, and living in a house with you made my life a million times better."
Tears spilled over Eli's eyelashes, cutting pale tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. "Then why did you make her room? Why did you buy all those clothes? You spent every weekend in there! You didn't even care that I won my soccer game three weeks ago!"
The guilt hit me like a physical punch to the chest. I closed my eyes for a brief second. He was right. For the past two months, overwhelmed by my high blood pressure, my swollen feet, and my own terrifying anxieties about becoming a birth mother for the first time, I had turned inward. I had obsessed over nursery colors, crib safety ratings, and hospital bags, completely blind to the fact that the little boy who used to eat tacos with me on Thursdays was watching his entire world shrink into the background.
"You're right, Eli," I confessed, my voice trembling. "I was so scared about being a good mother to this baby that I stopped paying attention to you. And that was my fault. A huge, terrible mistake. But that doesn't mean I replaced you. That baby in my belly isn't your replacement. She's your sister."
"Mom said..." Eli choked out, clutching his iPad so hard his knuckles turned white. "Mom said when the baby comes, Dad will give all his money to you, and there won't be any left for my college or my soccer team. She said you were going to send me to boarding school."
I felt a sudden, fierce wave of absolute rage toward Vanessa, but I forced my voice to remain soft, smooth, and steady.
"Your mother lied to you, Eli. She said those things because she wanted to make you sad. She wanted you to break things so that your dad and I would fight."
"She said she was coming at eight o'clock," Eli sobbed, tapping his iPad screen. The clock displayed 8:42 PM. "She said she was driving her red car to the gas station on the corner. I've been sitting here for an hour, Megan. She isn't answering her phone."
He held out the screen. There were fourteen outgoing calls to 'Mom.' All of them had gone straight to voicemail.
I leaned over and pulled the small, shivering boy into my arms. Eli didn't fight me this time. He collapsed against my chest, burying his face into my fleece cardigan, his entire body shaking as he let out deep, agonizing sobs. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight, resting my chin on top of his damp hair.
"She isn't coming, sweetie," I whispered, tears streaming down my own face. "I know it hurts. I know it breaks your heart. But your dad and I are here. We aren't going anywhere. You are never, ever going to boarding school. You are our boy. You are a Vance."
We sat in the dark woods for several minutes, holding each other while the cold autumn wind whistled through the pine trees.
Then, a sudden, brutal wave of pain shot straight through my lower core.
It wasn't a dull ache. It wasn't stress.
It was a sharp, searing ring of fire that wrapped around my pelvis, squeezing my uterus like an iron vise. I gasped loudly, my fingers digging into the damp dirt behind Eli's back. My breath hitched in my throat as my stomach went completely rock-hard under my cardigan.
Eli pulled back, his dark eyes wide with sudden terror. "Megan? What's wrong?"
I couldn't speak for a full thirty seconds. I focused entirely on breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth, riding the wave of the intense contraction until it slowly, painfully receded, leaving my body trembling with exhaustion.
I reached down with a shaky hand.
A warm, heavy trickle of fluid was soaking through my leggings.
My water had just broken. Right there in the mud, behind the back fence, six days early.
I looked at Eli, whose small face was frozen in absolute panic as he looked at my wet leggings.
"Eli," I said, keeping my voice as steady as I humanly could. "I need you to listen to me very carefully."
"The... the baby?" he whispered, his hands trembling.
"The baby is coming right now," I said, forcing a small, reassuring smile onto my face despite the cold sweat breaking out on my forehead. "And my hospital bag is shredded on your bed. My phone is inside the house on the kitchen counter. I need a hero right now, Eli. Can you be my hero?"
Eli stared at me for two seconds. The panic in his eyes vanished, replaced by a sudden, fierce flash of determination.
"I'm fast," Eli said, scrambling to his feet in the mud. "I can run faster than Dad."
"Run to the street," I instructed, my voice straining as another dull ache began building in my back. "Find your dad or the police cars. Tell them Megan is in the woods, and the baby is coming."
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"I'm on it!" Eli yelled.
He turned and bolted through the pine trees like a lightning bolt, his light-up sneakers flashing bright red and blue in the dark as he sprinted toward the light of our home.
