Wren didn’t think so. Ferdie took this moment to stop and pee on a random mushroom that had sprouted in the grass, signaling his agreement. Wren examined him carefully as he urinated, pooped, and walked. He was perfectly fine; she couldn’t believe it. Yes, he was still dying, as all things were. Him a little more so than everyone else. But the little asshole was no worse for the wear after a brush with death, or more accurately, a very intense nap.
“How are you doing with everything?” Charlie asked, not content to make small talk about music.
“Well,” Wren said, taking a deep breath. “I’m about to pop out this baby, me and Arthur are in a fight, my entire future is up in the air, and my dog might be a zombie. It’s a bit of a roller coaster at the moment.”
“Must be hard not to think of your parents at a time like this,” Charlie said before taking a few steps ahead. Almost as if she knew she’d just dropped a grenade in the middle of their conversation and was ducking for cover.
“We’re doing this again, are we? You’re not gonna let it go?” Wren had to work harder than she’d like to admit to catch up.
“You know damn well I’m not. I always win in the long run,” Charlie said. “Can you make it up here?” She pointed to a small hill that separated the apartment complex from the highway, I-83, and didn’t wait for an answer before she began climbing.
Wren groaned and shared a look with Ferdie, who also looked peeved. See, she got him. But they both began walking up the hill regardless. Pumping her legs and glutes for all they were worth, itwashard for Wren not to think of her own parents’ funeral, which she missed. Wren’s uncle thought it might be too hard on her to attend, so instead of closure, instead of their lives having an end point, the tragedy of their deaths just dragged out forever and ever. The pain subsided a little bit every year. But she realized that without that ending, the next phase of her life never really began.
At the top, Charlie sat comfortably on the ground and watched cars whizz by through the thin tree cover. Wren sat and joined her. There went an ambulance without its siren, and there a minivan, and there a long Buick probably driven by a grandma who could barely see over the steering wheel. She watched them all go by and she thought about how she desperately wished her mom and dad could be there when she brought the baby home. She allowed her eyes to go soft, the steady stream of cars blurring together like a river, coming to terms with the fact that that could never be.
“They would be proud of you, you know,” Charlie said, as if she were sitting front row in Wren’s brain watching all the thoughts go by, munching on a big bucket of popcorn.
Wren knew this was a test of their so-called evolving friendship. And this time, she was determined to pass.
“I think about them a lot, and I always wonder. Usually, I try not to think too hard because I don’t suppose I’d like the answer, the honest answer,” she said. “But thank you for saying that.”
Charlie’s mouth hung open. “What, no sarcastic line? No inappropriate joke?”
“It’s only because of hormones,” Wren said. “Don’t thinkyou have some magic power to make me be honest and vulnerable. It’s this stupid baby. Been happening more and more lately.” She reached over and grabbed Charlie’s hand. “But I really appreciate you.”
Charlie wrapped her in a hug and held her tight.
“I have one more thing for you,” Charlie said, pulling out her phone.
“What now? A video montage of starving animals? I can’t cry anymore.”
“I’ve been texting with your brother.” Wren went silent. “You should really reach out to him.”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t have to decide now. But I did get him to send me this.”
Charlie showed Wren her screen as a video played. Grainy, jumpy footage from an old camcorder. A dated kitchen, all brown with wooden trim. A four- or five-year-old girl sitting at the table, drawing with oversize crayons on a coloring sheet. Two slightly older boys doing zoomies around the house, creating the equivalent of a human cyclone.
“Is that…me?” Wren said. Charlie nodded.
Then the camera panned over to the kitchen counter, where a dark-haired woman was dumping handfuls of chopped apples onto plates.
“My mom.” Charlie nodded again. “Is she smoking?” She was, the lit cigarette dangling out of her mouth like a farmer chewing on a bit of straw. “Man, it sucks that cigarettes kill you, because it looks so cool.”
Her momdidlook cool, wearing a tank top, some kind of tattoo on her back visible. Even Wren could tell, they were the spitting image of each other.
“What’s Mom serving up today? Let’s see,” a man’s voicesaid, narrating over the footage. Her dad. The camera zoomed in on the plates as Wren’s mom sat them on the table. Apples and peanut butter and jelly on white bread, crust lovingly removed.
“Mommy’s PBJ!” little Wren said.
“Don’t say I never gave you anything,” her mom quipped. “Love you, you little twerps.” She went around and kissed them all on the cheek. Little Wren barely noticed while the boys ducked and dodged the best they could. Wren thought that was tragic. She wondered how many more times her mom had made them lunch and given them a kiss after this footage was taken.
“I make the kids PBJ every week,” her dad said. “And does anyone ever thank me?Nooooo.But we throw a parade when Mom makes it three times a year.”
“It’s better when Mom makes it,” little Wren said.
Wren’s mom approached the camera and gave it playful double middle fingers. “In your face.”
