Becoming Grey: Episode 17

Chapter Seventeen 

April 13, 2018 — Friday 

By April, Callie no longer needed the bathroom mirror to tell her she was pregnant. 

For months she had checked anyway. She would turn sideways before school, pull whatever shirt she was wearing flat across her stomach, and study herself from several angles as though pregnancy were a science experiment she could measure through persistence alone. Some mornings she had been positive she could see a difference. Other mornings she decided she had imagined the entire thing, which was impressive considering there was an ultrasound picture taped inside her locker and a person occasionally kicking her from the inside. Now there was nothing left to debate. Her stomach rounded obviously beneath the Ridgemont hoodie she wore more often than anything else, several pairs of jeans had disappeared into the back of her closet, and her winter coat had stopped zipping comfortably sometime in February. People at school no longer had to hear about Callie Grey being pregnant. They could look at her and figure it out. 

Her body had become considerably less subtle about everything else too. Her lower back hurt if she sat in the same position for too long. Her feet occasionally decided shoes were unreasonable. She could be starving before dinner, eat half a plate, then feel as though someone had filled every available inch beneath her ribs. Forty minutes later she would be hungry again. None of that irritated her quite as much as the discovery that the main staircase at Ridgemont High had apparently become steeper over winter break. 

Callie stopped halfway up after lunch and put one hand on the railing. 

Maggie, already several steps ahead, noticed when Callie stopped following and turned around. “You good?” 

“I’m fantastic.” 

“You’re breathing like Luke after the mile.” 

From two steps below Callie came an offended, “First of all, rude.” 

Callie looked over her shoulder as Luke caught up. “Second of all?” 

He considered the question while climbing another step. “I didn’t have a second thing.” 

“That tracks.” 

Luke reached her, glanced once at the backpack hanging from her shoulder, and held out his hand. 

Callie immediately pulled the strap farther away. “No.” 

“I didn’t ask.” 

“Luke.” 

“Callie.” 

“I can carry my own backpack.” 

“I know.” Before she could stop him, he took the strap and slung her bag over his other shoulder beside his own. “I also know you’ve been standing on stair seven for thirty seconds pretending this is a scenic overlook.” 

Above them, Maggie leaned against the railing and peered through the nearest window. “It is a nice view.” 

The window showed part of a snow-covered roof, three exhaust vents, and a gray Minnesota sky. 

Callie followed her gaze. “Breathtaking.” 

“Exactly.” 

Luke started climbing again without another word. He did not ask whether Callie needed help, tell her to slow down, or use the careful voice adults had increasingly adopted whenever she carried something heavier than a notebook. He simply took the backpack and continued upstairs, leaving Callie without a good way to argue unless she wanted to turn the whole thing into a production. 

That was one of the reasons she loved him. Not romantically, obviously. Probably an important clarification considering the direction her life had taken. 

Callie followed them up the remaining stairs. “Don’t get used to this.” 

“I’m building upper-body strength,” Luke said as he carried Callie’s backpack down the hall. 

“With my calculus book?” 

“I suffer for fitness.” 

Callie glanced at him. “You’re not even in calculus.” 

“That makes it heavier emotionally.” 

Ahead of them, Maggie shoved open the stairwell door and held it with one hand. “I hate both of you.” 

By the time they reached Callie’s locker, her breathing had mostly returned to normal. Luke handed the backpack back without comment, and Callie took it the same way. She did not thank him. Thanking him would make the whole thing official, and Luke seemed perfectly content to treat carrying her bag up the stairs as though it were no more unusual than holding a door open. Callie was happy to let him. 

The hallway was filling again as students returned from lunch, bringing with them the usual Friday noise of lockers slamming, shoes squeaking against the tile, and conversations being shouted over one another. Beside Callie’s locker, someone had taped up a purple-and-white poster advertising that evening’s basketball game against West Ridgemont. Gus the Ridgeback had been badly edited into a basketball uniform in one corner, his head slightly too large for whatever body somebody had found online. 

Maggie tapped the poster with one finger. “Seven.” 

“I know,” Callie said as she spun the combination on her locker. 

“You’re still coming, right?” 

Callie opened the door and exchanged one notebook for another. “That is currently the plan.” 

“And pizza after,” Luke added from beside her. 

“Yes, Luke. I remember the pizza.” 

He pointed toward the poster. “And Ridgemont humiliates West.” 

Callie slid the calculus notebook into her bag and looked at him. “That part is mostly up to the basketball team.” 

Luke’s expression turned solemn. “Negative attitude.” 

“Realistic expectations.” 

Maggie glanced between them and shook her head. “This is why nobody lets either of you give motivational speeches.” 

Callie shut her locker and adjusted the backpack strap over one shoulder. The game still sounded good. So did pizza afterward, and sitting around with Maggie and Luke until somebody finally admitted they should probably go home. At that moment, with her breathing settled and the worst of the stairs behind her, seven o’clock still felt completely manageable. 

She intended to keep it that way. 

 

Ridgemont versus West never required much justification. Football got the banners, the fireworks, and the Paul Thomas Trophy, but the rivalry infected nearly everything else too. Basketball. Hockey. Soccer. Debate. Callie suspected somebody could organize competitive knitting between the two schools and people would still show up wearing purple and demanding West be destroyed. 

She wanted to go. Not because she cared deeply about this particular basketball game. She could probably name three players on Ridgemont’s roster if somebody gave her enough time. What she wanted was the student section with Maggie and Luke, complaining about officiating despite understanding maybe twelve percent of basketball rules, then piling into somebody’s car afterward for pizza. Maybe milkshakes if Luke convinced everyone that pizza somehow required a second meal afterward. Normal Friday-night things. Teenager things. She had been looking forward to it all week. 

Maggie watched her shut the locker. “What time is your appointment?” 

“Three-thirty.” 

“And you should be done by five?” 

“Probably.” 

“So we pick you up at six-thirty.” 

“That’s the plan.” 

Luke studied her. “You said that like you’re coordinating an invasion.” 

Callie pulled her backpack onto one shoulder. “Everything requires planning now.” 

She meant it as a joke, but the silence that followed lasted half a second too long. Callie wished she had said something else. 

Maggie recovered first. “Excellent. Operation Beat West and Eat Too Much Pizza remains active.” 

Luke gave a solemn nod. “Godspeed.” 

The warning bell sounded before Callie could answer, scattering all three of them toward different classrooms. 

By seventh period, Operation Beat West and Eat Too Much Pizza was beginning to look considerably less promising. 

Callie could not get comfortable. She shifted in her chair, leaned forward, leaned back, stretched one leg beneath the desk, then gave up and spent the final ten minutes with one hand pressed discreetly against the right side of her stomach. Something had wedged itself beneath her ribs and apparently intended to stay there. A foot, maybe. An elbow. Possibly her daughter had simply decided Callie’s organs were inefficiently arranged and had begun remodeling. 

The final bell released everyone else with the usual Friday urgency. Chairs scraped, backpacks zipped, and the room emptied in a rush of voices and winter coats while Callie stayed seated long enough for the aisle beside her desk to clear. Standing had become easier when she did not have to dodge people at the same time. 

Maggie appeared beside the desk while Callie was still sliding her notebook into her bag. She took one look at her and said, “You look thrilled.” 

“There is a person trying to escape through my ribs.” 

Maggie’s eyes dropped immediately to Callie’s stomach. “Can they do that?” 

“No.” 

“Good.” 

Callie tugged the zipper of her bag closed. “I’m almost positive.” 

Maggie looked back up. “Less good.” 

Luke arrived behind her carrying Callie’s coat over one arm. Callie stared at it, then at him. “Why do you have that?” 

“You left it on the back of your chair,” he said, holding it out. 

“Oh.” 

Luke’s eyebrows rose. 

Callie snatched the coat from him. “Shut up.” 

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“You were thinking loudly.” 

He looked entirely too pleased with himself as Callie pushed her arms through the sleeves. Zipping the coat had become a lost cause weeks ago, so she pulled the sides together instead and let them fall open again the moment she stopped holding them. 

Maggie adjusted the strap of her own backpack. “Do you want us to walk downstairs with you?” 

“My mom’s meeting me by the office.” 

“All right.” Maggie started toward the door with Luke, then stopped and looked back. “Text me after the appointment. And don’t just decide you’re too tired and disappear without telling us.” 

Callie narrowed her eyes. “That feels weirdly specific.” 

“It’s specific because I know you.” 

“I’m going,” Callie said. 

Maggie studied her for another second before nodding. “Good.” 

From the doorway, Luke pointed at Callie with exaggerated seriousness. “Pizza.” 

“Yes, Luke.” 

“I require verbal confirmation.” 

Callie sighed with as much theatrical suffering as she could manage. “I will attend the sacred pizza ritual.” 

“Excellent.” 

Satisfied, Luke disappeared into the hallway, and Maggie followed him after giving Callie one last look that made it obvious she was still not entirely convinced. 

Callie stayed beside the desk for another moment before reaching for her backpack. 

The irritating thing was that Maggie had been right to ask. 

Callie had every intention of going. She wanted the game, the noise, the pizza afterward, all of it. But wanting something and having enough energy left for it had stopped being the same thing lately, and Maggie knew her well enough to recognize the difference before Callie did. 

Callie was tired. Not normal Friday-afternoon tired, and not the kind that came from staying up too late playing Xbox or convincing herself she could finish one more chapter before bed. This exhaustion seemed to exist before she even did anything. Some mornings she woke up tired, spent eight hours becoming more tired, then came home and discovered that sitting on the couch could somehow also be exhausting. 

Still, the game was only a couple of hours. 

She could manage a couple of hours. 

Probably. 

Sally was waiting outside the main office when Callie reached the first floor. Her mother took one look at her and frowned. 

“You okay?” 

Callie sighed. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” 

“Because you’re walking like you’re eighty.” 

“That feels discriminatory toward eighty-year-olds.” 

Sally smiled and pushed open the front doors. The cold caught Callie immediately. April  had technically arrived, but Minnesota had declined to acknowledge it. Snowbanks still crowded the edges of the school parking lot, gray and crusted with road sand, and the wind cut through the open front of Callie’s coat as they crossed toward the car. 

Getting into the passenger seat had become an operation by itself. Callie lowered herself carefully, pulled one leg in after the other, then shifted until the seat belt stopped pressing somewhere annoying. 

Sally waited until she clicked it into place. “Game tonight?” 

“Yes,” Callie said. 

Sally gave her one more look before reaching for the ignition. “You sure?” 

Callie turned toward her. 

Her mother immediately raised both hands in surrender. “Asked once.” 

“I’m going,” Callie said, making the decision sound firmer than it felt. 

“Okay.” 

Callie narrowed her eyes. “You sound like Maggie.” 

Sally looked genuinely offended as she started the car. “That sounds terrible.” 

“Very.” 

The engine turned over, and Callie settled back against the seat while Sally pulled away from the curb, apparently satisfied that she had managed to question the plan without technically questioning it twice. 

Ridgemont Medical was only fifteen minutes away. Callie spent most of the drive shifting in the passenger seat and trying to determine whether the pressure beneath her ribs improved if she leaned toward the door or toward the center console. 

Neither helped. 

At the next stoplight, Sally glanced over at her. “Still planning on the game?” 

Callie turned her head slowly. “You said once.” 

“That was me asking if you were sure.” 

“This is the same question.” 

Sally looked back toward the light. “No, this is a status update.” 

Callie narrowed her eyes at her mother. She knew that tone. Sally could make an ordinary question sound completely innocent while quietly waiting for Callie to arrive at whatever conclusion she had already reached. 

“You’re doing something,” Callie accused. 

“I’m driving.” 

“No. That thing where you refuse to say what you’re thinking until I say it for you.” 

Sally’s expression remained impressively neutral. “I have absolutely no idea what you mean.” 

The light changed, and Sally pulled through the intersection before Callie could argue further. For another three blocks, neither of them said anything. Callie watched houses and snow-darkened lawns slide past the passenger window while her mother maintained the kind of silence that was technically not pressure and somehow felt exactly like pressure. 

Eventually Sally surrendered. 

“If you’re tired after the appointment, you’re allowed to be tired.” 

“I know,” Callie said, looking out the window. 

“Missing one basketball game does not mean your teenage years are over.” 

Callie exhaled softly. “I know.” 

Sally glanced toward her again, brief enough that she never stopped watching the road. “And if you still feel good, go.” 

That made Callie look back at her. 

There was no lecture attached to it. No quiet argument that she should stay home because she was pregnant, and no insistence that she prove anything by going. Sally was doing what she had been doing for months now, which was somehow more annoying and more helpful than either alternative: reminding Callie that she still got to decide, even when none of the choices were as simple as they used to be. 

Callie looked out the window. There seemed to be no version of this conversation that did not irritate her. If Sally told her not to go, Callie would feel controlled. If Sally encouraged her to go, she would wonder whether her mother was pretending everything was normal. If Sally said it was Callie’s choice, then Callie actually had to make the choice herself, which seemed deeply unfair. 

“I want to go,” she said. 

“I know.” 

Sally left it there. 

Callie appreciated her for that. 

The ultrasound room at Ridgemont Medical was dimmer than the rest of the clinic. By now Callie had spent enough time in medical rooms that the smell of disinfectant and the crinkle of paper beneath her no longer caused the same immediate spike of fear they had in November. She knew which questions were routine. She knew which measurements took longer. She knew how to lift her shirt without feeling as though she needed to apologize for existing. 

This appointment felt different anyway. 

The monitor beside the bed glowed against the darker room while the technician moved the wand across Callie’s stomach, pausing occasionally to freeze the image and click measurements into the computer. Callie watched carefully. At the first ultrasound, most of what she saw had looked like television static somebody claimed contained a baby. Now she could recognize pieces. A head. A curved spine. Something that was definitely a hand when it moved across the screen. 

There. 

Callie stared at the monitor while the technician shifted the image slightly, tracing shapes Callie could only partly recognize before they changed again. 

“Everything looks good so far,” the technician said. 

Beside the bed, Sally sat with her coat folded neatly across her lap. “Good is good.” 

Callie glanced toward her. “Insightful, Mom.” 

“I’m here for emotional support, not medical commentary.” 

The technician smiled without looking away from the monitor. “Baby is being cooperative today.” 

“That’s new,” Callie said. 

Sally turned her head toward her daughter. “Already blaming her?” 

“Maybe.” 

The technician went quiet for a moment. 

Callie noticed immediately. 

Her heartbeat picked up before she could stop it, and suddenly every reassuring thing the woman had said during the last several minutes seemed less important than that single pause. “What?” 

“Nothing bad,” the technician said quickly, moving the wand a little farther across Callie’s stomach. “Actually, I think I can answer a question, if you want it answered.” 

Callie stared at her for a second before understanding. Then she looked toward Sally and back at the monitor. “Oh.” 

The technician glanced over. “Do you want to know?” 

Callie had spent weeks telling people she could wait. There was no reason she needed to know now. The baby was healthy, which was the part that actually mattered, and she had managed perfectly well not knowing so far. 

Apparently all of that had been a lie. 

“Yes.” 

The technician adjusted the image again and studied it for another moment. “Looks like a girl.” 

Callie simply stared at the monitor. 

A girl. 

The words settled differently than she expected. Not dramatically. There was no sudden rush of revelation or instant transformation into some wiser version of herself. Mostly there was a strange little click inside her head, as if something vague had finally been given one more piece of definition. 

A daughter. 

Beside her, Sally shifted slightly. Callie could feel her mother looking at her before she finally turned away from the screen. 

“What?” Callie asked. 

Sally’s mouth twitched. “You look smug.” 

“I am not smug.” 

“You are absolutely smug.” 

Callie lifted her chin a little. “I guessed.” 

“You guessed fifty percent of the available options.” 

“I was right.” 

Sally gave her a patient look. “You were statistically fortunate.” 

“That still counts as right.” 

The technician laughed quietly and returned to her measurements, while Callie looked back toward the monitor with what she was now willing to admit might have been a slightly smug expression. 

Callie looked back at the monitor. She had been saying her for months without really knowing why. Not always. Around doctors or teachers she usually said the baby, as though neutral language made her sound more responsible. But alone, especially at night when nobody else was around, the baby had gradually become her. 

She had expected something enormous from finding out. Tears, maybe. Some sudden rush of certainty that would make the room look different. Instead she mostly felt satisfied, like receiving confirmation of an answer she had somehow already known. Sally reached over and squeezed her hand, and Callie squeezed back without taking her eyes from the monitor. 

“Hi,” Callie whispered toward the screen. 

Nobody commented on it. Sally did not smile at her or turn the moment into something larger, and Callie was grateful for that. She wasn’t even entirely sure why she had said it. The word had simply slipped out while she stared at the shifting gray image, at the little movements that apparently belonged to a person who was already taking up an unreasonable amount of space beneath her ribs. 

By the time they got home, the basketball game had become considerably less appealing. Callie made it through the front door, kicked off her shoes, and stood in the entryway for several seconds while Sally closed the door behind them. Sitting down felt dangerous. If she sat now, there was a very real possibility she would remain wherever she landed until morning, and sleeping on the little bench beside the coat hooks seemed like something her family would photograph before bothering to wake her. 

She had just managed to hang her coat when Hannah came charging out of the living room. “Well?” 

Callie glanced over at her. “Hello to you too.” 

“Hi.” Hannah planted herself directly in Callie’s path, apparently deciding that fulfilled the minimum social requirement. “Well?” 

Callie took her time straightening the coat on its hook, mostly because Hannah’s impatience made delaying the answer much more entertaining. “Well what?” 

Hannah stared at her as though there could not possibly be another subject worth discussing. “Boy or girl?” 

“She remembered I existed for almost three seconds,” Sally said, stepping around both girls on her way toward the kitchen. 

Hannah barely looked at their mother. Her attention remained fixed entirely on Callie. 

Callie followed Sally toward the kitchen at a much slower pace, one hand settling automatically beneath her stomach as she walked. She tried to keep her face neutral, although knowing the ultrasound pictures were tucked safely inside Sally’s purse made that harder than it should have been. “Girl.” 

Hannah stopped so abruptly that Callie nearly walked into her. “I knew it!” 

Callie stared at her sister. “You guessed boy yesterday.” 

“I changed,” Hannah said without the slightest hint of shame. 

“When?” Callie asked. 

“Today.” 

Callie gave her a flat look. “Convenient.” 

Hannah seemed completely untroubled by the accusation. If anything, being caught rewriting history only made her look more pleased with herself. She fell into step beside Callie as they entered the kitchen, apparently having decided that confirmation of a niece entitled her to immediate participation in all future decisions concerning said niece. “Do you have a name?” 

“No,” Callie said, reaching for one of the kitchen chairs. 

“You should name her Zelda.” 

Callie paused halfway through pulling the chair out. “No, I’m not naming her after the main character from the legend of Zelda” 

Hannah frowned. “Why?” 

“Because I’m not naming her after the main character from the legend of Zelda .” Callie lowered herself carefully into the chair, grateful when her back finally stopped carrying all of her weight. 

The silence that followed lasted just long enough to make her look up. 

Hannah had stopped on the other side of the table. Her expression had changed from excitement to something approaching personal offense. “That isn’t Zelda.” 

Callie immediately pointed at her. “I know.” 

“You absolutely did not,” Hannah said, her eyes narrowing with delighted accusation. 

“Shut up I did too.” 

“That does not count.” 

“Go away,” Callie told her. 

Hannah’s grin returned immediately. The baby’s name had apparently become secondary. Catching her older sister being wrong about Nintendo was much better, and Callie knew from experience that she had probably just provided Hannah with material for the next decade. 

Unfortunately, she had also opened the subject Callie had been trying not to think too hard about. 

A name. 

Until that afternoon, the baby had been the baby. Sometimes her, more often lately, especially inside Callie’s own head, but still something that could remain slightly abstract when Callie needed her to. The ultrasound had made that harder. There had been a face on the monitor. Arms. Legs. A spine. A little hand that had moved while the technician measured something Callie hadn’t completely understood. 

A daughter. 

Apparently one who now required a name before Hannah succeeded in naming her after half the Nintendo catalog. 

Stuart sat at the kitchen table sorting Grey’s paperwork into several stacks. His cast had been gone for weeks, but he still flexed his right hand occasionally, checking the fingers as though they might stop working if left unsupervised. He looked up when they entered. 

““So?” Stuart asked. 

“Girl,” Sally said as she opened the refrigerator. 

Stuart’s attention shifted immediately to Callie, and the expression on his face changed before he even said anything. A grin spread slowly across it. “Really?” 

“Really,” Callie said, nodding. 

He pushed himself up from the table and crossed the kitchen to her. When he wrapped his arms around her, he did it carefully, the way he hugged her now without ever seeming consciously aware that he was doing anything differently. He wasn’t delicate with her exactly. There was simply a permanent adjustment in the way he approached her body these days, an awareness that Callie no longer occupied all of the space between them. 

“My girls are taking over,” Stuart said as he let her go. 

Sally glanced over the refrigerator door at him. “You’ve been outnumbered for years.” 

“It’s getting worse,” Stuart replied. 

“Better,” Hannah corrected from beside the table, sounding personally invested in the distinction. 

Stuart looked toward his younger daughter. “Debatable.” 

Callie laughed and lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs, intending to sit for maybe a minute before doing something productive. 

Her body immediately rejected that plan. 

The moment her weight settled into the chair, every muscle seemed to realize it had finally been given permission to quit. The ache across her lower back became more noticeable, her legs felt heavy, and even the thought of standing again suddenly seemed like an unreasonable demand. Apparently this was where she lived now. 

Her phone buzzed against the tabletop. 

MAGGIE: still game? 

Callie stared at the screen. Six-thirty was less than two hours away. She could shower, change clothes, maybe lie down for twenty minutes first. Maggie and Luke could pick her up, so she would not even have to drive. On paper, there was no real reason she couldn’t go. 

Unfortunately, her body had apparently stopped accepting arguments presented on paper. 

She pictured the student section, the hard bleachers, everybody standing every time something happened and forcing her to stand with them if she wanted to see. Then there would be the walk back through the school she had just escaped, followed by pizza somewhere afterward until ten or eleven while Luke argued loudly about something that did not matter and Maggie encouraged him purely because irritating people was one of her hobbies. Yesterday, all of that had sounded fun. 

It still sounded fun. That was the problem. 

Callie wanted to go. Her body very clearly did not. 

Sally set a glass of water on the table beside her, and Callie looked up suspiciously. “You’re not allowed to say anything.” 

“I didn’t say anything,” Sally replied. 

“You were about to.” 

Her mother glanced at the glass. “I put water on the table.” 

“You did it judgmentally.” 

“I’ll work on my delivery.” 

Callie narrowed her eyes at her, but Sally was already turning away with the maddening calm of someone who knew she had won without technically participating in an argument. 

Callie’s phone buzzed again. 

LUKE: WEST SUCKS CONFIRM ATTENDANCE 

A smile tugged at her mouth despite herself. She opened the keyboard and typed I think I’m out tonight. 

Her thumb hovered over the send button. 

She could still change her mind. Shower. Change. Lie down for twenty minutes. Drink the judgmental water. Pretend she had enough energy to be a normal person for the rest of the night. 

Callie sent the message. 

CALLIE: i think i’m out tonight 

Maggie answered almost immediately. 

MAGGIE: tired? 

CALLIE: yeah 

The typing bubble appeared beneath Maggie’s name, disappeared, then came back. 

MAGGIE: i can stay home 

Callie’s chest tightened a little. She knew Maggie meant it, which somehow made the offer harder to accept rather than easier. There would be no resentment later and no reminder that Maggie had given something up for her. Maggie would simply come over and act like this had been the plan all along. 

CALLIE: no 

A few seconds later: 

MAGGIE: seriously 

CALLIE: seriously go 

This time the typing bubble stayed there longer. 

MAGGIE: we can watch something at your place 

Callie leaned back in the chair and looked at the message. 

Part of her wanted to say yes. She could already picture Maggie stretched across the opposite end of the couch making fun of some terrible movie while Callie remained under a blanket and pretended she had chosen this. Luke would probably discover the change of plans and appear half an hour later carrying food nobody had asked him to bring. They could still have something close to the Friday night Callie wanted, only redesigned around the fact that she was too tired to leave the house. 

That was exactly why she could not say yes. 

Maggie still got basketball games. She still got pizza afterward and staying out later than intended because somebody suggested another stop on the way home. She could make stupid plans at the last minute without consulting an appointment calendar first or wondering whether three more hours of sitting upright sounded exhausting. Callie wanted her to have those things. She did. 

Even when she wanted them too. 

CALLIE: maggie go to the game 

The response took longer this time. 

MAGGIE: you sure? 

Callie typed no. 

For several seconds she stared at the word. It was the truthful answer, which was probably why sending it felt unfair. No, she wasn’t sure. No, she didn’t really want Maggie to go without her. No, she wasn’t thrilled about spending Friday night at home while her friends did exactly what she had planned to be doing with them. 

None of that meant Maggie needed to stay. 

Callie deleted the word. 

CALLIE: yes 

A heart appeared first. 

Then: 

MAGGIE: calling you later 

Luke apparently considered the emotional portion of the conversation sufficiently handled. 

LUKE: i will eat enough pizza for both of us 

Callie snorted. 

CALLIE: your sacrifice is noted 

LUKE: heroism comes naturally 

She was still smiling when another message arrived about a minute later. 

LUKE: need anything before we go? 

That one landed differently. 

There was no production attached to it. No Are you okay? No awkward reassurance. No attempt to convince her that missing the game did not matter when all three of them knew perfectly well that it mattered to her. Luke had simply asked a practical question, as casually as if he were stopping for gas and wanted to know whether anybody needed something from the convenience store. 

That was Luke. He could spend ten minutes declaring himself a hero for eating someone else’s pizza and then quietly make sure she had what she needed without treating her like she was fragile. 

CALLIE: no im good 

Callie sent it, thought for a second, then reopened the keyboard. 

CALLIE: actually cherry coke if you stop anywhere 

His answer came almost immediately. 

LUKE: done 

Callie set the phone facedown on the table and finally reached for the water Sally had left beside her. Across the kitchen, Stuart had been watching the entire exchange while making a fairly poor effort to look as though he had not been watching anything. 

“You staying home?” he asked. 

“Yeah.” Callie took a drink. “I think I’m done.” 

Stuart nodded toward the living room. “Want company?” 

Callie looked at him. “Aren’t you working tonight?” 

“Couple hours,” he said. “Not leaving yet.” 

“Hannah’s here anyway.” 

From somewhere inside the pantry came her sister’s indignant voice. “I am excellent company.” 

Hannah emerged a moment later carrying a bag of chips against her chest as though she had brought physical evidence supporting the claim. 

Callie regarded the bag, then her sister. “Compelling argument.” 

“Thank you.” 

“That wasn’t agreement.” 

Hannah opened the chips. “Sounded like agreement.” 

Stuart gave Callie a look that suggested she had brought this on herself. 

“I’ll survive,” Callie said, settling farther into the chair. 

For the first time since sitting down, she believed it. She was disappointed. She was tired enough that getting back up still seemed negotiable. In another hour Maggie and Luke would be in the student section without her, and she knew perfectly well she was going to hate that at least a little. 

None of those things required fixing. 

Dinner might have remained quiet after that if Hannah had not carried her chips to the table and, with the confidence of someone who had apparently appointed herself to an official position, returned to the much more important question of what Callie intended to name her daughter. 

The naming argument began almost by accident. 

Sally made spaghetti because it required little effort and produced enough leftovers for Saturday. Callie ate half a plate before deciding her stomach had reached maximum capacity. Hannah ate enough garlic bread to concern everyone. Then, while Stuart carried dishes toward the sink, Hannah returned to what she apparently considered the most urgent unresolved matter in the Grey household. 

“What about Daisy?” Hannah asked. 

Callie shook her head. “No.” 

“Peach.” 

“Absolutely not.” 

Hannah leaned farther across the table, undeterred. “Rosalina.” 

“Hannah.” 

“What?” Her sister spread her hands as though Callie were being unreasonable. “It’s pretty.” 

At the sink, Stuart set two plates down beside the basin and joined the conversation without turning around. “Gertrude.” 

Callie stared at the back of his head. 

He glanced over his shoulder, expression perfectly straight. 

“No,” Callie said. 

“Mildred.” 

“Stop.” 

“Bertha?” 

“Dad.” 

Stuart finally turned around, looking far too pleased with himself for someone contributing absolutely nothing useful. 

Sally leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “You’re making this considerably worse.” 

“I’m contributing,” Stuart said. 

“You are why people don’t consult fathers.” 

He pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I helped name one of our children.” 

Callie immediately looked toward her mother. 

Sally shook her head. “No, he didn’t.” 

“I participated.” 

“You suggested three names I vetoed immediately and then agreed with mine.” 

Stuart considered that for a second, apparently searching for a flaw in the argument. “That is participation.” 

Callie laughed under her breath. Somewhere between Hannah trying to name the baby after Nintendo characters and Stuart apparently working his way through a list of nineteenth-century grandmothers, she was beginning to understand why people kept baby names secret until after the birth. 

Hannah leaned across the table toward her again. “Do you have any actual names?” 

“A few.” 

Her sister’s eyes brightened. “What?” 

Callie reached for her phone. “I’m not telling you.” 

“Why?” 

“Because you’ll ruin them.” 

“I will not.” 

Callie looked up from the phone and gave her a long, flat stare. 

Hannah lasted maybe two seconds before folding. “Okay, I might ruin some.” 

“Exactly.” 

Callie unlocked her phone and opened Notes. Buried among homework reminders, grocery lists, appointment questions, and things she was afraid she would forget if she did not write them down immediately was another note she had been changing for weeks. She had added names, deleted them, put some back, stared at others until they stopped sounding like names at all. 

Until today, the list had still felt hypothetical. 

Now it didn’t. 

Now there was a girl. 

Her daughter. 

And somewhere in that list was the name she would have to live with. 

Names had become their own small problem. 

Most survived a day or two. Some looked nice written down and sounded ridiculous the moment Callie actually said them aloud. Maggie had destroyed several by immediately connecting them to people from school, usually people Callie had not even thought about in years. Hannah had accidentally ruined another by deciding it sounded like a Pokémon and then refusing to stop saying it in what she claimed was a battle voice. 

One name kept surviving. 

Callie scrolled down the note until she found it again. She had moved it around several times over the past few weeks, deleted it once, then added it back the next day. Every time she returned to the list, it was still the one her eyes stopped on. 

Sally noticed where her attention had settled. “You have one.” 

“Maybe,” Callie said. 

Stuart came back toward the table with his glass and pulled out a chair. “Gertrude?” 

Callie didn’t bother looking up. “No.” 

“Still available.” 

She ignored him and looked at the word on her phone again. 

For some reason, saying it in front of everyone felt different from typing it into a note at midnight. Once she said it aloud, it would belong to more than just her. Her family would hear it. They would repeat it. It would either sound right in the room or immediately become another name she could never use again. 

Callie took the chance anyway. 

“Juna.” 

The table quieted. 

Hannah was the first to test it. “Juna?” 

Callie nodded. “J-U-N-A.” 

Sally repeated the name more softly, almost as though she were trying out its shape. “Juna.” 

Something about hearing it in her mother’s voice made Callie look up from the phone. Until then, Juna had only existed as four letters in a note she kept editing. Hearing someone else say it made the name feel less like an option and more like it belonged to somebody. 

Stuart leaned back in his chair. “Where did that come from?” 

“I don’t know,” Callie admitted. “I saw it somewhere.” 

“That’s the entire story?” 

“I liked it.” 

Hannah had gone unexpectedly serious. She looked toward Callie’s stomach for a second, then tried the full version. “Juna Grey.” 

Callie had done that too. More times than she wanted to admit. She had typed it beneath the name in her phone, whispered it when nobody else was around, imagined it printed on school forms years from now or written across the top of homework she would probably someday nag her daughter to finish. 

“Yeah,” Callie said. “Juna Grey.” 

Sally smiled. “I like it.” 

Callie looked toward her father, because apparently his opinion mattered even after Gertrude, Mildred, and Bertha. 

Stuart considered the name for a moment before nodding. “I don’t hate it.” 

Sally turned to stare at him. “Beautiful.” 

“What?” Stuart looked genuinely defensive. “That is strong praise.” 

“You suggested Bertha thirty seconds ago.” 

“I was exploring the field.” 

Callie laughed, and whatever tension had gathered around saying the name loosened. 

Hannah tried it once more under her breath. “Juna.” She thought about it for another few seconds, then gave a decisive nod. “Better than Zelda.” 

“You suggested Zelda,” Callie reminded her. 

“I changed my mind.” 

“Of course you did.” 

Hannah looked entirely satisfied with that explanation. 

Callie glanced back down at the name on her phone. 

Juna. 

This time, she didn’t feel the urge to delete it. 

Nobody declared anything final. There was no announcement and no sudden sense that some enormous decision had been made. Stuart went back to washing dishes. Sally started putting leftovers into containers. Hannah wandered toward the living room after stealing another piece of garlic bread. 

Later, when Callie went upstairs, she did not delete Juna from the list. 

She deleted several names beneath it. 

By eight-thirty, Ridgemont was losing to West by six points. 

Callie knew because Luke had apparently appointed himself her personal sports correspondent. Her phone buzzed every few minutes with updates of varying usefulness. 

LUKE: refs corrupt 

Five minutes later: 

LUKE: RIDGEMONT HAS NEVER COMMITTED A FOUL IN SCHOOL HISTORY 

Then Maggie: 

MAGGIE: he is yelling at a seventeen year old referee please send help 

Callie lay on top of her blankets in sweatpants and an old Ridgemont T-shirt, phone propped against the curve of her stomach while the television played quietly across the room. She smiled at the messages, but the smile came with an uncomfortable pinch of jealousy she had no good reason to deny. She had told them to go. Maggie had offered to stay. Nobody had excluded her. None of that changed the fact that Callie wanted to be sitting beside them. 

She could picture the gym almost perfectly: purple everywhere, the pep band too loud, students packed onto the bleachers, Luke making increasingly ridiculous accusations against the officials while Maggie informed him that he was embarrassing Ridgemont as an institution. Afterward they would go for pizza. Maybe other people would join them. Somebody might suggest doing something afterward. Nobody would have to ask whether Callie was too tired, whether her back hurt, or whether she had an appointment that afternoon. Nobody would have to plan around a body that increasingly had its own schedule. 

Callie shifted onto her side and immediately regretted it, then rolled back with a frustrated sigh. “This is ridiculous.” 

Something moved beneath her hand, and Callie stopped. There. A firm push from inside, not painful, just sudden. She slid her palm across the curve of her stomach and waited until another kick pressed against it a moment later, harder this time. 

Callie stared down. 

She had felt movement plenty of times by now. At first it had been so light she had convinced herself she imagined it. Then came unmistakable kicks, rolls, and the occasional movement at exactly the wrong moment. This should not have been different. 

But this afternoon she had learned something. 

A girl. 

Juna. 

Callie kept her hand where it was while another small movement shifted beneath her palm. The jealousy did not disappear. Some part of her had expected it to, as though feeling her daughter move should instantly make basketball and pizza and being fifteen seem unimportant. 

It didn’t. 

She still wanted to be there. 

She still wished she were laughing beside Maggie instead of lying alone in her bedroom before nine o’clock on a Friday night. And beneath her hand, her daughter moved again. 

Callie smiled before she could stop herself. “There you are.” 

The words came out so naturally that for a second she barely registered having said them. Then she glanced toward the closed bedroom door, suddenly grateful nobody had heard. Hannah would never let her live it down, and Stuart would probably find some way to make it sentimental just to annoy her. 

Callie looked back down at the curve beneath her shirt and left her hand where it was. 

“Juna,” she said softly. 

Nothing happened. 

She waited, watching the spot beneath her palm as though the baby might somehow understand that this was important. 

“Seriously?” Callie murmured. “We just picked your name.” 

A kick pressed against her hand almost immediately. 

Callie laughed under her breath. “Okay. That’s creepy.” 

Her phone buzzed beside her before she could decide whether that counted as proof of anything. Callie reached over and picked it up. 

Maggie had sent a picture from the student section. She was smiling normally into the camera while Luke, several feet behind her, appeared to be shouting something toward the court with both hands cupped around his mouth. Purple-and-white bleachers rose behind them, packed with students Callie recognized in pieces, a face here, a hoodie there, the whole noisy Friday night she had been planning to be part of until a few hours ago. 

MAGGIE: wish you were here 

Callie stared at the picture longer than she meant to. 

Her chest tightened again, but this time she did not immediately start building arguments against the feeling. She did not remind herself that she was tired, that staying home had been the sensible choice, that Maggie had offered to stay, or that none of this was anybody’s fault. 

She just missed them. 

She missed the game. She missed the student section and the stupid hard bleachers and whatever Luke was yelling about. She missed the pizza they would probably get afterward and the possibility that somebody would suggest doing something else after that just because nobody wanted to go home yet. 

Callie opened the keyboard. 

CALLIE: me too 

She stared at the words for a second, then sent them. 

No pretending. No I’m fine. No acting like wanting Juna somehow meant she had stopped wanting everything else too. 

She wished she were there. 

Callie set the phone beside her and rested both hands across her stomach. Somewhere downstairs Hannah laughed loudly at something on television. Pipes clicked inside the wall as the heat came on, and outside the bedroom window snow covered the yard beneath the orange glow of a streetlight. Maggie and Luke were probably still yelling in the gym. In another hour they would probably be eating pizza and talking about whatever stupid thing had happened at school that week. 

Callie wished she were with them. 

Juna moved beneath her hand. 

Callie smiled despite herself. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I know.” 

She was fifteen. She still wanted Friday nights and basketball games and pizza with her friends. She wanted college. Engineering. A dorm room someday, maybe. Late labs and stupid group projects and all the things Jed had warned her would be harder now. She wanted the pieces of her life that had existed before two lines appeared on a pregnancy test, and she wanted Juna. 

For months people had talked as though those wants had to fight until one finally defeated the other. As though loving her daughter meant Callie should stop missing anything she had given up, or missing those things meant she must secretly regret keeping her. 

Lying there with one hand over the place Juna had kicked, neither felt true. 

Her life was harder now. Some parts of it had become smaller, at least for a while. Other parts had become something she could not have imagined five months earlier. All of it belonged to her. 

Callie listened to the muffled sounds of her family downstairs and let her eyes drift closed. 

She still wished she had gone. 

She still wanted this too. 

 

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