Bradford Beach was the perfect place to trip. There was so much to experience between the cloudless night sky, Lake Michigan, and the steep bluff across the bridge spanning Lincoln Memorial Drive. The campfire blazed, offering welcome relief from the biting wind that blew off the water. The sand was cold under Poppy’s bare feet. It was late April, just warm enough to smell the promise of the approaching summer. Usually, this meant that a trip to Cape Cod was in the offing. Not this year. Poppy’s parents told her that they’d stay in Wisconsin because Ann refused to go east, and they couldn’t leave her back home alone with the baby. The baby, the baby, the baby. Everything was because of the baby.
Poppy made some new friends from Ann’s year. Kurt Schwartz sat across from Poppy, his face nearly impossible to see under his ashy blond dreadlocks. Angie Dols, who worked at the café and gave them free drinks, was sprawled out on a beach blanket, staring at the stars. They were waiting for the ’shrooms to kick in.
Ann wouldn’t have approved of Poppy hanging out with stoners like Kurt and Angie, and she already knew Michael hadn’t liked them. Poppy thought they were cool; they got high for enlightenment. They wanted to experience stuff Ann wouldn’t understand.
“When’s your sister due?” Kurt asked.
“In two weeks, but it could be any day now,” Poppy said. “She’s starting to clean shit, like she literally cleaned the inside of the dishwasher last night. This morning she emptied out her backpack and put it through the wash. My mom says she’s nesting.”
“Is she going to give it up?” Angie asked. “That’s what I heard.”
Poppy was annoyed by the word “it” and this latest bit of gossip. “Ann never gives anything up.”
Kurt lit a cigarette. “Your parents must be super pissed.”
“Not really.” Poppy was surprised it took Ann so long to tell them. It was a big deal, sure, but what had Ann been worried about? Did she think they’d kick her out, send her away to some reform school? It didn’t take long for them to adjust to the idea, especially her mom, who’d been by Ann’s side ever since she’d found out about the baby. She was even excited about it, coming home from shopping trips with a tiny pair of baby socks she’d found, or an adorable little onesie, and they’d ooh and aah. Her dad’s response was more complicated. He flipped when he heard the news, got in his car and disappeared for a few hours every day. Later, he told Poppy that he’d driven all over the city trying to find Michael. He wasn’t anywhere he’d looked; not in his old apartment building, the gym, running along the Oak Leaf Trail or Lake Drive or at any of his old haunts or friends’ houses. What would her dad have done if he’d found him? He was just as likely to knock Michael’s lights out as to give him a hug, depending on where he was in the arc of his anger—anger that settled into a deep hurt. “I really did think of Michael as a son,” he’d said, his face in his hands. “I thought he was mine.” This obsession with finding Michael never let up. Poppy saw him scan for Michael at the grocery store, under the trees in Riverside Park, sitting in the food court at Bayshore Mall, waiting for him to walk into the classroom—anywhere, everywhere. Poppy understood, because, confused as she was by what Michael had done, she looked out for him, too, refusing to believe he was truly gone.
Angie threw an empty can of Miller Lite into the fire. “I saw Ann the other day at Walgreens. She was huge.”
Poppy agreed. Her sister was huge. She was all body now, hippy, chubbier, and big-breasted. Her golden hair had grown thick and plentiful during the pregnancy. Poppy had never seen Ann look more beautiful.
Kurt said, “You ever hear that Bill Cosby routine about childbirth, how it’s as easy as pulling your lower lip over the top of your head?”
“You guys, stop it,” Poppy said. She might have been more upset without the comforting sensation of the mushrooms. She liked the way they made her feel so … atmospheric, like hazy weather in her brain.
“I saw my dog give birth once,” said Angie. “Nobody tells you about the afterbirth. It’s like having a second baby. This sack drops out after the puppies are born, but that’s not the gross part. The gross part is that she ate it. I’m telling you, it was, like, crunchy.” Everyone was bent over with laughter, even Poppy, although her mind was starting to drift until she couldn’t remember what she’d been laughing at in the first place. She tried not to think about Ann and the pregnancy anymore. She looked at Lake Michigan, the blue-gray water somehow lighter than the sky. The waves, so gentle compared to the waves in the Atlantic, weren’t coming to the shore, they were pushing the shore away. How come she’d never noticed that pulling-away sensation when she’d ridden all those waves in Wellfleet? Kit told her a wave is just energy that never dies. It travels all over the world: one wave. She wished she could go back to the Cape and see Kit. She wished she could go everywhere, ride every wave. She couldn’t stand the idea of being trapped in Milwaukee all summer.
“Let’s explore,” Kurt said, reaching for Poppy’s hand. He wanted to screw around with her, she could tell. She wanted the same thing, only sex terrified her now that she lived with a cautionary tale. “I should have told you girls how easy it is to get pregnant,” her mother said. “You were both a one-shot deal.”
Poppy stood up and ran across the bridge. She raced after Kurt and Angie along a tamped-down dirt path between the old oak trees. They stopped, breathless, and began looking for patterns in the bark, marveling over a pinecone’s symmetry, folding a dead leaf from last fall into small origami squares. Kurt reached down and grabbed fistfuls of dirt, sifted through it, and rubbed it all over her face. She did the same to him, and then Angie. They stuffed twigs behind their ears, held hands, danced in circles. Poppy forgot all about the baby and her missing brother.
“The moon!” Poppy said. “Just look at it!”
“Dude, it’s bulbous,” said Kurt. “Bulbous” was a word Ms. Martin, their English teacher, used all the time, until everyone at school said it the way she did, with a lisp. The moon was bulbous. She watched it expand and contract like it was breathing. The moon could breathe! She needed to get closer. She started to climb a tree, an old oak. How wonderful would it be to hold the moon in her hand, to pluck it from the sky and put it in her pocket? She climbed and climbed until she heard a crack. The sound didn’t alarm her; it was in harmony with all the other sounds of the universe: the water lapping at the shore, her friends’ voices, the hum of the cars that buzzed past on Lincoln Memorial Drive. Her fall was slow enough for her to appreciate the beauty of weightlessness, like when she was little and she and Ann used to jump off the roof of the garage and land in their father’s leaf piles, back when she and Ann did everything together: compete at memorizing song lyrics, speed-reading, swim races across Duck Pond.
Then there was the ground, hard and real. Lightning shot out of her ankle, piercing through the haze. Kurt reached for her. “You dropped from the sky like a raindrop.”
Kurt carried her home on his back. She almost forgot about her ankle, focusing instead on the smell of patchouli in his beat-up sweater, how his braids were coarse as ropes. Kurt stopped abruptly when he read the note her parents had left for her on the back door: “Ann’s at St. Mary’s. You’ve got to get there!”
THE HOSPITAL WAS CLOSE, LESS than a mile away. Her leg started to scream, and some little shred of sanity told her that putting weight on it would make it worse. Kurt left her at the hospital door. When she limped into the sterile lobby, she was struck by how much she didn’t belong there, as if she’d emerged from another world, reeking of spring air, campfire smoke, beer, and pot while somewhere in that cold building her sister was having her baby.
Her dad was waiting for her. Her dad! She loved him so much, from his gruff voice to the cut on his cheek where he’d taken a dig from his razor that morning. He always had to tap out whatever song he heard with his fingertips. They were on the same wavelength. He wrapped Poppy up in his wiry arms and made her wish she were still his baby.
“How’s she doing?”
Her dad just pulled her closer. She felt his body jerk with tears. She tried to sober up, be real, pretend she was the Poppy he wanted her to be. “Is the baby OK?”
“Now he is. His heart rate dropped, and the cord was around his neck. He could have … but the doctors were there. He didn’t. He’s fine. He’s amazing, Pops. I wish you’d been here. That kid is a … he’s a crescendo, you know? That sweet little fucker snuck up on me.” His voice broke and he started to cry again. Poppy had seen her father cry before, but never when it was just the two of them in the same room.
“Did Michael show up?”
Her father shook his head no. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was long overdue, but she was rocked by a deep, hard seizure of sadness. She’d been convinced that Michael would come home before the baby was born; she’d fantasized all kinds of scenarios.
“Ann was all drugged up. She called for him. She wanted him to be there. Anyway, come see your nephew.”
The baby’s warm, pink body rested against Ann’s bare chest, still curled up in fetal position, his bare rear sticking into the air. He was so new. Her mom sat at the edge of the bed wearing a red bandana. Her face was drenched in sweat, as if she’d had the baby herself. She was glowing, full of purpose. “Oh honey, he was sunny-side up. It got scary there for a while.” Poppy couldn’t believe she had been dancing with Kurt and Angie while the baby fought for his life. “Your sister was a trooper.” Her mom ran her hand through Ann’s matted hair. Poppy saw a closeness between them she’d never noticed, like they were wrapped in the same light. They even looked more alike. “It was incredibly painful, but you’ll forget, you will.”
“The drugs helped.” Ann smiled, dreamy from whatever they’d given her. “Look, Pops.”
His face was blotched and puffy, his skull misshapen from the forceps, his hair thick and black. Wavy, colorful vibrations spread off of him and out of his alien cool eyes, wet with the ointment the nurses put on them. She placed her hand on him; for so long he had been part of Ann’s subterranean world. It felt so intimate, like she was touching her sister, too. And Michael, she supposed. “Oh, hey little man,” Poppy said, crying now, overcome.
“His name is Noah,” Ann said. “It means ‘comfort.’”
Noah. What a nice name. “Hey little man, welcome to the universe,” said Poppy. She spoke slowly. His fingers were so small! One, two, three, four, five. “Welcome to this cycle of life.”
Ann pulled a twig out of Poppy’s hair. “Why do you have dirt all over your face?”
Poppy shrugged. Her ankle throbbed and needed to be looked at.
Her mom stood up and put her fingers on Poppy’s chin, trying to look into Poppy’s eyes. “Honey, are you high? Your pupils are big as saucers.”
“I think I busted my ankle.”
Suddenly Ann started laughing. Her laughter was music, a wave to ride. Why didn’t Ann laugh more? Poppy loved her sister when she laughed. She’d never loved Ann more than she did at that very moment. She was so tough, keeping this kid. She was in a different league.
“What’s funny?” her dad asked.
“Just look at us. One of your kids is missing, the other is a burnout, and I’m a teenage mom. Great job, you guys!”
A nurse who’d been standing in the corner tried to hide her smile. Soon they were all laughing, and for a moment Poppy felt her family was complete again even with Michael gone. It was a feeling that wouldn’t last.