Why am I inside an RV? That’s the first thought I have when I open my eyes. Then a shadow passes over me, and I hear Gabe say, “Marley?”

I start shivering…like, really shivering, and someone unfamiliar murmurs, “Let’s get another blanket. Move on back a little here, sir.”

I can’t figure out what’s going on—and then Gabe’s hands shift around mine, and it hits me like a clap of thunder.

Mom.

I suck a big breath back, and someone—someone female—says, “You’re okay, ma’am. We’re just riding to the hospital.”

“We are? Why?”

Gabe’s face tightens as he says, “You fainted.”

“Sometimes passing out can happen when there’s high emotions,” someone says, and I crane my neck till I see a woman in a blue—an EMT, I realize.

“Am I in an ambulance? It looks like an RV.”

Suddenly I see my brother on the porch at Fendall House.

“Marley. You need to sit down.”

I did.

“Mom’s dead. Your friend Kat found her.”

It’s suck a shock—even now—it makes me gag, and then I’m getting sick. The EMT holds a bag to my mouth. I feel Gabe’s hands on my shoulders, and they make me feel good until I remember what he said down by the lake.

After I get sick, I shut my eyes and Gabe takes my hand, and I want to cry but don’t feel sad enough, which doesn’t make good sense because my mom is dead. Surely I should be sad.

Then we’re getting out of the ambulance, and Gabe is walking by me with his worried face and wide, serious eyes.

I feel like I’ve had a Xanax, which is unnerving, because I haven’t. Zach offered me one, but I told him “no” because I might be pregnant.

Oh my God. I fainted. And I just threw up.

I’m crying now—because what if I am pregnant—and Gabe is holding my hand as I’m settled in a curtained area, and then a nurse is there asking me questions. I can’t answer them, because I can’t stop crying. Finally, she asks me once more what happened, and I swallow and wail, “I think I’m pregnant.”

Mom is dead. And I’m pregnant.

The nurse draws blood and Gabe is in the corner, in a plastic chair, and this is so surreal. How can this be real life? My mother fell and hit her head and now she’s gone.

The nurse leaves, and Gabe scoots closer. He takes my hand and, with his lips pressed in a tight line, he says, “I’m so sorry, Marley.”

“Thank you.”

I don’t want to talk to him, but it seems pragmatic not to send him away yet. He might want to know about the blood test.

“How’d you end up with me?” I murmur, feeling weak.

“In the ambulance? I…uh— I told Kat we’re dating. I was quiet.”

“You lied.”

“I know,” he says softly. “I’m sorry, Marley. What I said, I didn’t even mean it.”

“I don’t want to hear about that right now.” I wipe my face and shut my eyes and turn away from him.

I think of mom’s warning about gossip, and my heart aches like it’s being ripped in half. My mom is gone—my mom who sucked, who made me feel like shit more often than not, who worked as a secretary when I was a kid and who complained about her “lot in life” eleven times a day, my mom, the most negative person I’ve met, who smelled like smoke when she would tuck me in at night. My mom died on the floor…my mom. My mom. My mother is gone. It seems impossible. An error. My mom can’t be gone. She can’t be.

My brother told me Kat had gotten a phone call from Mom, who had a question about a recipe she’d gotten from Kat. Apparently my bestie dropped by after work and, when my mother didn’t answer, used the spare key Mom gave her a few years back to get inside. Where she found Mom bleeding from the head.

I cry right now for Kat, and then I cry some more because if I’m pregnant, Mom will never know. My child will never have a grandmother. I cry because the baby probably won’t have a dad either. Why did Gabe come here with me? He doesn’t want me. I’ve worked myself into a steady sob when the door opens, and the nurse steps back in.

When I see her face, I know. I feel it in my bones, and in my soul, which seems to expand as she looks down at her clipboard.

“Well—I think we’ve got this figured out, Miss Roberts. It looks like you’re pregnant.”

My eyes fly to Gabe, finding him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as if someone just slapped him.

“You must be the father.” The nurse gives him a knowing smile.

He nods. I wipe my eyes. I feel like we’re in a movie. One I walked into the middle of. None of this feels real. This whole night… I wipe more tears from my eyes as the nurse nods and says, “The doctor will be in.”

When she’s gone, it’s only Gabe and me. Not lovers or long-time friends, but two dumb people who have chemistry. God—I’m pregnant, but I’m on the verge of losing it again, because I think I’ve made a huge mistake.

I wipe my face and blink at Gabe; from where I’m sitting, I can only see his profile.

“Well…we did it.”

He turns toward me. “Jesus. Are you okay?”

My fear and sorrow mix with anger, and I shake my head. “Why would you ask me that? It’s not a death sentence! Or is it for you?”

“No. I didn’t—”

“Go! Just go, Gabe! Send Kat—please. I need Kat.” I’m crying. I don’t have the wherewithal to be embarrassed. “I need Kat. Go get her.”

“Marley. I’m sorry. I left and I was riding to—”

“No.” I sit up, and the door bursts open. “I don’t want to talk to you,” I sob as the nurse blinks from me to Gabe. “I want Kat!”

The nurse gives Gabe a stern look. “Sir, is there a problem?”

He looks at me pleadingly. “Marley, please. If I can—”

“I said I don’t want to!”

Gabe raises his hands. “Okay. I can go. Do you want me to wait while she—”

I’m still shaking my head, so he stops talking.

“I’m sorry. I just need some space! I need a break from this.”

“We’re going to take good care of you,” the nurse says, waving Gabe toward the door. “Who do you want me to call, sweetheart?”

“My friend,” I say, wiping my eyes. I feel all of ten years old right now.

The door cracks open. “This one?” Tears stream down my face as Kat walks over and starts fussing over me.

“What’s going on, babe?” she asks gently.

I sob, “I’m an idiot.”

“Aww, Mar, no you’re—”

“I’m pregnant!”

* * *

I tell Kat the whole, sordid story, from beginning to the bitter end, pausing as I talk to my nurse, and then a doctor, quieting as we walk outside and picking up again as Kat and I get in her car. She doesn’t need to ask me where to go as I talk. She knows to make a beeline for the back-roads, those illusive dirt roads only small-towns have and only locals know.

I pour my heart out as she steers past cow pastures and over rickety wood bridges, all around the town’s outskirts, across the lake and back. Each time one of our phones ring, I pause and Kat answers. She has my brother and Lainey clear my mother’s house of mourners. She has Lainey go to Miss Shorter for an extra key, and swing by my place for a bag. And then, as if it’s nothing but a grown-up slumber party, she takes me to her house, where she plants me on her sofa with a blanket and a glass of water, and says, “Carry on, friend.”

By the time I’ve finished my story, I’ve decided Kat deserves an Olympic gold medal for Facial Control in Insane Situations. She hasn’t widened her eyes once or given any “you are crazy” looks.

“Well, Marley.” She shakes her head. “I’d say you take gold for craziest night.”

I laugh, because of course she says something almost exactly like what I’m thinking. “I love you.”

She smiles. “I love you. And Mar? You’re gonna to be okay.”

I need those words so badly, I’m crying again, and Kat is on the couch beside me. “Marley and Miss Itty Bitty.” She rubs my belly, beaming with such gladness, it makes my heart ache.

“I’m a bad mom already,” I wail, pressing my face into my hand. “Why did I ask him, Kat? What’s wrong with me? He doesn’t love me.”

“Whoa there, sister. Let’s back up a few steps.”

I grab Kat’s hands. “I’m so sorry. That you were who found Mama.”

We’re both crying again as Lainey walks in, and so of course, she’s crying, too. We’re hugging on the couch, all three of us, and there’s so much estrogen in the room, I think I see it sparkling in the air.

“I can’t believe Mom’s gone.”

I wipe my eyes. “I can’t believe I did this. He just doesn’t want me like I want him,” I say, wiping my eyes with a tissue. “He doesn’t want me. I was dumb to think we could just do the baby-making part.”

Kat and Lainey handle me like champions, like Marley experts—which they are. They let me cry, and say whatever I need: that he’s hot and they get why I hopped in bed with him; that he’s nothing special, I can find somebody else; that it might work out in the end. Kat says he had wet eyes when she passed him in the hall. Lainey says she thinks he’ll be knocking on my door tomorrow. They both swear their loyalty as my kid’s aunts.

“And all you need in life is awesome aunties. Everybody knows that,” Kat says, smiling proudly.

“I want him or her to have a grandma.”

My breakdown goes on until just after one, when I can’t hold my head up anymore. Kat leads me to her bed and covers me with blankets. She turns on a box fan, puts a cup of water by my bed, and grabs one of her soft, insulated tailgate coolers. “Just in case you need a barf bag.”

I wipe my aching eyes, smiling a little, maybe out of pure delirium. “I could just walk to the bathroom,” I say hoarsely.

“No you can’t. No walking. You’re my pet project tonight, Marley Marie. I’m going to take good care of you.”

And I sob over that, because only Mom and Kat have ever called me Marley Marie. And Mama’s gone. She was here with my new baby for maybe a few brief days.

I hug a pillow to my chest and drift off, crying still, thinking of how brief and fragile life is—and how many things can heal or hurt a heart.