Heart Like Mine: A Novel

Kelli tried not to be worried about how dizzy she felt. She didn’t want Ava—who’d noticed it that morning—to worry, either. As it was, Kelli put her daughter through too much. She knew she relied on Ava to do the things Kelli should have been doing herself—paying the bills, cleaning the house, making sure Max brushed his teeth and didn’t wear the same pair of boxers two days in a row. She’d been such a good mother when Victor was still with them. She knew she’d taken excellent care of her children then, but now she felt scattered and loose. God, she loved them. She needed to get help.

After dropping them at school, she drove home, blinking rapidly to clear her vision. She was shaky and nauseous and wondered if she should go straight to her doctor’s office. What would she say, exactly? That she was heartsick? That every time she thought about Rebecca, her body rebelled and wouldn’t allow her to eat? Seeing Ava about to enter high school had started to bring everything back. She was terrified that her daughter would make the same mistakes she had, but she didn’t know how to talk with Ava about it without telling her the truth about what she’d done. When she did manage to sleep, she dreamed of her lost child. Her thin cries, the gaping, empty wound she’d left in Kelli’s body. She dreamed of the pain, but also of her first daughter’s kicks inside her, of the potential life that God had simply erased.

As she pulled into her driveway, her phone rang. “Hey, Diane,” she said, trying to sound normal.

“Hey! Are we on for eleven?” It was their ritual, coffee and gossip at the kitchen table on the days Kelli didn’t have to work the lunch shift.

“I don’t know . . . I didn’t sleep last night.”

“Again? Honey, get thee to the doctor. I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Kelli said, unable to keep the exhaustion she felt from the words.

“Um, I’m pretty sure you’re not.” Diane paused. “Are you eating?”

Kelli was silent, and her friend sighed. “What’s going on with you? Is it Victor’s engagement?”

Kelli hesitated, wondering how to put all her jumbled feelings into words. “I’m just . . . sad.” Her voice finally broke. “I can’t stop thinking about Rebecca,” she whispered.

“Oh, sweetie,” Diane said. “Have you thought any more about hiring a private investigator?” Her friend had been the one to suggest that Kelli try to find the doctor who delivered her daughter. She said that if Kelli found out the details of exactly what happened that day, she might be able to finally move on.

“I can’t afford it,” Kelli answered with a heaving breath. “And what if it doesn’t make a difference? What if I’m just always going to be . . . broken?”

“You’re not broken, Kelli. You’ve suffered through some seriously painful circumstances in your life. You’ve lost a lot. But you also have two gorgeous children who need you. I know it’s hard, but maybe you can try to stop focusing so much on the past and look at what’s right in front of you.”

Kelli was quiet a moment, sniffling back her tears. “Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll try. But I think for now, the best I can do is sleep for a while. Can I take a rain check on coffee?”

“Yes. I’ll come check on you later. But if you don’t make an appointment with your doctor next week, I’m going to drag you there again. And that’s not just a threat, it’s a promise.”

Kelli laughed, grateful for the support of her friend, one of the very few people she’d told about losing Rebecca. They hung up and Kelli made her way into the house, forgetting to lock the front door behind her. She stumbled her way to the bedroom, past the kitchen, where she glanced at the toast she’d made for Ava, thinking that maybe she should try to eat it herself, but even the thought of taking a bite made her stomach roil, so she continued down the hall.

Once safely ensconced in her bedroom, Kelli stripped down to her bra and underwear, amazed that even with all the weight she’d lost, her chest size hadn’t diminished. She remembered how Jason first touched her there . . . how enamored she’d been with the thought that he might love her. Tears flooded her eyes again as she thought back to the girl she’d been, so naïve, so alone.

Spurred by this memory, Kelli made her way into her closet and dug behind a stack of boxes, pulling out the two things—other than clothes—that she had taken with her when she left her parents’ house: a photo album, which she’d taken from her mother’s dresser, and her freshman yearbook, which her mother had given her even though Kelli had been at New Pathways when it came out.

Now she ran her hands over both of them, thinking it was finally time for Max and Ava to see a little of who she was growing up. Maybe then Kelli could work up the courage to tell them the truth about what happened between she and her parents, why they still wanted nothing to do with her.

Climbing into her bed, Kelli closed her eyes for a few minutes, feeling waves of exhaustion swelling throughout her body. She didn’t know if a doctor would be able to help her. But Diane was right—her children needed her. Something had to change.

She forced herself to flip through the pages of the album. She saw the misery behind her blue eyes. She saw a child trying to appear happy when inside, she was slowly withering away. Her parents appeared even older than she remembered them, and she imagined them now, in their late seventies, frail and cold. She wondered if they were as miserable without her as she had been without them. Family was family, after all. She didn’t understand how they could simply erase her from their life, because no matter how hard she had tried to let go of them, they popped up in her mind at the most unexpected moments—while she washed the dishes or served a man at the restaurant who was wearing a bow tie like her father’s.

Her heart fluttered unevenly as she shut the album and turned the pages of her yearbook. How young everyone was, how inexperienced. Looking at her own picture, she couldn’t fathom that that child had climbed into Jason’s truck and let him do the things she’d allowed him to do. How desperate she’d been for love. She wondered if Ava ever felt that way and again, Kelli knew she needed to step up and start being the kind of mother Ava could be proud of.

But first, Kelli thought, I need to sleep. She closed the yearbook and set it next to her on the bed, thinking she might show the kids that one first. She took the album, got up, and tucked it onto the shelf next to the ones of Max and Ava, knowing it might take her a bit longer to let them see their grandparents and explain why the pictures of her just stopped at fourteen.

There was a painful, sudden buzzing in her head, and the room began to spin around her. She threw an arm out to grasp the edge of the bookcase so she wouldn’t fall over. Staggering back to her bed, she opened the bottle that she kept in the nightstand drawer and popped the remaining three pills in her mouth. The doctor had told her they would reduce her anxiety and insomnia, and Kelli figured that since she had an abundance of both of those things, taking more than the prescribed dose was okay, just as long as the kids weren’t around when she did it. She’d sleep the day away, waking in time to pick them up from school. She set her alarm, just to be sure. Max didn’t have basketball that night and Ava usually wanted to stay home on the Fridays before she went to her dad’s house. They’d put on some music, make homemade pizza together, and later, watch a movie. Kelli would tuck her children in, telling them just how much she loved them, how everything would be just fine.

Kelli pulled the blue comforter up to her neck, snuggling into its warmth, letting the drugs course through her system and gradually calm her mind. Her parents had told her she simply needed to begin again. And so, with that thought, with the hope that she could find the strength to shape her life into whatever she wanted it to be, Kelli closed her eyes and waited for sleep to finally come.