Cora’s Boy

by Sophie Gould

Cora was something of a meek girl. She didn't own a single skirt that cut below the knee, found a reason to apologize profusely to strangers on a daily basis, and was overly forbearing towards the relentless high school janitor who muddied her every hour with ungentlemanly leering. After meeting Levi, however, Cora drowned such tendencies in a place so deep that even she could never find it again. Levi presented himself as a boy who needed fixing. He'd lean against Cora's locker, green eyes shining, speaking with a Southern drawl that made every word he uttered drip with self indulgence and splendor. Cora thought she might influence him, and if she influenced him, accepting a kiss here and there meant only that she was doing her job. ("A pure, good, woman could mend even the worst of men," her father used to say.) Mere weeks after the two met, Cora found herself having willingly accepted much more than a kiss, and Levi was broken once more—ready to be repaired by another girl. He'd left Cora in the dust, but not without consequence. She awoke one morning, peeled off her pale blue sheets and tucked them firmly into her bed, trying to ignore the stain from a night of woeful decision making, and promptly passed out as she was standing back up. After a lightheaded visit to the school nurse, and the confirmation of those harrowing two pink lines, Cora passed by Levi in the hallway once again. He kept his eyes at her forehead and shoved his hands aggressively into his pockets. Cora let him walk away, and said nothing. She wasn't disposed to fall in love with weak men. 

For the next nine months, it felt as though everything outside her own body was peripheral. Cora's parents, in their disappointment and anger, banished her from Texas to her grandparents in Wyoming five months into her pregnancy. Cora’s mother didn’t want to be present for the birth. 

On April 9, 1989, Cora saw Levi again. Though this time, rather than in the cool, collected body of a boy freshly turned to man, it was in the innocent, defenseless eyes of a newborn. Her parents arranged for her to drive the child to a family two weeks later. For reasons Cora was sure she didn't want to know, the Mitchell's hadn't made it through the traditional adoption process, and were the only couple willing to take the baby without legal assistance. ("You made the mistake," she thought to herself. "You deserve this.") Pushing off her anxieties when the day finally came to make the trip, she tucked the baby into a carrier on the passenger's seat of her grandparents' beat up blue Ford, and turned the key in the ignition.

The drive from Laramie to Green River was around four hours long, and Cora had been dreading every minute since her son was born. Heating up under her three layers of insulated clothing, she rolled down the window a crack—and received a sudden, unwelcome memory of her father. "Old cars are tuned to run rich. You'd best keep the windows open while you drive them. Unless you want to breathe in a shitload of gas. Speaking of which....your mother... phew! Better keep the windows open in this house too." Despite herself, Cora began to laugh so hard her vision was blurred with tears. Sniffling her nose, she filled the silence in the car.

"The joke wasn't even that funny. It wasn't even punny. How could you be a father and not know how to make punny jokes?" 

Cora glanced toward the baby, staring back at her with an empty face, biting on his fingers. She gripped the steering wheel so tightly that tiny flecks of brown leather began to rub off and pile in her lap. 

"Not that you'd know anything about that. Your dad wasn't punny either. Didn't make me laugh at all, actually. I mean, of course I laughed, because with a face as pretty as his who wouldn't, but he didn't... make me laugh. I didn't make him laugh either, though. Cool people don't laugh, remember that for when you're old enough to be cool. He would've thought it was funny if I told him about you. He would've thought it was funny because he liked dark humor. Death humor, race humor, sex humor, political humor, suicide humor. I'm sure pregnancy humor could've been added to the list. He wouldn't have believed me. Even if he had, it still would've been just you and me today. I'm ok with that if you are." 

The baby began to cry, and Cora couldn't help but take it as a sign. A sign of what exactly, she wasn't sure. She dug around in the glove compartment and discovered the blue pacifier she'd been searching for. Ever so carefully, she placed the pacifier into her son's mouth, and ever so quickly, he spit it right back out and resumed hollering. As beads of sweat began to drip down Cora's forehead and ricochet onto the cheap vinyl lined seats, she realized that this was the first time her child was her own responsibility. Her grandmother had taken care of everything at home; she hadn’t even let Cora fill up the formula bottles for the trip. (“Cora, darling, you’re seventeen. What makes you think you’re responsible enough to feed this baby? Real mothers breastfeed, but you refused, remember Cora? You won’t even know how many bottles to pack.”)

Feeling disheartened, Cora pulled over to the side of the freeway and popped the trunk open. Bottle in hand, she returned to the front seat and strapped the baby onto her chest. After only three sips, her son was quiet once more, lips curved into a doped up smile. 

“What say you we get some fresh air?” 

The baby cooed back. 

“Good enough for me.” 

As Cora tugged on her son’s blue knit hat, she marveled at how tiny his ears were. Instinctively, she pushed the edge of her nose into his cheek and blew a raspberry lightly into his face. He responded by playfully pulling out one of Cora’s eyelashes, gurgling at his own success. As they stepped out of the car together, Cora looked up to the snow peaked mountains layered with evergreens, and back down to her son, whose tiny puffs of breath were freezing in the air. 

“I can’t believe I created you.” 

The distance between Cora and her son hung miserably in the air, only to collapse when a silver truck with mud stained wheels pulled up on the road next to them. The principal of Cora’s high school, a burly, redheaded, thickly bearded man who had a closet solely for vests, pushed open the door. 

“Cora? Is that you?” 

Cora rolled her eyes slightly. (“What does it look like?”) 

“Hi, Mr. Walker. What are you doing so far out from Texas?” 

“Oh, you know... just wanted to get away for a while I guess. I quit my job, actually, so you could call this a cross country road trip or a mid-life crisis...whichever you prefer. Gosh, the last time I saw you you looked...” 

(“Fat? Slutty? Pregnant?”) 

“...pretty different.” 

Cora nodded her head spiritlessly. 

“So, this is the little nugget, huh? Boy or girl?” 

“He’s a boy,” Cora muttered. 

“Does he have a name?”

Cora stayed silent.  

“Well, he’s gorgeous. Looks just like his fathe...”

“I know. I think so too.” 

Cora broke eye contact, holding back the tears stinging in her jaw. Mr. Walker furrowed his brow and put a big, calloused hand on her shoulder. Cora felt some of the emptiness she’d been living for so long fall away under the weight of his arm. Giving in, she cried quietly. 

“Oh, sweetheart. It’s gonna be alright, you’re not alone anymore. My wife and I were never able to have kids. I promise this is a blessing, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I promise.”

Mr. Walker paused. 

“Cora? I know I’m not your principal anymore, but I gotta ask where you’re headed with the kiddo.” 

“Oh gosh, yes,” Cora replied, wiping her face with her mitten. “I’m just taking him to another family, about an hour and a half away now. They’ll be able to take care of him better than me.” 

“Are you sure about that?” Mr. Walker asked, angling his eyes to the baby. “Cora, you put both your arms around him the moment I pulled up, and haven’t let go since.” 

Mr. Walker unzipped his jacket and pulled out a pad of paper. 

“Got a pen?” he inquired. 

Cora nodded, and dug around the glove compartment once more, reappearing with a thin Sharpie. 

Mr. Walker placed the pad on the hood of his car and scribbled down an address and number. Ripping the page off hastily, he handed the sheet to Cora with an assured smile. 

“My wife was made to be a mother. She just doesn’t have a child. If you and the nugget need somewhere to go, you’ve got it.” Giving Cora a rough pat on the back, he walked back to his car, and slammed the door shut. As he drove off, Cora remained still, utterly stunned. After a moment, she stumbled into her Ford and clicked the baby back into his seat. She continued toward Green River, driving well below the speed limit. 

The next hour of the trip was the quickest of Cora’s life. Highways that were usually clogged with traffic sped by in a flash, and Cora found herself risking a car crash just to look at her son every three minutes or so. She wasn’t yet sure what exactly she felt for the little boy. She thought that it would be possible, even easy, to hate him. Levi made her blood go cold with anger and resentment, but when it came to her own child, those emotions were softened. Cora felt her son’s presence as a shadow of her own. She liked that someone would follow her forever.  With a lump in her throat, Cora hit the brakes and squealed into a gas station eight miles out of Green River. She sat in the car, breathing heavily, until she worked up the nerve to get out and enter the ramshackle building, which had been defaced by graffiti. Cora’s go-to childhood snack, Kit Kats, were gifted to her when she had gotten through her anxiety attacks at night. She thought she deserved one for that day. With her son on her chest, she entered the store and was greeted by a line twisting around all of the nine isles. Cora was exhausted, hungry, sticky with cold sweat, and her son was sobbing yet again. Every head in the store turned towards her, and she was struck by an overwhelming sense of joy. The line was long. It would take at least forty minutes to get to the front, and in those forty minutes the whole store would know that this was her child bothering them all with incessant screaming. Her child. Hers. 

Once Cora had reached the end of the line, she picked a Kit Kat out of the candy selection at the front desk, and plopped it in front of the cashier. He looked down at the baby, exasperated. 

“That’ll be 1.50, Miss. Do you need anything else today?” 

Cora glanced behind him and saw a group of booklets hanging on the wall. 

“I’d like a U.S. map.” 

The cashier obliged, and gave her the items she’d requested. She floated out of the store, high on her own decision making, and shut the blue Ford door behind her once again. Picking at the paint that had begun to weather and peel on her side of the car, she opened the Kit Kat and crunched off a piece. After she’d finished, and licked her fingers clean, she unfolded the map and laid it comfortably on the dashboard. 

Cora centered her eyes on Texas while her son gazed back up at her lovingly. She swore he knew she was staying. 

“We’ve got a real destination now. And a lot of roads to cover. I think we ought to get going. Don’t you?” 

Because of Tommy

by Sophie Gould

As Reagan stumbled down the precariously steep stairway to her basement, she wondered what possessed her mother to put the washer and dryer down there. The room stunk of mildew, no doubt contained a toxic spore or two growing within the insulation, and the walls, painted a deep green that shrunk the space infinitely, proudly displayed hoary cobwebs in every corner. The lack of any natural light had an ability to make the inhabitant question whether they had voluntarily chosen to go down there, or if they were in fact being held against their will—the latter being a deviant game that Reagan would beg her older brother to play when she was little. ("It'll be fun! You stand at the top of the stairs, and I'll have to find another way to sneak out!") Reagan recalled that in days following that suggestion her brother took her to school early and sat her in a stiff, navy upholstered office chair while he went for a talk with the brain doctor. ("How come, Tommy? Is something wrong with your brain?") The doctor, who wore a sympathetic smile and an ill fitting pink pencil skirt, gave Reagan a guileless tap on the nose and a green apple lollipop that tasted more green than apple. ("Thanks for waiting so patiently sweetheart.") Now standing in front of the dryer, Reagan noticed a lock of her black hair stuck in the door. She always did the laundry. Tommy had worked, cooked, paid the bills, turned on the cartoons in the morning, and read the bedtime stories at night. But she did the laundry. Her mother had run out the moment Tommy was tall enough to reach the highest kitchen cabinet—Reagan didn't know what more she had expected from a woman for whom both children were unwanted, final sale gifts from not one, but two, greasy, pleather jacket-wearing drunks. Elizabeth was a Christian, so while the prospect of abortion was inconceivable, abandoning her teenager and toddler was a perfectly viable alternative in the eyes of God. Reagan pondered if she might have stayed longer had the washer and dryer been upstairs instead of in the basement. She supposed such questions didn't matter now. That morning, while Reagan was struggling to stay awake during enervating lectures on the Mayan civilization, the portly man from the front office burst through the door. 

"Reagan Anderson? Take a walk with me, honey."

She had gone with him, initially feeling some resentment at being deemed a "honey," but once she caught a glimpse of her backpack and textbooks sitting matter of factly on the nurse's table, her stomach lurched. Since when do students not pick up their own things? The nurse, who may be a sociopath for choosing the words she did, told Reagan that Tommy had made a mistake at home after she left for school. 

"What kind of mistake?"

The school informed her that the mailman had entered her home after not hearing a response to his knocking—Tommy sat outside with hot coffee for him on a regular enough basis that the silence was cause for concern—and found her brother limp on the ground in the living room.

"Your brother died from a seizure brought on by an overdose of alprazolam. I'm so sorry."

The police, Reagan came to find out, had been standing outside the other entrance to the nurse's office the entirety of their conversation, and chose that moment to place a plastic bag with his clothing inside it solemnly in her arms. "Xanax? Fucking Xanax? Tommy's killed himself off a drug that a middle aged, rich, fucking white woman is prescribed to process the reality that her husband is screwing the au pair?" Reagan started to laugh hysterically. "Who would've ever suspected that a boy who couldn't kill a roach would off himself in the most pussy way possible? I mean, you can't say we didn't see that one coming. Not the suicide I mean, the pills, is what I mean." 

The principal informed her that as she had recently turned eighteen, she was free to make whatever decisions she saw fit for her living situation—but if she wanted, he would welcome her into his own family until she felt more comfortable alone. "I'd sooner head on upstairs and meet Tommy. We've all heard the stories, you pervert." The nurse shot Reagan a critical look, to which she responded by tramping out the door. After a long pause, Reagan finally opened up the dryer and tossed in Tommy's faded Levi jeans with the broken belt loop, his white and red striped boxers, and a t-shirt with Bart Simpson sucking on a pacifier printed onto it. ("This is adulthood, I guess.") She had just turned back to the stairs, tears streaming down her face, when she heard an odd clicking noise coming from the machine. After pausing the cycle and roaming around, Reagan felt her hand connect with something, something small and round. Just as she was going to pull it out, she heard the front door slam open. She bolted upstairs to find Tommy's girlfriend, Mia, standing quietly in her kitchen. Reagan had always thought that Mia looked a little too much like her mother. Delicate nose, thin bluish lips, grey-green eyes, glossy dark hair, and a rosy glow that seemed to linger around her body even when she wasn't happy. Right then though, she couldn't help but see herself in Mia too. Reagan watched her shaking. ("God. We look exactly alike.")

"Tell me I'm wrong, Reagan," she whispered.

Reagan turned around and started towards the basement stairs. 

"Reagan. Reagan!" Mia's voice broke. "This is all your fucking fault, you know that? He spent all his time worrying about you. I told him not to take something so strong, but he was so caught up in you, Reagan are you listening to me? He was so caught up in you that he didn't take my advice. He was so caught up in making sure you were eating your goddamn vegetables and taking your fucking gummy vitamins, and you're eighteen Reagan you should know to eat your vegetables by your fucking self, do you not know that? You know we went to dinner once while you were at a party, a real nice place, and he tried to call you? Do you remember not picking up that night? The bread hadn't even come before he was convinced you were dead Reagan, and we had to leave the stupid, fucking, stupid restaurant with everyone watching us—Reagan do you even hear me?"

Mia ripped off her boots, threw them down the basement stairs, and ran after them. She stood still on the cold concrete floor and watched as Reagan removed her cupped hand from the dryer. Interlaced between her fingers was a ring. An unpretentious silver band, with three gold dots around the front and the smallest, almost invisible opal gem set in the center. Reagan dragged herself across the floor and placed the ring in Mia's trembling hand. 

"I knew he couldn't have ever done this on purpose," Reagan remarked softly. 

"He couldn't have. It would've meant he wasn't watching you anymore."

"It would've meant he wasn't asking you to marry him."

Mia leaned her nose onto Reagan's, mixing their tears together. As the two leaned against one another, Mia slipped the ring onto her left hand. 

"I guess this would've made us..." Mia trailed off. 

"Makes us," Reagan responded.