All the Pieces of You
-Sodapop-
It started with those nosebleeds. I'll have you know, those nosebleeds scared the hell out of me after a while. Brooklyn always shrugged them off, though. She said it was nothing.
Well, it was something. I just didn't know what. Then that day she fainted in the yard, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. I barely caught her before she hit the ground. I wasn't as fast as I used to be with my new leg. I was still getting used to it, after all that time.
Brooklyn always got up earlier than I did. All I had to do was shower and shave my face. She got up an earlier before I did so she would have time to do her hair and put on her makeup. But after she fainted, I tried to get up when she did, because I was scared it might happen again.
Never mind that she would kiss me and try to tell me to stay in bed and rest. I'm glad I decided to do that, because just four days after she fainted, she threw up one morning.
While Brooklyn was getting ready, I went into the kitchen to make her some breakfast. She had been picking at her food for weeks, and she looked pale even though it was summertime. I reckon she thought I didn't notice, but I did. Brooklyn rounded the corner into the kitchen and then froze.
Her eyes got real wide and her cheeks turned kind of green. She covered her mouth with her hand and ran back to the bathroom. I left the bacon on the stove and followed after her, because I was even more worried now. Brooklyn didn't shut the door behind her, so I came in and helped her hold her hair back while she was sick.
I sat next to her on the edge of the bathtub. She threw up a lot. When she was finally done, she rested her head on my legs, her eyes closed. I put my hand on her forehead, but she didn't feel hot.
"Brookie," I started to tell her, "I know you've been sayin' you're okay, but I'm starting to get real worried and—"
She cut me off. She didn't open her eyes, and in a quiet little whisper she said, "Soda, I'm pregnant."
I thought my heart stopped for a second. Brooklyn still hadn't opened her eyes, but she did sigh. She looked awful tired.
"What?" I said dumbly.
"Do you need to clean your ears out, boy?" She asked, a little smirk on her lips. Brooklyn never did pass up a chance to be sassy, even if she did feel awful. "You heard me."
"You really are?" She rolled her head into my lap so that her head was upside down as she opened her eyes to look at me.
"I mean, I haven't been to a doctor or anything. But, yeah, I'm pretty sure." I didn't realize I had been smiling real big until Brooklyn tried to smile back. But she didn't smile for long before her face started turning green again.
"I think whatever's on the stove is burning."
"Oh, dammit." I rushed back to the kitchen while Brooklyn threw up again. She was right, the bacon was entirely black on one side. There was enough smoke built up in the kitchen that I had to open a window.
By that time Brooklyn had come back into the kitchen. Her face was still pale, but at least it didn't look like she was going to be sick again. "I think I'm done with that for the morning. Or at least I hope so, 'cause I already brushed my teeth."
"Are you sure you wanna go to work?" I asked Brooklyn, turning the stove off before I walked to her. I pulled her close to me so I could hug her. She laid her head on my chest and closed her eyes.
"All I do is sit at a desk and type and file paperwork. I'll be fine. Besides, we'll need the money later anyway." She was right about that. Still, I had her drink some water and she ate a few bites of plain toast. That brought some of the color back into her cheeks.
Once she had put on her makeup, you couldn't even tell that she had spent most of the morning throwing up. I kissed her as we walked out the front door together.
"You know I'm happy about this, right? Really happy." I was. It was a surprise, but definitely a good one. A great one. Brooklyn smiled a soft kind of smile.
"I knew you would be." I got the feeling that she wasn't as excited as I was. But we had to get to work, so there wasn't any time to ask her. I was glad it was Thursday, though. Brooklyn didn't work on Fridays or weekends, so if she was sick again at least she would have a few days to rest.
Since Steve was gone, I worked with whoever else was on shift. I was still the only full-time day worker at the DX, just like I was before the war. That day I worked with a kid named Gage. He was no Steve when it came to servicing the cars, but he got the job done. Eventually.
"You're more smiley than usual today," Gage said when he came in to work. The kid had a habit of being five minutes late. I had tried to convince Ponyboy to work at the DX with me for the summer, but he never did much care about the inside of the cars. Pony just liked how a tuff car looked on the outside. He was happier working at the library, and I knew that, but I wanted someone besides Gage to talk to. Especially on that day.
"It's a great day to be alive, Gage." That made him roll his eyes. I didn't pay him much mind, even when he walked by and turned the radio down some. The kid hated Elvis, which is one of the reasons I always turned the radio up when an Elvis song came on. The other reason was because I loved Elvis.
"That war made y'all crazy," he grumbled. Gage had a cousin who had served in Vietnam, too. His cousin got an early discharge like I did, but not because he got hurt. Gage's cousin snapped. He couldn't take the war.
Gage was from the Greaser side of town. I couldn't blame him too much for how he looked at life. Still, I tossed a Hershey bar from the counter at him. "Perk up, kid. It's gonna be another hot day. Better eat that before it melts."
The day went by fast, even with Gage's usual grumbling and complaining. It seemed like no time had passed at all before I was clocking out and handing to register keys to Tom, one the night guys.
"That wife of yours must be something else," Tom teased when he saw how excited I was to go home. "Just wait until marriage becomes nagging all the time."
"As long as it's Brooklyn doing the naggin', I don't think I'll mind too much," I told him. Tom just shook his head at me.
When I picked Brooklyn up from work, she seemed a little bit happier.
"I did the math," she told me, "And if I'm right, then it's six weeks. A month and a half, just about."
She didn't say it, but I knew she was talking about the baby. A month and a half. "I mean, a doctor will have to check, but I'm pretty sure. And I did eat lunch, I know you're gonna ask. I felt better after a few hours at work."
"Are you gonna tell your aunt?" I asked as we drove home. I always drove one-handed, so I could hold Brooklyn's hand with the other. I felt her hand move as she shrugged.
"Well, yeah, I guess. She's the only person I can really ask about stuff, huh?" If you didn't count Sandy, who was shipped off at sixteen to have her baby in Florida, Brookie was the first of her friends to have a baby. With both of our moms being gone, Brookie really didn't have anyone but her aunt to help her.
"Are you more excited now?" I peeked at her to see her cheeks turn red when she blushed.
"It helps that you're excited," she said softly. "Ponyboy is gonna gloat, by the way. He read that nosebleeds can be a symptom of pregnancy in that old medicine book your parents had. You know how he likes to be right."
"It does bring some joy to his life," I agreed. I opened Brooklyn's car door for her when we got home, and then the front door when we got up to the house.
We had a routine of sitting on the back porch after supper, to cool off. The days were still awful hot until the sun went down. Me and Brookie, we would watch the stars come out. She would tell me real constellations while I made up my own.
Brookie laid her head on my shoulder as we sat out there. She pulled my hand over and put it on her belly, which for now was still flat. "You don't think I'll mess it up, do you?"
So that's what was bothering her. I kissed the top of her head.
"There's no way," I whispered back to her. "No way at all. I promise."
I felt her hot tears drop onto my shoulder where her head rested. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her tight against me.
"So how long do we have to come up with names?" That made her laugh a little.
"Seven and a half months, if I counted right at work." I could tell she was still crying by the way her voice came out, so I kept holding her. "You only need one name. It's gonna be a girl, I already decided. I'm leaving the naming up to you."
She already decided. I hoped for her sake that her deciding worked. She was scared enough already. I wasn't sure how she would take it if we had a boy, especially a boy with ice-blue eyes and white-blond hair like her brother's.
And if we did have a girl, I hoped she wouldn't have the red hair and blue eyes Brooklyn's aunt Dolly had. I had seen pictured of Brooklyn's mom. I knew that Dolly and her sister had looked like twins, even if Dolly was younger. Brooklyn had gotten some of that herself, with her strawberry blonde hair and blue-green eyes.
A girl. No blue eyes. No red hair. With any luck, maybe the baby would look like the Curtis side of the family and we could avoid that entirely.
"So, can I name the baby after me?" Brooklyn blew her breath.
"I'll take this job away from you," she threatened.
"Yes, ma'am," I told her with a laugh. "But just remember that my dad named me Sodapop and my brother Ponyboy."
"I don't care if her name is unusual, you just can't name her after yourself."
"See, you're already bossy. You'll make a good mom."