Page 147 of The Book of Summer

“You know what?” Evan says, and stands. “Why don’t I leave you two alone?”

“If you want to be useful, do me a huge favor and fetch Bess’s dad from the airport. She was supposed to, but…”

Cissy gestures dismissively toward the inconvenience that is her debilitated daughter.

“Cissy!” Bess barks. “Good grief. The guy has a life. I’m sure he has things to do!”

With Grace. Or Jack. Or both of them together.

“No, it’s fine,” Evan says. “I was already planning on it.”

Evan kisses Bess on the head, his favorite move these days. It’s sweet and egregiously friend-like—just how he prefers it, no doubt. Cissy opens her mouth to say something but Bess shoots her a look. Amazingly, Cissy backs down.

“I’ll check in with you later,” Evan says, slipping into his shoes. “See how you’re doing. Bye, Cis, take care of our girl.”

The second Evan exits the room, Cissy plunks herself down onto Bess’s bed and begins to weep.

“Mother, you can’t…”

“How come you didn’t tell me?” she asks, voice quavering. “That you were pregnant? Bessie, I would’ve helped you in whatever way you needed.”

“You couldn’t help me out of this.”

“But I can’t imagine why you’d hide it from your—”

“I wasn’t going to keep the baby,” Bess spits out.

Cissy’s face goes ashen, even as she clamps down on her bottom lip, trying to bite back the words she wants to say. Caroline Codman is a registered Democrat, politically obligated to be okay with this sort of thing.

“But, you changed your mind,” she says, hoping.

“Not technically. I had an appointment that I missed. I kept telling myself I’d reschedule but I probably wouldn’t have, to be honest. As it turns out, I very much want what I thought I did not.”

As this strange, hard truth bludgeons her, Bess joins Cissy in her tears. Maybe the Vicodin isn’t working after all.

“Oh, Bessie…”

“I’m so angry,” she says. “On the one hand, I can’t believe this happened. Then I think, of course it happened! The universe was like, What’s that you say? You don’t want to be a mom? Okay. Done.”

“Elisabeth!” Cissy spanks her hand. “You can’t talk like that. Miscarriages happen. Most of them are entirely random and not anyone’s fault. Why am I telling you this? You’re the one who went to medical school! Just think of what you learned!”

“Okay, great. I’ll use the warm fuzzies of science to get me through this.”

“It must be so painful,” Cissy says. “But you’re not alone. Your grandmother had multiple miscarriages over the years.”

“She did?” Bess says, even as she remembers an entry in the book.

A woman should never talk about dead babies in polite company but it is so very hard to forget them.

“Actually, now that you mention it…”

“The losses hurt, but they also shaped her,” Cissy says. “Ruby taught me to tie my shoes at age two. By four I was cooking dinner and shoveling snow. At eight I had a budget. FYI, it’s pretty embarrassing to pay your own babysitter and tennis instructor, especially when you’re not that great at math.”

Bess snickers and scoots into an upright position. The story is sad but she craves more. Her connection to Grandma Ruby is strong once more.

“My mother taught me to take care of myself,” Cissy continues. “In her mind, she wasn’t the best shepherd of young things, given the losses. It’s not the most logical thought, but motherhood is more heart than logic anyhow.”

“Poor Grandma. I figured she stopped at one kid because you were too much to handle.”