Once word of the official meeting was leaked, none of the details were hard to come by. One of my more fanatical critics had rented out the Green Hill Firehouse for the meeting, and since there wasn’t anything technically illegal about the protest, the powers that be at the firehouse couldn’t stop it from happening. Or maybe they didn’t want to stop it in the first place, since they very well might have been at home painting their own anti-Mina signs and T-shirts.
And as it turned out, when word spread and the media picked up on the event, I didn’t have to do much to rally my supporters. They were outraged enough as it was, and once a leader seemed to emerge, the voice of Team Mina—a feisty fiftysomething woman named Stella from Philly with a background in social advocacy—it was clear that they would be coming to the meeting, too.
“We’re going to be there for you, Mina,” Stella had said to me on the phone a few days after the shower. “Don’t you worry about that for a minute.” I’d reached out to her after she’d first spoken up online about the protest. I was thankful, but even more, I was curious. Curious about how a stranger could care this much about my cause, about protecting me from “injustice.”
“It’s not right what those people are doing to you, and it’s about time they realize how far they’ve overstepped.” She’d paused then and took a deep breath that I could hear rattle against the phone. “Look, Mina, truthfully, I’m not sure what I believe about all this, but that part doesn’t matter to me. I believe in your right to privacy. And there are plenty of people who do believe you. Good and honest people who have more faith in this world than I may have. But I have faith in the fact that it’s the right thing to do, standing up for you. Faith is all different things to all different people. Faith is trust. And I feel the trust in my bones, Mina. You can’t always explain feelings like this. You just do. You just act.”
I’d hung up feeling stronger than ever. But more nervous than ever, too.
I couldn’t let Stella down. I couldn’t let any of these people down.
The big day—Saturday, February 16—arrived sooner than I would have liked, but time was moving strangely in general, too fast and too slow all at once. I was officially full-term, just three weeks left before March 7, though really it could happen at any time now—a crazy idea that made my heart race and my palms sweat every time I thought about it. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was ready for the baby to be out, ready to have my body back, ready to not feel so tired and achy and stretched to the absolute limit. But I was also not ready at all—not ready to put my mothering skills to the test, not ready to see how the media would react once there was an actual child, breathing, crying, laughing. Existing.
We had decided not to go anywhere near the firehouse, of course, but the local news and possibly even national outlets would be covering the event and airing it live, so we wouldn’t miss any of the action. Two police officers were stationed in a car in our driveway, just in case any stragglers made a pit stop here on their way to the main event. I still couldn’t really comprehend the purpose of physically meeting—why the online forum wasn’t enough of a space to bash me. What more was there to say? Why could they not just move on and get back to the business of living their own lives? The time and the effort they funneled into this, it never ceased to amaze and horrify me—their single-minded, long-term dedication to this cause.
Hannah and Izzy, Jesse, my parents, were all there in the living room with me, hunched in front of the TV, waiting for any news updates to come in. Gracie was staying over at Aunt Vera’s and was strictly forbidden from following any of the coverage. My parents had thought it would be too much for her, and they had stuck to their decision, no matter how many times she had begged them to change their minds. As much as I wanted her calming presence, my parents were right. She’d already grown up too fast in the last six months.
I was glad Jesse had come, though. He hadn’t set foot inside of our house since first showing us the footage, though he still insisted on driving me to and from school. He sat with us at lunch, too, but his mind seemed to spend most of the period somewhere else entirely, that distracted, distant look back in his eyes. In the tense moments we found ourselves alone together, in the car or between classes, I had made a few awkward attempts to apologize for New Year’s. But he always cut me off, changed the subject, or cranked the stereo louder. I gave up then on trying for forgiveness. I didn’t deserve it, for one, and maybe it was easier for him to hold on to his grudge. Maybe it was helping both of us to let go gradually, to make the inevitable ending less abrupt.
Because the truth was, once the baby was born—once things settled down and my world felt at least a little bit safer again—his obligation as my guardian could end, any promise to Iris more than fulfilled. He would go off to college, and I’d still be here, in Green Hill. Jesse didn’t owe me anything. He certainly wasn’t duty bound to me for life.
But he was here today, and I was thankful for that much.
At exactly noon the live coverage started, and my stomach burned at the image on the screen: hundreds of people squeezed into the firehouse, and from what I could see, bursting out the door and into the parking lot. I could only hope that some of them at least were Stella’s supporters, because the thought that every single one of those people on the screen was against me—it was inconceivable. T-shirts, banners, posters with my name on it, bright and bold, were broadcasting their messages of hate and anger. I could hear chants, too, rippling under the loud hum of voices echoing in the large, brick-lined hall. I had read hundreds, maybe thousands of messages online, but none of that had prepared me for this—a living, breathing mass of people, actual faces to go with the names, the slurs, the threats. My enemies were no longer black-and-white words and thumbnail photos on my computer screen or hollow voices on the other end of the phone line. They were there, together and unified, just a few streets away.
“I just don’t get it.” Hannah sighed. “I don’t understand what they really want to get out of this. Like, what does yelling and bitching about you all in one room together really accomplish?”
“Unless there’s more to it than we know,” my dad said quietly. The thought gave me chills, and I leaned closer into Hannah to warm myself.
“So you think there’s an ulterior motive to meeting today?” Jesse asked, the first time he’d really spoken up all day.
“I just get the sense that there’s something bigger. Why else come all the way to Green Hill? It just doesn’t add up.” My dad frowned at the TV and reached for the remote to turn up the volume as the reporter came on-screen.
“We’re told that a speech will be starting momentarily, to be given by longtime Green Hill resident Tana Fritz.”
I sighed out loud, shaking my head in bewilderment. Another strike from the Fritzes. The petition—which must have failed, seeing as Green Hill High still hadn’t booted me—the website, now Tana, heading up a protest. Taking it upon herself to be the voice of the town, the public defender of morality and ethics. But she, like her daughter, had never once in all these months reached out to me directly—never once tried to fill in the other half of the story. Her own life must be very sad and very pathetic if she could spend so much energy trying to tear mine down.