I keep thinking it will take a lot to keep my pact with Freddie, but it doesn’t.
Grace disappears from my life like the most careful burglar, leaving not even the whisper of a fingerprint behind and stealing only parts of me I can feel and not see. I feel the impact of her absence during every lull in conversation and in the quiet morning hours when I ride my paper route. It’s only been a week since the party, but already it feels like months.
As Hattie and I hike up the stairs to our mom’s apartment, she stops on the landing, a little out of breath.
“Shit,” she says. “My feet are killing me.”
I glance down and can see that her ankles are chubbier than normal, straining against her strappy sandals. “Too many hours on your feet.”
She inhales before exhaling through her nose and starting back up the stairs.
“You’re telling her tonight, right?”
“Get off my dick about it.” And then a second later, she adds, “And yes. I’m telling her. As if it’s any of your business.”
In the last few weeks, Hattie’s body has really begun to show the evidence of her pregnancy. Last Tuesday I found her crying in the bathroom. She stood in front of the mirror in a neon-green bra and her favorite denim shorts, her hair dripping wet. Her little stomach had popped out recently, making it impossible for her to button her shorts.
“At least you don’t have to deal with your period right now,” I said, trying to comfort her.
That just made her cry harder, which made no sense to me because our periods were always one step below a crime scene. (Thanks, Mom.)
Unsure what else to do, I snuck into her room, where Tyler was still sleeping, and retrieved a pair of gym shorts for her to change into.
Hattie would never say so out loud, but when things like that happen, I wonder if she wishes she could go back and make this decision over again. I would have understood, and no matter what Dad believes, he would have left the choice to Hattie. He said as much when she told him she was pregnant. But Hattie was insistent that she was keeping this baby. Even if she had wanted an abortion, we only have one clinic in the whole state and it’s all the way up in Jackson. Plus it’s a lot of money up-front. So I guess the logistics of that decision wouldn’t have been all that simple either.
Upstairs, our mom’s door is cracked open, smoke curling out the top.
“Mom?” Hattie calls as we let ourselves in.
“I burned the casserole,” she yells from behind a wall of smoke. “Don’t worry! I already ordered Chinese!”
Hattie coughs into the crook of her arm as I run around opening every window that isn’t broken.
“Y’all wanna eat down by the pool?” Mom asks.
I turn to Hattie, who I know is annoyed that she just walked all the way up here for nothing.
I shrug. “Yeah. Okay.”
Mom grabs a twenty from her purse and tucks her scraggly old cat, Wilson, under her arm. The three of us sit on the steps, waiting for the delivery guy.
When he finally arrives, we stake out one of the rusting patio tables. The pool is a cloudy, unusual shade of blue and the tiles trimming the edge are cracked and faded, like the rest of the property. Wilson sniffs around but stays within a few feet of our voices.
“Oh shoot,” Mom says. “I forgot plates. Y’all mind eating out of cartons?”
Neither of us answers, but just reach for the plastic silverware in the bottom of the bag. Wilson lies out on the concrete beside us, catching any bugs that dare buzz too close to his paws.
It’s business as usual as Mom drones on about the casino and all her friends there as if we know them. Hattie and I pass the orange chicken and beef and broccoli back and forth between mouthfuls of fried rice. At least the food is better than usual.
“Ramona’s been swimming at the Y a few times a week,” says Hattie, practically sacrificing me on the conversational altar. “She’s getting real good.”
I fidget in my seat. “It’s something to do.” But I’m scared it might be more than that. I can feel my body getting stronger with each workout, and though I still can’t beat Freddie, he beats me by a little less every time.
“Well, girl, if you’re just looking for something to do, I can think of a million better ways to spend your time.” She smacks at my arms. “You don’t want to get too muscular either. Ladies weren’t built for that type of look.”
“I wouldn’t call Ramona a lady.” Hattie snickers.
I shrug off both of their comments and opt to keep the peace. “I go with my friend Freddie. He used to come round here every summer when we were little with his grandma, Agnes. They live in Eulogy now. A few blocks north of the train tracks.”
Mom slaps her knee. “I remember those two. I swear you and Freddie were the cutest little pair I’d ever seen.”
I purposely shovel too many pieces of orange chicken into my mouth, leaving myself unable to respond.
My mom puts her carton of shrimp lo mein down on the table. “So are you two . . . ya know, seeing each other?”
I swallow a bite. “Mom,” I say, my voice low.
“What?” she asks. “He was a fine young boy. And I’m not one of those people who thinks people shouldn’t mix. Like, racially speaking.”
I shake my head. I can’t find one bit of sympathy in my heart for her. “Do you even know how racist you sound? And it’s not like I’m kissing girls just because the right boy hasn’t come along to turn me straight.”
“That’s politically correct nonsense. Anyway, you can’t blame me,” Mom says as she lights a cigarette. “I want to see you get married. I need grandbabies.”
Of course she does, because taking care of her own babies was such a breeze. “Well, I’m pretty sure Hattie’s got you covered there,” I say under my breath.
The air goes still for a moment before Hattie throws the rest of the beef and broccoli in my lap. “I can’t believe you!”
Okay. I deserved that.
“What’s she trying to say, Hattie Leroux?” demands Mom. “You tell me right this instant.”
Hattie reaches over and takes the cigarette from between Mom’s fingers and tosses it in the pool. “I’m fucking knocked up, okay?”
Mom claps her hands over her mouth. “Well, this is a little earlier than I expected! My baby’s gonna be a mama!”
And once this baby comes into the world, Hattie will always be a mom first and not my sister. I stand up, shaking the food out of my lap. Wilson is quick to collect the scraps.
Mom scoots in closer to Hattie. “Baby. I’ve been there. I understand what you’re going though. Is Tyler the daddy? I was wondering what he was sticking around for.”
And this, I think, is why Hattie really didn’t want to tell Mom. Not because Mom would be angry, but because it would make her just another girl who was too stupid and too young. Just like Mom.
“You are keeping it, right?” Mom asks.
“Yes, ma’am.” Hattie nods, not looking away from Mom’s hand on her wrist.
The way she answers makes me feel guilty for the decision I know I would’ve made.
We spend the rest of the evening lying on plastic lawn chairs while Mom relives each of our births and tells us all about how temperamental we were as babies. I have the baby pictures to prove that she was there when we were in diapers, but I can’t imagine her doing anything but leaving. Whenever I try to imagine Mom when we were kids, all that’s there in my head is a shutting door.
After Tyler comes to pick us up, Hattie gives me dagger eyes the whole way home in the rearview mirror.
She tells him about the big reveal, and he shrugs. “She would have found out eventually, right? Doesn’t really matter who told her or how.”
Tyler glances up to me in the rearview mirror, and I realize that if he’s taking my side, I might be even more in the wrong than I’d imagined.
“I wish you would’ve been there,” Hattie tells him.
“Wouldn’t want to interfere with lady time.”
When I can’t sleep that night, I settle in on the couch to watch TV, but all that’s on is paid programming.
The woman on the screen is trying to explain how horrible it is to cut a tomato with a regular knife. She tries all these different knives and sighs dramatically, but only makes a bloody disaster on her cutting board.
“I’m still mad at you,” says Hattie from behind me. “But I am sweating my ass off back there in that room. Scoot over.”
I do as she says. “I’m so sorry,” I tell her.
She pulls my head into her lap. “That chlorine is turning your hair green.”
“I thought it looked different.”
“We’ll dye it this weekend.” She scratches my scalp with her acrylic nail and splays out each section of my hair so that it looks like I’ve been electrocuted. “It’s okay. If it had been up to me, I would have told her on my way to the hospital.”
“She didn’t seem upset or disappointed at all really.”
“I knew she wouldn’t be,” says Hattie.
“Hey.” I turn my head to face her. “How did you know you wanted to . . .”
“Keep it?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I mean, you’re going to be responsible for a whole other human being.”
She laughs. “I don’t know. I guess I thought that maybe this baby could be the start of something new. For so long, our family has been built around Mom and Dad and their past and a storm we can barely remember. But I just figured that maybe this baby could be about our future and what we want our family to look like. I mean, it sucks that we don’t have family dinners or birthday parties. And I kind of want that for me and this baby and Tyler. Don’t you want something like that for yourself too?”
I smile with my lips pressed together.
Tyler is about as permanent as an afternoon thunderstorm. Hattie will see that soon enough. And maybe it’s going to take Hattie a while to figure out that this baby is about more than playing house, but if there’s one thing I don’t doubt, it’s my sister’s ability to love. Love isn’t all you need, but it’s a start, I guess.