The house is quiet until my dad gets home later that evening.
I sit on the couch with my world lit homework spread out on the coffee table.
He sits down in his chair. “Your sister home?”
I nod. “She’s in my room.”
He takes off his baseball cap and drops his keys inside before placing it on the table next to my papers. He chews away the cuticle on his thumb. Dad’s fingers get so dry they chap sometimes from washing his hands in the kitchen so often. He’s no good at putting on lotion and leaving them be. “She, uh, talk to Tyler at all?”
“Oh yeah.” I balance my pencil between my fingers, tapping it on the table.
Behind us my door creaks as Hattie tiptoes out to the living room with her arms crossed over her chest. Her face is red and she’s all puffy around the eyes. She rocks back and forth on her heels, and I know her every behavior so well when she’s upset like this. I can see that she’s psyching herself up to talk without crying all over again. “Tyler left,” she finally says. “He’s not coming back.”
My dad first glances to me for a moment, and I can see the fleeting relief in his eyes before he turns to Hattie and says, “I’m so sorry to hear that, baby.”
I bite my tongue and say nothing at all.
She goes back to my room and when the door shuts behind her, the two of us exchange illicit half smiles.
And yet part of me is a little sad. If Tyler won’t be here to take care of her, then who will?
Hattie stays home from work on Sunday and Monday. I can’t tell if she’s using the baby as an excuse or if she’s actually sick, but either way, she’s in no rush to make up her shifts like she normally does.
When I see Freddie at school on Monday, my entire body buzzes, and every time I close my eyes it’s memories of Saturday morning that I see.
We walk our bikes home and after school he kisses me behind the Phillips 66 on the corner of Lancaster and Bell. It’s as exciting as always, but comforting in a way I never expected. We don’t say we love each other, and it’s something I appreciate. It’s not a phrase I want to wear out.
On Tuesday, after my paper route, I go to the Y with Agnes and Freddie. It’s been only a few days since we last swam laps and it’s not one of our usual pool days, but my body is hungry for it. Most of all, though, my head needs the space to digest the last few days.
After changing, I shove my bag into my locker and take my goggles and swim cap with me to the pool.
I dive in—an exercise that is finally becoming more dive and less belly flop—and find my rhythm even quicker than normal. For a while I swim butterfly, which is the stroke I’ve had the hardest time mastering.
At the pool, after Agnes and Freddie are done, I’ve been hanging back to watch the other swimmers and see if I can pick up any techniques to try on my own. The workouts are starting to feel too short, like by the time we’re done, I’m only getting started.
There’s something about propelling myself through the water that makes me feel limitless, like maybe Prudence Whitmire and her offer to get me on the Delgado Community College swim team aren’t so ridiculous. I’d have to get a job almost immediately, but I think after helping Hattie get set up with a crib and some emergency cash, I’d have enough to pay for rent and food for a month. And I could always take out loans for tuition, even though that kind of financial investment in myself makes me want to puke from anxiety.
As we’re finishing up, Freddie and I race the last few laps. We start on the blocks, gliding through the air, and maybe it’s my height, but I’m pretty sure I have the better start this time. I go for freestyle. My arms slice through the water like knives. My whole body feels unstoppable. We go for four laps, and when I’m done, I grab onto the edge of the pool. As I come up for air, I look to Freddie’s lane. Suddenly he breaks the surface, and the first thing he sees is me.
For a split second his expression jumps from confusion to disbelief, before he turns on that charm and that glowing grin. “Hey! Congratulations!”
Agnes is hooting and hollering from the bleachers. “I’ve been waiting for that for weeks!”
I almost feel bad at first. Despite the smile, I can see his ego deflating. But then I remember: I beat him. I swam my ass off and I beat Freddie. That’s amazing. I can’t stop smiling. “Thanks.”
On our way to the locker rooms, Prudence Whitmire shouts, “You thought about my offer any?” She sits on the ground in a deep stretch. Purple veins twist around her legs like vines.
Agnes and Freddie look around like they can’t figure out who this crazy lady is even talking to.
I’m still glowing from my win, and it takes everything in me not to shout YES. “Um, still thinking,” I tell her. But reality crashes down almost as soon as the words have left my mouth. I was crazy to think it could actually work. Who will watch the baby when Hattie goes back to work, and how will we pay for doctors’ visits or day care? Or what if the baby is born with some condition that requires expensive medication?
On our way home, Agnes and Freddie grill me.
“Who was your friend?” asks Agnes.
“Her name’s Prudence Whitmire. Y’all have seen her before, surely,” I say, trying to brush it off.
Freddie watches me in the rearview mirror. Agnes let him drive today.
“She says hi sometimes. Talks to me about swimming.”
“Come on now,” says Agnes. “I’m too old for that coy act.”
So I tell them about Prudence or Coach Whitmire or Mrs. Whitmire. I don’t even know what I should call her. I explain that she offered to help me get on the team at the community college and that she thought I’d been improving.
“Oh,” says Freddie. “Wow.”
“You really have been getting a whole lot better,” says Agnes. “And that’s such a wonderful opportunity.”
“Well, she’s right. You’re getting pretty good,” says Freddie. “You beat me today.”
“Only ’cause you let me,” I say, trying to suss out whether or not he actually did. It’s so silly, but it’s a small nagging doubt in the back of my mind.
“Ha!” Agnes shakes her head. “You think this boy lets anyone win when it comes to the pool?”
“She’s right,” says Freddie.
“Well, Ramona Blue,” says Agnes, “looks like you’ve got some things to consider.”
“What’s to consider?” asks Freddie. “If you’ve got your high school transcripts, you don’t even have to take the SAT to get in since it’s a community college. And I bet there might be some scholarship money if you can make the swim team.”
“Or even federal grant money if you get on it soon,” says Agnes.
I shake my head. “Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.” But my cheeks glow, and I can’t believe I actually told someone else about Coach Whitmire’s offer. I decide I should call her Coach. It feels wrong to call a woman her age by her first name.
I tell myself if Agnes and Freddie didn’t even bring up me staying here and taking care of Hattie and the baby, then maybe my future isn’t so obvious after all. Maybe the future is still unwritten.
When we pull into the driveway, Bart is pacing across the porch. It’s odd, but somehow very much like him. As we open the car doors, he rushes to us. No, to me.
“We gotta get you to the hospital,” he says, clasping me by my shoulders. It’s the most words I’ve ever heard him string together at once. “None of you’s been picking up your phones.”
The color drains from my face, and my mouth goes completely dry of words.
Freddie checks his cell. “Mine was on silent.”
Agnes opens the glove box. “Shoot, I forgot it was in here.”
I pat down my pockets, but I know I left it at home. I always answer my phone.
Bart’s pushing Freddie and me into the backseat, and my body doesn’t even have time to respond to what’s happening.
I think I’m crying. My whole body feels frantic and everything is moving too slow and too fast all at once. My immediate thought is Hattie, and then I think, Oh God, no. My dad. He was in a wreck. He’s hurt. One of them is hurt. But I can’t even cobble together the words to ask what the hell is happening. And worst of all, I can’t breathe.
“Bart,” says Agnes as we’re backing out of the driveway. “Bart, what’s going on?”
“It’s the baby. It’s your sister, Ramona. Some kind of lady problems. Your dad said to get you to the hospital pronto.” He takes the keys from Agnes and hops behind the wheel. “You three get in.”
Eulogy has a few urgent-care clinics, but the closest hospital is about fifteen minutes away in Gulfport. And now I really am crying. Tears and snot drip down my face, and my wet hair has soaked through the back of my T-shirt. I didn’t let Hattie trim it a few weeks back before Christmas. I was annoyed with her about something stupid. She’s supposed to touch up my blue, too. And I don’t know why, but all I can think about is my damn hair and how if she’s not around, I’ll have to cut all of it off, because I can’t manage it on my own.
My sister and my unborn niece are in the hospital. Their lives could be in danger and all I can think of is my hair. It’s such a tiny, meaningless thing, but it feels catastrophic. And somehow I think my brain is protecting me by forcing me to concentrate on this inconsequential thing.
I duck my head down between my knees and breathe. Just breathe. Freddie rubs his hand up and down my back the whole way there. His touch is a temporary relief.
All I can think about is that I was so silly. I was so silly for just moments ago imagining I could ever leave this place.
There is lots of waiting before anyone will let us see her. Dad is sitting near the nurses’ station, and Agnes and Bart have left to get coffee and whatever other stuff they can find in the hospital cafeteria.
I sit next to my dad on a tiny bench, curled into a ball, snug against his side. Freddie sits across from us, and I know that, if at all possible, he feels even more useless than I do.
Hattie woke up in a pool of blood. No one was home. She was alone. That’s all we know. I wasn’t there for her. The doctor promised us she’d let us see Hattie as soon as her condition had stabilized. The bleeding hadn’t stopped.
This horrible little part of me keeps thinking that maybe if she loses the baby it won’t be such a bad thing. I’m disgusted with myself for even entertaining the thought. I try to scrub it from my brain, but the guilt has already sunk down deep into my belly.
Briefly, my eyes meet Freddie’s, and he tries to offer me so much in that one glance, but it’s like I live in this tiny little bubble, and the only other people I have the capacity for are Dad and Hattie. In this moment, Freddie is a stranger. He’s an outsider, who will never understand what it means to be a Leroux.
Suddenly the extreme contrasts between our worlds are so apparent. For a brief time in history, we overlapped. His life didn’t seem so different from mine. But here, in this waiting room, I am reminded of my priorities. Before I belong to anyone, I belong to Hattie. I belong to my sister. I belong to our life in this little town.
The doctor comes in just like I’ve seen in so many movies. Dad and I stand up right away. I can count on one hand how many times I have been to a doctor, and the gist of it is that if a bone wasn’t broken or if a fever didn’t break a hundred, medical attention was nothing more than a luxury.
The doctor is a younger white woman with unruly red hair and a thick Yankee accent, one I’ve never actually heard anywhere other than TV. “Mr. Leroux?” she asks.
“Yes, yes. And this is my other daughter, Ramona.”
She nods twice, once at Dad and once at me. “I’m Dr. Donahue. I see your daughter Hattie has been receiving care at the free pregnancy clinic in Eulogy.”
My dad’s face is a puzzle. He has no clue. I love our dad, but he sort of dropped out of the parenting game once Hattie started using tampons. As far as he’s concerned, babies miraculously appear, especially when they come out of his own daughter’s vagina.
“Yes,” I interject. “She’s been going for regular checkups. She and the baby are perfectly healthy. That’s what they said at the last visit.”
“Well, it seems they missed a few things. Actually, this happens quite a lot with these clinics. You can’t blame them, though. They don’t always catch some of the more advanced complications, and—”
“Is she okay?” I interrupt. “Is my sister okay?”
“Yes. For now, she and the baby are stable. She’s still bleeding, but it’s beginning to taper off. Mr. Leroux, your daughter has a condition called placenta previa. Basically, what this means is that the placenta is covering the opening of Hattie’s cervix.”
I can see my dad’s eyes glaze over a little.
Dr. Donahue goes on to explain how this can cause extreme bleeding, and that Hattie will have to have a C-section when the time comes to deliver the baby, because she’s so high risk, and that she’ll be on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy.
We leave Freddie in the waiting room and follow Dr. Donahue to my sister’s room. Hattie sits up in bed, propped up by pillows. She’s hooked up to an IV, and the minute I see her there, the tears start again.
I push past Dad and Dr. Donahue and pull her into my arms. “Are you okay?”
I can feel her trying not to cry, but it doesn’t work.
“I’ll leave you three alone,” says the doctor.
My dad sits down on the bed lightly, like he’s scared he might somehow break Hattie. He squeezes her foot. “Baby, baby, baby. You’re gonna be fine.”
“I can’t work anymore,” Hattie says through sobs. “They said I can’t work until after the baby’s born. It’s only January. The baby isn’t due until April. How am I supposed to buy diapers or—or baby clothes and formula? Tyler isn’t answering my calls, and—”
“Hey,” I say. “Hey, we’ve got you.” Hattie’s life is a tightrope, and I’m the net underneath. Sometimes she forgets I’m even there. But I am.
My dad scoots farther down the bed and touches his hand to Hattie’s belly. “It’ll all work out,” he says. “Always does.”
He says that, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. Sometimes you’ve gotta make it work out, and I think that’s what my dad never quite got. That’s why we’re still living in the same deteriorating trailer that was only ever meant to be a temporary fix.
Hattie nods into my shoulder. “It was like a freaking horror movie this morning,” she says. “Blood everywhere. And I couldn’t get ahold of either of you.” She shakes her head. “I called you both before I even called nine-one-one.”
“You’re crazy,” I tell her.
She looks up at me, and I’m reminded of how much smaller than me she is. Despite our ages, she will always be the little sister. “You’re my nine-one-one,” she tells me.
I pull her knotted hair back away from her face. She looks so unlike herself in this moment. No makeup. Greasy hair. It’s almost as if the makeup and the hair—it’s all an armor. The protection she wears to survive it all. Here, in this hospital bed, flanked by me and Dad, Hattie can be the mousy version of herself who is scared and doesn’t have the ability to trust that it will all magically work out. Because it might not.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I am so sorry I didn’t have my phone on me.” I kiss her forehead. “I am always here for you. Always.”