WINTER

Crib shopping was demoralizing. I had no idea how much baby shit cost. Even Ivy appeared a little shell-shocked. We ended up buying a damaged floor model. The legs were banged up. Too many strollers, the sales guy explained. He dismantled it and helped us load it into the back seat of the car. We didn't buy anything else because we couldn't afford it. Not the hundred-dollar car seat or the bottles that cost five dollars apiece. The price of formula nearly had us passing out in the aisle.

"You're thinking I've made a huge mistake by not having a termination, aren't you?" Ivy said, breaking the silence halfway home.

I weighed my words before replying. "Not exactly, but I think we were or are clueless about the cost of these things. I don't know how Rachel has managed to raise three kids on her and her husband's salaries."

"What's her husband do?"

"Works at the tire factory."

Ivy made a pfft noise. "There's your answer. One of us needs to get a union job. Tanya's boyfriend works a union job and makes really good money."

"Is Tanya the girl who lives in the house with the lawn gnomes?" I'd had to pick Ivy up there after she'd gone on a bender.

"Yep."

"That place looked like a hellhole," I said, recalling the brown grass, dirt patches, and the bedroom with the mattress on the floor.

"He just bought it, and it's an actual house, not an apartment. Here's the real problem with our system, Winter. They send us out into the world, tell us not to get in trouble again, but if no one is willing to hire you, what are you supposed to do?" Ivy said bitterly. "I'm knocked up and working at a shit job but mostly relying on my sister to work two jobs to support my fat ass. I made enough running a few errands for Anton to pay for formula for six months."

"Ivy, stop it." I was alarmed. Anton was a drug dealer she'd been wrapped up with before she got sent to prison. "We're going to be fine. Finn is paying you a good wage, and you have health insurance now."

"Finn's an asshole. I'd rather fuck Anton for money than have to endure nonstop silent judgment from Finn every time I went into work. The only good thing Finn has going for him is the fact he's got money."

I pressed a hand against my forehead. She was relentless in her criticism of Finn, and I didn't really understand it. "I'm sure he's not judging you."

She snorted. "You keep referring to him as if he's a good guy, but, Winter, good guys do not get lit up, fuck girls, and then forget about them."

I wished I'd never told her about how Finn and I reconnected. "He was not lit up. He was at a café, and he was drinking coffee. And he pursued me, remember? If anyone ran away, it was me."

"Oh, your phone was ringing off the hook for the months of March and April? You must have missed telling me that part of the story."

"First, he'd lost his father, and he was grieving. He told me that he'd made some poor decisions, and I believed him. Second, he did text me and call me after a few weeks but I ignored him."

"He was playing you. That's what guys do. They say all the things that you want to hear just to get in your pants. You're a tough nut to crack, Winter. Playing on his dad's death though for sympathy? That's low."

I shut up then because everything Finn had done was seen only through her lens of their past. The Finn I knew—the one who chased after me, the guy who unselfishly gave me pleasure, the guy who spoke about his conflicted love for his dad and his concern for his mother—wasn’t like that. Nothing of the Finn I knew matched up with Ivy's view.

Other than high school Finn, Ivy's experience with men was poor. Most of them were the ones she’d used to score more drugs, and now she was knocked up by some mysterious guy. But I wasn't going to allow her past bad experiences to color what I had with Finn. My only regret about Finn was that we didn't spend more time together, but that was primarily my fault.

I hated sleeping away from Ivy, but that one night I'd invited Finn to stay had been disastrous. Finn hadn't slept well in my twin bed, and we'd both gone to bed worn out and aroused. Finn muttered the next day that he was buying me a new bed, but I didn't want that. What I wanted was to be able to sleep with him whenever I wanted. Besides, I liked paying my own way.

I figured once Ivy got over this stage, whatever it was, I'd be able to spend a few nights away with Finn. I was trying hard to be patient because the last thing I wanted was for Ivy to flake out and find solace in a bottle.

Once we got home, we carried the crib up in pieces. I had a small set of tools I'd kept from when I'd sold off Dad's stuff. It had a hammer, a couple of screwdrivers with different shaped heads, a measuring tape, and a small set of wrenches.

Ivy and I spent at least an hour trying to put the damn thing together, but despite the fact I had meticulously photographed the sales guy taking the crib apart, I couldn't reconstruct it.

"Try putting that screw here," Ivy said. I stuck the screw in even though I knew it didn't fit. "Not that hole. The one above it."

"Ivy, I tried before, and it didn't work." We were both losing our patience.

"This is the stupidest fucking thing." In a fit of temper, Ivy stood and kicked the crib frame. "Ow, fuck. That hurt. Jesus. We can't even put the stupid crib together," Ivy cried, throwing down the screwdriver. She stomped into her bedroom and slammed the door.

I heard her noisy sobs through the hollow core door. I wanted to put my head down and cry too. We were two twenty-somethings with shitty paying jobs bringing a baby into the world. It was criminally negligent in some ways.

If Finn were there, he'd have this together in no time. He could probably make one from scratch or from the pieces of our coffee table. I picked up my phone to call him.

Ivy stuck her head into my room.

"Finn's coming," Ivy said.

I looked at my phone. Had I called him and not realized it. "What?"

"I said, Finn is coming. I called him and told him to fix our crib. He'll be here in fifteen minutes."

"You called him?"

"Yeah, what of it?" She jutted her chin out in challenge.

What of it? I wanted to shout at her back. He’s my boyfriend, not yours. But I didn't because I was the calm, got-her-shit-together sister and not the drug addict, knocked-up one.

"I would have called him," I said, trying to keep my anger out of my voice. Was I getting upset over nothing?

"Because you're fucking him, I can't even call him now?"

A red hot flush washed over me, and I almost attacked her. I almost struck her. My own sister. I took a step toward her, my hand raised before I could even think. We stood frozen for a moment. She slouched as I loomed in front of her, and even though she had four inches on me, she was scared.

"What's happening to us?" she cried.

"I don't know." My hand dropped to my side and shame replaced my anger. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, me too, Winter." She rushed forward and gathered me against her. I felt the slight bump of her belly, but instead of excitement I felt resentment. I didn't know who I was turning into. "It's Finn, Winter. We never fought before he came along."

I patted her back by rote. Was it Finn? I didn't think so, but our life had changed since I started seeing him.

When he showed up with his tool belt, Ivy changed again. For someone who professed to not like him, she flitted around him like a butterfly.

"That should do it," Finn said, tightening the last bolt. He wiggled the side rail, and the crib didn't move at all. It was the most solid thing in our apartment now. If we had an earthquake, it would be the only thing left standing. Ivy was impressed too but not in the way I wanted. She looked at him like a cat looked at fresh cream.

I couldn't blame her. I'm sure I wore the same expression. Finn had come in, took one look at the pieces on the floor and put it back together faster than I could microwave three burritos for lunch, which is what I did while Ivy sat on the floor admiring Finn's handiness.

There wasn't anything more sexy than a capable man. For a pregnant woman, watching a capable man put a crib together was probably as orgasmic as the sex that had gotten her pregnant in the first place. At least that's what I was reading in Ivy's eyes, and I didn't like it at all.

She'd gone from Finn's worthless to Shit, this guy can do things in a very short time.

"Where do you want the crib? Out here or in one of your bedrooms?"

"My bedroom, please," Ivy replied. I think she batted her eyelashes at him. Finn picked up the crib, the muscles in his lean chest bunching. Neither of us could look away. He's mine, I wanted to shout. But seeing the two of them standing there together gave me a weird, anxious feeling. They looked like they belonged together. A flurry of snapshots of them getting ready for prom and then homecoming and the two of them going out on a date ran through my mind.

"You put that together so fast," she cooed, leading the way down the short hall. "Have you done that before?"

"Most things are put together the same," he replied. "Where do you want it?"

I heard the door close and then only muffled sounds. They were only moving furniture around to find a place for the crib, I scolded myself. But the sight of the two of them entering her bedroom, the door closing behind them, was a painful reminder of their shared past.

I placed two of the three hot burritos on plates and set them on the table. We only had two chairs. While Ivy and Finn were arranging space in Ivy's bedroom for the baby, I stood next to the sink and ate my burrito. I could only swallow half of it before I felt like puking. Dumping the uneaten portion in the trash, I quickly washed my plate and wiped down the counters. The door finally opened, and Ivy walked out with a sparkle in her eye.

"It looks good!" she cried. "Come and see."

I avoided looking at Finn, afraid of what I would see in his eyes, but the hallway was so small and he stubbornly would not move out of the way. I had to brush up against him, and just that tiny contact made my whole body flare up. His hand came to grip my waist, and he bent down—in front of Ivy—and kissed me. It wasn't full of tongue or particularly passionate. It was more of a declarative sentence.

One that said I'm with you.

I gave him a tremulous smile that caused his eyes to narrow in concern.

"Later," I mouthed to him, and he nodded letting me go.

I walked into the room, and the crib did look cute, but Ivy wasn't smiling anymore. Her face had grown thunderous, and the grip she had on the wooden rail had tightened so hard that her white knuckles were showing.

And it all suddenly made sense. Finn was the problem but not in the way I'd feared originally. Ivy didn't want him—oh she wanted someone, and Finn, wealthy, capable, and hot, was as good as anyone. She just didn't want me with Finn.

And that terrified me.

The Donovan sisters were being torn apart. Where death and drugs couldn't do it, this man and Ivy's pregnancy might. And I didn't know which side I'd end up on or how many pieces I'd have to pick up no matter which one I chose.