I can’t think of many moments when I’ve looked in the mirror and taken an inventory of all the ways my body has changed. But here and now with Agnes squeezing me tight, her forehead barely brushing my chest, I feel like I’m some giant cradling a baby doll.
Agnes pulls away but holds my shoulders tight, examining me. She tugs on my long, wavy ponytail, and says, “Of course I’m not surprised. Your daddy always did let you get away with everything short of murder.”
My cheeks burn, and even though the ache in my chest is as heavy as an anchor, I smile. She’s referring to my hair. Ramona Blue with the blue hair.
Depending on when you catch me, my hair could be any shade ranging from royal blue to turquoise. I was thirteen the first time I dyed it with Kool-Aid mix and a little bit of water. To no one’s surprise, I was sent home from school, but my dad came to the rescue despite how much he hated what I’d done to the blond locks I’d inherited from my mother. He fought with my principal until thewhole ordeal had eaten up more time than it was worth. And my hair’s been blue ever since, thanks to Hattie and her amateur understanding of cosmetology.
Today, though, I am in need of a dye job. The sun, salt water, and plain old time have left my hair a powdery shade of turquoise.
“You sprung up like a weed.” She shakes her head, and I wonder what it is she’s seeing in her memory of me. She points to my empty messenger bag. “Last house on your route then?”
I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You come hungry tomorrow morning.” She pats my belly. “We’re gonna have us a big ol’ breakfast.”
“I can do that,” I say. “Okay.”
Agnes’s lips spread into a wide, knowing grin. “Freddie is going to die.”
Freddie. All my memories of him are sun bleached and loud, but I try not to let myself be fooled by the past. Growing up can change you.
Hugging Agnes may have made me feel tall, but nothing makes me feel as large as home sweet trailer. Like always, I duck my head to pass through the front door of our trailer and walk down the narrow hallway leading to Hattie’s bedroom and mine. They used to be one room, but with help from our uncle Dean, Dad blew out part of our hallway-facing wall, put a door in, and then added a plywood wall to divide our space on Hattie’s twelfth birthday. After that, he bought her a wardrobe at the Salvation Army and all ofa sudden our shared bedroom had become two.
I began to outgrow this place somewhere around the summer before ninth grade. I’d always been tall, but that last growth spurt tipped me over from tall to too tall. The ceilings of our trailer stretch as high as seven feet, which means my six-foot-three frame requires that I duck through doorways and contort my body to fit beneath the showerhead in the bathroom.
Inside my room, I rest my bike against my dresser, and just as I’m about to flip on the lights, I notice a lump lying in my bed.
“Scoot over,” I whisper, tiptoeing across the floor.
Hattie, my older sister by two years, obliges, but barely. “Tyler is a furnace,” she mumbles.
I slide into bed behind her. Always the little sister, but forever the big spoon.
We used to fit so perfectly into this twin bed, because like Dad always said: the Leroux sisters were in the business of growing north to south, and never east to west. But that’s no longer the case. Hattie’s belly is growing every day. I knew she was pregnant almost as soon as she did. So did Dad. We don’t waste time with secrets in our house.
“Make him go home,” I tell her.
“Your feet are so cold,” she says as she presses her calves against my toes. “Tommy wants to know if you can come into work early.”
“Grace left.”
She turns to face me, her belly pressed to mine. It’s not big. Not yet. In fact, to anyone else it’s not even noticeable.But I know every bit of her so well that I can feel the difference there in her abdomen. Or maybe I just think I can. Wrapping an arm around me, she pulls me close to her and whispers, “I’m so sorry, Ramona.”
My lips tremble.
“Hey, now,” she says. “I know you can’t see this far ahead right now, but there will be other girls.”
I shake my head, tears staining the pillow we share. “It’s not like she died or something,” I say. “And we’re going to keep talking. Or at least she said she wanted to.”
“Grace was great, okay? I’m not saying she wasn’t.” Hattie isn’t Grace’s biggest fan—she never has trusted outsiders—but I appreciate her pretending. “But you’re gonna get out of here after graduation and meet tons of people and maybe figure out there are lots of great girls.”
Maybe a few months ago, Hattie would’ve been right. Up until recently, the two of us had plans to get out of Eulogy together after graduation. Not big college plans. But small plans to wait tables or maybe even work retail and create a new life all our own in a place like New Orleans or maybe even Texas. A place without the tiny little trailer we’ve called home for too long now.
But then Hattie went and got pregnant, and even though neither of us have said so out loud, I know those plans have changed.
Tyler is here for now, but I can’t imagine he’s anything more than temporary. My plans were never extraordinary to begin with, and now that Hattie has my niece or my nephew incubating inside of her, they’re even lessimportant. Hattie’s my sister. She’s my sister forever.
“And I can’t kick Tyler out, by the way,” she adds.
