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 needgrandbabies.”
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 andtoo young. Just like Mom.
“Youarekeeping 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 onlymakes 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.”
