“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.
SIXTEEN
It is stupid hot outside. It’s like Mississippi didn’t get the memo that it’s mid-October, and we’ve been left to melt.
On Saturday night, two weeks after my and Hattie’s dinner with Mom, Freddie comes to hang out for the last bit of my shift, and once Tommy leaves, he even helps me bus a few tables.
“Where’s Adam tonight?” I ask.
“His little sister’s birthday party,” he says. “He tried to sneak out, but when his mom caught him, she made him wear the prince costume his cousin was supposed to wear and dance with all his sister’s friends.”
I try not to laugh. “Well, that sounds fair.”
“Yeah. Try telling Adam that.”
After the last customer finally leaves, Saul slams the door and locks it all in one motion. “We’re going swimming, y’all. And not in that dirty-ass ocean.”
“No one has a pool,” I remind him.
He shrugs. “Plenty of people have pools.”
I shake my head at him skeptically.
“I know people, okay?”
“Straight boy,” he says, pointing to Freddie, “you’re invited, too.”
After running through our Saturday closing duties, which are a little more extensive than other nights since it’s the end of the week, we all meet in the parking lot. Agnes dropped Freddie off, so we’re all left to squeeze into Saul’s Jeep.
“I need to run home for my swimsuit,” I say.
“Me too,” says Ruth.
Saul clicks his tongue at me. “Y’all can swim in the suit the good Lord gave you.”
Ruth shrugs. “Whatever. I’m wearing a sports bra anyway.”
I feel myself shrinking a little. I’m not modest really at all, but somehow there’s a difference between swimming in your underwear and swimming in a swimsuit that looks like underwear.
I turn to Freddie. “Agnes won’t mind that you’re out this late?”
“I turn into a pumpkin at midnight,” he says. “I told her I’m crashing at Adam’s anyway.”
“I make a mean pumpkin pie,” says Hattie as she locks the door behind us.
We all pile into Saul’s Jeep, and he drives us down dark, twisting residential roads.
