“Don’t talk to my sister like that,” I shout.
For the first time, Tyler truly realizes I’m here. “Oh great,” he says. “The whole committee is here now. I know how you can’t make decisions without your carpet-munching sister. I can’t even believe you’d letthatnear our kid.”
A wave of disgust and hostility washes over me. I want so badly to make him feel as small and as dumb as he is.
“Hey!” Hattie shouts. She snaps her fingers at him and then slaps her hands on the hood of his car. “You don’t talk about my sister like that. This is about me and you.” I feel Freddie step forward behind me, but I push him back.
Hattie turns to me. “Ramona, go inside.”
“No,” I tell her. “For as long as he lives in this house with us and is part of your life, this asshole is my problem, too.”
“Well, lucky for you, because I’m out of here,” says Tyler. “One Leroux sister on my ass is bad enough.”
Hattie’s shoulders melt into a slouch, and I can see she’s losing her will. “Baby, don’t go. We can find you another job.”
I can’t understand why she would ever want him to stay, but I almost get why she might be torn between putting up with his bullshit and losing the father of her kid.
Tyler isn’t having it. “I’m done with this shit, Hattie. Call me when the baby’s born.”
The tears start rolling down her cheeks, melting her heavy clumps of mascara immediately into charcoal rivers. “Baby, I need you. We need you. You’re gonna be such a good daddy.”
I grit my teeth and try so hard to feel for her in this moment, but I can’t. I won’t. “Good riddance,” I say a little too loudly.
Tyler cranks the music up so loud his speakers crackle. He reverses out and what’s left of my dad’s potted plants on his windshield falls to the ground.
Hattie goes inside and slams the door, locking herself inside.
Freddie touches my arm. “Let me take you back to my place.”
“You should go.” I shake my head and pound on the door. “Let me in, Hattie!”
“I need to be alone!” she yells back.
“Come on, Ramona,” he says. “I can’t leave you here.”
“Please, Freddie. Just go.” I turn to him. “I gotta deal with this on my own.”
He pulls me close to him and whispers, “Call me if you need anything. Seriously, anything.”
We share a quick kiss in the shadows of the porch light.
I keep knocking on the door as he walks down the steps and leaves my bike there against the side of the trailer along with my bag and the leftovers before getting in Bart’s truck and driving away.
After a few minutes, the lock finally clicks and the door swings open. Hattie stands there, mascara running down her cheeks.
She stumbles into my arms and I hold her. Her belly presses against me, reminding me that I will always choose her even when she doesn’t choose me. The Leroux sisters. It will always be the two of us in the end.
THIRTY-THREE
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?”
