“It was someone from the website. Remember?”
“How could I forget?” I ask.
“Well, when they picked me up, it turned out—it was Tyler. Actually, the profile belonged to this guy we went to high school with, Chad, but when he figured out who I was, he started asking around, because he’d heard me and Tyler were having a baby. And well, when Tyler heard...”
“Oh God,” I moan. “You can’t be serious.”
“He’s different, Ramona. He really is. He got a job at that video game store on Lamar, and he says that there might be a management position opening up soon. And he just wants what’s best for me and the baby.”
“Well,” I say defiantly, “he should know that’s not him.”
“Don’t be like that,” she says. “Come on. I know Tyler isn’t perfect, okay? And I know we’re not smart and all like you and Freddie and Ruthie, but I gotta give my baby girl every chance at a real family.”
“You have a family.” I press my hand to her belly. It’s one of the few times I’ve actually touched it. “She has a family.”
Hattie reaches up and gathers my hair before pulling it over my shoulder. “I know that. Of course I know that. But what if she could have it all? What if she could have a great grandpa and a badass aunt and a sort of flaky grandma and a momanda dad?” She pulls my hand back to her belly. “Her little foot has been kicking out all day.”
I wait for a moment, but nothing.
Suddenly, I yelp. There’s a ripple of movement under my sister’s shirt. “Holy shit!”
My sister laughs. “I lie around all day and wait for her to kick. She’s stingy with her love. Just like her auntie Ramona.”
“I’m not stingy,” I retort.
“You’re like a cat,” says Hattie. “Territorial, too.” She pulls herself up, using the railing. “You coming in?”
“Not yet. Just give me a few minutes.”
She leaves me there on the porch, and I wonder what the logistics of all this means. Is Tyler moving back in? Will they get an apartment? But most of all I wonder what all this means for me. I should feel free, shouldn’t I? Hattie has made her choice.
Part of me feels a little sad. Replaced, even. I imaginewhat life would look like if I stayed here in this trailer with Dad. I can’t think of him alone. I’m scared that somehow he might wilt away without Hattie or me here. But if I stay, I might just wilt away, too.
APRIL
FORTY
Coach Pru makes a schedule for me. After spring break, we start meeting after school before I go to work. I’ve made it totally clear that I have no immediate plans for college or anything like that, but I like pushing my body further when I’m in the pool, and she likes having someone to push. So I guess we’re sort of both fulfilling a need for each other.
She likes that I ride my bike for the paper route, but she wants me to start running and lifting, too. Since the thing that I like most about swimming is, well, swimming, I compromise and run twice a week after my route and lift with her at the Y every Tuesday and Thursday after I swim. She has me concentrating on my turns between laps and my dives. She says that’s where most swimmers lose the most time. She drills me on technique and has me doing all kinds of things like counting strokes and swimming with tennis balls in my fists. It’s hard, grueling work, but nothing has ever made me feel so in control of my own life.
Tyler and Hattie start attending parenting classes, andeven though he’s still technically living back home with his mom, he crashes at our place at least four nights a week. He’s still an idiot, but he’s trying. Like, the other day he voluntarily did the dishes. For no reason. I thought I was having an out-of-body experience.
Seeing Freddie is less and less horrible. We don’t really talk, but there’s none of that awkward eye contact anymore. Instead, we wave and move on.
I ran into him outside the school library the other day. Like, literally, he was reading something on his phone, my head was somewhere else, and our bodies collided.
“Hi,” I blurted. It wasn’t like I could get away without saying something after a head-on collision like that.
He paused for a beat, his forehead creasing. “Hey.”
I felt words piling up in my chest and in my throat, like I was about to vomit all my feelings everywhere. Homesickness racked my bones, and all I wanted was to be able to joke around like we used to, and maybe kiss him, too. Mostly, I missed being his friend. But I couldn’t make myself regret a single minute of our relationship, because I didn’t. Not even a little bit. “How are you doing?” I finally asked.
He slid his phone into his backpack and shoved his fists into his pockets and nodded. “Good. Good. I signed up for freshman weekend at LSU. Swim team tryouts are this summer. I haven’t decided if I’m going to give it another go. I’m pretty out of shape.”
“You should do it,” I told him. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
He smiled, but it was nothing like the toothy gap smile I love. “I gotta go to class.”
