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Ulla kicked the vending machine inside the Emergency Department of Cambridge Medical Center until the hot black liquid squirted sludge. She didn’t drink coffee but had acquired the habit this year, needing a jolt to get her through the hell that was twelfth grade. Most of her classmates were not cruel in what they did to her—that came from a select few—mostly seventh and eighth graders. Her classmates were cruel in what they did not do. They did not stop the gossip, nor the insults hurled down the hallways, and the girls did not change in front of her in the locker room after gym class, somehow convinced that because Ulla was gay, she wanted to have sex with every female.

Therefore, she didn’t stray from home unless it was to Curlers’. Until now. Now she had Peter. Peter, my pappa, she wanted to introduce him to the prying townsfolk. He would accompany her to the junkyard after school, make her laugh with stories of when she was a girl. Of how she’d once locked a woman in the bathroom at one of his many parties. Of her first birthday: You’re the one who named that porcelain doll, Baby. Do you still have it? She studied the looks Peter gave her mother and her mother’s furtive glances at Peter. She’d listen to the hushed erotic moans in the middle of the night and question once again her mother’s sordid accusations. The childhood memories and all their comforts were drifting over Ulla like a pleasant fog, shielding her from the ugliness that she’d endured the past eight months. She had to laugh, thinking of how Linnea had been the one to call Peter. Maybe I should thank her.

But while Ulla felt happiness brewing, it appeared opposite for Ronja. Her mother grew fidgety, her teeth always set on edge. And inside Ulla, her mother’s old vehement words would knock repeatedly like an unwelcome visitor: Peter Johansson is a horrible, horrible man.

Maybe he was. Or had been. Her mother was no saint either, continuing to lie about Peter being her father, and about her past in Sweden. Especially with that suspicious passport. Ulla never bought the story that her existence was the result of some illicit affair her mother had run away from. But people could change. Couldn’t they?

She grabbed the coffee from the dispenser and met Peter rushing into the emergency room waiting area, his face aghast. Ulla glanced at his unzipped coat and unlaced boots. “Is she okay?” he asked in Swedish.

They walked together and found Ronja resting in a hospital bed. She turned her face toward the two of them. Her hand rested on her stomach.

Ulla watched Peter and her mother exchange a wordless glance that was complicated with a history she’d never understand. Peter hesitantly kissed her mother’s forehead and spoke inaudible Swedish to her.

The doctor walked in with a clipboard and said, “Go home and get some rest, Ronja. You’re not sick. Just pregnant.”

Her mother turned away from Peter and locked her gaze onto Ulla. Ulla couldn’t hide her own delight. She was going to be a sister! Her mother, though, didn’t smile back. She squeezed her eyes, releasing a tear.

It was well past midnight when Ronja crawled into bed with Ulla and stroked her hair. Ulla had not been sleeping, as if knowing she needed to wait up for her mother.

“Min lilla älskling, what are we going to do when you graduate?” Ronja whispered. “You’re eighteen. You can go to school and think about more than just working in a junkyard, more than wasting your life in a small town. Go to California like you always wanted. You never needed Linnea. You can do so much.”

Hurt, Ulla sat up. “You don’t want me around? Not even for my sister or brother?”

Her mother wept silent tears and lodged a hand against her mouth to quiet them.

Contrite, Ulla rested back down and swiped her mother’s eyes. “What is happening between you and Peter? Can you never be honest with me?”

Ronja worked a muscle in her jaw and steeled her wet eyes. “Peter is a criminal, and I don’t want a criminal around my children.”

“What if he’s here to prove he’s changed? Don’t you love him?”

The questions froze her mother’s face.

Ulla fingered the threads of her blue comforter; the smell of Linnea still lingered after all this time. She wondered aloud, “You can’t stop loving someone, can you?”

The pain in her mother’s eyes matched Ulla’s. “No, all you can do is escape from them.”

“So you’re leaving him. Again. But what did he do this time?”

“It’s not what he’s done. I told you, it’s who he is.”

“Are you asking me to go with you?”

She touched Ulla’s cheek. “Are you willing to give up everything? We’ll have to start over.”

“He’s my pappa, though,” Ulla protested. “And what about Melia and Shorty?”

Her mother shook her head. “I can’t drag them into this mess.”

“They were involved before.”

“And I promised they wouldn’t ever be again. Ulla.” She held her face. “I’m leaving. And to protect you, I will never tell you where to find me and the baby.”

Ulla thought of Peter once more. “I don’t understand why you can’t make things work with him.”

“Someday you will.”

“Where will you go?”