WHEN LEO SEES Stephanie’s name and picture come up on her phone, her stomach drops to somewhere around her knees. Who calls instead of texts, especially when they’re pregnant?
“Hi!” Stephanie cries when Leo answers. She sounds breathless and urgent, and Leo’s stomach goes subterranean. “Are you home? Are you doing anything?”
“Yes and no,” Leo says. She’s supposed to be studying for her Monday morning English quiz, which means she should probably read the book at some point today, and her mom is out at some botanical garden with Aunt Kelly. “Did she forget that I’m massively allergic to all botanical things?” her mom muttered when Kelly first texted her about it, but she loaded up on Allegra and went anyway. Leo had planned on staying home and scrolling through YouTube and her phone for most of the day, which is, she thinks, how all Sundays should be spent.
“Are you okay?” Leo asks Stephanie now. Where the hell is her dad? Shouldn’t he be with his pregnant wife 24/7 at this point?? What kind of neglectful husband would—
“Oh, absolutely, sweetie. Sorry, totally sorry, I just had to walk upstairs and I’m a little breathless. Whew!” She exhales into the phone, then laughs a little. “What, did you think that I went into labor or something?”
“Or something,” Leo says. She’s not exactly up to speed on all the terrible things that could happen to a forty-something-year-old pregnant woman, and she’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.
“Sorry again. But! Listen. Can I bribe you to go to San Diego to get some furniture with me? There’s a dresser that just got delivered at one of the antique stores that’s just a beaut and the owners called and gave me first dibs, but only if I can get down there today and it turns out that his assistant is out so I need someone to help me load it into the car and your dad is golfing and ugh.” She huffs again. “I swear, this baby is using my rib cage as a jungle gym.”
Leo looks back at her laptop, at her copy of The Kite Runner that, let’s be honest, she probably won’t pick up until at least eight o’clock that night and will skim instead of read. It’s actually Nina’s copy from her own sophomore year, and it’s annotated, but with nothing that’s actually helpful. “BOOOORING” is a word that comes up often in the margins, and Leo’s pretty sure that “Did Nina enjoy this book? Why or why not?” is not going to be a question on tomorrow’s quiz.
Stephanie’s still talking. “I know it’s last minute, you have your own life, blah blah blah, but if you could help, lunch is on me? We can stop at that one taco place you like.”
“La Sirena,” Leo says immediately. “I’m in.”
“Be there in thirty!” Stephanie cries, and right before she hangs up, Leo can hear her whooping with joy.
Ninety minutes later, Stephanie and Leo are sitting with chips and guacamole and two giant plates of salmon tacos in front of them. It’s busy because of the weekend, but they manage to snag a table in the sunshine and Leo hooks her ankles around the bench seat as they eat.
“So what exciting things were you supposed to be doing today before I interrupted you?” Stephanie asks her.
Leo shrugs. “Not much. My mom and Kelly are at the botanical gardens today so I was just going to do some homework, you know, catch up.”
Stephanie smiles. “Well, you’re welcome,” she teases. “And I thought your mom had a bunch of allergies to everything that grew out of the ground.”
“I think Kelly ‘forgot.’” Leo sets down her salmon taco, which immediately collapses, and makes finger quotes around the last word. “She’s trying to get my mom out of the house every so often, which is good. But maybe a museum next time.”
“How’s your mom doing?” Stephanie asks. “I mean, if you feel comfortable talking about it. You don’t have to, of course.”
Leo has always liked that about Stephanie, the way she makes space for her to say yes or no. “It’s okay,” she says. “And she’s okay, I think.” Leo thinks about the afternoon her mom picked her up at school, about Christmas Eve, about how her mom’s phone lit up the other day and Leo saw a text from someone who sounded like a therapist, offering her mom an appointment at 3:30 on the following Tuesday.
“I feel like I say ‘okay’ so much that the word doesn’t have meaning anymore,” Leo adds.
“Yeah, I used to get that way about the word ‘plastic,’” Stephanie says. “And I’m glad your mom is doing . . .”
“ . . . okay,” Leo fills in. “Wait. Are you even allowed to eat salmon when you’re pregnant?”
“Occasionally,” Stephanie says. “But thanks for looking out for me and the baby.”
Leo’s not sure that’s what she was doing, but she doesn’t say that.
“How’s math class going?” Stephanie asks, all super casual in a way that tells Leo this is just the opening act to her bigger question.
“It’s good,” she says. “Calculus is harder than I thought it would be.”
“I thought your dad was going to explode when you tested into that class, he was so proud.” Stephanie smiles a little bit and Leo feels a sudden rush of gratitude that her dad has someone who sees his happy moments, who remembers them. “You’ve always been a little math whiz.”
Leo waves away the compliment. “It’s just numbers,” she says. “Anyone can do it.”
“Sure, okay.” Stephanie takes a long sip of her water, her eyes looking away as she drinks. “So you never told me about how the roller skating party was.”
Leo knew it.
“How were the clothes? Did you have a blast or was it just a bunch of old fogies like me and your dad?”
Sometimes, Leo wants to tell Stephanie that she doesn’t have to try so hard. “You’re not old,” she says, even though she thinks that maybe Stephanie is a tiny bit old. “And yeah, it was fun. Madison’s dad seems pretty cool.” She remembers what Madison said about him and feels a strange, sympathetic pull in her gut.
Stephanie waits until she finishes her taco before saying, “Your dad said that East was in the parking lot when he picked you up.”
“He was,” Leo says slowly.
“Well, that’s nice.”
“Stephanie.”
“Leo.”
“Would you like to ask me something about East, maybe?”
“I don’t know. Would you like to tell me something about East?”
Leo sighs and crosses her arms over her chest. “Oh my God. Madison’s dad just hired him to be the official party photographer. I didn’t even know he was going to be there.”
“I bet East appreciated the job,” Stephanie says.
“Probably.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
Stephanie gestures with a chip toward Leo’s plate. “Are you going to finish that guacamole?” she asks, and Leo pushes it toward her, no longer hungry.
“There’s nothing between me and East,” Leo blurts out once they’re back in the car, heading south on the 5 Freeway. The Pacific Ocean is glittering on her right, palm trees dotting the horizon. “Like, not like that.”
“Okay,” Stephanie says gently. “I was just asking, Leo. It wasn’t an accusation.”
“I would never date Nina’s boyfriend,” Leo says, but she’s not sure if that’s the right word for it anymore. “Or ex-boyfriend.” That doesn’t sound right, either. “Whatever, you know what I mean.”
“I do,” Stephanie says.
“It’s not like we hate each other, of course,” Leo continues. Stephanie’s gripping the steering wheel and looking straight ahead while she’s driving, which makes it easier for Leo to keep talking. Making eye contact with someone while talking about things like love is, she thinks, just excruciating.
“I mean, I don’t hate him at all. He’s my friend, he’s . . . I don’t know, I guess more than a friend, but not like romantic or anything.”
“I don’t know too much about it,” Stephanie says. “Nina didn’t talk to me about these things, but East seems like he was a wonderful boyfriend to her, so I imagine he’s a pretty good friend to have, too.”
“But it’s not like that,” Leo says. “I think that . . .” She trails off for a minute, counting the palm trees as they rush past the car. The sunlight is bouncing off the ocean, reminding her of a disco ball, reminding her of that night on the roller rink, the song in her ears, East’s sweaty hand tight in hers.
“I think I love East,” she says once she gets to ten palm trees. “We were both there on”—she swallows hard—“that night, you know? He’s the only person who knows how that feels, and when you take that and add in the fact that we both really love the same person, it gets all tangled up. But not like love love. I loved—I love Nina, and he loves her, too. I think all of that has to go somewhere and maybe now that Nina’s not here anymore, we just share it between us instead of with her. I mean, love just doesn’t disappear once someone’s gone. Right?”
When Stephanie doesn’t answer, Leo looks over to see her wiping at her eyes underneath her sunglasses. “Oh, crap,” she says. “Are you allowed to cry when you’re this pregnant?”
“I think it’s the only thing I’m allowed to do!” Stephanie says with a shaky, wet laugh. “And I think that’s a beautiful way of looking at it, Lee. Seriously.”
“Okay. Just please don’t go into labor when I’m the only one with you. At least wait for my dad, or at least one person who’s been to medical school.”
“I’ve got a ways to go,” Stephanie reassures her. “But noted.”
Once they get to the antique store, the dresser looks beat-up and dusty, like it’s sat in someone’s garage for the past twenty years, but both Stephanie and the antiques dealer are ecstatic, talking about rosewood and molded handles and dovetailing.
Leo smiles politely and hopes she’s never this embarrassing when she’s an adult.
“It’s going to clean up so beautifully,” Stephanie says, clapping her hands together before rubbing one palm over her stomach with a fond look on her face. “It’s going in the baby’s room so it’ll be special.”
Leo eyes the dresser again. She wouldn’t let a baby anywhere near this filthy thing, but hey, she’s just the muscle today.
She and the dealer heave-ho it into the back of the SUV, Stephanie standing to the side and saying words of encouragement that are more helpful in theory than in actuality. “Gus, thank you again,” she says to the dealer, who’s wiping his brow and looking like he’d like to pop a couple of Advil. The day has become weirdly warm and Leo’s looking forward to blasting the AC in the car and drinking the Diet Coke she saved from lunch.
And that’s exactly what she does. For the first thirty minutes, anyway.
They’re leaning into the curve of the 5 Freeway, Stephanie humming along happily with the radio, when Leo first sees the white vapor coming from the hood of the car. “Uh, Steph?” she says.
“What—oh no.”
Stephanie pulls over at a rest stop that overlooks the ocean, and it seems to Leo like this would be a better location for a five-star resort or fancy restaurant than a parking lot for a bunch of people who have to pee and stretch their legs. But at least they get a spot in the shade and Stephanie pushes her sunglasses up onto her head as she turns the car off.
“Why does it smell like toxic pancake batter?” Leo asks, wrinkling her nose.
“The car’s overheating.” Stephanie sighs. “Well, crap and a half, I guess we’ll just have to—Leo, stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m about to go into labor, that’s what. I’m fine, the car is the problem here, not me.”
Stephanie, levelheaded as always, calls AAA and then texts Leo’s dad to tell him what the problem is. “Your dad wants to know if he should leave the golf course and come rescue us,” she says, sounding bemused.
“No thank you,” Leo says.
“Hard agree,” Stephanie replies, then texts a quick response before rolling down the front windows and letting the ocean breeze roll through. “Well, here we are,” she says. “Two ladies, a broken car, and a Norwegian dresser in the trunk.”
“Totally normal,” Leo agrees. “Nothing to see here.”
Leo scrolls through her phone for a few minutes as Stephanie looks through her Instagram comments, murmuring happily at some and rolling her eyes at others. “Ooh,” she says at one point, and Leo watches as her hand comes up to her stomach again, feeling that if she has to do something, Leo doesn’t know what that thing is supposed to be.
“Just kicking,” Stephanie reassures her. “This one’s going to be a prizefighter or at the very least, very into physical confrontation.” Then she tilts her head. “Do you want to feel?”
Leo’s first instinct is to say no, but she finds herself nodding and reaching out, resting her palm against the side of Stephanie’s swollen stomach. There’s a flutter, followed by another flurry of movement, like bubbles floating up to meet her hand.
“Lee?” Stephanie says quietly, and that’s when Leo realizes she’s crying.
“Sorry,” she says, wiping at her cheeks, but more tears arrive and Leo thinks how much she hates grief, how she loathes this grab bag of the worst emotions. How can she be eating tacos and laughing one hour and then be crying at a roadside rest stop the next? She thinks of Nina, of her laugh and her posture and her hair and skin, how strong she seemed and how tragically fragile she actually was, how life just seems to be a series of extremes, over and over again.
“I just, what if I’m not . . . ,” Leo starts to say, and then she has to put her hand over her mouth so she doesn’t say the worst thing, the thing no one else can say, but it slips out anyway. “What if I’m not enough?”
“Not enough?” Stephanie frowns as she turns toward her. “What do you mean? How are you not enough?”
“Because I couldn’t save Nina. I was her sister and I was there, I was right there, and I couldn’t do anything, and now I’m going to be someone else’s sister and what if the same thing happens? What if I can’t protect them or help them? What if”—Leo tries to take in air as her chest shakes—“what if I lose her again?”
A dark thought underneath her words, just below the surface: What if I do something that hurts her?
She stops talking once Stephanie gathers her into her arms and holds her tight. She doesn’t say a word, just lets Leo cry into her shoulder for as long as she needs, and when Leo finally pulls away, she’s both relieved that she finally said it and embarrassed that she did.
Stephanie digs around in the console before finding a travel pack of tissues, which she presses into Leo’s hand. “How long have you been thinking like this?” she asks, and Leo shrugs. The truth is much harder to explain. It’s a thought that dances around the edge of her brain in the middle of the night, as thin as the end of a dream, a dark wisp that curls and cuts like a whip.
“Let me tell you something,” Stephanie says, and then she’s pulling away to hold Leo by the arms, not too tight, just enough to make her feel like she won’t float away. “You are a wonderful sister. You are absolutely wonderful, Leo. You have a big heart and I know”—now it’s Stephanie’s turn to blink fast and swallow hard—“I don’t know, actually, what Nina meant to you, and what you meant to her. That’s something special between just you two, and it always will be. But I know how much you love her, and I know your kindness and your warmth and your sense of humor and I know that whoever this baby is, she’ll be so, so lucky to have you in her life.”
Leo freezes. “She?”
Stephanie claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh, shit.”
“It’s a girl?”
“Your dad is going to be so pissed at me.”
Leo smiles a little, even though her eyes are still wet. “You’re having a girl? For real?”
Stephanie nods and her smile is wobbly. “So they tell me.”
Leo’s still smiling, even though her chin shakes a little. It’s going to take her a while before the word “sister” doesn’t rock her from the core. She hopes she can get used to it by the time the baby arrives.
“But I know what you mean,” Stephanie tells her. “You know, my mom and I, we don’t exactly get along.” An understatement if ever there was one, Leo thinks. “And she’s put me through so much over the years, and sometimes I look down at this bump and this baby and I think, how am I going to be a mom, you know?” Now it’s Stephanie’s turn to press her palms to her eyes. “I think, what if all I do is just put this baby through all of this grief because that’s all I know? What if I can’t do it?”
“You’re going to be a great mom!” Leo protests. “Seriously. You’ve always been so good with me and Nina, especially Nina—”
Stephanie laughs a little. “Your sister definitely posed a challenge at times.”
“But see? That’s what I mean. You never took it personally. You just loved her anyway.”
Stephanie’s chin wobbles as she nods. “I can still hear her all the time in our house,” she says.
“Me too,” Leo admits, and then they’re hugging again, but it’s not as sad as it was the first time, and Leo feels like something very small has been fixed, a single stitch to hold her heart in place.
“Um, excuse me, ma’am?”
Leo and Stephanie both look up to see the AAA repairman standing by the driver’s-side door, sunglasses over his eyes. “What, you’ve never seen two women crying together inside a broken-down car?” Stephanie says with a laugh as Leo passes her the tissue pack.
The repairman smiles, warm and sure, “Ma’am, trust me, I’ve seen it all.”
In the back of the tow truck, barreling toward home with their SUV and dresser safely attached to the back hitch, Leo reaches for Stephanie’s hand, counts the palm trees again, and breathes.