NINE
How Myra Sue Spells Humiliation

Daddy was mad, but as you know, Mama didn’t let him scold or punish me or Myra Sue. He sent me to my room, and I went, right quick. I reckoned he did not want to look at me anymore for a long time.

Myra Sue was lying flat on the bed, her arms crossed on her chest like she was a corpse in a coffin. I woulda thought she was dead, but she drew in a deep, shuddering breath about the time I shut the bedroom door. She stared up at the ceiling and didn’t blink once. Her radio played some dumb song by Madonna, a singer that I’m purely bored with, by the way. If my sister ever turned off that stupid radio, the world would probably stop spinning on its axis, and we’d all fly off into outer space.

I stood next to her bed and stared down at her remains until she finally looked at me.

“So?” I asked.

“So?” she replied.

“What do you think about all that mess downstairs? I mean, I feel awful that I feel awful, because Mama has been so sick, and we were so worried she was dying, but now that she isn’t, is it okay to feel . . . Oh, I don’t know! Myra Sue, I don’t know how I feel.”

She took in a deep breath and hauled herself up into the land of the living by sitting up. “Well, I know how I feel.”

Good. Maybe she could help me. “How do you feel, Myra?”

“Like a doofus,” she said flatly. I could hardly believe she admitted to such a thing, her being so high and mighty all the time.

“You are a doofus,” I said, “but what does that have to do with Mama having a baby? You didn’t have anything to do with that.”

To tell you the honest truth, I don’t know why Mama and Daddy ever wanted to have a second child once they got a load of ole Myra Sue. I would think she’d be more than enough for any parents, even if she’d been an only child.

“I know I did not have anything to do with it,” she said, “but I’m old enough and sophisticated enough to have known about Mother’s condition all this time. I mean, the signs were there. And why do you have that hideous look of disbelief on your face? I am sophisticated.”

“Whatever you say, Myra. I don’t want to argue about something that dumb. But if you know so much, tell me the signs that you, in your amazing sophistication, failed to see.”

She moved around on the bed until she was sitting Indian-style, facing me. I did the same, facing her. “Remember when Mother first started being . . . well, a little grumpy this summer, not nice like she usually is?” she asked. “She has never acted all touchy and grouchy before. I mean, you and me give Daddy and her a pretty hard time once in a while, you know. But Mama never acted like it bothered her very much.”

“Get real, Myra. Mama has always scolded us when we don’t behave. But kindly remember that we never had them two St. Jameses living with us before. Them being here was major stress on everyone, especially Mama.”

She rolled her eyes, then said, “All right, then, but let me remind you that more recently, Mother has been sitting down in the kitchen instead of bustling around and never taking a break.”

Yep. Sure ’nough, my sister had a point. I had been thinking it was strange that Mama had sat at the table and had coffee with Grandma a lot more than usual, even when there was work to be done.

“And then Mother started putting on weight,” Myra added. “Even Isabel noticed.”

“Oh brother!” I hollered, even though I had noticed Mama’s puffiness, too. “Isabel thinks crowbars are fat.”

“Don’t talk mean about Isabel. She had to lie in the hospital, all pitiful and alone without us.”

Sometimes I just wanted to smack that girl. “Isabel St. James and all her bangs and bumps will heal just fine,” I said.

“And in a few months, Mother will have a crying little baby, and she’ll be just fine!”

We glared at each other.

“Isabel St. James would never allow such a low-class thing to happen to her,” Myra Sue said after a minute. “Besides, she doesn’t want to ruin her figure.”

“Is having a baby low-class?”

“Of course.”

My sister obviously had not thought about this dumb idea for any length of time.

“Then I reckon everyone on the face of the earth is low-class ’cause everyone’s mamas and daddies had babies once. And having a baby would not ruin Isabel’s figure. She exercises so much, she’d just go back to looking like she always does.”

Myra Sue narrowed her eyes at me. She was trying hard to think, I suppose. I hoped she didn’t give her brain a hernia.

“Then I will tell you something else you have not considered,” Myra Sue said after a bit. Her voice was all stiff and snooty.

“Pray tell,” I replied, snootier than her, if that was even possible.

“Once that baby gets here, Mother will not have time for us.”

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.” This was an Exaggeration, because my sister has said more dumb things than can be contained in one book, but I needed to make a point. “What do you mean?”

“Babies take a lot of time and attention,” she said, “and Mother will not be our mother anymore.”

“Good gravy, Myra Sue! You have totally lost what’s left of your senses.”

“Oh yeah? Then you just think about it. A cute, soft, cuddly, helpless little baby who will get its own way every time it whimpers or moves, because that’s what always happens. It will need to have its diapers changed umpteen times a day, and Mother will feed it every time she turns around, and if it cries, she will rock it to sleep, and when it sleeps, she’ll just stand by its bed, looking at it. She will totally forget about you and me and Daddy and Grandma and everyone else. And that, April Grace, is the facts of life.”

I just stared at that silly girl. Then, in spite of my resistance to her questionable brand of wisdom, Myra Sue’s words started to sink into my brain, little by little. I could not see how Mama would neglect the rest of her family. She wasn’t like that.

“You’re wrong,” I said, finally.

“Oh? Am I? Am I really?” She said all this with all the Extreme Drama you can imagine, as if she’d heard it from Isabel a million and twelve times. “Then let me tell you what happened to Alice Ann Reed. Her mother had a baby last year, and Alice Ann said her mom did nothing but talk about the baby before it was born. She pampered herself like a princess while she was pregnant, and when that kid finally got here, Mrs. Reed moved a bed into the baby’s room and stayed in there. Poor Alice Ann had to do all the cooking for herself and her father and brother, and she had to clean the whole house every week! And her mother never did a thing but take care of that wretched little baby.”

I frowned. “Myra Sue, for one thing, our mother is not like Mrs. Reed. And for another, I’m not sure, but I think calling a little baby wretched might be a sin.”

Myra Sue’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh! You think it might be?” Her eyes were wide.

I shrugged. “Well, probably not a sin,” I amended. “I’m no preacher, but I don’t think you ought to say mean things about tiny little babies, anyway.”

Neither one of us said anything while I thought about what she said about Alice Ann Reed.

“Did Mama do all them things when I was a baby?” I asked. “Rocking me to sleep and looking at me in my crib all the time?”

Myra Sue rolled her eyes. “How would I know? I was only two, but she probably did. You know how Mama is.”

“But even if she did, I bet she did not neglect you and Daddy. Mama isn’t like that.”

“April Grace Reilly, sometimes you are the dumbest child alive. Mother is old. She is not going to want to cook meals or do the cleaning or drive us to any school stuff or church parties or anything anymore. She will want to put her feet up and cuddle that baby. That’s what old women do!”

She clamped her mouth shut like she might bust out crying or something.

Now, here’s the thing. I generally do not pay much attention to anything my silly sister might say because what she says usually has nothing to do with the real world. But that time she had a point. Mama was old—nearly thirty-eight. Expecting that baby had already been hard on her, and it hadn’t even been born yet. Taking care of it was gonna be a nightmare.

I swallowed hard, realizing what all this meant. That baby was probably gonna cause more trouble than ole Ian and Isabel put together.

“I will never, ever tell Jennifer and Jessica about this,” my sister moaned. “It will be just too, too utterly humiliating.”

That seemed dumb to me. What are best friends for, anyway? I could hardly wait for school the next morning because I wanted to talk to Melissa face-to-face.