I find Shay propped up in bed, holding the new crochet needles and soft white yarn I gave her at her bedside baby shower a couple days after I returned from Scotland. But she’s not working with the yarn, just sitting there teary-eyed. She tries to smile when she sees me, but it doesn’t really work. “They’ve been going on like this for at least half an hour.” She wipes at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I can’t stand it.”
“Hey, hey. Every brother and sister fight sometimes.” This is true, but I feel like a liar saying it. Neither Carmen nor Arturo is the type to shout, especially not at each other.
Shay sniffles. “It was like Carmen was mad at me for getting pregnant to begin with, and then as soon as she got over that, she turned on Arturo. We saved up for one last party before the baby! Everything besides the beer, other people brought! We weren’t being stupid—were we?”
I sit on the bed beside her. Despite the fact that she’s a married woman on the verge of motherhood, she looks so much younger than me right now. More like a girl than an adult. “You’ve got all the furniture for the nursery. You’ve started a savings account for college, and this kid is still a fetus!”
“But there’s day care to pay for too—because I’ve got to finish my degree, or else I’ll just be a lead weight around Arturo’s neck—” By now Shay is breaking down completely.
“It’s going to be fine,” I promise her. “Okay? You guys aren’t going to get derailed by one last party.”
“Did war break out downstairs?” Surprised by the voice behind me, I turn around to see Geordie standing in the doorway, shirtless but still clad in his kilt. He winces at the light coming in through Shay’s bedroom window. “Also, is it November first or have I been out for longer?”
“You passed out around two A.M.,” Shay says between sniffles. “Arturo put you on the nursery floor.”
“Kind of him.” Geordie slumps against the doorjamb. His complexion has taken on a ghastly shade of green. “I’m afraid I may be on the verge of getting sick in your toilet.”
Shay waves her hand toward the bathroom. “Go ahead,” she says miserably. “I’ve vomited in it often enough the past couple months. Someone else ought to get a turn.”
As Geordie stumbles into their bathroom, I hear Carmen yell, “Yes, you do have to justify this! You’re going to be a father, Arturo! You have to justify everything you do that isn’t about taking care of that baby!”
I squeeze Shay’s hand. “I came here to help clean up. But what if I got Carmen out of the house instead?”
“Oh, God bless you.” Shay leans back on her pillows, gone limp with relief.
So I hurry downstairs, grab Carmen’s purse, then point to her. “You. Me. Brunch. Now.”
Carmen and Arturo freeze, midargument. It would be funny if I hadn’t seen Shay crying. Finally Carmen manages to say, “How can you think about brunch at a time like this?”
“On a weekend morning? It’s pretty easy. Come on.”
She doesn’t say a word as we leave, or on the drive to Magnolia Café. But while we wait in line outside, Carmen mutters, “You could have just told me to cool it.”
“Would it have worked?”
Carmen doesn’t answer. She just hugs herself more tightly against the chilly breeze.
“What were you freaking out about?”
“The way they spend money—”
“They threw one party, Carmen. Otherwise they’ve been more careful with their money than you or I have ever been.” Arturo is one of the genius-freaks who started an IRA at eighteen. “That’s not what’s actually bothering you.”
“How would you know? You can’t read my mind. You don’t have to ask yourself what it would be like if you had to help support your brother and his wife and a baby—”
“That’s not going to happen!” Even if I didn’t have so much faith in Shay and Arturo, the Ortiz family is reasonably well off. Carmen and Arturo’s parents aren’t rich, but they’re in a position to help out if the new baby needs anything.
Carmen hasn’t even heard me. “—you don’t have to ask yourself if you’re going to get derailed, because you don’t have any responsibilities like that. You can just keep working on your thesis, and going to the studio. You’re going to make it no matter what. It’s not like that for me.”
“Of course you’re going to make it. You’re a math genius.”
“No, I’m not.” Her voice breaks. “I was really smart on the high school level. And the undergrad level. But now? At this point? I’m falling behind—I can tell I’m falling behind, and my advisor says I have to buckle down or—”
Carmen starts to cry. A few people in the brunch line are staring. Well, let them stare. I hug her tightly. “You’re not scared for Arturo. You’re scared for yourself.”
“One of us has to make it,” she whispers as she hugs me back. “I don’t think it’s going to be me.”