The bedroom overlooked an air shaft, and lights from neighboring apartments came in through the thin curtain. When I ducked under the clothes hanging from the rope, I could see Julia’s face, with her long lashes fluttering against her cheeks. I could tell from her squinched eyelids that, like her little brothers, she was only pretending to sleep. I sat on the edge of the bed—the tiny room didn’t have space for a chair.
Julia’s breath came out in quick shallow gusts, but she lay perfectly still, willing me to believe she was asleep.
“You’ve been angry with Josie ever since María Inés was born,” I said, matter-of-factly. “She’s going to school, she’s playing basketball, she’s doing all the things you used to do, before you had María Inés. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
She lay rigid, in angry silence, but after several minutes, when I didn’t say anything else, she suddenly burst out, “I only did it once, once when Ma was at work, and Josie and the boys were in school. He said a virgin can’t get pregnant, I didn’t even know until—I thought I was dying, I thought I had cancer inside me. I didn’t want a baby, I wanted to get rid of it, only the pastor, he and Ma said that’s a sin, you go to hell.
“And then, the day he did it to me, Josie came in, she came home early from school, she saw me, and she was, like, how could you?, you’re a whore. We used to be best friends, even when Sancia and me was friends, and now, whenever I complain about María Inés, she’s, like, you didn’t have to be a whore. Her and April, they say they’re going to college, they say their basketball take them to college. Well, Coach McFarlane, that’s what she used to say to me. So when Billy came over on Thursday and begged for a place to sleep, I invited him in, I thought, you do it to her, to Josie, make her get a baby, see what she says then!”
She was panting, as if waiting for me to criticize her, but the whole story was so sad I only wanted to cry. I reached under the coverlet for one of her clenched hands and squeezed it gently.
“Julia, I would love to watch you play basketball. Whatever your sister says, or your mother, or even your pastor, there’s no shame in what you did—in having sex, in getting pregnant. The shame is the boy who did it lying to you and you not knowing any better. And it would be another shame if you let your baby stop you from getting an education. If you keep lying around the house, feeling angry, you’ll ruin your life.”
“And who look after María Inés? Ma, she got to work, now she saying if I don’t go to school I got to get a job.”
“I’ll make some calls, Julia, and see what kind of help I can find. In the meantime, I want you to come to our practice on Thursday. Bring María Inés. Bring Sammy and Betto: they can watch María Inés in the gym with us while you work out. Will you do that?”
Her eyes were dark pools in the half-light. She clutched my hand tightly and finally mumbled, “Maybe.”
“And before you go out with another boy, you need to learn something about your body, about how you get pregnant, and what you can do to keep from getting pregnant. You and I will talk about that, too. Are you still seeing María Inés’s—father?” I stumbled on the word—the person who got her pregnant wasn’t acting like a father to the baby.
“Sometimes. Just to say, ‘Hi, look, this is your baby.’ I don’t let him do nothing to me, if that’s what you mean. One baby is enough for me.”
“He doesn’t help support María Inés?”
“He got two more children spread around this neighborhood,” she cried. “And he don’t have no job. I ast him and ast him, and he never do nothing, now he cross the street if he see me coming.”
“So is it this Freddy whom you and Josie were mentioning yesterday?”
She nodded again, her silky hair ruffling the nylon pillowcase.
“Who is he?”
“Just a guy. I met him at church, that’s all.”
I wondered if Pastor Andrés, with his stern lectures on sex, ever talked to Freddy about scattering children he couldn’t support around the South Side, but when I put it into words Julia turned away from me. I realized I wasn’t just making her uncomfortable, I was getting pretty far a field from Josie’s disappearance.
“So when Billy stayed here on Friday and Saturday night, did he and Josie have sex together?”
“No,” she said dully. “He said, her and me should sleep together, he didn’t want temptation in their path. He quoted a bunch of Bible verses. It was almost as bad as Pastor Andrés being in the room with me.”
I couldn’t quite stifle a laugh, but I could picture the little room, heavy with religion and hormones. A suffocating combination. “Do you think your sister ran away with Billy?”
She turned back to look at me. “I don’t know for sure, but she left for school, then, an hour later, she came back. She put her toothbrush in her backpack, and a few things, you know, her pajamas, stuff like that. When I asked where she was off to, she said, to see April, but, well, you know, after all these years I know pretty much when Josie is lying to me. And besides, April, she was coming home from the hospital today. Mrs. Czernin, she wouldn’t have let Josie come over to the house, not with April so sick.”