Page 78 of Such Sharp Teeth

“I don’t know what she told you,” he says. “But I’m just doing what she asked. She said she needed space, so I gave her space. Your mom called me tonight and I came. Ow, Jesus, my shoulder.”

“You must have done something,” I say.

Scarlett isn’t the type to be unhappy in a relationship. She’s like my mother. She’ll do whatever it takes to make it work. She had her first boyfriend in the second grade and hasn’t been single since. She was with Rich from seventh grade through when they left for college, and even then, even with him at school hours away, they still tried to make it work. The slow dissolve of their relationship was aided only by Jake, her interim boyfriend, whom she dated for a year before meeting Matty. If she’d never met Matty, I would undoubtedly be standing next to Jake right now or some other handsome yawn.

I love my sister, but she doesn’t exactly have standards. She doesn’t like being single. She doesn’t like the chase, doesn’t like flirting. She likes intimacy. She likes to love someone, to give her energy to them, to know someone and be known by them. She likes to share her life. To hold hands and cook and plan picnic dates and go apple picking. She followed our mother’s model, and I rejected it wholeheartedly. That’s how it’s always been.

I would think getting pregnant would make her more inclined to fight for her relationship, not less. And I sort of assumed her lack of excitement about the baby was a direct result of Matty having fucked off, but if that’s not it, I’m not sure I understand what’s going on with my sister.

“What did you do?” I ask him. “She wouldn’t just kick you out for no reason.”

“You’d have to ask her,” he says.

“Where is she?”

He tilts his chin back toward the main hallway.

“Does she know you’re here?”

He nods, then winces as he looks down at his shoulder. “Good thing we’re in a hospital.”

“Better if we were in a funeral home,” I say, walking away.

I peer into a few rooms before finding her. She looks tired, her ever-perfect eyeliner smudged. Mom sits in a chair near the door.

“I’m here,” I say. “I brought clothes.”

“They’re keeping me overnight,” Scarlett says in a voice not her own. Her eyes are glazed over, and she stares at the ceiling.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Mom says. “False alarm. Just some cramping. Hard to know what’s what.”

“I knew it was probably fine,” Scarlett says. “Mom panicked.”

“Better to be cautious,” Mom says. “Is it not?”

I suspect that either Scarlett is playing it off not to acknowledge any vulnerability, or Mom manipulated the situation as an excuse not to get on the plane. Perhaps a little of both.

There’s only one chair in the room. I don’t really know what to do with myself. “Do you want anything? I can get food or . . .”

“You can go home,” Scarlett says. “You don’t need to stay.”

“Of course I’ll stay.”

“Mom’s here,” she says. “Matty’s here.”

“Yeah, I saw.”

“Yeah,” Scarlett says. “Rory, please go home.”

“You asked me to be here,” I say. “You asked me to drop everything and come here to be with you, and I came. You said he left.”

“Aurora!” Mom grabs my hand. “Your sister is lying in a hospital bed. Can you please relax?”

I can’t. The anger is teeming, untamable.

“You lied to me,” I tell Scarlett.