A Sliver of Sun Read online

  Ben winked at Mama. “Might as well go ahead and tell ’em, Heather.”

  Mama gave him a hesitant look, and her throat bobbed out a bit as she swallowed. “Girls,” she said, “uh, your daddy and I have somethin’ we wanna share with you.” She paused long enough to clear her throat. “Now, I know it’s gonna be a bit of a shock … but, well … in about five months you’re gonna have a little brother or sister.”

  Ginger let out a shriek and grabbed her face.

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

  Ginger jumped up and started hopping in place. “A baby! Daddy, is she serious?”

  Ben chuckled.

  My whole body jerked like I’d grabbed an electric fence. I searched Mama’s face as I replayed her words. A little brother or sister? A baby? Mama and Ben’s … baby?

  Mama bit her bottom lip and stared back at me, and I could read her thoughts clear as day. She wanted me to be happy. She wanted me to say it was okay. But it wasn’t okay. It was just plain crazy. “You’re kidding, right?” I said.

  Mama flushed and looked down at her hands.

  Ben fixed me with a warning look. “It’s a little soon for us too, Piper Lee. But things don’t always go according to plan.”

  Then maybe you ought to have planned better, I wanted to say. But I felt too lost to say anything at all.

  My reaction seemed to take some of the crackle out of Ginger’s fire. She stopped jumping and sat back down. And it was a good thing, because there wasn’t any reason to be jumping for joy. In fact, the more I thought about the situation, the hotter I got. Mama had already turned my whole world upside down. On account of her, I had a new dad, a new sister, a new house. In just a couple weeks I’d have to start at a new school. How dare she throw any more new into the mix. I glared at her a few seconds longer, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I jumped up and stalked into the house.

  Chapter Four

  I made a beeline for Ginger’s bedroom because it was the only bedroom I had, but a chalk mark down the middle didn’t make it mine. Nothing was mine. Not the room, not the house, not the people in the house. Mama wasn’t even all mine anymore. She was Ben’s wife, and Ginger’s mama … and now she was gonna become somebody else’s mama too. I’d been booted from the top of the pile, clear to the bottom.

  I slid down to the floor with my back against the wall and started wishing for things. I wished for the comforting clackity-clack of Miss Claudia’s sewing machine, and for the yummy cinnamon smell of her peach cobbler. I wished for the sliver of sun in front of the couch where Mowgli loved to lay, and for the sweet scent of jasmine drifting through my open window. I wished for the pale blue of my bedroom walls, and for the little B-52 bomber dangling from my bedroom light. It was gone. All of it.

  But then I glanced over at my stack of unpacked boxes, and I realized that I did still have the bomber. I crawled across to the box and carefully lifted the little plane by its wire hanger. I rubbed my finger over its shiny metal wings and gazed up at Ginger’s light fixture. If I hung the plane up there, maybe one tiny part of the room might feel like mine. ‘Course I wasn’t even close to being tall enough to reach it.

  I heard footsteps behind me and tucked my shoulders, hoping it was Ginger and not Mama. I never expected it to be Ben. My heart started to pound like I’d been caught stealing, and I scrambled to my feet.

  He studied me with his dark brown eyes. “Whatcha’ doing?”

  “Nothin. Just thinking I might hang my plane from the light, like at home.”

  Ben looked from my plane to the fixture. Then he stepped over and took the bomber from my hand. He reached up and twisted the wire around the bottom of the little knob of the plastic cover so the plane dangled a foot below. “That okay?” he asked.

  I swallowed. “It’s real good. Thanks.”

  “Alrighty then,” he said. “Now go on out and talk to your Mama. She’s feelin’ bad about the way you ran off.”

  My hackles rose right away. I wanted to tell him I had every right to run off, and that I had no desire to talk to Mama. But experience had taught me that sassing Ben was best done in my own head. “Yes, sir,” I mumbled.

  Mama still sat on the porch swing, jiggling her glass so the little splinters of ice rattled together. She smiled when she saw me. “Hey, you. Come sit for a minute.”

  I sat, but I didn’t smile. The bowl of peas was still on the top step, but Ginger wasn’t around. Mowgli crept across the yard stalking a butterfly.

  “I wanted to tell you about the baby first,” Mama said, “but Ben didn’t think it’d be right.”

  “Why not?”

  “On account of we’re a family now, and this will be something that affects all of us. So he thought it right to tell both you girls at the same time.”

  My shoulders slumped. “It don’t feel like we’re a family,” I said.

  “You can’t expect it to yet, Piper Lee. But it will, in time. Especially if we all work at it.” She put an arm around me, and I breathed in the scent of her new perfume. “What are you wearing?” I asked. “It doesn’t smell like your vanilla.”

  “It’s called Morning Glory. Do you like it?”

  No, I didn’t like it. I wanted the vanilla. Why did she have to go and change every little thing? But I only shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  The swing rocked back and forth a time or two, and then Mama said, “Can you tell me why you ran off when you heard about the baby?”

  I snorted. “Cause it’s a little crazy, Mama. I never even thought about you havin’ another baby. Aren’t you kinda old?”

  She laughed. “Thanks a lot. I’m only thirty-one. But yeah, I agree, it’s a big surprise. It … it just happened is all.”

  “You already have one new kid, isn’t that enough?” I hadn’t really planned on saying those words aloud, but they snuck out anyway.

  “You think havin’ this baby will make me love you less? You don’t honestly believe that?”

  I rolled my eyes. Of course it would make her love me less. After all, you didn’t have to be a math whiz to figure that if you divided one pecan pie among three kids, each kid would only get a third. But I didn’t want to talk about it. “Where are you gonna stick another kid, anyway? There’s only you and Ben’s room and Ginger’s room.”

  “I guess we’ll have to give it some thought.”

  And it suddenly dawned on me why Ben had said “we’ll see,” when Ginger had showed him the chalk mark in her room. He was probably thinking of making it fit three kids.

  Mowgli gave up stalking the butterfly and came and hopped up beside me on the swing. I ran my hand over his head, and he started to purr a noisy rumble. I loved that sound, even though I was still kinda mad at him.

  Mama reached across me and tickled his ear. “Guess he knows this is his new home now,” she said. “I hear he was a regular acrobat the other day.”

  I smiled despite myself. “You shoulda seen the jump he made.”

  “Miss Claudia told us. She also said you spent an awful lot of energy tryin’ to take those scratches off the Mustang’s hood.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t figure Ben needed more reason to …” not like me “… to be mad at me.”

  “Well, he appreciates the effort,” she said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “So do I.”

  I wondered how she knew he appreciated it. What had he said? I wanted to ask in the worst way, but I couldn’t. Talking about it was like rubbing the scratches on my arm—it made them sting all over again. Some things were just better left alone.

  After a bit Mama heaved a sigh and gave the swing a push with her feet. “Guess vacation’s over. It’s back to the real world tomorrow … at least for Ben.”

  I glanced up to see the worry in her eyes. Tomorrow was Ben’s first day back at the Georgia state prison after the riot two weeks earlier. His skinned knuckles had healed, but you could still see a red line above his eye where the seven stitches had been. His job as a prison guard had always sc
ared Mama, but ever since the riot, it scared her silly.”

  “He really likes his job, doesn’t he?”

  Mama rolled her eyes. “That he does, for whatever reason. But he’s trying to talk me into quitting mine.”

  This caught my attention. Mama had been a waitress at the Black Eyed Pea for as long as I could remember. “Why?” I asked.

  “Y’know, ’cause of the baby and all. But I’m not going to, we need the money. Especially now with the doctor visits I’ll need, and a new school year coming up.”

  School.

  I was a little mad at her for mentioning that word and reminding me we only had ten days of summer vacation left. But there was one little thing about school I’d been looking forward to. I’d finally get a break from Ginger. A place we wouldn’t have to be together all the time. A place where I could at least pretend my whole life hadn’t been turned inside out.

  Mama patted my knee and stood up. “I better go see if I remember how to cook. I’ve gotten pretty spoiled these last several days. And I’d like you to go figure out where to put things in your bedroom. I can’t stand all that clutter any longer.”

  I wandered down the hall to Ginger’s room. Seeing my B-52 dangling from the light fixture made me feel a smidgen better.

  Ginger was plopped down on her pink beanbag in the corner reading a book.

  “Mama says we gotta start putting stuff away in here,” I said.

  She squinted at me. “It’s all your stuff. My stuff’s already put away.”

  “Yeah, but you gotta share some of your closet, and some of your shelves too.”

  Ginger sighed. She put a marker in her book and closed it. “So what do you want the baby to be, boy or girl?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Neither.”

  “I’m serious, Piper Lee.”

  “So am I.”

  “Well, I hope it’s a boy.”

  The last thing I wanted to talk about was the kid, but curiosity got the better of me. “How come?”

  “Cause, I don’t wanna have to compete with another girl. Do you?”

  I slipped down onto the floor beside my boxes and thought about her question. I didn’t want to compete with any other kid. I had too much competition all ready. “Don’t know.”

  “Well, the way I was thinking, your mama’s got you, and Daddy’s got me. If she has another girl, then maybe it’ll be like their favorite. But a boy, well, that’s like comparin’ lemons and mangoes. He’d be all on his own.”

  I thought about it. The sex of the baby wouldn’t make Ben feel different about me—either way, I’d still be the only kid not related to him. The only kid without his name. But as far as Mama went, well, I had to admit Ginger had a point. A boy would be way better than a girl. At least then I’d still be Mama’s only blood daughter. “Yeah,” I admitted, “too bad we can’t make it so.”

  “Maybe we can.”

  I wrinkled up my nose. “Ginger, you’re dim as a nightlight. You can’t pick the sex of your baby.”

  “Can so,” she said. “I read it myself, in one of Mama’s magazines.”

  I stared at her. I wanted to laugh, to tell her she was loony, but she sounded so cock sure of herself I didn’t know what to make of it. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  She got to her feet and climbed to the top bunk where she kept a pile of Mama’s old Woman’s Way magazines. I waited impatiently as she shuffled through them for what seemed a long time. Finally, she pulled one from the pile with a triumphant smile. “Come up here,” she whispered. “We gotta keep this quiet.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I climbed up anyway. As soon as I got settled, she thrust the magazine in my face. And there it was, in big, bold letters.

  5 Foolproof Ways to Determine the Sex of Your Baby

  “See.” Ginger waved the magazine at me. “Told you so. Listen to this: Midwives of yesteryear claimed that what you ate before and during conception could influence the gender of your baby. Want a girl? Eat a diet rich in dairy and magnesium—soy, nuts, leafy greens. For a boy, stick with salty foods, plenty of red meat and fizzy drinks.”

  Ginger looked up and grinned. “Oh, yeah, and it says if you want your baby to have lots of hair, you should eat spicy stuff.”

  I shook my head and tried hard to think of something to say. I didn’t want to act all keyed up, but I couldn’t help it. I knew a pregnancy lasted nine months, but how long was this ‘before and during conception’ stuff? “What else does it say?”

  “Another study of 740 British women shows that those who ate breakfast cereal and consumed more total calories daily delivered more boys compared with those who skipped breakfast and ate fewer calories. The study also suggests that mothers who consumed alcohol, were under stress, or suffered generally poor health, gave birth to more females.

  “That it?” I asked.

  “Yeah. ’cause then it starts talking about heartburn—whatever that is.”

  I nibbled my fingernail and mulled things over. A little part of me still wasn’t sure. It seemed plum crazy to think you could make your baby be a boy or a girl. But I didn’t think the magazine would lie. Mama had been a subscriber to Woman’s Way for as long as I could remember. She clipped coupons and recipes from its pages, learned how to sew a slipcover for our old couch, sand a book shelf, and do exercises to tone her belly and thighs. She even had a Woman’s Way app on her phone. I couldn’t think of any reason not to trust what it said.

  A tickle of excitement stirred in my belly as I scanned back over the article. “Okay,” I said, “we gotta make a list.”

  Ginger hopped down to the floor, found her heart-shaped pad of paper and climbed back up beside me. “Okay, I’m ready. What are we listing?”

  “Salty food, red meat, soda pop, high calorie stuff.”

  Ginger’s hand scribbled furiously. “Hold up. I can’t write that fast.”

  I waited for her to catch up. “Bananas and lots of breakfast cereal. Oh, and better put spicy food on there so the kid’s not a baldy.”

  Ginger giggled and added pepper sauce to the list. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “now write down stuff we can’t let her have. Dairy, nuts, soybeans, or leafy green veggies.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ginger said. “Milk’s dairy, right? So what’s she gonna put on her cereal?”

  I thought hard. “Maybe milk isn’t real dairy. Maybe they’re talking about cheese and yogurt and stuff.”

  We both looked at the list. “Anything else?” Ginger asked.

  “She has to not be stressed out or get sick, and no alcohol.”

  I heard Ben’s footsteps about two seconds before he stepped into the room. I thought it odd how somebody as big as Ben could be so good at sneakin’ up on people.

  “Hey, Daddy,” Ginger said, placing her hand over the list.

  “Hey, yourself,” he said. “Your mama tells me you’re s’posed to be organizing this room.”

  “I know. We’re gonna get to that pretty soon.”

  Ben cocked an eyebrow. “Well, how ’bout you get to it now?”

  We both swung down off the bed and landed with light thumps on the floor.

  Ben turned to go, but Ginger grabbed his hand. “Hey, Daddy, hold on a minute. What do you want the baby to be, boy or girl?”

  His mouth turned up in a half smile, and he ran a hand through his hair. “Well, now, I don’t rightly know if I have a preference.”

  Ginger put her hands on her hips. “Come on. I bet you want a boy.”

  That got a grin out of him. His face turned the slightest shade of pink. It was the first time I’d ever seen him blush. “Well … yeah,” he said. “I guess a son might be nice.”

  I felt a little burst of relief. Good. Even Ben wanted a boy. I wondered if Mama had a preference. I hoped with all my heart that she wanted a boy too. But even if she didn’t, I was gonna do my best to see that she had one.

  Chapter Five

  It didn’t take long to realize that controllin
g Mama’s diet was gonna be ’bout as easy as making a boulder float. Some of her favorite foods were things she wasn’t allowed to have—spinach greens, almonds and cream—and she wasn’t much of a breakfast eater either. When she nibbled on nothing but crackers for two mornings in a row, I knew we were gonna have to do something.

  “Want me to make some pancakes?” I offered.

  Mama tilted her head. “Am I hearing things, or did you just offer to make me breakfast?”

  “I’ve made chocolate chip cookies before,” I said. “Can’t be a whole lot different.”

  “Well, thank you. But I’m peachy for now.”

  Ginger flashed me a worried look. “You should at least eat some cereal,” she said. She went to the cupboard and took down boxes of Cheerios and Corn Flakes. “Which one do you want?”

  “I’m really not hungry,” Mama said.

  “How ’bout a banana then?” I asked.

  Mama looked back and forth between us. “What is goin’ on with you girls?”

  “You’re eating for two now,” I said. “You wanna starve the … the kid?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, well, it’s because of the kid that I’m not feeling very hungry. That’s why I’m eating crackers, it helps get rid of the sick feeling.”

  I felt a stitch of alarm. Feeling sick was an indication of a girl, isn’t that what the article said. “You’re sick?”

  “Not really, Piper Lee. Just a little queasy is all. It’s called morning sickness. I had it with you too.”

  “I made you sick?”

  “Just off and on in the mornings for the first couple months. It’ll pass.”

  Ginger made a face. “You felt like throwin’ up for two months? That’s nasty. I’m never getting pregnant.”

  Mama put a hand to her forehead. “That will be a decision you can make later, Ginger. Now why don’t you girls get yourselves something for breakfast instead of fretting so much about me.”

  I sighed. “Mama, do you want a boy or girl?”

  She gave her cracker a thoughtful look before taking another nibble. I tried to read her face, but really couldn’t. “As long as it’s healthy, either one’s fine. But if it was entirely up to me, I’d say … a girl.”