I wake up to the smell of something burning, and in my sleep-deprived, panicked haze as I roll out of bed and grab the baby, assume the house is on fire. And if I'm really being honest with myself, when I sprint to the kitchen and find my husband eating blackened scrambled eggs with his ex-girlfriend, heck, I might've preferred if we all just burned to a crisp instead.

All of us stare at each other for a few seconds, like we're in a three-camera sitcom or something. "This ain't what it looks like," Bonnie says, the first to break the silence, as her fork scrapes against her plate in a way that makes my blood run cold down my left side. "I wanted to know how Soda's doin'. Mostly."

"I reckoned I ought to let you sleep," Tim says, a grimace starting to slide across his face. "There's some more eggs left on the stove, if you want…" He gestures towards it. I think he forgot to put butter down first, he always does that.

I slap a Good Housekeeping-approved hostess smile onto my face— though I never read anything from Peggy Post about how to handle a situation as gauche as this. She's as put-together as ever, her dark hair grown out to her mid-back in the hippie way that's gotten popular, and she's obviously taken the time to apply her makeup, judging by the thick swoop of her eyeliner wings though it's early in the morning still. She could've just stepped out of a bar as the sun comes up, glamorous and faintly bored, her eyes heavy-lidded as she surveys the scene with disdain. Meanwhile, I threw on a shirt covered in my daughter's spit-up and my last attempt at feeding her mashed carrots on over my lumpy maternity bra, and when I try to run a hand through my own hair...

I stopped straightening it, at least consistently. It costs a fortune and a half to get it relaxed at a salon, and the time Ximena tried to do a home kit on me, she burned my scalp into weeping blisters with the lye— besides, I barely had enough energy to shower after Neni was born, much less haul myself down to Greenwood for an appointment. I've taken a hot comb to it, a few times, but haven't been able to recreate that same sleek look down my back, especially not with my daughter fussing two feet away from me. It's my vanity, and God knows nobody's looking at me these days anyway, but in the same room as Bonnie, Luis's cold drawl washes over me like a saltwater wave again, leaving me sputtering— mixed with it, she flat-irons her hair, as he rubbed a strand between his fingers like I was a zoo animal. I feel stripped naked.

"You didn't have to cook breakfast," I say to Tim, of all things, as I bounce Neni up on my hip and she shoves a handful of my shirt into her mouth. And I know I can't expect my child to be the center of everyone's universe, but it sure hasn't slipped my notice that Bonnie hasn't said one word to or about her yet. "I would've, if you'd woken me up—"

If only I could've answered the door while I was at it, too.

"I can cook," he says a little indignantly. "You think Angel and Curly got fed from my mama clippin' recipes out of Ladies' Home Journal? They would've starved to death."

Bonnie raises a well-sculpted eyebrow. "You keep this poor girl chained to your stove, Tim? She doesn't even know you can scramble eggs?"

"Sometimes he lets me scrub the toilets, too," I say with a closed-mouth smile that hides clenched teeth. "Cleanin' out the icebox is my treat on Friday nights."

I'm being ridiculous, I tell myself, and if I assess the situation with any kind of objectivity, I really am. They broke up at seventeen, just kids, I can't possibly be jealous of some girl he dated in high school— I need to grow up and be an adult about this, he'd be far from the first person to be on friendly terms with an ex, especially one from so long ago—

"Remember Thanksgiving… what was it, '62?" Then she lights up right in the middle of my kitchen, like she's got no home training and this is Buck Merril's roadhouse, and all that forced goodwill evaporates in an instant. "That time Mary was chuggin' so much 'cooking' sherry, she fell asleep with the turkey still in the oven? We're lucky she didn't kill us all right then and there."

"Awh, put that out," Tim says with more fondness than I like, "Gabi don't let no one smoke indoors, she's real particular 'bout the upholstery."

Well, sue me, that I know enough about lung cancer to not want that seeping into my baby's nostrils, too. She can smoke outside on the porch, like the rest of us. "So how did y'all bump into each other?" I say with my last reserves of cheerfulness as I wrestle with the straps on Neni's high chair. "Bonnie, I thought you were livin' in OKC now, you got that scholarship—"

"I graduated last semester, I'm back home now," she says, then leans forward on her elbows. "Tim, you keep dodgin' the question, don't bullshit me. Last time I talked to Darry, he said he was back in rehab, that he gettin' was serious about it—"

Tim sinks his teeth into his lower lip, hard enough to leave an indent when he pulls them away. "He's panhandling on I-44 with one of them 'Homeless Vet Anything Helps God Bless' signs, Two-Bit saw him the other day," he says bluntly. "It was misspelled, so he's pretty sure it was him, anyway— you wouldn't even recognize him on sight. Bonnie, you need to cut him loose already, he was usin' two hours after he got out. Ain't you met no one else at school, I dunno, some business major who can put you up in a nice house?"

The bitterness in his voice is palpable in the word house. Ours is… a fixer-upper, from the nailed-shut living room window to the leak in our kitchen ceiling the landlord won't patch. (Note to self: empty the bucket I put under it, it's close to overflowing.) It's better than what plenty of people live in on this side of town— better than what Tim grew up in, though that might be because his mama had no idea where he kept the cleaning supplies— but, well, worse than my daddy's. I don't mind— I'm trying real hard not to mind, and I put some nice curtains up to hide that window— but I know how much it bothers him.

She narrows her eyes, fanning her lashes out over her cheeks. "Goin' to college didn't make me that domesticated," she says. "If things don't work out with Soda, I'm gettin' a cowboy."

"Figures it'd take one of those to wrangle you," Tim says, then glances at our beat-up grandfather clock. "Shit, I'm gonna be late for work."

"Wait, it's Saturday, ain't it?"

"I got two jobs, doll," Tim says tiredly, "I work every day of the week." For emphasis, he drains his half-filled coffee mug in one gulp. "I better get promoted to foreman soon, amount of time I put in on that site." He gets up, puts it in the sink, tries to kiss me; it's petty in the extreme, but I turn my head a little, so he catches the corner where my lips meet my cheek instead of my mouth. "You take your pills yet?"

"I was about to— I did your lunch last night, 's in the fridge." I'm already starting to go through the motions of daily life, pulling out Neni's oatmeal and applesauce mix along with his bag, reaching for the 'days of the week' pill container on the counter next to the sink.

"You're sick?" Bonnie looks genuinely concerned, which is worse than just about any other option, because it's making me start to wonder if I'm the problem in this dynamic. "Is it serious?"

At this point, I've become desensitized to her lack of tact, but not enough that I want to spill the details of my gynecological visits to her, either. "Not so much," I say vaguely as I pop a blue one into my mouth. "They're mostly supplements now." For eclampsia. I almost died sits curled-up on my tongue. I don't need her pity.

Tim's out the door like a shot the second he's got his paper bag in his hand— smart man— leaving the two of us alone together. She grasps her plate with both hands, then sets it back down, like she's not sure what to do with it. "I get it, this is kind of screwed up," and for once I'm glad for her ability to tell it like it is. "We weren't... doin' nothin', I promise. It's Soda I'm back here for."

I don't know why she has to keep saying it over and over again, who she's trying to convince; the lady doth protest too much, methinks. "Okay," I say perfectly pleasantly, strike another match over the stove to heat up Neni's food. Then I balance a hand on my hip, turn to face her. I might've rejected so many lessons from my alma mater, but the Immaculate Heart still remains, and I'm armored with poised insurrection. "If you want to hear more about Soda, though, I think you should probably go ask Darry, he's livin' out in Claremore since he got divorced. I bet he'd appreciate someone to talk to."

Roofing is the kind of business you get into when you have multiple trips to Big Mac under your belt, or at least the county jail, and even gas stations won't give you a chance— and check the cash register before you head out. Most of the guys on this crew are former small-time hoods who aged out of the game, never got much wilder than selling their grandma's leftover painkillers and carried their switchblades for show, then knocked some broad up and found themselves in the position of having to provide for a family. They ain't shit.

Of course, I've got enough self-awareness to realize that every other guy on this crew is probably thinking the same thing about himself. And unfortunately, after I got out of jail, I had about all of two options available to me— a construction job Darry felt bad enough to pretty much give me, or crawling back to Luis with my tail between my legs. I picked a halfway-steady paycheck; I was genuinely astounded, first time I started working for his old man, that I was getting the same amount of money on a regular basis. I might be making dogshit money, but at least I know that dogshit money's clearing every two weeks, without me having to beg on my knees for it: "Please, Tío, Curly's gonna need surgery on that broken arm—"

Yeah, I'm still pissed at him. Easier than being anything else at him, trying to untangle my individual feelings like a string of Christmas lights in the garage.

I don't mind the work itself so much, even though it's tough— okay, who the hell am I kidding, yeah, I mind the work, it's going to break my back any day now. But it's a shit job, the kind aimed at the least common denominator, anyone who can figure out how to aim a power tool— and it turns my mind, usually whirring with a million separate thoughts like a diamond drill bit, silent, until I collapse into bed into a dreamless black hole of sleep. I can finally outrun the demons threatening to nip at my heels, lurking in the corners of my vision whenever I take a breath.

My wallet slips from my lap and falls open, revealing the family picture I keep folded up in there— me, Gabi, and Elena, the baby swaddled in a blanket with a duckling print, the two of us grownups looking like we just crawled out of a jungle in the bowels of Nam. She's maybe a month old in it. God, I'm definitely sleeping on the couch tonight.

"That your girl?"

Oh, for fuck's sake— I can barely suppress my groan as he approaches. It's Dave Hayes, everybody's best friend on this crew except mine; I swear he's been invited to every barbecue, Super Bowl party, and baby shower on the East side, and he's only been here a few months. Of course he'd see me as his last challenge to conquer.

I pick my wallet back up and slam it shut, straighten my shoulders; my own fault, for taking my personal thinking to this job. "My wife," I say without a hint of invitation in my voice. I'm not eighteen anymore, but some of the old protectiveness over her never left me. Not to mention that if he clocks me as white, and her as black... well, it's not as bad as the other way around, but it's still not going to be pretty. I don't need to be swinging my fists around on this job, not if I want to keep it, and I sure as hell need to keep it.

"She's easy on the eyes."

"Ain't she?" This time I add a cold, pointed edge to my words, hope he'll get the hint and beat it. Great, last thing I need, one of the clowns on this construction site making eyes at her— in the circles I used to run in, telling a guy his girl or sister were good-looking were powerful fighting words, let's just say that.

"Hey, calm down, I ain't sniffin' after her," he says with a smile, his hands up in mock surrender. "Lord, the other guys warned me off you, but I didn't realize it was this bad."

"Yeah?" I narrow my eyes as I look at him, and not just because I'm staring into the sun. "What are they sayin', then?"

"That you're a stuck-up prick, pretty much, think you're too good to talk to anybody else." I've heard variations on that my whole life, but it still stings to hear. "I mean, that's half of them. Other half say you're on parole for murder and I better keep my distance."

I laugh roughly, because the truth is, I got out before I could have that kind of thing on my conscience. "I ain't no murderer," I say, "ain't so exciting as that." I'm only twenty-four, Jesus Christ, how bad do they imagine prison overcrowding is in this state that I'd be out already? "I just don't want to get mixed up in their shit again, I'm real close to gettin' off probation."

"Their shit?"

"Pushin' grass and pills, on the side. Roofing don't pay jack, and this whole operation's pretty much all ex-cons, anyway." I pull out my sandwich in a way I hope is sufficiently dismissive, wish I had a newspaper or something to throw up in front of my face while I'm at it. My wife willingly sleeps with me, too, which eliminates a lot of other potential conversation topics with them.

I'm really going on a charm offensive here, but what does he do but sit right down next to me and whip out his own bagged lunch. "My wife made this for me," he says, like I asked, and just starts telling me his entire life story off the cuff. That he grew up on a farm deep in hick country, some place called Pryor Creek, that he was in Nam for a year pushing papers at a base just outside Saigon, but he tries to make it sound more exciting when his kid brothers press him for details, that he and Ginny are trying for their first baby—

"I got one," I say without meaning to; in my defense, there's only so long you can hear a guy going on about himself before inserting your own life's details, just to break up the monotony. "A baby girl, she's seven months now. Better get your sleep in now, trust me, she's barely started sleepin' through the night."

He smiles at me, like I'm a fish he's just hooked. I don't even know how he does it.

Eileen leans towards me, armed with a conspiratorial whisper. "Y'all seen Rebecca Doherty at Mass Wednesday?"

Lucy sets her coffee cup back down after the most minute of sips. "If she ain't walkin' around with another pair of Irish sunglasses— I don't even know why she tries to cover it up with concealer, like Revco sells nothin' that strong. Honey, we can all still see it, it's even more obvious she didn't fall down no stairs."

"She talk to Father Murphy about it yet?" Eileen asks, fingering the paste pearls around her neck like she's praying a rosary.

Lucy snorts. "What good would that do?" I cluck my tongue against the roof of my mouth, because she's being sacrilegious but dead-on accurate. The only thing Father Murphy ever tells a woman who's getting slapped around is to go home and listen to her husband— you're a Catholic, you make the best of it. I'm sure Tenoch, whatever diocese he's in now, is saying just that. "I caught her the other day at the Piggly Wiggly, told her if she really wants that fool gone for good, my aunt Loretta just poured a cup of sugar into a pot of boiling water and there went Uncle—"

Eileen taps her on the elbow, admonishing like a mother slapping her toddler's hand away from a hot stove. "Little pitchers," she says, sotto voce, as she gestures towards the actual toddlers running rampant around my living room, though she was the one to bring it up in the first place. Third-degree burns, Lucy mouths at me. "Gabi, how'd Tim take the whole job thing? Is he lettin' you get one?"

I'm still so preoccupied replaying the Bonnie incident in my mind, I don't even remember what the heck she's talking about at first. Every group of girls— or women, who are overgrown girls at heart— has one of them, and Lucy Gallagher is the queen who holds court over the joint Irish-Hispanic congregation of Our Lady of Grace. Complaining about your man is the oil that greases the wheels of conversation on the East side, and I like her just fine— or at the very least, I've run pretty low on friends in the past few years and can't afford to be picky— but I'm well-aware that if I let that story slip around her, I'll be getting more sympathetic looks than poor Rebecca Doherty next time I show my face at church.

"With about as much machismo as you'd expect," I say, more acerbic than I intended to sound. My coffee is already lukewarm as I swish it around my mouth, and overwhelmingly sweet, I must've added too much sugar to the cup without thinking. I swear since I had the baby, it's a struggle to remember my own name— or one embarrassing time on the phone, my home address. "He's not havin' it, not that I really figured otherwise, but it was worth a shot." I scramble for a reason that sounds better than he's the most stubborn man on the planet and almost come up short. "He thinks Neni's too young to be away from me yet."

"Oh, if you need a little somethin' to do from home, I have got to get all you ladies into this," Lucy says, which almost makes me feel bad about assuming the worst of her and all her gossiping. "It's called Holiday Magic, I'm really climbin' the ranks," and all of my goodwill vanishes in an instant, as I realize I'm going to have to explain what a pyramid scheme is to her later. "You just get the starter kit from the company, and they promise you can be drivin' a pink Jeep in twelve months—"

A headache pulses against the back of my skull as she keeps talking, and I'm regretting hosting this little get-together, when my mind's already littered with thoughts like debris swept up in a dust storm. Especially when Lucy's daughter starts dangling from my curtain rod again, though Lucy's gimlet eye is quick to spot her. "Nicole Tamara, you git down from Miz Gabi's blinds right now, or it's a licking," she says with a rotation of her neck that'd be impressive on an owl, snapping her fingers. "You hear me? You're gonna crack your fool skull open and mess up her floor."

Nicole leaps to the ground with a gymnast's dramatic flourish on the landing. "But Mama, I'm boooored—"

"But Mama nothin', sister, take Dean and go play outside." The bags under Lucy's eyes are as purple-blue as late twilight; once Nicole's hauled her baby brother out by one arm like she's carrying a teddy bear, she slumps forward and massages her temples. "I love my kids, I do," she says with a defensive glare, daring us to disagree. Then she sighs. "But none of them have good personalities, and I swear, they get that from their daddy."

Eileen picks up immediately on what I don't— the way Lucy keeps brushing her fingertips against her stomach, like she's guarding it, or how she said 'none of them' instead of 'neither'. "You expectin' again?"

"You noticed I've been in a bit of a pissy mood lately?" She gives us a rueful smile and pats her brassy roots. "Went to the doctor yesterday, though I shouldn't have even bothered. I know what morning sickness feels like by now."

I wait to speak, try to gauge how she's feeling about it. Eileen's a lot less subtle, probably because she's known her since they went to preschool in the Saint Francis of Assisi basement together. "Girl—" she whistles low— "shit, ain't Harvey ever climbin' off you?"

"Hardly," Lucy says, rolling her eyes, "that man's like a dog in heat. I'm doin' the dishes, he's coppin' a feel, I'm steppin' out of the shower, he's runnin' to watch me get dressed, I'm tryna watch General Hospital in peace, he's unzippin' his pants— you get the picture." I'd be a little concerned for her if there wasn't the beginning of a smug, self-satisfied smile on her face. Harvey worships at her altar and that's how she likes it. "Now imagine he put as much effort into findin' another job as he does into gettin' some tail, I swear we'd be Rockefellers by now…"

"You ain't checkin' your calendar before y'all get horizontal?"

Lucy blushes, and it's not the Revco 2-for-1 special on Candy Apple Red. For a second, she looks like she could be one of my girlfriends from back at school, embarrassed to talk about her first kiss. "I mean... you want to do it the most that week when you're not supposed to, you know?"

I blush too, because honestly, it's true— which is why Tim called it praying real hard we don't get pregnant, in his caustic, but accurate way. I have a diaphragm, though I'd rather drop dead than admit it out loud to them; I know it's wrong, but I just can't have another one, and I'm too chicken to ask Father Murphy or anybody else about it. God has the entire backstory, I'm sure He'll understand where I'm coming from.

"Babies are a blessing," Lucy says firmly. "We'll make it work. Poor Gail, on the other hand, so they're thinkin' the problem's her man's sperm count and not her—"

A knock on the door interrupts whatever's going on with Gail's eggs; I almost knock over my mug in my haste to get to it. "Where's my baby girl— there she is." Ximena rushes straight past me like I'm a piece of furniture to scoop her out of her crib, when I've just gotten her down. "You come to tía now— oh my goodness, preciosa, is that a new bow—"

"Lookin' good as ever, Ximena," Eileen calls out from the living room. She's right; she does, with her clear skin, straight black hair, and eyes with a hint of hazel, just like our daddy's side. Today she's wearing tight bellbottoms and a wine-colored turtleneck, her mouth painted a bright red that makes her teeth look even whiter than usual. I changed my shirt before I had company over, at least. "And you still ain't got a ring on your finger yet? The boys at TU all gone blind?"

She comes back in with Neni in her arms, trying to yank one of her gold hoops out of her ears. "No, no, baby— I just turned twenty," she says as she turns to them, with a smile like too little butter spread over too much toast. "It's really not on my radar right now."

Eileen and Lucy let out simultaneous hoots at that. "Hon, by the time I was your age, I already had number two in the oven," Eileen says. "You even got any other gals left in your classes?"

I'm not going to say it to her face, but privately, I'm starting to agree— I had Neni at twenty-three and I'm just about the oldest woman in the neighborhood who's still on her first. I swear Papi's blowing up my phone twice a week about her settling down, though this should really be the least of his concerns with his children, and last week, he was convinced Ximena might be a lesbian because of something he saw on PBS about the 'lavender menace'. The cord of muscle twitching in Ximena's sharp jaw, though, makes me think this situation needs urgent defusing. "I don't want to make you call in advance to come visit," I try to say delicately as I lead her into the kitchen, she is my sister, after all, "but this ain't the best time, I've got company." Even if Eileen and Lucy aren't exactly tea with the queen. "Can this wait?"

She shakes her head and plays with the bracelet on her left wrist; Neni tries to stuff her fist into her mouth, then starts getting real fussy when it doesn't fit, noises I recognize as the beginnings of a good cry. "I skipped class, it's important." I scoop her out of Ximena's arms and into my own, kiss the top of her head. "You seen Diego lately?"

"What, in person? No." I'm embarrassed, he's my brother and all, but I can't remember off the top of my head, the last time I went up to see him at McAlester. That's just how it goes, when you have a relative in prison, you start out all optimistic thinking that you'll keep them company every week, which turns into every month, which turns into… well. Into me not having seen him in over a year now— in my defense, I've been more than a little preoccupied. "Why, did something happen to him?" My heart rate's already starting to spike, my breaths coming more shallow and quick than usual. Big Mac's a rough place, and Diego's got a smart mouth.

"Yeah, you could say that." She pulls on one of the strings near hard enough to break. "He's been behavin' himself, for the first time in his life, he was just in front of the parole board. He's already out."