Heat blotches at her throat. “He’s not my husband.” She looks down, notices the tattoo on the inside of my left wrist. My arrow, the end of it sharp and hard, but she doesn’t comment on it. “He already told you he’s my boyfriend. We’re living together, but we’re not married.”

“Is that allowed?” I venture a smile, but it’s not reciprocated. “Dad would lose his mind.”

She starts a sentence and stops it again. Tries several more times.

“Do you know about Dad?” she finally asks. “About what happened to him?”

“That he’s dead, you mean?” I say.

There’s a beat, a twist of hurt. “So you heard.” She sniffs. “It was four years ago, and I left Horizon as soon as he passed.”

“I don’t blame you. It was a shithole, let’s be honest.”

“And Mom? You know about her, too?”

“Listen, Alex, I didn’t come here to—”

“How could you get my messages and not get in touch with me? Why didn’t you come home?” She has bigger questions than that, though. She must have.

“You know why,” I say.

Alex sits rigidly next to me on the unforgiving couch. I can feel her low animal steadiness, the precision of her breathing. “So why are you here?”

I put both hands on my stomach and rest them there, around the well-disguised curve of me. She looks down at my fingers, up at my eyes, until recognition dawns on her.

“No,” she says finally. “No.”

“Yes, sister,” I say. “I’m pregnant.”

ALEX

We sit crowded around one end of the kitchen island to eat Chase’s paleo meal, our bowls almost touching. On one side of me, Ruth shovels the food in as though she hasn’t eaten in weeks. She still holds her spoon like it’s a bike handle. It brings me back: Dad must have told her a hundred times.

“So you’re just traveling through? Or …?” Chase lets the real question hang in the air.

“I don’t necessarily have a plan,” Ruth says. Her mouth is full, and a fleck of quinoa spits onto the marble countertop.

“She’s pregnant,” I say, pushing my food away. I’ve taken only a couple of bites. The quinoa coats my tongue like sand.

“Really?” Chase spills a little water on his chin. “Okay. Well, wow. Congratulations, then.” He checks my face to see if he’s responding the right way, but I’m fresh out of signals.

“Having a baby is like being reborn.” Ruth puts down her spoon. “Isn’t it, Alex?”

I say nothing, concentrate only on breathing quietly in and out.

“It’s all about getting it right. I have to build a nursery. I have to build it while the baby is still on the inside.”

“A crib, you mean?” Chase fills my wineglass, watching me.