“Does he?”

Mom’s lighter flicked. “Does he what?”

“Say fricken when he’s drunk?”

Mom was quiet, thinking. “Yeah, I guess he does.”

“He’s weird,” Paige said. “He didn’t even talk when I got here. He shook my hand and then sat back down, didn’t even say anything else and got up and left.”

“Oh, he’s just shy.”

“If you say so.”

Mom pushed her chair back and the legs squeaked against the floor. I heard the fridge door open. “Gwus,” she said. “You want something to drink?”

I told her no, and then she asked Paige if she wanted a cup of wine. I stared at the television as Homer choked Bart, Bart’s pink, worm-looking tongue flapping in the air, and I was laughing and laughing all by myself, my empty plastic cup of Italian ice bobbing up and down on my belly. And then a commercial came on and I stopped laughing and there was this moment of immense silence, and then Mom was on Paige like Homer on Bart.

“Whose is it, Paige? Huh?” Mom was yelling.

“Would you calm down?”

“I ain’t going to calm down.” She slammed her plastic cup down. “That’s why you come up here, isn’t it? You little bitch. Little bitch!”

I peeked around the corner and into the kitchen, and Mom was standing over Paige, and then Paige stood and leaned into her, yelling back, cursing, pushing her with her body.

This was nothing new—the racing heart—but I still panicked and screamed and slapped the wall. “Stop it!”

Mom didn’t look at me. “Go to your room, gwus. Right now.”

I hurried down the hallway, Mom’s words buzzing in my head, and I heard Paige before I shut my door: “He’s going to grow up to hate you too.”

. . .

I stayed in my room, playing with my plastic men, while they fought with low voices over the running kitchen-sink faucet. Mom slammed plates and cups and silverware while she did the dishes. Half the time that was how she washed dishes. Every so often Paige’s laughter hit my ears and I knew it made Mom angrier and angrier. After about an hour, the house was quiet. But that they weren’t talking didn’t mean the argument was over.

I put my plastic men away and opened my bedroom door, crept down the hallway into the kitchen. Mom was wiping the kitchen counters and the back door was open, and through the screen door I saw Paige outside on the steps, smoking, her knees pulled up to her chest.

“Boy,” Mom said. I stood still. There was one word that told me Mom’s mood, and that was the word. Boy. There was something about it, the way she’d call me gwus—which meant boy—or the way she called me boy. Maybe it was the tone she said it with.

“Boy,” she said again. “Go tell your sister that smoking’s bad when you’re carrying a child.”

“Go tell her?” I said.

“You heard me.” She scrubbed the stovetop, which shook the burners, a rattling metal. She tossed the rag down and picked up her plastic cup and finished what had been in there. She went to her room.