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“Visiting you on base. All this cool, fun stuff to do and I don’t have to pay a thing.” She sat down on a plastic chair, hauling her heavy doc martens off her feet and bending over to lace up the flat bowling shoes.
“It has its perks, for sure.”
“Mmm. Fuck these are ugly, aren’t they?”
“The shoes?”
“Yeah.”
“I think they’re a mild improvement on the ones you wore in here.” Grinning and poking her tongue out at me, she moved to the scoring computer and typed in our names. I could tell by her demeanor that she was deliberately being a brat, and burst out laughing when I saw our names flash up on the screen.Ass WhooperandLoser.“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Stef. You might not lose.”
“Hardy har har. I’ll go first.” Her first bowl was pretty good. She knocked seven pins down, but the last three were split, so it was going to be hard to score a spare. Sure enough, she only managed to knock down one of them.
“Watch this.” A strike right away had her glaring at me.
She took her turn and knocked nine pins down with her first ball, but the second one ended up in the gutter. Just as I was lining up my shot, moving my arm back ready to swing forward, she said, “I caught up with Lucy before I came here.”
The mention of Lucy’s name had me stumbling and my ball went straight into the gutter, rolling limply along before it dropped at the end of the line. “Did you?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral.
“Yeah.”
I turned back to look at her, sitting on the plastic chair, her feet crossed at the ankles, examining her lime green fingernails.
Blowing out a breath of impatience, I said, “And?”
Standing, she picked up a ball, hefting it in her hands thoughtfully before deciding it was too heavy and choosing another one. “She seemed…I dunno…out of sorts.” I had no idea what to say to that, so I just watched her take her turn, score a strike and turn back to me with zero celebration. “I like her. A lot. And I feel bad for her.”
“Do you?” My turn. It was a half-assed effort, because by now I was one hundred per cent concentrating on our conversation instead of the game, but I still knocked down nine pins. Waiting for my ball to roll back up, I didn’t look at my sister.
“Yeah. It must be hard for her, all the nausea, then being tired. You being away for half of every week can’t help.”
“True.” My second shot rolled straight down the center, just kissing the remaining pin as it sailed through, but didn’t knock it over.
“Next time I come by, the nursery will probably all be set up, huh?”
“Probably.” I swallowed hard. That was the last thing I wanted to think about. Lucy, setting up the nursery for our baby, by herself.
“I can’t wait to see that. Are you guys going to find out what you’re having?”
“I’m not sure. We haven’t really discussed it.”
She shot me a look under her blue bangs. “Don’t you find out these things at, like, the half-way mark? That’s coming up pretty soon. You might want to have a chat about it.” Rolling her ball, she barely glanced at it cruising down the lane before turning back to me. “I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’m kinda hoping for a girl. Like, imagine a little baby with your hair and Lucy’s eyes. Soooo cute.”
“You got a strike, Stef.” The effort it took to squash the flare of longing her words caused made me feel sick.
“Yay me. The ass-whooping is imminent.”
She didn’t say anything when I took my turn, or when she took her next one.
“I seriously cannot wait to be an auntie. I’ll be down here the second I get the news. I’m gonna give your baby so many smooches and squeezes it’ll be unreal. And oh, I meant to ask you, I was thinking of getting one of those star chart things done, when the time comes. It’s really cool, it shows you how the stars were aligned at the exact moment of the baby’s birth. They’re really neat. Do you think Lucy would like one? If it’s not her thing, I can easily do something else, I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. Oh! I’ve also been looking at gender neutral clothes. They’re super boring, so I think I’ll wait to see what you have before I go shopping for that stuff. Unless, of course, you do find out earlier. That would be amazing, actually, because then I can start buying stuff and putting it aside until the time comes.”
On and on and on she went. It was relentless. The fact that I actually managed to squeak out a win was no consolation for the hollow feeling in my gut.
“Good game. I’ll get you next time, though, look out. Man, I’m starving. Can we grab hot dogs and fries?”
“Yeah, sure.”
We put our food onto a tray and moved to the table area to eat. Although the food tasted like ash in my mouth, I forced myself to eat a few fries while Stef wolfed down half her hot dog. When she finally slowed down enough to talk, her words sent a chill down my spine.
