job and is not expected to show up at any particular place.
“Lila, will you please be my Lamaze coach?”
I grip the towel around me and study her face. “Are you joking?”
Her pale face has no humor in it. “Please? There’s no one else I can ask. Really. There’s no one else I’d feel comfortable letting . . . They said that I had to choose someone by this week in case I went into early labor. I know you don’t want to and you don’t approve and all of that, but . . .”
I suddenly remember driving my sister, then painfully thin and sallow-cheeked, to the clinic for her abortion. I remember sitting in the waiting room and flipping through Seventeen magazine. I remember thinking that it was odd that I was there since I was still a virgin. It was a freezing-cold January morning, and I had to half-carry Gracie down the icy walkway when it was over. When we got to the car her shoulders shook for a moment, but no tears followed. She gazed straight ahead through the windshield on the way home, not bothering to take off her mittens or unzip her coat in the heated car.
“I need someone in there with me,” Gracie says. “I can’t do this alone.”
I try to think of other possible coaches, and come up with nothing. Mom is unthinkable in a delivery room. Joel is not an option, as Margaret would show up with a shotgun. Gram is too sick to be of any help. But Gram would be there in some capacity, if she could. She would do anything possible to ensure that Gracie and the baby were all right.
I feel strong under the weight of my decision to return to school. I will make Gram happy and proud. I will be number one in my class again, no matter how many annoying patients I have to deal with. I will simply do what is hard from now on, whenever there is a choice.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
“Really? Oh, thank you so much. I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.” Gracie is up off the bed and coming toward me as if for a hug. But she veers away at the last minute and heads for the door. “I know you have to get dressed. The next class is on Wednesday evening, but I’ll remind you later. I can meet you at the hospital.” She stops in the doorway. “You’re my favorite sister,” she says, and is gone.
I smile at that, a saying from our childhood. You’re my favorite sister, she would say. I’m your only sister, I would say in return.
I stay seated on the bed for a minute, wrapped in my towel. I stare down at my hands, at my thick fingers. They look powerful. I am still looking at my hands when the strange noise starts on the other side of the room. It is garbled and staticky, and sounds like a radio. I cross the room toward the noise. It’s coming from my purse. I unzip the zipper and the noise grows louder, more urgent. It’s Weber’s radio. I remember now that he put it in my purse at Dairy Queen so he wouldn’t have to carry it.
“Full alert, big one, 1244 Finch Way. Electrical, apartment complex, 1244 Finch Way.” The radio spits out the information, gives a long static-filled gasp, and then repeats.
I listen for a minute, running the numbers through my head, and then throw the radio on my bed. “Gracie,” I yell. “Ryan’s building is on fire!”
A few minutes later we are in the car, headed across town. When we are a mile or two from the building, we begin to hear the sirens. Wailing and keening to one another. I pull over to the curb to let one fire truck pass, then continue driving.
“Should we call Mom?” Gracie asks. She is in the passenger seat, the seat belt stretched across her big belly. Her hair looks dirty.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know what the etiquette is in this kind of situation.”
“Don’t joke, Lila.” Gracie is holding on to her seat belt with both hands. “Uncle Ryan could be dead.”
I don’t like that she’s said that out loud, but I can’t argue the point.
We make it onto the block and park seconds before long blue police barriers cut off access. The street and the lawn in front of Uncle Ryan’s building are a mess. There are three