crazy. I don’t think my father has ever slept past eight in the morning in his life. Lila was always halfway to the nearest library by breakfast time, which was something my parents could get behind, but I was another story.
On the weekends my father would stomp up and down the hall outside my door and call out loudly to my mother, who had long ago delegated the task of worrying over my degenerate sleep habits to him. For some reason my father wasn’t comfortable leaving the house until he had me in an upright position, so inevitably somewhere between ten and eleven o’clock in a fit of frustration he would burst into my room and yell something like, “What do you think you’re doing, young lady?” My father is a big man, and he rarely yells. When he does the noise is not only surprising but capable of making a bed shake. I know, because between the ages of fourteen and eighteen I often went from dead sleep to a near heart attack in the course of a few seconds when my father woke me up.
In the kitchen I take flour out of the cupboard, and then cane sugar, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, vegetable oil, and baking powder. I find eggs, milk, and butter in the refrigerator. I work slowly, first with the ceiling light on, and then, as the sun rises further, with the light off. I stop in the middle of mixing to make myself a piece of toast with butter and strawberry jam. I need to eat every couple hours now or I get dizzy. After I’ve eaten I pull out the blender and mix the ingredients I’ve measured. I have to stand a good distance from the counter because of my belly.
I’ve realized from trial and error how important it is for me to do some kind of activity during these early-morning hours before anyone else is up. This is dangerous thinking time, because if I let myself go in bad directions, then by seven o’clock I will be so upset and depressed that I end up back in bed for the rest of the day. In order to make sure I do eventually take a shower and change out of my bathrobe or Papa’s sweater, I have to tread carefully from five-thirty to seven in the morning. I can’t let my thoughts fly all over the place—there is plenty of time for that later when I am in the car or visiting Gram, when I am well embedded in the flow of the day.
I am sitting at the kitchen table icing the three individual layers of the cake when Lila finally comes downstairs. She is wearing the plain shorts and T-shirt she calls pajamas. I started a pot of coffee for her a half hour ago; she pours a cup and sits across from me.
“Smells like childhood in here,” she says.
“Not ours. I don’t remember ever coming home to the smell of a cake baking. I made this from a cookbook I bought at a yard sale last month. Do you think the baby can smell this?”
“I doubt it.” Lila rubs at her eyes. “Today’s the big day,” she says. “You must be excited.”
I smile. “It’s hard to contain myself.”
“I should hope so. Mom had me folding napkins in the shape of diapers yesterday afternoon. You now owe me so much that even if you focus your energy only on that for the rest of your life, you will never be able to repay me.”
“I know this is Mom we’re talking about,” I say, pushing the knife, fat with white icing, across the top of the top layer of the cake. “But still I don’t understand why, if this shower isn’t supposed to be a surprise and she’s throwing it, she hasn’t mentioned it to me. She could have left a message on the machine if she didn’t want to talk to me. I feel like she’s actually throwing the shower for someone else, and I’m going to be embarrassed when I waddle in and see another pregnant girl there holding the presents.”
“Pregnant woman, you mean.”
I fight the urge to plunge the knife into the cake, cut out a massive piece, and cram it into my mouth. “Whatever.”
“Well, I can assure you that I wouldn’t have folded napkins into the shape of diapers for anyone else.”
“Mmm. Are you going to tell Mom and Dad you dropped out of school? Because I’d appreciate it if