“I’ll get him,” she says, relieved, though ordinarily she’d see if he’d fall back asleep.
Ryan trots after Angel as she goes down the hall to retrieve the baby, looking with frank interest at the framed photos on the wall: Valerie grinning at age four, Amadeo scowling at six, a picture of Angel herself as a bald infant in a puffy red dress.
Keep your eyes to yourself, Angel wants to say. “Wait here,” she tells him outside her bedroom door. No way does she want him picturing where she sleeps. She slips in and pulls the door shut after her.
“I’ve been reading books about babies!” Ryan calls.
As unwelcoming as she feels, Angel is glad he’s shown up. Not because she likes his company especially—he’s such a freak that it’s embarrassing—but there’s something reassuring about his presence. Alone in this house, she can’t help thinking of creepy men peering through the windows at her. She can’t help thinking of Mike.
They sit in the living room eating potato chips, Ryan flopped out on the floor with Connor, jangling toys in his face to make him laugh. Angel watches with an eagle eye, and when Ryan picks up the baby, her heart lurches, but Connor jabbers happily.
Ryan has brought dispatches from EVHS. Some of the items of gossip are so dull that she can scarcely imagine she once used to care. The science teacher slipped his nephew, who is also his student, the answer key to a weekly quiz; Janelle Garcia and Charlie Chacon have gotten together.
Other items of gossip, however, smart. “Oh, yeah, your friend Priscilla hangs out with Jasmine Lucero now. I heard Jasmine’s grandma is taking them to SeaWorld.”
“What? She hates Jasmine Lucero. She said Jasmine smells like old-lady garlic breath.”
Ryan’s lip curls in distaste. “God. Priscilla’s kind of a B-I-T-you-know-what.”
“You can just say bitch,” Angel says, grateful.
“My mom hates that word. I’m never supposed to call a woman that. It’s even worse to call a man that because then it’s like the insult is that the man is a woman, you know?”
“So don’t say it, then.”
Ryan sniffs Connor. “Can I try to do his diaper?”
“Whatever.” She brings the bag and sets up the changing pad and watches anxiously as he blunders his way through it.
“There you go, little guy. They’ve got videos online. You can learn anything online.”
Connor gazes at the ceiling with glossy eyes. Ryan has strapped him into his clean diaper but has not yet put his legs back into the sleeper. Instead he prods the baby’s smooth chest as if checking a nectarine for ripeness.
Angel swats his hands. “What are you poking him for?”
“I was just wondering if he got my sternum thing.”
“Your what?”
“You know, that weird thing I had.” He’s nodding at her like she’s stupid. “My missing sternum. My chest bone. I told you about it. You know, my scar? I’m self-conscious about it.”
Angel strains to remember their conversations before and after geometry, the night she slept with him. “That’s not a thing. How can a whole bone be missing?”
Ryan is turning redder. “I don’t know. It just was. They gave me a surgery when I was a baby. I kind of wondered if Connor got it, but he didn’t.” Ryan looks almost disappointed. “I mean, it’s pretty rare.”
He can’t help looking so defeated, Angel thinks. He didn’t even get his share of bones. He needs a stand and a metal rod to keep him upright, like one of her grandmother’s porcelain dolls.
“Well, Connor got a sternum.” Her tone is defensive. “Give him here.” She taps around his chest, but everything seems solid enough.