Page 62 of How Lulu Lost Her Mind

“Yep. It’s the baby.”

“You’re being mean,” I whisper over the sound of Lindsey’s sniffles.

“It’s the baby, all right.”

“Stop.” Alzheimer’s is no excuse for how she’s treated me, and now Lindsey, today. “I’ve had it with you.”

“She’s got a big ol’ baby in there.”

I close my eyes. Please God, make her stop.

“Might have to get her uterus yanked out like I did.”

God isn’t listening, so it’s up to me. “No one cares about your uterus.” Out of all her remaining memories, of course, that one is securely wedged in her hippocampus right next to Melvin’s testicles. Two things no one wants to hear about. I hug Lindsey closer and kind of press my shoulder to her ear in hopes she can’t hear what I’m mouthing to Mom. “If you can’t say something nice, stop talking.”

“There’s gonna—”

“There is no baby!” I interrupt.

Lindsey hiccups and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Actually, Patricia’s right.”

“What?” I push Lindsey away and look into her red puffy eyes.

“I’m pregnant.”

My brain seizes. No thoughts coming in. None going out.

“Told ya there’s a baby.”

How’d she get pregnant? Okay, I know how, but in the three months she’s been with me, I’ve never even heard her talk about a man. She hasn’t talked about anyone since we’ve been in Louisiana either. I put a hand to my forehead in an attempt to make sense of all this. Lindsey has her driver’s license, but she never really goes anywhere. When she does, she isn’t gone long and she’s never out at night. I drop my hand to my lap. This has to be a prank. Is it April Fool’s Day? No, that was last month.

“I have a picture of my baby.” Lindsey reaches into a side pocket in her dress and pulls out an ultrasound photo. She puts the small picture in my hand, and I expect to see an image like when Fern showed me the first ultrasound of her baby. I think I’m going to see something that looks like a nugget with flippers, but the glossy image in my hand is of a fully formed baby sucking its thumb.

“His name is Frankie.”

I let that sink in. Frankie. A baby. A real person.

“When is this baby due?”

“September ninth.”

My math skills are about as good as my measurement skills. “Which makes you how far along?”

“Nineteen weeks.”

“What’s that in months?”

“Five.”

I don’t have to be in the mood for math to figure out she was two months pregnant when I hired her. I wonder if she knew. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I wanted to tell you when you called in February, but I knew you wouldn’t have hired me.”

That answers that question. “You were right.” For the first time since Lindsey entered our lives, I’m angry with her. She lied to me by omission and betrayed my trust.

“I’ve been afraid to tell. I’m afraid you might fire me.”

“You’re right about that, too.”