Call It What You Want(33)

“Do you know everything our dad is doing?”

“No, but that’s a little different. Dad’s a cop. I’m not doing ride-alongs every night.”

“Yeah, well, even if you were, do you think Dad would involve you in something illegal?”

“I doubt it … but Dad wouldn’t do that. He’s too honest. We can’t compare him to some guy who stole millions of dollars.”

“He was still a dad.”

The thought is jarring. It rattles me along with Rob’s comment about having to change his father’s diapers. I can’t even imagine. I don’t want to imagine.

“This is so complicated,” I say.

“Trust me.” Samantha pats her still-flat stomach. “I know all about complicated.”



We call Mom from the little strip mall down the street, but she doesn’t come to get us.

Dad does. In his police cruiser.

I get in dutifully, but Samantha walks up to the driver’s side window and knocks until he rolls it down.

She leans on the window ledge. “I called Mom.”

“Your mother’s in her pajamas.” His voice is much harder with Samantha than it ever is with me. Especially now. “You got me.”

“I’m not getting in here if you’re going to give me a hard time about playing lacrosse.”

He sighs. “The last thing I’m worried about is you playing lacrosse.”

“Are you worried BECAUSE I’M PREGNANT?” She all but yells this, and an elderly couple leaving the dry cleaners next door glances over curiously. Nothing like a teen girl screaming at a police officer to generate a few stares.

“Get. In. The. Car.” My father’s voice could cut glass.

“Not until you promise you aren’t going to interrogate me.”

“I’m about to arrest you. Get in.”

“YOU’RE GOING TO ARREST A PREGNANT TEENAGER?”

My father gets out of the car with such speed that Samantha actually blanches and falls back a few steps. His voice is lethally quiet. “You will get in this car or I will drive to that school and question every boy I see until I find the one who did this to you.”

“Oh yeah?” Samantha snaps. “Go ahead and try.”

“Watch me.”

“Can I get out first?” I call.

It breaks the tension. My father sighs. Raises his hands. “Fine, Samantha. You win. You want your mother? Fine. I’ll tell her to get dressed and come get you.” He pulls a cell phone out of his pocket.

I expect that to spur Samantha into motion, that she’d climb into the car. She doesn’t. She stands there with her arms folded while he calls. Listens as he explains the situation.

Poor Mom.

He only speaks for a few moments—“Yeah, she’s refusing to leave with me. I’m not having a video of me shoving my daughter into a police car showing up on YouTube”—then presses the button to end the call.

He flings the phone into his cup holder and rolls up the window between him and Samantha.

I expected her to get in the front—big sister privilege, as she used to call it—so I’m in the back seat, like a prisoner. He’s not on duty, so the radio is turned down, but he always has it on. Codes come across the wire about problems all over the county.

When he closed the window, I expected him to shift into gear, but he doesn’t move. We sit in the quiet warmth, listening to a report about an alarm going off at a convenience store in Linthicum.

We sit here long enough that I wonder if I should have gotten out to stand with my sister. Solidarity or something. But I can’t open the door from inside, and she’s still beside the car, arms folded across her chest. Breath streams out of her mouth in a long cloud.

I want to ask if I can get out and give her my coat, but I don’t want Dad to yell at me. He can see how cold she is.

“Are we waiting for Mom?” I say softly.

“Of course.” His voice is gruff. “I’m not leaving your sister in the middle of a parking lot.”

It’ll take Mom at least ten minutes to get here. And that’s if she were dressed and ready when he called.

I sit back against the seat and sigh.

“What are you doing with that boy?” he asks me.

Uh-oh. “Can I get out and stand with Samantha?”

“Maegan.”

“I told you. He’s my math partner. Sam was saying she wanted to run some drills, and he plays lacrosse, so—”

“Last night, you needed to borrow the car to go to Walgreens. You were meeting with Rob Lachlan?”

“Yes.” I pause. “Is that a problem?”

He’s quiet. Thinking.

“It’s not like he’s some violent criminal,” I say. “We have to calculate dropping a ball from different heights. He’s perfectly polite.”

“I’m not worried about him being polite.”

“Then what are you worried about?” After Drew’s attitude, this is almost too much. My voice finds an edge. “Do you think he’s guilty, too?”

“I don’t know. That wasn’t my investigation.” His voice softens. Mom and Samantha have always been close, but Dad’s always been gentler with me than my sister. “I do know that boy’s had a rough time of it, and it’s not getting any easier anytime soon.” He turns in his seat to look at me through the gridded mesh. “I know you had a rough time of it last year, too, and you need to get yourself back on the straight and narrow.”