The Six Rules of Maybe

started. She’d belt out “Sing as a song in search of a voice that is silent” as she glued bits of feathers or shells or other found things to the borders of images of vineyards and castles and ancient cities and other faraway places. The song was her personal big dream anthem—she thought it was about embracing life and finding your true love, but if you listen closely, it’s really a song about God. Big Him , not little him . I pointed this out once, but she didn’t seem to care. She told me she went through her entire high school years thinking “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar described her boyfriend, Roger, perfectly.
    I opened the window, put my face close to the sneezy mesh of the screen. In the window ledge was one long-expired potato bug, who had apparently set off on a journey across the wide plain of the south side of our house, traveling the endless distance up and over each dangerous stretch of siding, all in order to die in the gutter ledge of our second-story bathroom window. He had had big dreams, too, and look where that had gotten him.
    The umbrella of the table hid their faces, but I could see Hayden’s back, and Juliet’s tan arms, and Mom’s profile. Juliet poked at her ice with the tip of her finger.
    “I told Hank I quit,” Juliet said.
    “Oh, honey,” Mom said. “I just can’t believe this.” She shook her head. One of the chopsticks in her hair was sliding loose and about to fall.
    “I suggested maybe just some time off … ,” Hayden said.
    “They’re not exactly going to want a pregnant woman crooning to middle-age men on business,” Juliet said.
    I sat away from the window. I may have actually gasped. I leaned my slow and clueless self against the just-cleaned mirror. Pregnant? As in, having a baby? Juliet? I think my heart might have stopped for a second then. At least, the moment had a shutter click of stop action. My stomach did the elevator drop stomachs do when something is utterly and completely wrong. This was not our life. Juliet as a mother? Juliet had had a cactus once, given to her by some boy just back from a vacation in Arizona, and that cactus had sat on her bookshelf until it turned a despairing yellow and then shriveled up and died. She could kill a cactus . She’d be one of those parents who left a kid behind at a rest stop, driving for miles before she noticed. We’d hear about her on the evening news.
    And how did this happen? I mean, I know how, but how? It was just after Buddy Wilkes when I first saw the round pink package of pills in a protective oval appear in our bathroom drawer, hidden under the box of tampons. Maybe my cluelessness was understandable, given that pregnant was the last thing you’d expect from Juliet. You’d expect that she’d be telling us she’d just gotten a record deal and was about to become world famous. Maybe that she was moving to a foreign country and taking us all with her, which was, in a way, what was happening. If anything was a foreign country, marriage was. A baby, too.
    Hayden leaned back in his chair. There was a sigh in his shoulders.
    “So you don’t have your room at the hotel anymore,” Mom said. She sounded crushed. Juliet’s job at the Grovesnor came with room and board, meaning a great big suite and room service whenever she wanted. The room was a strange mix of past and present—a quilt from home on the shiny gold hotel bedspread. A photo album in the drawer next to the bed with pictures of Juliet’s friends from high school, keeping company with the room service menu and the Portland Attractions Guide . When it was time for a meal, though, a little table would be wheeled in, with a white tablecloth and elegant food under silver domes and tiny salt and pepper shakers. During our first visit there, my mother, who is as honest as anyone I know, wrapped those tiny salt and pepper shakers in a napkin and snuck them into her purse. The next time we visited, we had a new bath towel at home, with a big, embroidered G across the bottom. Mom loved that hotel.
    “I didn’t think quitting was necessary—we could stay in married student housing. I could finish my degree… .” Hayden was appealing to Mom, but when Juliet sighed, Mom reached out and took Juliet’s hands. I more than anyone could have told him that no one came before Juliet. You could feel the truckload of loneliness heading his way, as he just stood there, blinking in the bright light of his new