moved in confused, jerky motions, as if she couldn't understand why
Mom's belly wasn't still around her. I promised her I'd always take care
of her.
The baby went without a name for weeks. Mom said she wanted to study
it first, the way she would the subject of a painting. We had a lot of
arguments over what the name should be. I wanted to call her Rosita,
after the prettiest girl in my class, but Mom said that name was too
Mexican.
"I thought we weren't supposed to be prejudiced," I said.
"It's not being prejudiced," Mom said. "It's a matter of accuracy in
labeling."
She told us that both our grandmothers were angry because neither Lori
nor I had been named after them, so she decided to call the baby Lilly
Ruth Maureen. Lilly was Mom's mother's name, and Erma Ruth was
Dad's mother's name. But we'd call the baby Maureen, a name Mom
liked because it was a diminutive of Mary, so she'd also be naming the
baby after herself but pretty much no one would know it. That, Dad told
us, would make everyone happy except his mom, who hated the name
Ruth and wanted the baby called Erma, and Mom's mom, who would
hate sharing her namesake with Dad's mom.
A FEW MONTHS AFTER Maureen was born, a squad car tried to pull us
over because the brake lights on the Green Caboose weren't working.
Dad took off. He said that if the cops stopped us, they'd find out that we
had no registration or insurance and that the license plate had been taken
off another car, and they'd arrest us all. After barreling down the
highway, he made a screeching U-turn, with us kids feeling like the car
was going to tumble over on its side, but the squad car made one, too.