Sleeping Tigers by Holly Robinson

“And were you high, too?”
    “Nadine. And yes. That was before Jon helped me clean up my act.”
    “And what’s this about a child? Is that true? Is it yours?”
    Cam mumbled something that I couldn’t quite catch.
    “What?” I poked him again. “Is it or not?”
    “Probably.”
    It felt as if someone were squeezing my temples, my head was pounding that hard. How could my brilliant brother be this incredibly stupid? If that girl was really only sixteen, he could be charged with statutory rape, never mind the issue of child support. Part of me wanted to pick him up and shake him. Another part wanted to smooth back Cam’s hair and tell him that everything would be fine. Except, of course, that would be a lie.
    “How did this happen?” I asked. “Didn’t you use protection?”
    “She said she was on the Pill. And, she wasn’t just with me, Jordan.” Cam was pleading with me now, but I wasn’t sure for what. Understanding? Forgiveness? He’d have to wait a while.
    “So how do you know the baby is yours?”
    “If you saw her, you’d know.”
    “ What ?” I stared at him, incredulous.
    “It’s true. She looks just like me, that baby. I didn’t even go for a paternity test.” Cam scrubbed his face with both hands.
    “Isn’t there some way you can work with the mother, maybe help her out a little so that she can raise the baby?”
    “I’m not talking to her. She’s a cranked up meth addict, Jordan! Easy come, easy go.”
    I caught my breath. “I’ll assume you had an AIDS test.”
    Cam paled. “Yes. Two tests, both negative. I was lucky.” His eyes looked wild. “Nadine’s a fucking drug addict, Jordan. A street person!” He barked a laugh.
    “Yeah? Well, like you said, without Jon, you’d be a street person, too,” I said, hating myself for lashing back, but still wanting to knock some sense into my idiot brother. “Cam, you can’t just duck out of this one. You have to face up to the fact that you have a child.”
    Cam’s face had broken out in a sweat. “Why should I? It wasn’t my choice to bring a kid into this crap life, with deadbeat parents like us,” he said. “Nadine’s crafty. She probably scoped this place out and got pregnant just to score child support. I was honest with her from day one. When Nadine told me she was pregnant, I told her no way did I want a kid. I would’ve paid for an abortion. Or, if she wanted to have the baby, I could have hooked her up with an adoption agency. White babies are easy to place, right? Nadine could maybe even make some money on the deal. But she gives me this total bullshit about not being able to kill it or give it away. Kill what? Give away what? She was, like, two months along. It was a thimble full of cells, and she talked like it was headed for kindergarten!”
    I was silent during this rant, dizzy and panicked. My brother was a father. I was an aunt. I had a niece. None of these sentences made any sense. I wanted to lie down beside Cam head-to-toe the way we used to do during thunderstorms, when he’d sneak into my room because our parents wouldn’t let us come into theirs no matter how scared we were.
    “Did you kick Nadine out of the house?”
    “I wouldn’t do that.” Cam sat up. “Nadine took off before the kid was born, probably hooking to score some shit because I kept trying to get her to clean herself up while she was pregnant. I didn’t see her again until a couple of weeks ago.” He scrubbed his face in his hands. “It’s so fucking unfair, having her lay this on me.”
    I stared at my brother, at this mangy, skinny, wild-eyed man, and fury rose in a tight ring around my temples. “You selfish bastard,” I shook my head. “Tell me this isn’t you talking, Cam. Tell me you do feel a drop of compassion for this girl.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Fuck you!” he yelled, springing to his feet with surprising speed. “I didn’t ask you to come here and mess with my head!” He grabbed my arm, yanked me off