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He opens the freezer and takes a pack of cigarettes from the carton.
“You got some dinner?”
“Yeah, I’m good. ”
The corners of her mouth turn down as she watches him push out the back door. It makes her look old. My mom’s only thirty-seven, but in her shapeless prison uniform she’s middle-aged, the lines in her face deep-set, the disappointment at the edges of her mouth never quite disappearing.
She hates that uniform. In a little while she’ll take a shower and do her hair, put on tight jeans and a nice shirt, chasing a youth that’s getting away from her.
She was always more like a friend with a driver’s license than a parent. A friend whose bad habits and flaws are obvious to everyone who knows her, but the kind of friend you forgive because she’s got a good heart, and she can’t seem to stop herself from getting it crushed.
Author: Robin York
I wish this were the first time since I got home that Bo’s gone out to the greenhouse in a huff, but it’s not. Something’s not right between them.
There’s a lot of things that don’t feel right. Things I didn’t expect. I want to glue down the flap of loose Formica at the corner of the kitchen counter, yellowed tape fluttering at its edges announcing three or four half-assed attempts to fix it, but it’s Bo’s kitchen, and when I search through the junk drawer for glue and find an envelope full of cash—one of Bo’s many stashes—I feel like a thief.
I want to tell Frankie not to read this book she’s got, this paperback that I remember girls reading when I was in high school, so I know it’s got incest and blow jobs and other shit that’s too old for her. But she’s Mom’s daughter, not mine.
Nothing here feels like it’s mine.
I tell myself it’s because I’ve never lived in this house. Back before I went to Putnam, when Mom decided to move in here with Bo, I stayed behind in the trailer. I’ve slept on Bo’s couch before, but I’ve never called Bo’s house my home.
The trailer is mine, and my dad is living in it.
“What’s up with you and Bo?”
She waves her hand in dismissal. Picks up a Zippo that’s lying on the table, flips it over a few times, tapping it lightly on the tabletop. “He’s fine. Probably not sleeping enough. He hates when he has to work nights. Makes him grouchy. ”
“He’s back on days next week, though, right?”
“Right. ” She drops into the chair Bo vacated, slides off the clogs she wears to work, and tosses them into the pile of shoes by the back door. Her socks have tiny little Totos on them, and she wiggles her toes at me. I gave her the socks for Christmas.
“Nice,” I say.
“I love them. ”
She leans forward and picks up the lighter again, flicks it until she makes a flame. A sly brightness in her eyes tells me she’s got an agenda for this conversation. “So this is the first time I’ve really got you all to myself. Tell me everything about school. ”
“Not much to tell. ”
“Ask him about his girrrrlfriend,” Frankie trills from the living room.
My mom’s eyes brighten. “I knew you had a girl. No wonder you never call me back. ”
“I always call you back. ”
She rolls her eyes and flicks the lighter again. “Yeah, when you’re not working. ” She infuses the word with doubt, as though I’m working for the purpose of avoiding her.
Half the money I make, I end up sending her. I probably paid for the magazines on the coffee table, just like I paid for her socks.
“Let me see a picture,” she says.
“I don’t have a girlfriend. ”
“He does!” Frankie’s at the threshold of the kitchen now, her smile delighted. “She sent him a bikini picture. ”
God damn it.
