I’m not ten years old again. No one’s taking my fucking dog.
…That fucking dog.
…Jenna’s fucking dog.
Jenna, who I left sobbing in my bedroom.
There’s a baseball bat in the closet.
I leave the gun because if I shoot someone, Jenna will get fired, and I need her here, where I can keep an eye on her. Her dog has more of a sense of self-preservation than she does.
Fitz is waiting for me at the loading-dock entry to my building.
I scowl when I look in the back seat of the Jeep.
“Why did you bring the kids?”
Remember when I said our father was the leader of a polygamist cult? Two of his offspring from wives nine and ten are wedged in the back seat with Isaac.
“I had to take a leak. You’re in the back.” Hawthorne bodychecks me, pushing past me to ride shotgun.
“It was just supposed to be you and me,” I remind Fitz. “No witnesses.”
One of the little kids in the back seat pipes up excitedly, “I have a hockey stick!” He’s dressed all in black with a little black ski hat.
“What is your name again?”
“You have to know our little brothers’ names,” Hawthorne scolds me as I cram into the back seat, shoving over one of the kids, who is weirdly sticky when I touch him.
“What’s all over their faces?”
“We got slushies. Can’t go knocking in heads without a sugar high.” Fitz is cheerful as he peels out of the loading dock, his headache-inducing music thumping from blown-out speakers.
Isaac glowers and huffs when I pat him on the head.
Fucking teenagers.
“They’re wearing name tags.” Isaac is surly.
“Henry and Scout.” I peer at the excited kids. “Who names their child Scout?”
“Not our dad. I don’t think he could pick them out of a lineup if you paid him,” Hawthorne says sarcastically.
“Are we going to visit Dad in prison?” Henry asks.
“Not if we don’t get caught.”
“I put mud on the license plate.”
“And who are we not going to tell?” Fitz drawls as our younger half siblings cheer.
“Greg.”
“Hunter.”
“No. Fuck Greg. We’re not tellingSalinger.”
“Since when does Sally care?” I ask.
