“Jay?”
“Yeah, him.”
“How does Jay’s ass compare?”
“It doesn’t.”I swallowed, the anger and disappointment knotting together.“Jay showed hisrealass today when I asked him to come down here and help me with all of this.He wouldn’t.So… I think we’re done.”
“Thank, God,” she said instantly.“He’s a jerk.Sell your condo and come live with me.Use the money to pay off Mr.Ass-man.”
“That’d be meandVinny crammed into your one-bedroom.You don’t have room for both of us.And even if I sold the condo, it might not cover the clinic debt.The market is brutal.Plus, I don’t know what to do with Vinny.”
“What does Vinny think?”
“He’s eight.He’s got a life here.He despises me.And he flat-out refuses to go back to Philly.”
She sighed.“You’re in a pickle, girl.I don’t know how to help.I can’t keep doing this much longer without you.I’ve got to go express a dog’s anal sacs.Love you.”
* * *
I woke up with my cheek in a puddle of drool on the kitchen table.Gross.
6:05 a.m.
What time did school start?
I didn’t even know if Vinny rode the bus or needed a packed lunch.Did he have homework?Honestly, I was operating with the parental equivalent of a blank Google doc.
I knocked on Vinny’s door.
No answer.
I cracked it open, and a wave of heat slapped me in the face like I’d just opened the oven to check on cookies—if those cookies were made of stale socks and despair.I wondered if the vent dumped all the heat in this room rather than anywhere else in the house.The room looked like the aftermath of a tornado that had specifically targeted laundry.Clothes covered the floor so completely I wasn’t sure therewasa floor.
In the corner sat a Lego structure that either had been destroyed in battle or was an experimental architectural concept.Every bookshelf was packed with random objects—books, more Legos, possibly a fossil.
On the dresser, a single betta fish floated around a cloudy tank, looking at me sadly.
I called out, “What time do you have to get up?”
“Go away,” Vinny moaned.“I don’t have to get up for another half hour.”
I wandered back downstairs and fed Tracker, who acted like he hadn’t eaten in twelve years.Then I planted myself in front of the open refrigerator, staring into its fluorescent glow like it might offer life advice.
Three lonely beers stood at attention on the top shelf, still waiting for my dad to return from a long day that he was never coming home from again.Beneath them, next to the tray of lasagna dropped off last night, a container of leftover chili and rice sat wedged between seventeen varieties of condiments, including four almost-empty mustard bottles—as if we were preparing for some kind of mustard apocalypse.
Down in the vegetable drawer, a single apple and a couple of desiccated carrots huddled together.This fridge was a graveyard of leftovers and broken dreams.
I wiped the tears from my eyes, which were part grief and part the chili fumes escaping the leftovers container.
Figure out breakfast.
Therehadto be a clue about what this kid liked to eat.Something.Anything.
The freezer had no frozen waffles, no pancakes, not even the sad off-brand kind that tastes like cardboard coasters.The pantry offered one box of hearty fiber cereal that no kid in his right mind would voluntarily ingest unless bribed with a new Lego set.No pastries.No sugary snacks.The cabinet was a nutritional desert, featuring two organic fruit gummy packets and a granola bar.
They didn’t even have real peanut butter.I picked up a jar of sunflower butter and watched the suspicious layer of oil wobble on top.Hard pass.
There was no universe in which I could successfully pull off pancakes or eggs, not that there were eggs in this house.I squinted at the pancake mix wondering if it required eggs.Perhaps, there was some mythical, idiot-proof version of pancakes designed for people like me.It hardly mattered.Even with five YouTube tutorials and if God personally spotted me from heaven, my cooking still had a remarkable talent for turning into something vaguely edible-looking and deeply regrettable.
