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“I’ve got some money,” I hedged. “August is helping us with the rest.”
“August knows?”
“Yeah, I had to tell him.”
She huffed, reminding me of the teenager she was and making me cringe a little. “Fine.”
“Okay,” I said, stretching across the carpet that laid at the foot of her bed. My feet hung over a few feet but I didn’t care. I tucked my hands behind my head. “Okay,” I repeated, trying to remember everything August and I talked about. “August’s grandparents own a remote cattle ranch in Montana. He’s going to talk to them and let us know if we can hide out there, at least until you turn eighteen and Dad can’t touch us.”
“Dad can find us anywhere. This seems pointless,” she said, hanging her head in her hands.
“Not this time, trust me.” She didn’t believe me, but she wasn’t going to argue. “You know how Dad always yells at us about how he doesn’t want the liability if we ever got drunk and killed someone driving?”
“Asshole,” she said under her breath.
“Well, Mom told me he put our cars in our names to release that liability.”
“No way,” Bridge said, her eyes widened as she caught on.
“I know exactly where he put the titles in his office.”
“He’ll know you’ve been in there.”
“So what? We’ll be long gone before then.”
“So we sell the cars and live off that money.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, that and I’ve got some money saved up.”
“How much?” she asked, crashing back down on the bed, her legs still hanging off the end.
Seven million two hundred ninety-three thousand eight hundred fifty-nine dollars and seventeen cents. I hesitated. If I was honest with her, she’d have to know everything. “Enough,” I evaded again.
“How much is enough, Spence?” she insisted.
“Enough to get us to Montana and to feed ourselves, pay for baby shit, all that. We wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Okay,” she said, satisfied enough with that dodgy response. “When will you hear from August?”
“Tonight most likely.” Bridge got really quiet. “What’s up?”
“Will we ever see Mom again?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“When?”
“As soon as we can, Bridge. We can call her as soon as you turn eighteen, if you want.”
embered summers when I felt too cool to stay at home. I’d leave around ten in the morning, head out to the pool to say goodbye to my mom. Bridge would’ve already been swimming two hours by then, a two-toned, thin, little nothing of a kid constantly yelling out for us to watch her make the same dive over and over again. Her lisp gone by then but her falsetto “please, Spence” got me every time. “Fine, Bridge,” I’d tell her. She’d dive in and come up; her eyes round with anticipation. “Amazing, Bridge!” my mom and I would always say, clapping.
I remembered skinned knees, birthday parties, school plays. I remembered when boys first started noticing her and that protective part of me warning off every one of my friends. I remembered the first time she came to the Holes. I marched her off to my car and drug her ass home. She was furious at me, yelling the entire way, but I’d be damned before she attended one of those things. Never mind the fact I went to them every weekend. But then I went off to college and there was nothing I could do to stop her. And then there was this. This awful, shitty thing my dad was doing to her...I was doing to her.
“Shit,” I said under my breath, crumpling up the paper I was filling out then throwing the freaking clipboard onto the seat next to me.
“What’s wrong?” Bridge asked.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing up.
