Page 34 of Property of Whiskey

Mama looks at me. “I told her that.”

“I promised you less than an hour.”

She sits upright, notices the glitter stuck to both palms, and curses.

Wren gasps. “Glamaw said a bad word.”

Mama looks down at her hands like the evidence is stacked against her.

“You hear worse at the clubhouse,” I say.

“I do not.”

“You called Royal a butthead.”

“He is.”

Mama gets to her feet. “Kid ain’t wrong.”

I point toward the front door. “I’ve kept you long enough.”

She kisses the top of Wren’s head on her way past but pauses beside me at the doorway.

“She called again.”

Wren is bent over her project, pretending not to listen. I know better. Kids hear everything you don’t want them to.

“Not now,” I say through my teeth.

Mama studies my face for a second, then nods and lets herself out.

Wren doesn’t ask who called. That hurts worse than if she did.

I crouch beside the table. “All right. Show me what’s missing.”

“Brown marker. Green glitter. Two frogs. Scissors. Tape.”

“Where’d they go?”

“If I knew, they wouldn’t be missing.”

We search the kitchen.

The brown marker is under the refrigerator. The scissors are shoved between couch cushions. One plastic frog is inside the sugar bowl for reasons I decide I’m better off not knowing. The second frog is gone completely.

Wren stands in the middle of the kitchen looking close enough to tears that I abandon the search.

“I need two.”

“You got one.”

“The instructions say two.”

“We’ll make one.”

“With what?”

I open the junk drawer to find twine, batteries, three screws, a deck of cards, old receipts, and a green bottle cap.