Page 13 of Hooked on Trouble

I ruffle Colin’s dark hair, the little guy too big to be picked up. Too big to get excited to see me. Jack is a different story. Tiny for seven, the kid is pale with fair hair to match and weighs less than my gym bag. I lift him up by his armpits and tuck him under my arm like a football. “What’s this I hear about cake?”

Jack wiggles in my grasp. “There’s cake but we’re not allowed to have it, but it smells so good, and it’s chocolate and I’ll die if I don’t eat some.”

I carry him into the kitchen while Colin walks beside us, slouching, eyes as puffy as a hungover frat boy. I duck under the narrow door frame and twist to avoid smacking Jack’s head into the side. The entranceway is small, the kitchen not much bigger. The brown plaid wallpaper and green counters are the same as when I was a kid. My mom’s famous chocolate cake sits on top of the oven, the sweet smell filling the room.

She baked that piece of heaven for every birthday in this house, two layers of chocolate cake and icing an inch thick. It was also the cake she baked each time my father got out of jail. The last parole, when I was thirteen, it sat there for two days and got tossed when he never turned up.

Since it isn’t anyone’s birthday, and my father is behind bars, the cake is a mystery.

“My son isn’t a football. Put the kid down before he pukes up his dinner.” My sister crowds into the cramped kitchen, arms folded, the skin around her eyes puffier and darker than Colin’s. She smiles, though, a sight I wasn’t sure I’d see again.

Not wanting to upset her fragile balance, I kiss Jack’s head and put him down. I nod to the cake. “What are we celebrating?”

“I want cake!” Jack cries again.

Too tough to care about cake, Colin leans on the fridge and kicks his heel into the base. The appliance looks more yellow than white, the dent still there from when I punched it the day Josh stormed out, the day it all went to shit. I should buy them a new one.

Nikki smacks Jack on the bottom. “Into the living room with you. No one gets cake ’til Uncle Josh gets home.”

He runs out and Colin rolls off the fridge, trudging after his brother.

I shake my head. “Who pissed in his Cheerios?”

Nikki twists her long brown hair around her finger, chewing her lip the way she’s done since rehab. She’s still skinny in her ripped jeans and AC/DC tank top, but not as gaunt as she was. “He’s ten going on fifty. Life’s hard, he tells me. Too much homework. Shitty sleep habits. He doesn’t know hard.”

“How’s the crowd he’s hanging with at school? Anything I need to worry about?” That’s all it takes, one bad seed and the crop is spoiled. Or maybe I have it backward.

Maybe it’s the earth.

My father, uncle, and a few cousins have all done time. Drugs, burglary, car theft, assault—you name it, my family has bragging rights. All us kids could have walked that path, but the punks Nikki and Josh fell in with tipped the balance.

When it came time for me to go to junior high, my mother’s cousin lived in a different district. Without consulting me, they lied about my address and shipped me off to a posh school in a posh neighborhood, my sneakers never in style, my clothes never quite right. Sawyer and Kolton didn’t seem to care. We hung out and fucked around, but never crossed certain lines. Unlike my siblings. A family argument meant Josh and Nikki went to the local schools. Their friends offered them heroin instead of beer, nights stealing cars instead of watching movies.

If that had been my life, I could have spiraled downhill, too.

Nikki leans on the small table at the center of the kitchen. “His friends seem all right. For now, at least. Better than the crowd Josh ran with.” Her blue eyes are glassy, rimmed red around the edges. Not dilated like when she gets high. Just tired, hopefully.

“If you even get a whiff of something, I want to know. I won’t see those boys messing up their lives.”

Blinking rapidly, she places her hand on my forearm. “You’re too good to us.”

More like not good enough. I should have been firmer with Josh when he was younger, gotten in his face when he’d ditch class and spray paint walls, locked Nikki in her room when she blew curfew. I know better now. But then? With our father either looking to score or in jail, and our mother working two jobs to keep us fed, I was scrambling. She never asked me to step in, never made it my burden. But Nikki and Josh weren’t given the same chance as me. I at least owed them that.

I jut my chin toward the cake. “Still don’t know what the fuss is about.”

She grins wider than usual. “It’s a surprise.”

“Last time there was a surprise, I ended up in a Superman costume for Jack’s birthday.”

“And I still plan on framing those pictures.”

I’m about to threaten her with jail time (not the best joke in this house) when the front door swings open. My mother kicks it shut, struggling with an armful of full of groceries. I duck through the door frame and take long strides to reach her, grabbing her bags in one arm and hugging her shoulders with the other. She may be tall, but her head fits under my chin.

She squeezes back. “Is Josh home yet?”

“Nope. What’s with the mysterious cake?”

She shoves me with her hip and glances at the boys in the living room. Jack’s pushing my old Tonka Truck around, skirting the cigarette burns in the brown carpet. Colin’s sullen face is hidden behind his iPod. Nikki flops on the couch beside him and smooths his dark hair. He raises a shoulder to ward her off, and she winces.