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“The school called,” I said, poking at a prawn with my chopsticks. “Again.”
Amelia hunched deeper, her dark hair falling over her eyes. “So?”
“Hmm, what’s this?” Dad asked. “When did they call?”
“This afternoon. Amelia’s failing Algebra.” I turned to her. “If you don’t pass your midterm, you could wind up in summer school.”
“Whatever,” my sister muttered.
“Summer school is not whatever. It sucks. But Christ, math, Amelia? I’ve told you a hundred times, I can help you. I like helping you. I’m a big dork, remember?”
She didn’t crack a smile.
Dad held up his hands. “I can’t get through to her either.”
I grit my teeth and forced myself to stay calm. “Amelia, you can’t be ditching school. I’m going to have to take your phone away.”
Her head whipped up, her eyes wide and blazing. She looked to Dad. “He can’t do that,” she declared, then seethed at me. “You can’t do that! You’re not my second dad, River. Don’t get a swelled head. You’re just my brother.”
“Yeah, I’m your brother who’s sick of watching his sister piss her life away.”
“You can’t have my phone. I won’t give it to you.”
I shrugged. “I’ll just take it off the plan. It won’t work if no one’s paying for it.”
Amelia glared at me. Dad poked at his food absently.
I shoved my plate away with a sigh. “Look, Amelia. Please. Just…go to all your classes. You only have a few months left. Can you do that for me? Please.”
“Can I keep my phone?” she asked, trying to maintain her hard shell but it had cracks in it too. This wasn’t her. This was Amelia without her mom.
“You can keep it if you swear to me I won’t be getting any more phone calls from the school. And if you let me help you study for your Algebra exam.”
“Okay,” she said in a small voice. “Thanks.”
Dinner resumed under a tense quiet, a silence that had infected the entire house since Mom died.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” I said, slowly. “The business is holding steady, and the restoration is coming along—”
“Your side hustle?” Amelia said with a rare smile.
“Yeah, that.” I grinned. “So I was thinking about getting my own place. An apartment between here and the shop…”
My words died as both Dad and Amelia stared at me. Dad’s fork clattered to his plate.
“You w
ant to move out?”
He looked at me as if I’d said I wanted to be the first to colonize Mars. He and Amelia exchanged glances, both equally terrified of a future in which they’d be alone with each other in this house.
“Well…at some point, yeah. I’m going on twenty years old and I feel like I need—”
“Do you already have a place in mind?” Dad asked, looking close to panic. “Is this something you’ve been planning for a while?”
“No, I was just thinking—”
Amelia slammed her glass down on the table, spilling soda onto the wood, and abruptly pushed her chair away. She shot me a stricken look and hurried to her room.
