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I shift the kickstand up with the back of my heel and balance the bike under me. “Get on.”
“No,” she says firmly. “I’m not going anywhere with you while you’re treating me like I’m the villain here. I’m not the one forcing a fifteen-year-old to parent his two younger sisters. I’m not the one rotting away in bed while my baby cries.”
“Right. You’re the noble one ripping that family apart.”
“Sheis ripping them apart!” Piper flings a hand towards the foiled-over windows on the corner of the duplex. “She isn’t doing her job as their mother. I don’t have a choice.”
I don’t have a choice here,my caseworker would say to me every time he came for a visit. Mom would be back in her room, lying in bed. He’d rub two fat fingers over his mustache and shrug.There isn’t another option.
“There’s always another choice,” I snarl. “If you take those kids away from that woman, she’s as good as dead.”
“She might as well be, for all the help she is to them now.”
I snap my head to her. “Say that to Grant. See if he agrees with you.”
Piper’s expression softens. “He doesn’t know what he needs.”
“He’d rather have a depressed mother than a dead one,” I bark. “Those kids would rather have each other than be split up in the system.”
“We try to keep siblings together.”
“You try and you fail. Do you know how fast a baby will be adopted? Instantly. Maybe even Oliva will get scooped up in a few months. But Grant? He’s fifteen fucking years old, Piper. You know how long he’ll sit in some foster home or a group home. You know what happens when he ages out.”
She casts her eyes to the empty box of cigarettes and energy drink cans smashed in the gutter. “I have to hope for the best.”
“You must be blind to what you’re actually doing here.”
“I can’t operate in the unknowable future! I have to make decisions on the here and now. And right now, she is unfit. She can’t care for them properly.”
I wave her off. “You were in there for fifteen minutes. You don’t know.”
“There’s no food in the cabinets and there were buckets of water in the bathroom in case the utilities get shut off. I can’t leave them there!” Piper shouts. “How are we even arguing about this? You’d never let this happen to Benjamin, so why do you think these kids deserve it?”
“The mother doesn’t deserve it.”
“It’s not my job to take care of the parents,” she fires back. “My job is to focus on the kids. It’s to do what is best for them. She should be able to take care of herself. If she can’t, that’s not my problem.”
“Then whose problem is it?” I lower the kickstand again and toss my leg over the bike. Piper takes a step back as I face her and climb the curb. I’m being propelled by a force beyond myself. One I don’t want to stop, even if I could. “Who is going to be held responsible when you take those kids away and that woman fucking kills herself?”
“That almost never happens, Timofey. But kidsdostarve. They end up in unsafe situations because they’re trying to survive when their parents don’t take care of them. That happens every day. I’m going to focus on that. And if Trish kills herself, I’ll feel bad. I’ll have to live with that. But I’ll do it knowing I made the right choice for—”
“For yourself.” I bend over her, talking down into her confused face. “You’ll do the best thing foryourself. Because you’ll forget about Trish and those kids, but Grant will blame himself for the rest of his life. He’ll feel responsible for leaving his mom even though it wasn’t his choice. He’ll carry that guilt to his grave.”
“Why are we talking about this? I didn’t even make a choice today. It’s just one report in their case file. Why do you care so much about these kids?” She tips her head to one side, her brows pinching together. She might as well be peering through a magnifying glass, inspecting every pore of me for evidence. She sees more than I would like her to. “Timofey, last night, you said… How did your mom die?”
I take a step back. I reel in my loosely controlled anger, bringing it back within my command. “Get on the bike. We’re leaving.”
I turn around, but Piper is there in a second. She whips around me, blocking my path with her glassy-eyed sympathy and trembling lip. “Is that why you were talking to Grant while I talked to Trish? You relate to him, don’t you?”
“His dad abandoned him.”
“And yours died,” she says. “It’s not so different, when you think about it.”
Grant would agree. To him, his dad is as good as dead.
Piper lowers her chin and her voice. “How did your mom die?”
I mount the bike and start it. The rumble of the engine almost drowns Piper out, but she draws closer. “Timofey… did your mom… after you were taken away, did she…?”
