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I could hear them, louder than I ever had before.
They said, ChildBrotherPack.
They said, LoveOursWitchOurs.
They said, We will keep you safe we will keep you with us you are ours you are pack you are SonLoveBrotherHome.
They said, Mine.
“DUDE,” RICO said, standing in an ill-fitting suit and hand-me-down tie, “this sucks.”
I stared down at my hands.
“Like, really sucks.”
I lifted my head to glare at him.
“Qué chingados.”
Whatever that meant.
Tanner and Chris came back over to us, arms laden with food. We were at the Bennett house. We’d buried my mother. Had an empty casket for my father. Elizabeth told me a wake was another tradition. People brought food and ate until they could eat no more.
I wanted to go to bed.
Tanner’s mouth was full. “Dude, they have these little sandwiches that have eggs in them.”
“So I can smell,” Rico said.
Chris handed me some kind of bread. “I don’t know what this is. But it has nuts in it. And my mom says nuts don’t let you be sad.”
“That’s not a thing,” Rico said.
“That sounds nuts,” Tanner said. “Get it? Because of the—yeah. You get it.”
We all gaped at him. He shrugged and ate more egg sandwich.
“Where’s mine?” Rico asked.
“I brought you a taquito,” Chris said.
“That’s racist.”
“But you like taquitos!”
“Maybe I wanted the crazy nut bread! I’m sad too!”
“You’re all so stupid.”
They grinned down at me. “Oh look,” Rico said. “It speaks.”
I cried then. For the first time that day. With a hand full of nut bread and surrounded by my best friends, I cried.
ABEL AND Thomas handled everything. No social worker came to try to take me away. School wasn’t disrupted. Our house was sold, and all the money was put away in a savings account I never touched. There was life insurance too, for the both of them. I didn’t care about the money. Not then. I barely understood what was going on.
I moved into the Bennett house. I had my own room. I had all my own things.
It wasn’t the same.
