“Can I park my car here?”
His brow furrows. “Huh?”
“I can’t explain right now, I swear I’ll come by later. For now, can I leave this here?” I gesture to where the car is.
Abe steps out, shoving by me to walk to the end of the porch and look at it. He whistles.
“Wow. Whose dick did you suck for that thing?”
“Abe!”
“Okay, fine. Later. Got it. Sure, whatever. Jesus.”
He goes back inside, closing the door in my face.
I shut the car off and we get out to walk back to the trailer.
The door is hanging off the hinges when we get there.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Mom screeches when we all walk inside.
“Getting Chrissy from the bus.”
“She’s sixteen years old. She damn well can do that herself.”
“She’s fourteen,” I growl, causing Cammy to swipe at me. She hates it when I rile Mom up, but I’ve been dealing with her the longest and my patience is gone. I don’t want to be nice to her, at all, ever, no matter what. How the fuck do you not know how old your kid is?
“Don’t tell me how old my fucking kid is, you little prick. Now make yourself useful and fix that damn door.”
She points at it, a cigarette between her fingers. Funny how she always has money to get herself cigarettes but never to get us food or the shit we need.
I say us, but I mean Chrissy.
Cammy and I are old enough to be on our own, and we have to keep this fragile balance with our mother, so she doesn’t kick us out… or rather, call the cops and get us removed. The only reason she lets us stay here is because we contribute. She doesn’t have to worry about buying the food and paying the bills. It’s easier for her.
So yeah, I get contributing because I’m an adult, and I don’t expect my mother to take care of me, but she should be taking care of Chrissy. And it’s been this way my whole life. I’ve always fended for myself, so maybe I’m a little mad about it.
“Right away, ma’am,” I mutter sarcastically.
“What was that? You ungrateful prick, you better not be mouthin’ off to me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
I grab the rusty tool box from under the sink. It’s a bunch of mix-match pieces from different sets we’ve found or accumulated over the years.
I dig through it, looking for screws, but there are none left. Hopefully the one that fell out of the frame is around somewhere. I search the floor and find it sticking out from under the couch Mom is sitting on, staring at the wall while she smokes her cigarette. She looks like she could have been beautiful once upon a time, but years of smoking and drugs and drinking made her skin wrinkly and aged. Her hair is wiry, though I vaguely remember her having soft, smooth hair like the rest of us. Her lips are thin, eyes sunken in. It’s a shame. I want to love my mother, but when I look at her, all I feel is disgust and hatred.
I take the screw driver and the screw, then right the door and shove the screw back in. Problem is that this thing is barely hanging on. What I need is wood filler and more screws. The holes are stripped from years of doing this over and over again, that it’ll maybe hang on for another week before I’m fixing it again, but it’s all we got. I should go to the store and get what Ineed to fix it better, but this isn’t a priority. I need to save what I have, in case Harmon changes his mind and it’s all the money I get. It’s why I’m going to leave all the tags on the clothes too, in case I have to return them. At least, I’ll have the money.
As I fix the door, I open my mouth four times to ask about the insurance thing, but it’s better coming from Cammy. Chrissy doesn’t talk to Mom at all, unless she’s spoken to. Mostly they pretend they don’t know one another. When I talk to her, it’s smart and cocky and I usually end up getting myself in trouble—and everyone else too—so I try to keep the conversations to a minimum. Cammy deals with her the best. Somehow she keeps the attitude out of her voice and talks to her like she cares. I swear she’d be an amazing cop. She’d be the nice cop and interrogate people and get them to tell her everything. So, our best bet is for me to fix this door, play nice, and let Cammy come out here and ask her about it.
The door is as sturdy as it’ll be for now, so I clean up my mess and go into the bedroom. I gesture for Cammy to go out there and do her thing.
I don’t know what Mom is doing, she doesn’t usually hang around and do nothing. If she’s here, it’s because she’s looking for something or needs something from us, but usually she comes out and asks us for money if that’s what she’s looking for.
Cammy hops off her bed and walks into the leaving room.
“Hey, Mom,” she says happily.