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I startled as the door flew open and Marlo burst inside, her cheeks flushed and breathing heavily. She grinned over at me. “Lordy, that wind is bitter today.”

I nodded at her, unsmiling and moving my eyes over to our mama, who was spooning soup into a plastic container. The smile vanished from Marlo’s face.

“Hey there, Mama, what are you doing?” she asked as she took her jacket off and tossed it aside.

Mama looked up and smiled prettily. “Bringing soup to Eddie,” she said as she snapped the lid on the container and walked with it into our very small living/dining area.

“No you’re not, Mama,” Marlo said, her voice sounding bitter.

Mama blinked at her. “Why yes, Marlo, I am.”

“Give me the soup, Mama. Tenleigh, go get her medicine.”

Mama started shaking her head vigorously as I scooted by her to get her medication, the medication we could barely afford, the medication I bought with the earnings I made sweeping floors and dusting shelves at Rusty’s, the town convenience store, owned by one of the biggest dickheads in town. The medicine Marlo and I missed meals for so we’d have the money to buy.

I heard a scuffle behind me and hurried into the bathroom, where I grabbed my mama’s pill bottles from the medicine cabinet with shaking hands.

When I ran back into the main area of the trailer, Mama was sobbing and the soup was spilled all over the floor and all over Marlo. Mama sunk down onto her knees in the mess, put her hands over her face, and wailed. Marlo took the medicine from me and I could see her hands were shaking too.

She went down on the floor with our mama and kneeled in the mess and hugged Mama to her, rocking.

“I know he still loves me, Mar. I know he does!” my mama wailed. “I’m pretty. I’m prettier than her!”

“No, Mama, he doesn’t love you,” Marlo said very gently. “I’m so sorry. But we do. Me and Tenleigh, we love you so much. So much. We need you, Mama.”

“I just want someone to take care of us. I just need someone to help us. Eddie will help us if I just…”

But that thought was lost in her sobs as Marlo continued to rock her, not saying another word. Words wouldn’t work with our mama, not when she was like this. Tomorrow she’d take the sash off. Tomorrow she’d stay in bed all day. Eventually, the medicine would kick in again and she’d be somewhat back to normal. And then she’d decide she didn’t need it anymore and secretly go off it and we’d do this all over again. And I had to wonder, should a seventeen-year-old girl be so tired? Just tired down to my bones…weary in my very soul?

I helped Marlo and Mama up, and we gave Mama her medicine with a glass of water, walked her to bed, and then quietly returned to the main room. We cleaned up the potato soup, spooning it from the floor back into Tupperware, preserving as much as we could. We didn’t live a life where wasting food was ever acceptable, even food that had been on the floor. Later that night, we spooned it into bowls and ate it for dinner. Dirty or not, it filled our bellies all the same.

CHAPTER TWO

Tenleigh

“Hi, Rusty,” I said as I breezed into the convenience store where I worked four days a week after school. I was breathing hard and was damp from the rain. Outside, it was just beginning to clear up.

“You’re late. Again.” Rusty scowled.

I cringed inwardly at his harsh tone and glanced up at the clock. Walking the six miles from school in Evansly in an hour and fifteen minutes was impossible. I jogged a good part of the way and usually came in the store sweating and breathless. Not that Rusty cared. “Just two minutes, Rusty. I’ll stay two minutes after, okay?” I offered him my prettiest smile. Rusty’s scowl only deepened.

“You’ll stay fifteen on account of that there was a cracked beer bottle in one of the six-packs Jay Crowley brought up to my register this morning.”

I pressed my lips together.

The fact that Jay Crowley was buying beer first thing in the morning wasn’t surprising, but what a cracked beer bottle had to do with me, I wasn’t sure as Rusty was the one who unpacked the liquor. Even so, I just nodded, not saying a word as I went to the back to get my apron and broom.

It was the first of the month so I had to clear and organize the pop shelves quickly because in about an hour, after the food stamp debit cards were credited, Rusty’s would be swamped with folks selling carts full of the sugary drinks. It was welfare fraud at its finest—take the five hundred or so dollars a family of four gets to eat for the month, buy pop down the highway at JoJo’s gas station and sell it back to Rusty for fifty cents on the dollar, converting the government assistance into two hundred fifty dollars cold hard cash. Cash buys cigarettes, liquor, lottery tickets…meth—food stamps do not. And Rusty was happy to make the profit, never mind that it meant kids would go without dinner. In all fairness, though, if it weren’t Rusty buying the pop back, it would have been someone else. That’s just the way it worked around here.