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“I’m not lyin’.”

“BS. And why’re you home so early? I didn’t expect you till six or seven. Theo give you the afternoon off?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

She speared me with a look. “Devona Leona Mescal. What’d you do?”

I scoffed. “Nothin’!”

“Oh, Devil, the admission of guilt is in the sound of your voice.” She turned back to her machine. “When you lie, you squeak like a prairie dog. What did you do?”

“I’m just havin’ trouble with that old jackass across the street again.”

“Oh,” she said, threading her needle, then adjusted a piece of fabric underneath and turned the handwheel on the side of the sewing machine. “The man who runs the outdoor store?”

“Yeah. It’s a hikin’ store. Or a gun store. Whatever. I dunno. He sells bullshit if you ask me.”

“Mm.” She loaded her orange spool of thread onto the little spinner thing on the top of the machine.

This time, it looked like she was working on some tribal tunics. She sold them at powwows and festivals around the area. But my favorite thing she made was her traditional Apache moccasins. They were so dang comfy, and handy, too, if I needed to run out to get the mail, ’cause they had leather soles that were soft but thick so the gravel driveway didn’t hurt my feet. Each pair was beautiful, with custom colors and beaded designs her customers requested.

She even had an Etsy store to sell her stuff, but her day job was lunch lady at the Barton elementary school, which had a whopping total of thirty-seven students last year. Middle and high schoolers got bussed down to Corner Junction for classes ’cause Barton was too small in population for the county to provide us our own schools. Corner Junction wasn’t much bigger, but two state highways intersected there, so it made sense to put schools there. Wisper was closer, but the roads in winter got a lot worse to drive than the road down to Corner.

It occurred to me that if the opposite had been true, I probably would’ve met Abey when we were teenagers, assuming she had gone to school in Wisper—I didn’t know, I’d never asked her—and it had me wondering what could’ve come of that.

“Anyway,” I went on, shaking the thought from my head, “this time, that old jerk put a T-shirt in his front window that’s so offensive. It was the last straw, Mom. I’m tellin’ you.”

“Again, I ask: What. Did. You. Do?”

Looking down at my purple “Equal rights for all doesn’t mean less rights for you. It’s not pie” T-shirt, I picked away imaginary pilling from the well-washed fabric as I admitted, “I… I, maybe, sorta, might’ve thrown a brick through his window.”

She spun her chair, gasping. “Devona!”

I winced. “I know. It was stupid.”

She was glaring at me now. “Did you get fired?”

“No. Not yet. But Theo’s so mad at me. I feel awful.”

Taking off her glasses, she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with two fingers.

I loved my mom’s hands. They were strong, her fingers long and thin. They were nimble, but no matter the task, they could do it. I’d always admired her strength. She had always been the backbone of our family. She was still, even though my sister and brother were grown and living in different states. I was the oldest, and the problem child, if this conversation was any indication.

“Girl, you better grow up, and quick.” She stood, abandoning her project and swiping her “Liluye’s Custom Crafts” coffee mug from her sewing table. “How could you, Devo? You know the position that puts Theo in, right?”

I followed her to the kitchen, pulling an island stool from under the counter to sit on. I tucked my knees to my chest and crossed my feet like I was a kid again, balancing on my butt, waiting for her to serve me a frybread taco on a paper plate like she used to. “I know. Don’t you think I feel awful? And… there’s more.”

“What more?” she asked, turning in front of the open fridge door to glower at me.

“I kinda… got arrested again.”

“Oh, Devona.” She hung her head and shook it slowly.

“This time, Theo thinks Red might press charges.” My phone buzzed in my back pocket. “Hang on. This might be my lawyer.”

“Oh,” she groaned. “So now we’re the kinda people who have lawyers?”

She turned back to pull out the leftover fried chicken I’d brought home after the potluck at Ace’s House yesterday, and I answered my cell. She liked to feed the crunchy breading to our neighbor’s chickens. Was that the healthiest snack for a chicken?