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I’m burning sage and my boyfriend is talking shit saying it’s irritating his skin. He’s probably a demon.

— Text from Calliope to Searcy

SEARCY

“Goddammit!” I slammed my hands down hard on the table.

My mom looked up from where she was cleaning the counter of the bar.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking concerned.

My mother wasn’t used to that kind of outburst from me. At least, not when I was doing the work I loved.

Now, the work I didn’t love…I couldn’t say that I had the best attitude on the planet.

But one had to pay their bills, and to do that, you sometimes had to do things you didn’t want to do.

“Another fucking client,” I snarled, closing my laptop much more gently than my attitude wanted to, “left because they decided to go the AI route. Fuck them.”

Artificial Intelligence had single-handedly ruined my good mood for the last year.

One after another, my clients in the book world had left me for AI generated book covers.

Three years ago, when I’d started this photography and cover design venture, I’d been on top of the world. I’d thought, for once, my life would turn around, and I could finally claw myself out of the deep, dark hole that was my life.

Then, slowly but surely, the gods decided to show me that nothing good ever happened to Searcy Maddelyn Hodges.

“Oh, baby. I’m sorry,” my mom replied, her face turning down into a frown.

And, since I hated seeing my mom frown because it reminded me of how two-faced she was, I chose to change the subject.

Anger simmered below the surface, but I wasn’t going to dwell on things I couldn’t change.

For now.

I’d do that in the comfort of my own bedroom tonight after everyone was in bed.

Speaking of everyone, my siblings came tromping through the door right then, cursing the heat.

“You’re late,” I muttered to my younger sibling.

“I’m fuckin’ trying,” Koda grumbled. “I’m not used to getting them up and out of the house on a timetable.”

That was true.

Koda was home on leave.

He was in the Air Force, and was doing phenomenally. Hell, before we knew it, he’d be ruling the world.

But for now, he was just our big brother, home on leave, pulling his weight since he wasn’t ever home anymore.

“Mama!” the youngest, Anders, at seven years old, went running to my mother with her arms wide open.

It was just after the morning rush—and when I say rush, I mean four regular old men that came to eat and shoot the shit for a couple of hours every morning—and my mom was leaving shortly to take the kids to the dentist.

We had Koda, who was six years older than me. Me. Kent, who was fourteen. Finally, there was Anders, our little baby doll, at seven.

There was also Calliope, who was now eighteen. She hated my guts, and it pissed me off to think about her, so I tried to do that as little as possible.

My mom was all alone now since Dad died a few years ago, and we were all on the struggle bus—though, just sayin’, but we were on the struggle bus well before our dad had died.

I had two very different, but still absentee, parents.

Dad had been the “fun dad.” He’d gone to work—a barely above minimum wage job delivering tortillas to about seventy-five local Mexican restaurants in the area—and come home.

He didn’t clean. Didn’t fix things around the house.

But he always made sports games, had time to throw a ball around in the backyard, and made sure to put a smile on your face.

Two years ago, I was in college taking computer courses, thinking that I was about to finally make a break for myself—get out of the hellhole of Dallas and one day be able to afford more than Ramen Noodles and Great Value bread.

Now, I was back to living with my mother, I’d dropped out of college, and I was struggling right along with her to make ends meet.

I hadn’t wanted to have to cover a mortgage for a house I never wanted to own.

Yet, here I was, working at a diner that I loathed with everything inside of me, losing clients left and right, and being a pseudo mother to my two younger siblings with a mother that was slowly falling apart.

“Mama,” Koda said, catching my mother’s attention. “We’ve got this. Why don’t you head over there early and maybe they’ll get to you early.”

My mother smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

It hadn’t for a very long time.

“I’ll do that,” she replied, shooing the kids toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Koda handed her the keys to the Jeep as she passed and watched as they walked down the street to where he’d parked it.

I grabbed my laptop and shoved it underneath the counter before crossing over to stand next to my brother.

We stared at the empty lot together for such a long time that I wasn’t expecting what came out of his mouth next.

“I’m being deployed.”

I gasped and turned, staring at my brother. “You are?”

“Yeah.” He looked incredibly apologetic. “I’ll be gone for a year.”

I closed my eyes and prayed for the world to swallow me whole.

“Fuck.” I sighed.

“I’m sorry, Searcy,” he informed me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “If I’d known, I would’ve never joined.”

Meaning, if he’d known my dad, the piece of shit that he was, would kick the bucket and die, leaving my mom with a mountain of debt, a failing diner, and no desire to participate in life anymore, he wouldn’t have joined the military.

I patted his shoulder and sighed, “Someone’s gotta chase their dreams in this family. It might as well be you.”

Koda blew out a breath.

“I feel terrible,” he admitted. “Every time I get that late notice in my email, I want to scream.”

A long time ago, we’d learned that if we wanted the bills paid, we had to pay attention to it ourselves.

Mom had shit organizational skills, even worse parenting skills, and the bad habit of not realizing until it was too late that our power hadn’t been paid for the month.

Dad had lived with his head high in the clouds, and likely thought electric was free.

Sometimes, I felt like they stuck their heads in the clouds because it was easier than admitting that they’d failed as a parent.

God, I hated my life.

If there was anyone in this world that didn’t need to be a mom, it was her.

She was too flighty. Too lost. Too unable to do the hard things in life because they would make her sad. Too focused on the material to see what she had waiting in the wings, begging for her to pay attention to them.

Honestly, I’m quite surprised she volunteered to take the kids to the dentist today. Usually that’s reserved for me, because my mom can’t even remember their birthdays, let alone their pediatrician’s name or where they’re supposed to be going for their semi-annual dentist checkup.

I’d had to give that information to Anders.

For the next two hours, we moved like a well-oiled machine.

We’d done this so many times before that we knew what the other was going to do or say without having to ask.

He took the left side of the diner, and I took the right.

Our cook, Lenny, pumped out the grilled cheeses—what we were famous for thanks to Koda and me—like there was no tomorrow.

We had other items on the menu, but back in the early days when Dad would force us to work at the diner, then leave it to us to handle, we hadn’t had a cook.

We hadn’t had anyone but ourselves. And since I was always busting my ass on the front end, Koda was in the back making grilled cheeses because that was really the only thing besides hamburgers he knew how to make.

Luckily, it didn’t take much to learn how to fry up frozen fries.

Lenny, our cook, had come in when Koda had joined the Air Force.

He stayed for ridiculously low pay and seemed to be quite content in life to do the job.

I was grateful.

Speaking of grateful…

“Where the fuck is our mother at?” I grumbled as I passed Koda.

Koda frowned and looked at his fancy-ass watch, one I’d scraped for to purchase for him as a graduation gift, and said, “You’re right. She should’ve been here by now.”

I grumbled something to him and headed to the back to get some dishes into the washer.

When I got back, our clientele had tripled.

All of the extra bodies were wearing leather.

And, since I tried really hard not to pay attention to anyone or anything, I let Koda work his section and I stayed in mine.

“Um, excuse me,” a woman said from a side table in between Koda’s section and mine. “Do you have anything else on the menu but grilled cheese?”

“Not today,” I said. “Sometimes we do patty melts, but not always. We specialize in grilled cheese.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, what are lactose intolerants supposed to eat?”

I shrugged. “You can eat across the fuckin’ street for all I care. But all we have in here are grilled cheeses.”