Don't Fail Me Now(23)

“Who wants a doughnut?” I sing as I veer into the drive-through.

“We do!” Denny cries. “I want coconut, Max wants chocolate frosted.”

“You and Max have to share,” I say.

“No!” Max kicks the back of my seat this time.

“Denny!” I yell in my best warning voice. “I’m doing something nice. You can either say thank you or forget it.”

There’s silence for a few seconds and then a grumbled, “Thank you.” My eyes fall on the letter from Denny’s school, still sitting on top of the dashboard. I haven’t even thought about it since Monday. I guess I could tell Mrs. Mastino that Mom’s in jail and buy a few weeks of pity overtime, but I know it won’t change anything in the long run. Denny has attention problems and behavior issues. He can be a sweet kid, but she’s right—he’s not getting what he needs to thrive, not at school and not at home. It’s just a matter of time before they kick him out, and unless we can afford a special school, he’ll just bounce around disrupting more classes and shoving more kids, getting yelled at by every adult in his life until he gets immune to it. I’ve seen those boys in the back of my classrooms, the ones who slump over their desks like they’re asleep with their eyes open, staring angrily down at the ground and quietly doing their time. Teachers either ignore them or pick on them, rubbing their inadequacy in their faces. They’re failing out of school, yes, but they’re also being failed by the system. I can’t let that be my brother’s fate.

I get a couple of doughnuts and a large iced coffee and then pull into a parking space so we can eat without getting it all over ourselves—not that a fresh dusting of crumbs would even be visible amid the crap rolling around on Goldie’s floor. I hand Denny his chocolate-coconut compromise, and he temporarily kicks Max to the curb so he can shove the entire thing in his mouth. But when I hand Cass a raspberry jelly—her favorite—she turns away.

“Come on, take it,” I prod. “You haven’t eaten anything.”

Silence.

“You’re diabetic,” I say, still holding it out inches from her face. “You’re not allowed to not eat.”

She looks at me quickly and shakes her head, chewing on her lip.

“Just take it for later,” I say, and Cass bursts into tears.

“I said I don’t want it!” she sobs.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen my sister cry that instead of trying to hug or comfort her I just freeze in place staring like I’m rubbernecking at a roadside accident, the jelly doughnut getting warm and soft in my increasingly tight grip. Cass buries her face in her sleeve, her narrow shoulders shaking, and we sit in silence for a minute until Denny pulls his head up over the seatback and tugs three times on her hood with a coconut-crusted fist.

“Max is really sorry he kicked you,” he says, his voice high and sweet, and Cass quiets, wiping snot from her nose with the back of one hand.

“It’s not that,” I say. “It’s something I did.”

“No it isn’t,” Cass sniffs.

“You don’t have to pretend for his sake,” I say. “I should never have told you about Buck like that, out of nowhere. I should have sat you down and—”

“It’s not about him,” she says, more forcefully.

“About who?” Denny asks. “Dad?” I hand him the jelly doughnut as a distraction.

“Then what?” I ask Cass. She looks down into her lap, while Goldie’s rattle vibrates under us like a volcano about to erupt. “Is it school?” I press on. “Those girls—did they do something? Are people messing with you? Do you . . . have anything you want to tell me?”

Fresh tears spring to Cass’s eyes, and she wipes them away with the already-damp cuff of her hoodie.

“You have to talk to me,” I say. “If you tell me what’s going on, I can help. I can—”

“What?” she snaps. “What can you do? Tell them to stop? Tell them my mom’s locked up and my dad’s about to bite it, so they should give me a break?” Cass sucks in her cheeks and straightens her back. “Just forget it,” she says.

I shift into reverse and back slowly out of the parking space, trying to give myself time to think. After what just happened, I can’t drop my sister off at school like it’s no big deal. Maybe I should put my forgery skills to good use, write an absence note, and let them play hooky for a day; blow all my cash at a theme park or an arcade, live it up for one last hurrah before we all get carted off to foster care. Because that’s what will happen, eventually. We’re running out of options. We can’t stay with Aunt Sam anymore. She may be our blood, but she’s not our family—real family doesn’t hold you for ransom. And even if I could stick it out long enough to post bail for Mom, what then? Court dates and sentencing and probably jail time. If not now, then someday in the not-too-distant future. We don’t have anyone we can depend on to take care of us, I’m doing a shitty job, and even if I did take the CPS lady’s advice and decide to throw everything away to become a legal guardian, we’d be screwed for five more weeks, and right now it feels like we won’t make it five days. If this was a video game, the three of us would be falling off a cliff to sad trombone music while the words GAME OVER flashed on the screen.