Don't Fail Me Now(43)

“Then why did you decide to go?”

“Whatever Buck has for us, we need the money,” I say flatly. “I’m just hoping it’s actually worth something. This is my Hail Mary. I’ve got no other options. I just hope whatever it is, it’s enough to keep us afloat for a while.”

Tim swallows hard. “What about your mom? Doesn’t she have a job?”

“She used to. She was a housekeeper at the Embassy Suites out near the airport. But then a few months ago, some earrings went missing. They weren’t even expensive, not diamonds or anything. She told me they were little gold starfish owned by some tacky woman who didn’t tip.” I remember this detail specifically because my mom hates starfish—every time she sees one in the ocean she screams—and I remember being so relieved, because I wanted so badly to believe she wasn’t stealing again. But in the end it didn’t matter.

“That sucks,” Tim says.

“Yeah, well. It is what it is.” That’s something Mom says when she can’t fix a problem. That, or she tells me that if we all threw our worries in the air and saw everyone else’s, I’d want to grab mine back. But I don’t think so. I’m pretty confident I could find better ones.

We lie in silence for a few minutes. The talking in the tent is slowly dying down, making me think of all those nights Cass and I spent lying in our beds giggling and telling stories while we waited to fall asleep, how our voices would soften and the intervals between words would stretch and stretch until finally I would say, “Cass, are you still there?” and hear only breathing.

“My mom used to be a nurse,” Tim says. “She worked really long hours, and sometimes I wouldn’t see her for a day or two, and when she was off she was always sleeping or just kind of out of it. Dad said it was just exhaustion. But then the summer I was eight they caught her stealing prescription meds, really high-dose painkillers.”

“Oh.” I don’t know what else to say. I know from experience all the I’m sorrys in the world aren’t going to change anything.

“She went to rehab for a while, and things were okay, but then she started feeling sick all the time, going to a ton of doctors who couldn’t diagnose anything. Then she got beat up in a mugging.”

“Jesus,” I say.

“That’s not the worst part,” Tim says, closing his eyes. “It didn’t actually happen. There was a camera in the lot where she said she was, and Dad tracked down the tape, and it just showed her getting into the car and driving away. But she had all these bruises . . .” I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he tenses his jaw. “Anyway, by the time he caught on, it was too late—she already had the meds she wanted.”

“Did she get arrested?”

“No, you can’t get arrested for kicking the shit out of yourself, apparently, as long as you don’t file a false police report. But she got divorced.”

“Where is she now?”

“She lives in Annapolis. My dad has full custody, but I see her every couple of weeks. She makes a lot of excuses, though. She always has some reason she has to cancel. And I worry all the time. I don’t know if she’s taking care of herself or what she’s capable of. I guess I just don’t . . .”

“Trust her?” I finish.

“No.” He closes his eyes. “Not at all.”

“I know what that’s like,” I say, and without even thinking about it I grab on to his hand and squeeze three times. He squeezes back three times. And then we just let them stay, as Cass’s voice rises up over the crickets, thin and uncertain and sweet, singing Denny his lullaby.





ELEVEN


Friday

Bristow, OK Oklahoma City, OK Amarillo, TX




The next morning brings sunshine, chirping birds, and Leah and Tim knee-deep in water, holding Denny by the wrists and ankles as they swing him out over the lake. I change clothes in the backseat and watch as my brother communes with nature, his soaking SpongeBob SquarePants briefs swinging a few inches below his actual butt.

“One . . . two . . . THREE!” they chant, and Denny lets out a Tarzan yell before he splashes down.

The tent flap is open, and I spot Cass sitting just inside, a cracker held between her teeth, giving herself a shot. I wait till she puts her shirt back down and then drop into the sand next to her.

“What’s your problem?” I joke. “Too early to cannonball?”

“Haha,” she says. “And it’s not early. You just slept forever.” I was uncharacteristically the last one up and probably would have slept even later if Denny hadn’t clambered into the car dripping wet and asked me if I wanted to join him for a “lake bath.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened.” I stretch my arms over my head and yawn. “I must have just crashed.”

“Mmm hmmm.” Cass gives me a look.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She zips up her backpack and crawls out of the tent.

“What?” I prod.

“Nothinnnng.” She skulks off toward Goldie, and I take out my frustration over her constant moodiness on the tent, ripping it out of the ground like the Hulk.

“Hey, can I help?” Tim comes jogging over, his khakis rolled up over his knees, damp hair sticking up in what I hope is an unintentional mohawk.