Break(17)

Mom hardens her eyes at Dad. “We shouldn’t discuss this in front of Jonah. Can we think about what the Reverend said?”

I shrug.

Dad says, “Look, he’s always better when we’re both home. Maybe I should drop some hours. See if I can spend more time with him.”

Mom scratches like Jesse. “You make it sound psychological.”

“I don’t. But the better he’s watched—”

“I watch him just fine,” Mom says.

I say, “I do too.”

Dad raises his hands. “The fact of the matter is I had a sister like Jesse. I know what it takes to raise this type of kid.”

Dad’s sister died when she was eighteen. Bee sting.

“He’s not a type,” I say.

Dad ignores me. “Look.” He turns back to Mom. “There are schools for kids like him. Even peanut-free would be a relief.”

I say, “No one eats peanuts around him at school. They’re not idiots.”

Mom sighs. “Jesse wants to be with Jonah.”

“If Jonah could take care of him—”

“Paul!”

I whisper, “It’s okay.”

We’re quiet for a damn long time.

It’s sort of against the rules to imply that I don’t watch Jesse well enough.

Though everyone knows it anyway.

“All right,” I say, when I get my voice back. “This is not a tragedy. Jesse doesn’t need to change his life. We just need to keep the house cleaner. Just because—”

“Just because you’re breaking bones every two minutes, Jonah?” Dad throws his hands in the air. “Yeah, I’ll admit that’s weighing on my mind.”

Will’s screaming shoots from his room to the kitchen. I picture him lying in his crib, his little hands in fists.

I tell Dad, “Stop. That has nothing to do with Jesse.” I should just leave. But this would get a thousand times uglier if it were just between the two of them.

Dad says, “It all comes down to a lack of supervision. Broken bones, allergy attacks—”

“You’re really going to blame me for this?” Mom slams her palms on the table. “What, so I’m beating up Jonah in between poisoning Jesse, that’s it? I guess I’m making Will cry, too!”

I say, “Mom.”

Dad says, “Damn it, Cara!”

Jesse appears from the living room, rubbing the red around his eyes. “What’s going on in here?”

We all shut up.

He pads in, his socks making scuffle noises against the ground, pulls me up, and takes me out of the kitchen with him.

“What is it?” I say.

“Shh.”

“You’re supposed to be asleep.”

He brings me to Will’s room and says, “Something’s wrong with him. Pick him up.”

Will gasps in air and keeps screaming.

“It might just be colic,” I say.

Jess wearily pushes me toward the crib. “Jonah, pick him up.”

He stands by while I hold our brother and bounce him on my shoulder. Jesse recoils his hands into his sleeves, afraid to touch.





fourteen


I SNAP MY HELMET UNDER MY CHIN, FLINCHING, like always, at the thought of the skin catching in the buckle. “Camera ready?”

Naomi says, “Just so you know, we don’t have to do this.” She twirls the wire cutters in her left hand. They glint in the moonlight.

“Shut up.”

She bristles. “You already broke the hand today. And I’d think you’d want to be at home with Jesse.”

“It’s the wrong hand. And Jesse’s asleep.”

Of course he’s asleep. It’s four o’clock in the freaking morning.

Naomi shrugs and hoists her camera onto her shoulder. “Hell, who am I to stop you?”

Nobody. Nobody’s anyone to stop me. I swipe my cast under my nose. “Walk me through it.”

“We’ve got to get inside, first, Evel Knievel.” She leans against the polished SPRING MANOR COUNTRY CLUB sign and cleans the wire cutters on her jeans. “Plan is, I cut any locks, you crash like a true Olympian, and we see how fast we can get in and out.”

I stretch my arms behind my head and let my ribs pull, making sure everything’s loose. “You sure the pool’s empty?”

“Trust me, Jonah, I’ve got the janitor’s daughter knowledge. Everyone drains their pools over the winter.”

“Thank God for your blue-collar background.”

“I know, right?”

An owl croons nearby—they’re common here, but the sound’s enough to make me prick with the feeling we’re being watched.

The who sounds almost accusatory.

I taste cement in my mouth and I have to close my eyes and swallow a few times before it will go away. It’s just nerves. It’s not like it means anything.

I need to do this one, and I know it in all of my unbroken bones. I need to get stronger. I need to get stronger. This is the way. Face-planting into this empty pool will be my salvation. It has to be.

It’s even darker when I open my eyes.

“Nom,” I say.

She’s hard at work, breaking through the lock on the gate. “Almost got it.”