Yolk(75)

“You’re such a pussy,” she says, shaking her head. I spray her anyway since I’m scared enough of Mom for the both of us. If she smells smoke, we’re toast.

I draw my hands to my face, sniff, and then spray them, too. “Wait,” she says, splaying her fingers. “Do mine.”





chapter 34


“Did you know that Jimmy Buffett owns Dairy Queen?” I’d read about it in class. “He basically brought them back from the brink of bankruptcy because he likes them so much.”

June pulls us onto the brightly lit lot. “I went to business school too, dummy,” she mutters.

The thing is—and June knows this—I love Heath Bar Blizzards more than life itself. Not that the Peanut Buster Parfait isn’t pretty incredible too. I ignore the caloric math because what I want is a bucket of frozen deliciousness with shrapnel chunks that get stuck in my molars.

“Did you know you can get a Banana Split Blizzard?” I crane my neck until I can see the big plastic menu. “I didn’t know that was a thing until I read it online. Ooooh, should I get Butterfinger?”

I snap a photo for Patrick. There are still four or five cars ahead of us. I’m so excited I can’t take it.

“Jesus, get both,” she says. “Literally nobody gives a shit.”

June leans out the window when it’s finally our turn. “I’ll have a pineapple sundae,” she calls out. I stare at my sister as if she’s a stranger.

“Ew, that’s your DQ order?” It’s the most milquetoast thing I can imagine. Of all the desserts in the world.

“It’s what I’m in the mood for,” she says, shrugging. “This isn’t, like, fucking Christmas for me. I get drive-thru every time I’m on the road.”

I order a Heath Bar Blizzard.

“Why’d you quit driver’s ed?” she asks as she inches the car closer to the window.

“Dunno.” I recall the red-faced instructor with the buzz cut. He worked as a waiter at Pappadeaux and told me he’d give me free drinks. He was at least twenty-five and deeply creepy.

I stopped going. I had other things on my mind. Mom was gone.

“What’s the point?” I tell her. “You could drive eight hours west from Texas and still be inside Texas.”

“Because knowing that you can leave makes it more tolerable,” she says. “It helped me. I just drove around under this stupidly big sky with nowhere to go but at least feeling like I had some say in it.”

When June first got her license, she did seem so much happier. After homework, she’d text me and we’d go to DQ for frozen desserts, Sonic for cherry limeades, and Long John Silver’s with a side of Whataburger chicken fingers with cream gravy and Texas toast if we were feeling decadent.

June’s always been easier to talk to in a car. “Thanks for this trip,” I tell her quietly.

“It’s not so bad, right?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even hate church.”

“See?”

“Yeah.” I stare at the chess piece-sized Virgin Mary effigy affixed to mom’s dashboard. I remember how, when I unpacked my things at school, there was an identical one in the bottom of my suitcase. I threw her in a sock drawer and haven’t seen her since.

“Did anyone at church ever ask about me?” I can’t tell if I’m disturbed or relieved how little has changed in the last four years.

June laughs. “You mean, did the church ladies light a vigil candle for your scorching soul every week? Or did the priest dedicate his homily to Jayne returning to the flock?” She turns to me. “Is that what you’re asking?”

“What I’m asking is why you’re such a dick.”

June laughs. She pulls up a little farther, then sets the car in park again.

“Did they ever ask you where Mom went?”

She shrugs. “Nah. I’m not even sure they asked Dad. You know how it is, church-folk are all up in your business until that shit actually gets dark. Then, they just think you’re contagious.”

I do know. It’s not just church, though; that’s everywhere.

“Do you think we’ll ever know where she went?”

“We could ask her,” says June.

At this, we both crack up.

“You really didn’t think she was coming back, did you?”

I think about her packed suitcase. The eerily placid look on Mom’s face. “No, I really didn’t,” I tell her honestly.





chapter 35


The last time I told June Mom wasn’t coming back, she’d smashed an alarm clock on my head.

“You fucking whore!” She’d wrapped her fist deep into my hair and pulled with everything she had.

“Get off me, psycho!” I twisted, eyes filling with rage tears. She managed to hook me behind the ear where my scalp’s most tender. I raced down the stairs, turning around on the carpeted landing to taunt her.

I’d called her a dumb bitch. Disgusting. A loser. I screamed for her to get a life. I crashed into the living room, grabbing my things, blindly shoving keys, wallet, lip gloss into my bag.

I checked my shallow pocket for the hard contour of mom’s ring. I’d tried to tell June that first night. That this was our new life and still she wouldn’t listen. It was so pathetic the way she kept pretending that things were ever going to be the same. Her naiveté sickened me. She was supposed to be my older sister. She was supposed to be so fucking smart.