“Where’s the good cereal?” Brooklyn asks.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make it better,” Ella promises her quietly before Nana calls her little sister a complainer.
She takes the flakes and adds sugar and sliced bananas, plus Nana’s watery 1 percent milk mixed with a swirl of half-and-half. As they weren’t invited to join their grandmother, they sit at the counter side by side and crunch. Ella hopes neither of them breaks a tooth, since Nana surely can’t afford dental visits. Once they’re done, she rinses out the dishes and puts them in the empty dishwasher.
“Nana, are we getting shots today?” Brooklyn asks.
Ella feels a tiny ping of panic as her sister walks over to the sunroom table and invades her grandmother’s space. Nana stares down at her. If she were a cat, her ears would be flattened.
“No. There were no open appointments. Perhaps another day.”
“Good. I don’t like shots. Do we get to go try on clothes?”
Ella flinches. She told Brooklyn not to do this—ask questions, make demands. But she’s a little kid, not a robot, and it’s too late now.
Nana folds her newspaper, carefully sets it down, and glares down her nose at Brooklyn.
“We do not.”
“Why?”
Brooklyn’s favorite word. Ella isn’t sure how to intervene. She wants to keep Brookie on Nana’s good side, but she also wants to see how Nana is going to react. What will she tell them? When will she admit how screwed they are? She has studiously avoided looking at Ella this morning, as if she’s trying to forget last night ever happened.
“We can’t go shopping because Randall said no.”
Ella has to stop herself from snorting. That’s a very Nana answer—putting the blame on someone else who isn’t there to defend themselves.
“Oh. That makes me sad. I like pretty clothes.”
A normal grandmother would lean forward and start a conversation about clothes. Oh? Me, too! What do you like? When I was little I loved dresses.
But Nana just shrugs. “Yes, well, disappointment is part of life.”
She picks up her paper and goes back to reading, but Brooklyn just stands there. It’s funny, though. Watching Nana sit in a sunbeam at her expensive metal-and-glass table reminds Ella of what her mother looked like, sitting at their own breakfast table. Nana and Mom look so much alike, and they both have really pretty kitchens, but they both seem utterly miserable to be there, so what’s the point?
“Are we still going to Ice World?” Brooklyn asks.
Ah, shit.
Ella definitely should’ve stepped in.
Nana stands up suddenly, glaring down at Brooklyn like some sort of giant monster getting ready to step on a slug.
“We are not. Perhaps if you’d behaved better and had not been so troublesome, we could go, but now we can’t.”
Brooklyn’s eyes get big and wet like the characters on one of her cartoons, and the corners of her lips pull down, and then she’s crying, completely heartbroken. Nana steps around her like she’s a pile of cat barf and walks away, disappearing into her bedroom. The moment the door clicks behind her, Ella runs to her little sister and sweeps her up into a hug.
“Is it really my fault?” Brookie asks between sobs. “Was I bad?”
“No. It’s not your fault. You’re not bad. You’re wonderful. She’s just a stinky, farty old stick-in-the-mud.”
Brooklyn gulps a laugh between sobs, her face red and pressing hot tears against Ella’s neck. “But Nana said—”
“You don’t listen to Nana. She’s like Daddy. Sometimes they say things that aren’t true. I don’t think they even know they’re being mean, but they are. It’s never your fault.”
Ella has a brief flashback of her mom saying something similar to her when she was very young, but once she was older, they both knew it was at least partially Ella’s fault.
“Who wants to go to Iceland, anyway? I don’t like ice. I like the swimming pool.”
Brookie hiccups as she powers down from crying. “I like swimming. I thought Nana would buy me a new dress.”
“She bought me a dress once, and it was so itchy I cut it in half with scissors.”
With a gasp, Brooklyn draws back to look at Ella very seriously. “Oh, that is so bad, Ella! You shouldn’t do that. It’s not very nice.”
Ella rocks her a little and chuckles sadly. “Yeah, it was pretty bad. I’m not saying you should cut stuff up when you’re mad. I’m just saying that Nana has bad taste in dresses for little girls.”
“Can I watch my tablet now?”
Ella pulls her in for another hug, feeling snot drag across her neck as she releases her little sister to stand. “Of course, bud. Just use your headphones so you don’t wake up the sleeping bear.”
“What bear?”
“Nana Bear.” Ella curls her fingers into claws and snarls quietly. “Grr! Time for shots!”
Brooklyn giggles and says, “No!” and runs off for her tablet.
Ella watches her, wondering what she would’ve been like at that age if she’d had someone to protect her as ferociously as she protects Brooklyn. If she hadn’t had to grow up so quickly so the adults in her life wouldn’t notice her and hurt her.
Her phone buzzes, and she groans as she pulls it out. Every time her phone buzzes now it’s either an email from Hayden or a message from someone at school trying to stir up some more drama. She’s texted her mom ten times with no answer, but she’s losing hope that her mom will text back. Maybe Mom thinks that if she answers, if she hears how rough it is for her girls, she’ll come running back. And Mom is determined not to run back.
It’s a text, and the exact one she’s been waiting for.
I’m home. Where are you?
But it’s not from her mom.
It’s from her dad.
24.
The moment slows and stretches out forever as everyone in the room stares at Chelsea. She can’t help but think that this must be what Frankenstein felt like when he saw the torches on the horizon. She takes a step back, and then another, backing completely out of her flip-flops. The door should be just behind her. If she runs, she can probably beat them to the old man’s truck. Her hand slips into her pocket for the key fob.
“Wait,” the woman in the turban says, hands out in a soothing gesture. “Let’s all calm down. Everybody have a seat, and we’ll sort this out.”
That is…not what Chelsea expected to hear at a job interview after being outed as a murderer on the local TV news.
“Calm down?” the surfer guy says, doing that thing where a guy sticks out his chest and steps forward in a way he could swear on a Bible wasn’t threatening but definitely is. “Shouldn’t we, like, tie her up and call the cops?”