The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,515

was that kid you were talking to?" I give my sister side eye before checking my rearview and pulling out of the Olwine Junior High pickup lane.

Devanie rolls her eyes as she situates her faded denim backpack between her dirty Converses before yanking at the seatbelt.

"You going to answer me or what?" I ask. I check my side mirrors. These little shits love to think they’re invincible around two-ton killing machines.

She releases a sigh from her overly-glossed lips and twirls her curly blonde hair around one finger. When I pull onto Whitehead Avenue, she spots a pack of middle school acne factories and sinks back into the seat.

I remember that feeling. Wanting to be invisible. Wanting to disappear into my own world the second the school bell rang.

"Who are those assholes?" I ask when I notice one of them staring in our direction.

"Nobody you'd know." She speaks. Finally. And then she reaches for the radio.

I swat her hand away and kill the volume completely. "Obviously, smart ass."

Dev almost breaks into a smile, but it’s gone before I get the chance to appreciate it. They’re far and few between these days.

"You should be lucky someone gives a shit about you." I say, turning onto Givens Road. Two more blocks. “And I say that with you know … nothing but …”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I know damn well that it's overkill, me insisting I take her to and from school every day, but someone needs to be there for her.

Someone needs to make sure she doesn't get yanked off the street by some pot-bellied man in a rusted minivan with out-of-state plates.

Someone needs to make sure she's actually going home after school and not climbing into the back of some sixteen-year-old pencil dick's Mazda and handed a joint and a bottle of stolen beer from their dad’s garage fridge.

Someone's got to make up for all the worrying, caring, and shit-giving our mother can't be bothered to do.

"So lucky." She mumbles under her breath as she picks at a thread on the hem of her cutoff shorts. They're way too tight on her, way too short. She's long-legged, like our mom, and I see the way the boys already stare, all gap-mouthed and bug-eyed, hiding their pathetic little boners with their Trapper Keepers.

"Hey, I need you to actually be on time tomorrow," I remind her. "I've got a client flying in from Seattle, so I need to prep the shop as soon as I drop you off."

"Idiot."

"What?" I pull into the driveway of the paint-chipped bungalow with the leaning porch that I once called home.

"Today's the last day of school."

"Shit. You're right," I say, killing the engine.

She climbs out of the passenger side, swinging her holey backpack over her right shoulder as she trots up the front steps. Before I have a chance to so much as lock my car, she's already inside, raiding the kitchen.

"Did Mom finally get bread?" I ask once I make it in.

I drop my keys in a metallic clunk on the kitchen counter and head for the fridge. I don't help myself to anything here like I used to. There's barely enough for my sister as it is. I’m just making sure she’s not going to go to bed hungry tonight.

"Nope," Devanie says, reaching into a cupboard. "But I did."

I clench my jaw, but keep my back to her so she doesn't see.

Examining the minimal contents of the almond-colored Kenmore, I inventory an expired carton of eggs and a near-empty half-gallon of orange juice. Ketchup, mustard, and a partial stick of butter haphazardly wrapped in its waxy paper are all that remain otherwise. If I didn't have an appointment at four, I'd grab some groceries for her my own damn self.

Wouldn’t be the first time.

Or the second.

Or the hundredth.

And it won’t be the last either.

When I turn around, I find Dev fixing a peanut butter sandwich on cheap bread that tears with each spread of the butter knife. Scraping the knife against the insides of the plastic jar, she excavates every last bit.

"Wipe the crumbs when you're done," I say.

She looks at me with one eyebrow bent, and I know what she's thinking. This place is a shithole. A literal shithole. It smells like cat piss despite the fact that we’ve never had one. The carpet is a hundred years old. The ceiling is stained yellow, thick with nicotine from our mother's pack-a-day Virginia Slims habit, and laundry is only ever done on an as-needed basis and always left in baskets