to get good grades? And God forbid me or him get sick—”
“He or I, Rico.”
“Are you seriously correcting my grammar right now?”
She glares at me with so much vitriol in her face, if I weren’t so pissed off, I’d probably cower and apologize.
But I don’t. Because I am pissed off. For more reasons than I can even count in this moment. “This ‘attempt at a better life for us’ is failing, Mama. At what point are you going to accept that and make some changes?”
“You have no idea of the sacrifices I’ve made for you and your brothe—”
“I make sacrifices too!” Jax stirs, so I lower my voice. “Extracurriculars. Parties. Friends. A normal high school experience. I’m even sacrificing college—”
“You think I don’t know that?” she snaps. “You think this is the life I want for my children? You think I want to always be at work? You think it doesn’t scare the shit out of me every time I get sick? I can sell some of your granddad’s stuff I’ve got in storage to give us some extra money, but I’m doing my best, goddammit!”
“Well, it obviously isn’t good enough, is it?”
She looks like I just backhanded her, and I immediately feel like a garbage can overflowing with poop diapers and dirty Macklin wet wipes. Her hazel eyes shift back to the television. Full of tears (again) that will definitely overflow any second now.
Of course she’s doing her best, Rico.
I clench my jaw to keep my own facial waterworks in check, then march into the bedroom. Before I can change my mind, I lift my mattress, shove my hand into the box spring hole, and remove the envelope.
Back into the living room I go, and into the air it flies.
She catches it.
“My holiday bonus from work,” I say. “Should give us a little breathing room, and maybe you can go see a doctor.”
Before she can look at me again or form a response, I return to my bedroom and slam the door.
And then I cry.
Rico will never know it, but after Stacia Danger put Jax in bed and confirmed that Rico was asleep as well, she took the forty-nine of us that remain—Rico placed Bill Fifty in a checking account to cover some grocery store splurges—into her closet. Then Stacia dropped to her knees, removed us from our envelope dwelling, and counted us one by one.
She counted again.
And again.
And again. (Don’t these humans realize all that friction begins to chafe? Mercy.)
After the fifth time, she gathered us into a pile and stacked us against her knee a few times. Then she squeezed us so tightly, it became impossible to breathe…and promptly burst into tears.
“This isn’t fair, Father!” she exclaimed. “Why is my life this way? How do two full-time jobs fail to cover the bills? Why is my seventeen-year-old giving me an envelope with forty-nine hundred dollars in it?”
“Gentlemen, we have another crier,” Bill Nineteen managed to choke out.
“Who can understand these humans and the myriad emotions we engender within them?” from Bill Forty-One. “Sure wish she’d loosen her grip—”
“Where did I go wrong, Lord?” Stacia exclaimed, pounding our edges against her thigh within her closed fist.
“You know, fellows, the last time I heard a human say that, he was staring me right in the eye after losing a large stack of our brethren in a questionable card ‘game’ called Poking.”
“I believe it’s Poker, dear Twenty-Eight,” Bill Seventeen said.
“Whatever the name, I’ve seen it turn quite ugly.”
“Ay,” from Seventeen again. “The things people do to get their hands on us. It’s baffling!”
“I know I’ve made some mistakes, Lord,” Stacia goes on, “but come on. Rico doesn’t deserve this. Help me out for her sake, if nothing less. She and Jax deserve to have lives. To be kids, for crying out loud. To hang out with friends and have fun and go on beach trips—”
She droned on for a while, then sighed, shook her head, and gave us one last look before returning us to our envelope. We were lifted quickly enough to make our stomachs drop, then shuffly scuffling filled our ears before it got very dark and the smell of human feet filled our paper olfactory glands.
“I believe we’ve been placed in a shoe box!” Bill Twenty-Three exclaimed.
“Ah, well. Better than being tossed into the air and made to cascade to the floor like raindrops. I got trampled the last time that happened,” from Bill Six.
“At least you’re not torn,” said Bill Forty-One. “One