Page 144 of The Glass Girl

My dad sighs. “Don’t question it, Bella. Just let it happen.”

Ricci pushes open the door and drags me into the sunshine outside. I blink, trying to get my bearings. Ricci pulls me across the parking lot to Dad’s car.

A scruffy brown-and-white one-eared dog is panting patiently in the back seat, staring balefully at us through the window.

“Bart Bingleheimer!” Ricci yells. “Mom got us adog!”

—

In my dad’s car, the dog wedges himself between me and Ricci, his warm dog breath on my cheek. He leans closer, sniffing me. I pat his head awkwardly.

“You got adog?” I say to my mother. “We have a thousand pets already.”

My mom turns around, shrugging helplessly.

“We have a yard,” she says. “And he just—”

“Christmas,” Ricci interjects. “He showed up at Christmas, at Agnes’s. By the barn—”

“He wouldn’t leave her side,” my mother says.

My dad clears his throat. “Turns out buying whatever she wanted at Walmart didn’t do the trick, because what she really wanted was a dog.”

He glances at me in the rearview, but I drop my eyes.

Right. Our phone conversation when I was in Seg.

The air in the car is thick with dog breath and tension. I crack the window.

“Are you hungry? Do you need us to stop somewhere and get you something to eat?” my mom asks.

“We had a big breakfast,” I mumble. I didn’t eat much of it, though.

No one says anything.

My mom turns on the radio.

—

Outside the window, the greens and browns of the desert gradually give way to warehouses, motels, fast-food restaurants, strip malls. No more Chuck runs, no more meal prep, no more Fran group, no more Star Pit, no more asking for razors from the desk if you want to shave in the shower and having staff wait outside the closed curtain, no more goats, no more gym, no more friends disappearing in the desert, no more bed checks and surprise urine tests, wren sparrow roadrunner quail, daily Polaroids, my broken and aching face, no more, no more, no more.

Now it is:

School, people, do I have any friends left, one house one week, the other house the other week, no more house where I can find my peace, and a yellow folder with directions on how to live my life.

The closer we get to home, the more my stomach starts to roll and clench.

—

My dad drops us at my mom’s. He drove the other way around the block so we wouldn’t pass Laurel’s, but it’s only five houses away, so I can see the Sold sign from my mom’s house when I get out of the car.

“I’ll come get you in a week,” he says. “Okay? Right back to where we left off. Easy-peasy. Back to the routine. Okay?”

He hugs me. It feels nice, being in his arms again. Maybe he isn’t mad about that phone call after all. He did call every day. I should try to remember that.

“It will all be good,” he says, his voice floating over my head.

“Yes,” I say. “Yes. Absolutely.”

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