Page 25 of Frisco

“Mom.” I shook my head.

“She called, said she’s staying put and there’s nothing I can do to persuade her otherwise.” She gulped again. “Gloves is gone. I mean, he ain’t gone gone, but he ain’t here. I don’t see him for lunch or when he used to drop in for a beer, if he would’ve done that sort of thing. And you… You moved back and I thought, finally, I got both my girls here. I can make things right, can make her love me again, let me be her mama. But now…” She looked away.

Ruby Hinton was not like this.

She wasn’t uncertain, fearful. She didn’t stand with her bottom lip moving and her throat choking her up. I’d never seen my mother like this, not even the day Gloves was convicted and sentenced. I’d heard her in her bedroom those nights, but not in public, not where others could see her.

And goddamn, seriously, fuckitity fuck fuck fuck.

I sighed. “Where is she?”

She fixed her eyes on me again. They were clearing. I could almost see the hope coming back.

“Some place called Frisco, California. And I don’t mean San Fran,” she clarified.

Otis came down the aisle, hitching up his pants. “Now, Ruby, I could hear you all the way in my office—”

My mom whirled on him. “That was a good ten minutes ago. Took you that long to grow a pair and face me? After how you’re putting my daughter to work? My daughter who is more educated and just got a whole fuckton more common sense than you—”

I decided to cut through any more bullshit. “Otis.”

He looked. She looked.

“I quit.”

Now where is Frisco, California? And not San Francisco.

It was that night when it happened.

Harper and Aly came to my room, saw me packing, and wanted to know what was going on. I filled them in.

“We’re going where?” was Harper’s first question.

I frowned. “Huh?”

He was no longer paying attention to me. He was looking around, his skinny arm bent back as his hand gripped the back of his neck.

“Oh, dear.” He held his hands out in front of him, palms toward me and Aly. “This is going to take some coordination. I need to pack. I need new suitcases. I can’t use the normal stuff, not for this trip. This is a life-changing trip. I can feel it in my bones.” He breezed past us, hollering over his shoulder, “I have to prepare for this. Big things will happen. My grandmama was a psychic. I can feel her telling me to prepare. I gotta prepare! Aly, go and prepare too. Don’t forget Billy.”

Aly growled. “Why did he have to name my vibrator? You’d think if someone’s going to name a vibrator, it would be the person who uses it.” She raised her voice. “HIS NAME IS GABRIEL! Because he makes me feel heaven every time.” She gave me a lopsided grin. “Right? Get it?”

I groaned and held a hand up. “Don’t elaborate any more. Please.”

She snorted. “Yolo. Fomo. All the omos.”

“That makes no sense.”

She was out the door.

I called after her, “Where are you going?”

She turned back. “Gonna need to pack Gabriel and maybe a few others—Michael, Uriel.”

I grunted. “Why do you have to name them after archangels?”

Her eyes went wide. “You know your archangels. I’m impressed.”

I went back to packing. “Don’t test me about Jesus.”

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