Page 52 of Ruthless Consequences

The phone rings. It’s Molly saying that Minnie is crying to come home. I leave everything on the counter and run down the street to grab her. She hooks onto me like an octopus, her eyes red, her cheeks stained with tears, her nose runny.

Molly ticks her mouth. “You’ve become more than a sister to her,” she says. Her voice is sad, and so are her eyes.

She feels bad for the both of us.

It’s fine, though. I love Minnie, and she’ll always have me. Just like Ava will too. I’m a little slow to return home. I’m sore—from head to toe. It feels like I’m having period cramps. But Minnie is smiling now and wanting to get down. She’s pointing at birds and wanting to talk about them. Halfway there, though, she wants me to pick her up again. She’s on my hip, and I’m favoring that side because the child is getting heavy.

The TV is on blast when I walk inside. I stop halfway to the kitchen. Lilo is dressed, but this time he’s wearing Sonny’s old shirt instead of his own. He’s sitting at the counter. Glass catches the light and sparkles on the floor across from him. It looks like what used to be a beer bottle. The yeasty smell floats in the air. There’s an empty box of the brand Sonny drinks on the counter. It’s right next to the things I left out.

Sonny is in his chair, his back toward us, watchingGunsmoke.

“What the fuck happened?” I say silently to Lilo, hoping he can read my lips.

He shrugs, like nothing happened. Bullshit. The evidence is all over the floor. Did Sonny try to hit him and miss? Or did Lilo dodge in time? But it’s hard for me to concentrate on that when Lilo is looking at me the way he is.

It’s like he sees something he likes. But more. Much more. It’s almost like he’s seen his future, and he wants it now.

“Minnie,” he says, nodding toward her.

“Yeah. Minnie.”

“Hi, Minnie,” he says to her.

She tries to stick her head in my neck but can’t. She puts her two fingers in her mouth and stares at him.

“You hungry?” he asks.

She nods.

“You want to sit next to me while Lucila makes breakfast?”

She looks at me and I smile. She looks at him and narrows her eyes. Mostly everyone calls me Luci. But when Hoffa comes sniffing around him again, she becomes interested. She moves her body in a way that tells me she wants to sit in the chair next to him.

I set her down. Once he starts talking to her about Hoffa, she’s a goner. I move in a daze to the stove, getting everything ready for breakfast.

“Sonny,” Lilo says, grabbing a piece of paper from a stack on the counter, along with a box of crayons, and setting them in front of Minnie. “You want breakfast?”

He grunts in response. I drop the spatula. I usually make whatever, and he usually comes and gets it whenever he wants to. Usually after we’ve cleared out. I turn and stare at Lilo, but he’s busy helping Minnie draw Hoffa.

The TV turns low, and Sonny rises from his chair. He doesn’t stretch like he usually does. He seems stiff. He’s tall and muscular, though he’s getting a paunch belly. He runs a hand through his hair. It’s slicked back at the top, but the bottom is all perfectly round curls.

He turns and comes into the kitchen.

“You happy with this guy?” He stabs a thumb at Lilo.

Lilo’s eyes turn up for a second, but he goes back to helping Minnie.

“Yes,” I say. I expect the one word to stammer out, but it doesn’t. It’s strong.

Sonny goes to the refrigerator and looks inside. “Out of beer,” he grumbles to himself, and then he heads toward the front door.

“What did you do to him?” I practically scream after the door shuts.

Lilo grins and tries to go back to helping Minnie, but I put my hand on the paper. She’s grunting, making angry noises, trying to get me to remove it.

“What are you talking about?”

I almost believe him. But just like he knows my body better than I do, I know him. He can’t bullshit me.

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