Page 15 of My Debacle with De Lorenzo

Tommy tightens his hold around me, bringing my forehead to his. “You want me to get us some ice cream? And then you can tell me all about Steven and I can tell you all about Meekah.”

“Meekah? She sounds...exotic. Did you knock boots already?”

“I am a woman of the church!” He gasps, trying not to laugh as he recites his mother’s favorite line. “I’m not like you, whore. I don’t give it up on the first night.”

“What? You give it up faster than a two-dollar hooker.”

“Only if they pay upfront. Meekah hasn’t, so I’m playing hard to get. Also, I kinda...like her. We’re on date number three already.”

“Date number three? And I’m only hearing about this now?” I pull out of his grip. “Get us some ice cream. We’re rectifying this right this second.”

We spend the rest of the afternoon talking, only stopping to serve the odd customer. He tells me all about Meekah and she sounds amazing. The excitement in his voice lifts my mood a bit, but it plummets straight back down as we lock up for the evening.

At six o’clock, my mom pulls up in our ever-reliable Toyota. My father bought Cat and me a car when she got her driver’s license but that got repossessed four months ago, so my mom usually picks me up if she’s not working the late shift. I prefer it when Tommy takes me home because at least he distracts me. There’s this uncomfortable silence during the drive with my mother. She tries to reach out, but I’m quite happy alone here on my island.

“How was your day?” she asks when the quietness stretches on for too long.

“Fine.”

She glances over. “Why are your eyes so red?”

“I’m just exhausted, ma.”

She doesn’t question it further. The quickest way to get my mom off my back is to tell her I’m tired. Between balancing school, work, and house chores, we have our hands full. She feels like a failure every time she’s reminded that we have to juggle all these things instead of being regular kids and she just drops the conversation. I’m a bitch for purposely making her feel like that, but the alternative is letting her find out I’m semi-drunk.

“Did you finish your book report?” she asks, changing the subject.

“Yes,” I lie. I was too tipsy to focus on it today, but I’ll get it done over the weekend.

“I was thinking...you finish early on Sunday. Maybe you and I can go for a short walk. Catalina can join us if she’s feeling up to it. We could go to that hiking trail?”

“No, mom.” She’s trying to fill shoes that are not hers and I won’t allow it.

“I just thought...you haven’t gone out for a while and all of us are so busy working that we don’t do anything fun anymore.”

“Please tell me how you see that being fun?” I shift in my seat to glare at her. “We leave the house, go for a hike and pretend like everything is just perfect. But eventually, we have to come home. Back to the bills we can’t pay, back to the house we can barely afford, back to the reality that our whole life’s a shitshow.”

Tears brim in her eyes, but she blinks them back. “I know...I know things are bad, but I’m...I’m trying,mi niña.”

“You’re trying to be him! I don’t need you to be him because Ihatehim! I need you to beyoubecause when we lost him, we lost you, too. Don’t you see that? I don’t need you to go on walks with me. I need you to be strong and fierce like you used to be, not sitting on the floor crying and sniffing his shirts all the time. Heleftyou! He left you with two kids and all this shit to deal with. Why are you still crying over him?”

She pulls off on the side of the road to take a deep breath and the tears she’d been fighting off finally roll down her cheeks. “You’re so angry?”

“I’m not angry at you.”

“Yes, but Catalina and I are the ones still here for you to take it out on.” Another deep breath before she looks at me. She presses her cheek to her shoulder, wiping her tears on the sleeve of her scrubs. “I’ll do better.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

She moves back onto the road, and I look out of the window the rest of the way home. I ignore the anxiety that rises inside me as we take the last turn to my house. Part of me is always expecting to see cop cars parked up front.

Dread is already building in the pit of my stomach as I open the front door. As a bonus, most of our days end with us cleaning or doing laundry. Like the day isn’t taxing enough, but today everything looks spotless. I walk past Cat doing her homework at the dining table and move through the open plan area to the kitchen. The dishes are washed. The counters are gleaming. The laundry is neatly folded in the basket in the corner. How the heck did she get all that done with one arm?

“Cat, did you clean today?”

She looks up from her books. “Not just me.” She hesitates for a moment. “Um, Manuela...Carlos’ daughter, saw me struggling with the laundry basket and came over to help.”

“That was nice of her,” mom comments idly. “How’s your arm,Mija? Are you in pain?”

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