Queen Mom Rules novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Pickup

Leon drove, because I could not stop shaking.

He ran two yellow lights and one that had been red for a second and didn't say a word about it.

"Which store?" he asked.

"The big one on Fulton. She always takes people to the big one."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stay in the car."

"No."

"Leon."

"I won't speak unless you want me to," he said.

He glanced at me.

"But I'm not going to sit in a car while someone takes your child."

I looked at his hands on the wheel.

"Fine. Don't speak."

Kettering Hardware has a green awning, a bell on the door, and a smell of sawdust and rubber I have loved since I was four.

On a Tuesday morning there were about thirty people inside.

Customers stood in the paint aisle.

Two clerks in red vests stood by the register, and a delivery man was waiting on a clipboard.

My mother stood at the center of the store beside the display of garden hoses, holding my daughter by the shoulder.

Junie held a red lollipop and an expression I knew well.

It was the face she makes when she has decided to remember every word.

"Mom!" she said.

"Baby, are you hurt?"

"No."

"Marlena," my mother said brightly, in her club voice. "What a surprise. We were having a lovely visit."

"Let go of her."

"I'm not holding her. I'm standing beside her."

"Let go of her shoulder, Mom."

My mother's fingers loosened one at a time.

Junie ran to me and I picked her up, although she is seven and heavy, and I held her face against my neck.

"She signed me out of school," Junie whispered. "She said it was an emergency."

"I know."

"She said you were in trouble."

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