Stepdad and His Friends Bred Me During the Birthday Blackout novel · Chapter 20 of 48

Chapter 20: Ours

Breck had the truck door open before I did.

"Sparky. You don't have to."

"I know." I got out. "Go inside. All of you."

Abram looked at my mother for a long second over the hood.

Then he unlocked the front door, and the three of them went in past her without a word.

The porch light buzzed in the quiet.

She sat back down on the step.

So did I, at the other end of it.

Up close she looked older than I'd ever seen her. No blowout. Her roots were showing. Her toenails were chipped.

She'd always said a woman with chipped toes had given up.

"That detective called me," she said. "Twice."

"I know."

"Duane says if it goes bad, it's on me. The cards. The car. All of it." She laughed, and it came out thin. "He says I'm the one who signed everything."

"You are."

She didn't argue.

"I've got a little money he doesn't know about," she said. "Enough. We could go back to Mesa. Get a place. Just us, like it used to be."

She reached over and touched the end of my braid.

"You drop the report. I drop Duane. We start over, baby. One more chance. That's all I'm asking."

I looked at her hand on my hair.

For about one second, I was nine years old on a porch in Mesa.

The man from the bank was coming up the walk, and she was squeezing my shoulder and whispering what to say.

I'd always said it.

"Like it used to be," I said.

"Yes."

"I paid the electric. You sat in the dark."

Her hand dropped.

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Anything."

"When you opened the first card. Three weeks after my birthday. Did you think about what it would do to me?"

She looked at me with her clear blue eyes.

"You always land on your feet, Codi," she said. "You're like me."

I stood up.

"No," I said. "I'm not dropping it. I'm not going to Mesa. And I'm not like you."

She stayed on the step.

Then she stood too and put her shoes on one at a time, with a hand on the porch post.

The softness went out of her face.

"Fine," she said. "Then I'll see you Friday."

She walked to the little silver car and drove away crooked, the way she'd parked.

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