Chapter 5: Don't Eat It

My father was waiting on the sidewalk in front of our building when the taxi pulled up.

He still had his construction jacket on, and snow had settled on his shoulders.

He saw me and smiled. He took my bag out of my hand.

"You look worn out, sweetheart."

That was all he said, and I almost cried again.

Mom was curled on the couch under a shawl.

An apple pie sat on the coffee table, cut into neat slices.

"The neighbor baked it," Mom said. "I only supervised."

It came from a bakery box. I saw the sticker on the lid.

I ate a slice, because I could not stand to refuse it.

Nothing happened. Nobody screamed.

Maeve's warning stayed with me the whole evening.

My sister Kari had come home early from school.

She threw both arms around my neck and told me she had made up my bed herself.

She was seventeen and she still smelled like the track team's locker room.

For the next few days, nobody asked why I had taken leave from school.

Dad came home from the site early every afternoon and made beef stew.

I told him I had a stomach bug and would stay on soup.

I opened my own cans in the kitchen and ate them standing at the counter.

Kari noticed. Kari noticed everything.

"You haven't eaten anything Dad made since Tuesday," she said one night, sitting cross-legged on my bed.

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