I giggled. “How much did you hear?”
He shrugged. “Enough.”
I peeked over at him. “I take it that it won’t do me any good to ask you what happened between Mags and JoJo all those years ago?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
I turned my gaze back to the sky. “Figured.”
“Sweetheart, there’s something you have to understand about your sister.”
I braced myself for whatever truth he was about to drop in my lap. “Okay, I’m listening.”
He raked his hand through his hair. “Her teenage years were rough for her. She won’t ever admit this, but one of the reasons why she’s lived with us for so long is because she has a juvie record that’s been unsealed.”
My eyes bulged. “She what?”
He sighed. “It’s not my place to say what happened or why it was unsealed, but now that the record is out there for anyone to search through a basic background check, she’s had a hard time getting on her feet. People won’t hire her. Many apartment complexes won’t let her rent. It’s been hell on earth for her, not being able to go on with her life because of a fender-bender that got blown out of proportion in court.”
My jaw hit the floor. “You’re kidding. When did all of this happen?”
He took a swig of his beer. “It’s not my place and it’s not my story. But, the fender bender happened when she was around twenty years old. The assholes she ran into didn’t have insurance, so they sued us into the ground. Raked us over the coals, insurance-wise. They did anything to prove any sort of fault, and they lawyered up well. They unsealed her documents, backed us into a corner, and we’ve been dishing out hundreds of dollars in insurance ever since.”
I blinked back tears. “Jesus Christ.”
“Your sister is many things, sweetheart. She’s strong. She’s open-minded. She’s got a good heart and a soul willing to help anyone and everyone. But, one thing she doesn’t have is the gall. She doesn’t have guts. She takes what she’s given, and she makes do instead of carving out something better for herself amongst the trash that life gives her. It’s why me and your mother do all we can to make sure we give her the proper tools. Because she won’t seek them out herself.”
“She survives, but she doesn’t thrive.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
I sighed heavily as thunder clapped above our heads. “What do I do? How do I help her?”
He reached over and patted my knee. “You keep supporting her. Keep giving her options. And eventually, she’ll choose the one that’s best for her and she’ll be on her way. Sometimes, sweetheart, kernels in popcorn don’t pop until the very last second. And sometimes, it takes a second round of heat for them to pop. Your sister just needs a second round, that’s all.”
I placed my hand over his. “Love you, Dad.”
He leaned over and kissed my temple. “Love you too, princess.”
Then, we relegated ourselves to silence while lightening streaked across the sky.
While I turned everything over in my head, trying to make sense of it all.
19
Rebecca
My parents sawme off on the plane, but Maggie didn’t come. I didn’t blame her, of course. Not with everything she was fighting with on a daily basis. But, I made sure to hug her tightly before I left the house so I could reiterate my offer to her in case she wanted to take me up on it. It killed me to see her suffering like that. It killed me to think that all this time she’d only been surviving instead of trying to find a way to thrive. And while I still didn’t understand what triggered that kind of mindset, I knew there was a lot about my sister I had yet to discover.
It did make me curious as to what kind of juvie record she had, though.
I racked my brain during the entire flight home. I tried to remember a time where the police showed up to the house, or maybe something had been discussed, or some rumor floated around school about someone getting arrested. But I recalled nothing. Part of me wanted to ask JoJo about it, but the rest of me knew that was a bad idea.
That didn’t stop me from trying to figure it out, though.
I googled everything under the sun to figure out what the hell she had done. If the documents were unsealed, then surely they were now public record for anyone to peruse through. However, I found nothing. Phone calls I made to local courthouses back home during my free day on Monday yielded little to no results whatsoever. Sure, they had record of Maggie in their system, but they couldn’t release any sensitive information regarding what had happened without her signature as well as parental consent.
Yeah, parental consent even though Maggie was a fully-grown adult.
