“Oh, Emma. I didn’t see you there. How are you?Sogorgeous, asalways.”
Awhile back I’d broken the news to Shelby about who Emma’s brother was, and since then, my mother acted like my fiancée was some otherworldly saint. After a few moments fussing over Emma’s belly, Shelby narrowed in on me once more. “What the hell isthiscrap?”
“This is your trash-free future. Say goodbye to thejunkyard.”
“Oh no, Gigi won’t goforthat.”
“I highly doubt she wants to keep three thousand pounds of junk. Besides, she’ll never know because she hasn’t been outside in tenyears.”
“She was at the doctor’s yesterday. And yes, she’ll definitely noticethisshit.”
I turned around to look at the bins, and something struck me as weird. The kids had all just mysteriously disappeared, and their oily bodies were not skirting down the slip and slide.Ohcrap!
“Posy?Nike?”
“Here,” Nike answered, like I’d been calling roll. His voice sounded deep and hollow. Awareness slapped me in the face. He was in thegarbagebin.
“Dammit.”
I scaled the side of the bin and peered down to find at least twelve greasy kids gliding along the bottom of the container, like a bunch of seals sliding around on a slipperysurface.
“Are they in there?” Emmaasked.
“Yeah, like every single one of them. How did they get in theresofast?”
“See, I told you this was a bad idea,” Shelby said, as if I should have anticipated them using the bins as afryingpan.
“Guys, no. There could be glass in there. Bucky? Helpmeout.”
Together my cousin and I lifted every one of the kids out of the bin. Of course, the grease complicated the job, making it exceedingly difficult to get a proper hold. Exhausted by our efforts, Bucky and I were climbing back down when I looked up to see one of the Crisco kids that I’d just rescued disappear into another bin further down the driveway. Worse yet, Posy, in all her buttery wonder, was scaling uptheside.
“Posy!” I yelled out. “Don’tyoudare!”
With a smile and a wave, my niece disappeared overtheside.
Emma and Shelby were struggling to contain the giggles that hadovertakenthem.
“They’re wild. I can’t stop them. The tractors are going to be dumping junk on top of their heads… and they’re going tolikeit.”
“I told you it was a bad idea,” Shelby repeated. “They don’t need luxury. Look at you, you turnedoutfine.”
“Fine forwho?You?”
“What doesthatmean?”
“It means, Shelby, you’ve hit your credit limit. No more bailing you out. No more manipulation. No more money. No more swapping cars. I’m not going to be your parent anymore. I have a kid of my own coming soon, and that helpless little baby will take priority over my forty-one-year-old, perfectly capablemother.”
Shelby sighed and rolled her eyes at me. “Fine, pick up the trash if you want. Just stop with all thiscrazytalk.”
“Oh, it’s not crazy talk, Shelby. The Bank of Indiana-Jones is nowclosed.”
* * *
Since I seemedto be on such a closure kick, it was obvious where my next stop would need to be. By the time I’d made it through the security checks and screenings, I was nervous and on edge. Rocky had been in prison for over a year now, and I hadn’t come to visit him once. I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be, but I was bracing myself for thefallout.
When he finally entered the room, I had to blink back my shock. He was huge, muscles piggy-backing on top of each other stretching out over his wide shoulders. And where the hell was all his hair? He’d always worn it down to his shoulders but now it was closely cropped to thescalp.
As he drew near, I reached my hand out to shake his, and he shook his head, coming in for a hug instead. He’d always been somewhat of a teddy bear with me when we were young, but that all ended when I’d left him behind. As he slapped my back, his big body shuddered. Was hecrying?
