“I’m—”
Paige gives me a once-over. I scrunch my nose, relenting.
“I’m better than yesterday. I think.”
“Well, hey. That’s something. Baby steps.”
“You’d be a great life coach.”
Paige purses her lips, not taking the bait.
“Jo.”
“Aunt Paige.”
Unimpressed, she asks, “You know you can talk to me, right, kid?”
An ache presses on my chest. Paige isn’t one for pity, but for a second, it flickers in her eyes.
I sit back. “I know.”
Paige sighs. I’m not sure if it’s a retreat or if she’s simply trying to earn favor for the next time she pushes. This isn’t a new debate.
“It’s definitely Jasper moving stuff around, right? Building some collection of stolen household items under his bed? Or your sister trying to mess with us?” Paige asks. It’s her version of anolive branch. A change of topic. She looks toward the small radio she propped on the vanity near the kitchen entrance at my back. Paige’s alternative station has been switched to classic rock again. “I swear I just changed this. Margot?” She reaches over to flip the station back.
I lift my hands in surrender. “I didn’t see her.”
“That damn girl. What, is she a ninja or something?”
I smile. “Either a ninja or Casper the Friendly Ghost.”
Five
Despite my protests at beingdragged out of the house for the day, even I can admit that Blackridge knows how to put on a parade. The early July holiday doesn’t have much appeal—too much shameful history wreathed in the day—but I’m not one to turn down good food and sparklers.
Mom, Paige, Margot, Jasper, and I spend the morning in the town square. Crowds line the streets, waving tiny flags—they’re more purple-and-pink than red-and-blue, probably some printing error, but no one minds—and cheering as the glittering floats pass. The sheriff’s department rides past on horseback, followed by cheerleaders in the god-awful yellow and green school colors, a convertible behind them with a homecoming queen who looks more like a debutante.
He’s too tall to fit comfortably, but I heft Jasper up onto my shoulders so he can watch everyone pass. My shoulders burn and he has an iron grip on my neck, but his excited laughter as the local animal shelter parades its rescue animals guarantees I won’t forcehim down. A cat in a wagon is the funniest thing he’s ever seen in his short life.
“Can we get a dog?” he calls, stretching over to tap my mom on the arm.
“No way,” she says.
Paige leans forward to look at him, grinning. “Don’t worry, I’ll convince her,” she says.
My mother rolls her eyes. For a moment, I can see Margot and me in the pair. My mom, like me, is steadfast and calm. My aunt, like Margot, is meddlesome and easygoing.
Margot was as interested in leaving the house as I was, but her expression softens at the sight of the dogs, too. She’ll certainly join Paige’s team in the adoption argument.
When I was eleven and Margot was nine, we begged Mom for a pet. After a full year, she relented. We spent hours at the shelter and left with a tiny scraggly thing named George.
Then the door was accidentally left open. George got out. And he never came back.
Margot liked to think he was out there somewhere, leading a pack of stray dogs down the mean streets of Denver.
I knew his fate was nowhere near as positive. And I never asked for another pet. Even now, watching a dog using a wheelchair pass, I can see only the short time we’d get to spend with it before it, too, died or ran away.
—
