Chapter sixteen

“I feel for your mama, ” Terry said, holding a pair of jean shorts—mom shorts—up for inspection. She was standing in front of her open closet and tossing shirts and shorts to where I sat on the bed. I definitely wasn’t going to be in style, but at least I’d be able to change my clothes. Finally. “Taking care of kids by yourself is no picnic. The idea of something happening to me and leaving the boys alone with no mama is one of my biggest fears.”

I tilted my face down. I wondered if that was one of Mom’s fears, too. Had she ever been able to guess that, if something were to happen to her, Ronnie wouldn’t be there for me?

“I guess at least you got Clay, for whatever that’s worth, ” Terry said, shrugging.

“Clay says he’s not my real father, ” I blurted.

She waved her hand at me. “Don’t listen to him. That’s what he says when he tries to make himself feel better about how everything went down. It’s the party line around here. Your grandfather is fond of reminding Clay that it’s possible he’s not. But that’s just who Harold is. Never believes anything for sure until he sees it himself. He’s the skeptical type. Of course Clay’s your father.”

“And if he isn’t? ” I asked, taking a tank top that Terry was holding up against my torso.

“Well, at least you got a place to stay, ” she said.

But would that be enough? Because at the moment it felt like it could never be enough. People needed more than a place to stay, more than a porch to sleep on. They needed a home, right? They needed love.

“I miss my mom, ” I said, barely able to croak out the words. I missed her so much, and saying it aloud only made it feel like a piece of me had fallen away. “I didn’t get to say good-bye.”

She gave me a sympathetic look. “We got to be pretty good friends when she was married to Clay, ” she said. “You know that? ” I shook my head and she nodded, tossing a T-shirt at me. “I never understood how someone like her got mixed up with someone like him in the first place. She was sweet. And real smart.”

She tossed a few more items across the bed and told me to try them on in the bathroom, to bring back the things that didn’t fit. But I didn’t want to leave. For the first time since Kolby went to Milton, I felt like I had an ally, someone who cared.

“Will you take me to her funeral? ” I asked before my brain could catch up with my mouth.

She looked surprised. “They didn’t have the funerals yet? ” she asked.

I shook my head. “I tried to call my stepdad last night to find out when they are, though. When I know for sure, will you take me? ”

She chewed on her lip and looked over at Jimmy’s crib, as if the thought of driving three hours north to Elizabeth was frightening for her. As if it would somehow be bad for Jimmy. But after a few seconds, she nodded.

“I’ll have to make sure Mother will watch Nathan and Kyle, ” she said, almost to herself. “But, yeah. I will. You should get a chance to say good-bye at least. It’s not right that he sent you here without that much.”

I had to restrain myself from throwing my arms around her. I practically floated out of the room. I tried on everything, not even caring that most of her clothes looked so out of style I would have been mortified to wear them in front of my friends.

I gathered all my new clothes and headed down to the basement, where the rickety washer and dryer gathered cobwebs in the far corner.

I’d never been fond of basements, and being stuck in one by myself when the deadliest tornado in forty years ripped through my house didn’t help matters much at all. But I was still on a high from my conversation with Terry, and besides, the basement was preferable to the rest of the house, where I might run across Grandmother Billie, who mostly sat in front of the TV all day eating popcorn from a green plastic bowl, or Clay and Tonette, who alternately clanked around under the hood of an old car in the driveway and fought in the kitchen.

I was almost done folding my small load of laundry when I heard Nathan and Kyle burst into the house on a wave of fighting, followed by the whiny, animated voices of my half sisters. I listened for a while, trying to make out conversations, folding more and more slowly as I neared the bottom of the dryer. I stacked everything in the laundry basket and was about to carry it upstairs when suddenly the single lightbulb flickered out.

At first I froze, the basket pressed against my hip. Almost immediately, I felt panic rise in me, the sound of tornado sirens echoing against the walls of my brain. I could hear wind batting against the smudged, filthy windows and flinched, expecting the next gust, or the one after that, to be the one that sent glass flying or sent the roof flying or sent me flying.

I took a deep breath and swallowed, trying not to let my imagination get away with me, trying not to let my heart jump into my throat, trying not to panic. After all, it’s not like a light going out in the basement is a big deal. Happens all the time. Not every dim basement means a tornado is coming.

I set the basket down and headed for the stairs, my hands out in front of me. I’d go upstairs and ask Grandmother Billie where she kept the lightbulbs. I’d replace it myself, so next time I had to do laundry I’d know it was fresh. She’d probably be thrilled to give me an extra chore.

But when I got to the top of the stairs, the door wouldn’t open.

“Hello? ” I said. I tried the handle again. It turned, but the door didn’t budge. “Hello? ” I repeated, louder, and then knocked on the door. I thought I heard movement on the other side. Or was that the muffled chug of a storm coming?

I groped around on the walls for the light switch but couldn’t find it, then remembered that the switch was on the kitchen wall outside the basement door. The lightbulb hadn’t gone out; someone had turned it out.

“Hello? ” I said again, this time my voice close to a yell. I felt electricity in the air, and a cottony feeling in my ears, as if they were going to pop. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination, but I didn’t care—in my mind, I was right back in the eye of a storm that would surely destroy me. I pounded on the door. “Is someone there? ”

This time, I was sure I heard someone on the other side. Giggling. I turned the handle and pushed again, then pushed harder. The door started to open, then squeezed shut, as if someone was putting their weight against it.

“Lexi? Meg? Come on, let me out! ” I yelled. My heart raced as my eyes refused to adjust to the darkness. What if it wasn’t one of them, but was a chair or something wedged under the doorknob? “Let me out! ” I yelled again.

I turned the knob and pushed harder. The door popped open about an inch and then slammed shut again. Sirens blared in my head, swooping up and down, up and down, making me dizzy and nauseous. “Let me out! ”

The sun ducked behind a cloud and the basement darkened, even as my eyes tried to adjust. Panic made my skin tingle. I put my shoulder against the door and shoved with all my might, and it finally gave, kitchen light bathing my face. The door swung open with such force the doorknob embedded itself in the wall, the crash reverberating through the house.

Lexi stood by the stove, her hand over her mouth. She looked like she’d been laughing but was now staring at me as I stood at the top of the basement stairs, breathless, my arms stretched out at my sides. Meg, standing nearby, looked incredulous, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide.

Lexi and I stared at each other for a moment. And then everyone in the house, it seemed, dropped what they were doing and came running. Tonette got there first, with Clay right behind her.

“What the hell happened? ” he demanded of Lexi, but Lexi simply pointed at me, one hand still hovering over her mouth. He turned to me, his face red with anger. “What’s going on here? ”

“They wouldn’t let me out, ” I said, my voice sounding shrill and whiny. “They turned out the light.”

Grandmother Billie rushed in and stood between us, looking back and forth as if ready to punish but unsure who to dole out the punishment to, followed by Harold, who immediately went to the door. He pulled it away from the wall.

“Hole in the damn wall, ” he said, and Billie hurried over to see the damage. “Right through the damn wallpaper.”

“I didn’t mean to, ” I said. “I was scared. It was dark down there.”

Tonette rolled her eyes. “You’re scared of the dark? What are you, five? ”

“No, ” I said. “The tornado…”

“Oh, here we go with the tornado stuff. Fan-freakin-tastic, Clay, ” Tonette said, “your kid’s got baggage.”

“Why are you yelling at me? ” he said, his voice high, his shoulders shrugged, and his hands spread out.

“I’m sorry, ” I said to my father, who was glaring at me. “It was their fault for shutting me down there.”

“We were playing a trick is all, ” Lexi said, and her innocent act made me sick to my stomach.

Clay looked from Lexi to me and back again, his hands balled at his sides. He breathed slowly through flared nostrils.

“You gonna hafta fix this wall now, Clay, ” Grandfather Harold said, and I withered under the glare I could feel coming from him and Grandmother Billie. Grandfather Harold surveyed the kitchen. “Gonna have to replace the wallpaper in the whole damn room, I guess.”

“Always something in this place, ” my grandmother said, and scurried off, as if the tension in the room was too much for her.

Finally, Clay pursed his lips so tight they became white. He turned his face up to the ceiling and cursed. “Sonofabitch! ” He seemed to struggle against indecision for a few seconds, his body twitching to go one way and then another, and then he let loose and stomped away.

I hated that Lexi and Meg were watching me cower under Clay’s rage. But when I turned my eyes to them, they almost looked frightened, too. I wondered if they’d had to endure moments like this themselves. I wondered if that was why they were so relentlessly trying to draw me into some sort of fight. Did they really hate me, or did they want to use me to deflect Clay’s attention off them?

“Nice going, orphan, ” Meg said with a smirk.

I didn’t bother to answer, just left, forgetting about my laundry, which was still down in the basement. Forgetting about Meg and Lexi and the hole in the wall and my grandfather, who still stood, pressing his dry, blunt fingertips against it. Forgetting about everything but getting away.