time.
“This, too, shall pass.” She breathed Mom’s words into Pansy’s fur. She and Adam were survivors. That was something else her mother always said. The two of them together had weighed less than five pounds when they were born. Dad could hold one of them in each hand. There were pictures of Baby Girl Sutton and Baby Boy Sutton in clear plastic cribs with tubes taped to their mouths and noses. The doctors said Adam was a fighter and Alexis was stubborn. That’s why they survived. And they were still that way.
Staying in the afternoon shadows along the wall, Lexi slipped into the dining room and around the table. Dust filled the holes in Mom’s lace tablecloth. Tools and wires and pieces of metal covered the cloth. Computer guts, Adam called it. Ben said he was going to start a business fixing computers. Sure he was.
“Ten seconds and I’m breaking the window!” Ben pounded on the side window in the living room.
No you won’t
. He wouldn’t break anything he’d have to fix, because he never fixed anything.
Lexi snuck into the kitchen, praying Ben would stay where he was. He’d already tried the back door, but she’d gotten there before him. She was always faster than Fat Ben. If she could get to the garage without him seeing, she’d call Jake and tell him to meet her at Echo Park. Moving like a cat, with no more sound than Pansy’s paws made on grass, she grabbed her backpack off the table and darted out the door. Once outside, she ran like a track star, down the sidewalk and to the alley. The garage door was wide open.
Forcing her fingers not to shake, she punched in Jake’s number. He sounded more scared than she was when he answered. “Lex, you okay? Are the police there?”
“Not yet. I got another idea. Meet me by the lion at Echo.”
“No, Lex. Stay put until—”
“I’m on my way.” She tossed the phone behind a pile of flowerpots. Another one of Ben’s get-rich-quick schemes—
“Aloe plants. They’ll sell like hotcakes.”
She dumped her shoes and clothes behind the garbage cans and set her open pack on the floor. “Get in.”
Pansy obeyed. She loved bike rides. Weird cat. She didn’t know they were riding for her life. Lexi kissed the silky place between Pansy’s ears. “You’ll be okay.”
She was always faster than Fat Ben.
He didn’t have what it took to be a dad.
Jake’s hand cramped on the shift knob. Deciding at the last second not to challenge the grace of the yellow light, he mashed the brake pedal. His truck tires hit the crosswalk as the light changed.
Red lights. That’s what his life had turned into since his sister died. One long, exasperating stoplight after another.
Abigail, if you’re looking down on all this, you gotta know I’m trying
. But she couldn’t be watching. Tears weren’t allowed up there.
He stared at the Wendy’s sign. You C AN ’ T F AKE R EAL , it said. The slogan resonated in a deep place inside him. If only people came with labels declaring them real or artificial. His brother-in-law should have come with a warning on his bloated side:
People-using, cat-hating, toxic blob of humanity. Approach with caution
.
Or don’t approach at all. He’d tried to warn Abby, but she was lonely and exhausted from being both parents to two spitfire kids after their dad bailed. He’d tried to warn her about that first one, too:
immature, self-absorbed, irresponsible jerk
. “I sure know how to pick ’em,” she’d said the first time she landed in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer.
The red eye blinked green and he sped into town, keeping the needle a safe seven over the speed limit. He turned right into Echo Park and put the truck in neutral. He jumped out and sprinted over to the drinking fountain—a huge, openmouthed yellow lion. Water squirted from its tonsils when a little girl who looked to be about eight turned the handle.
If Lexi were still that
“This, too, shall pass.” She breathed Mom’s words into Pansy’s fur. She and Adam were survivors. That was something else her mother always said. The two of them together had weighed less than five pounds when they were born. Dad could hold one of them in each hand. There were pictures of Baby Girl Sutton and Baby Boy Sutton in clear plastic cribs with tubes taped to their mouths and noses. The doctors said Adam was a fighter and Alexis was stubborn. That’s why they survived. And they were still that way.
Staying in the afternoon shadows along the wall, Lexi slipped into the dining room and around the table. Dust filled the holes in Mom’s lace tablecloth. Tools and wires and pieces of metal covered the cloth. Computer guts, Adam called it. Ben said he was going to start a business fixing computers. Sure he was.
“Ten seconds and I’m breaking the window!” Ben pounded on the side window in the living room.
No you won’t
. He wouldn’t break anything he’d have to fix, because he never fixed anything.
Lexi snuck into the kitchen, praying Ben would stay where he was. He’d already tried the back door, but she’d gotten there before him. She was always faster than Fat Ben. If she could get to the garage without him seeing, she’d call Jake and tell him to meet her at Echo Park. Moving like a cat, with no more sound than Pansy’s paws made on grass, she grabbed her backpack off the table and darted out the door. Once outside, she ran like a track star, down the sidewalk and to the alley. The garage door was wide open.
Forcing her fingers not to shake, she punched in Jake’s number. He sounded more scared than she was when he answered. “Lex, you okay? Are the police there?”
“Not yet. I got another idea. Meet me by the lion at Echo.”
“No, Lex. Stay put until—”
“I’m on my way.” She tossed the phone behind a pile of flowerpots. Another one of Ben’s get-rich-quick schemes—
“Aloe plants. They’ll sell like hotcakes.”
She dumped her shoes and clothes behind the garbage cans and set her open pack on the floor. “Get in.”
Pansy obeyed. She loved bike rides. Weird cat. She didn’t know they were riding for her life. Lexi kissed the silky place between Pansy’s ears. “You’ll be okay.”
She was always faster than Fat Ben.
He didn’t have what it took to be a dad.
Jake’s hand cramped on the shift knob. Deciding at the last second not to challenge the grace of the yellow light, he mashed the brake pedal. His truck tires hit the crosswalk as the light changed.
Red lights. That’s what his life had turned into since his sister died. One long, exasperating stoplight after another.
Abigail, if you’re looking down on all this, you gotta know I’m trying
. But she couldn’t be watching. Tears weren’t allowed up there.
He stared at the Wendy’s sign. You C AN ’ T F AKE R EAL , it said. The slogan resonated in a deep place inside him. If only people came with labels declaring them real or artificial. His brother-in-law should have come with a warning on his bloated side:
People-using, cat-hating, toxic blob of humanity. Approach with caution
.
Or don’t approach at all. He’d tried to warn Abby, but she was lonely and exhausted from being both parents to two spitfire kids after their dad bailed. He’d tried to warn her about that first one, too:
immature, self-absorbed, irresponsible jerk
. “I sure know how to pick ’em,” she’d said the first time she landed in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer.
The red eye blinked green and he sped into town, keeping the needle a safe seven over the speed limit. He turned right into Echo Park and put the truck in neutral. He jumped out and sprinted over to the drinking fountain—a huge, openmouthed yellow lion. Water squirted from its tonsils when a little girl who looked to be about eight turned the handle.
If Lexi were still that
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