I’d never lived alone before, and sometimes it felt like being the last person on earth. At night it was worse. I started taking Leon for walks along the river when I came home from the bar shift at three o’clock in the morning. Leon helped me remember that I had obligations, that I couldn’t wander off into the woods like a crazy woman.

I thought I might go on that way forever, until the social worker, Ms. Alvarez, called to schedule my home visit. She gave me a list of what she wanted to see, including where the minor child will sleep. So I bought a bed, a dresser, and some toys for Marcus’ bedroom. Plus a table, two chairs, a couch, and a coffee table. By the time I was done, it looked like a house instead of a prison cell.

Ms. Alvarez looked at everything, marking stuff off a checklist on her clipboard. She even opened the kitchen cabinets to see what kind of food I had. When she finally came back to the front room, I shooed Leon off the couch, so she could sit down.

“The dog is yours? He lives here?” she said.

“Yeah. This is Leon.”

I snapped my fingers at him and he came slinking over to me. When I squatted down to pet him, he rolled onto his back. The Internet said that was a submissive display.

“Is he good with children?”

“Yeah, I mean, you can see he’s— Somebody used him as a fighting dog, but he’s really a big baby.”

I rubbed his belly while he laid there looking sheepish and pathetic. Right then I realized that Leon was the dog equivalent of me: shabby and broke down and ugly with his hacked-off ears. The kind of dog you pay fifty bucks for and chain out in your yard. Why would a judge ever give me visitation?

“Is everything okay, Ms. Trego?” the social worker said.

I’d worried so much about not looking like a stoner and the house being clean, but I’d never even thought about Leon.

“If it’s a problem for me to have him, for Marcus to come visit—” I couldn’t say it without crying. “I can get rid of the dog.”

“Oh, no. I don’t think that’s necessary. He seems very docile. And as long as you’re supervising properly, there’s shouldn’t be any trouble over you having a dog in the home.”

When she reached for her briefcase, Leon jumped up and slunk away behind the couch.

Two weeks later, my lawyer called to tell me I had a date for family court. I thanked him and told him how happy I was, but after I got off the phone, I was so shaky I had to lie down on the floor where I was standing.

Nothing good had ever happened to me in a courtroom. Just the idea of going to court, and having a judge look down on me, made me feel sick. It made me want to go to bed and never get up. The only thing worse than thinking about going to court was thinking about the judge saying no, because what I couldn’t stand was the thought of never seeing Marcus again.

By the day of my family court hearing, Mom was back to speaking to me, and I wished she wasn’t. She called me first thing in the morning and asked me to come over and help her with something. She wouldn’t tell me what, and the only way to stop her calling was to go.

I went, expecting some kind of crisis, but she was in her recliner, watching TV. When I leaned down to hug her, she said, “Honey, is this what you’re wearing to court?”

The whole thing felt like a trap. Like I was Leon exposing my belly. I straightened up while she was kissing my cheek.

“Yeah, this is what I’m wearing. Why?” Why did I ask?

“Just those pants are awfully tight and you’ve got pills on your sweater.”

I’d tried. I used actual bobby pins to put my hair up, and I’d put on lipstick, but I guess neither of those things outweighed my fat ass or my Goodwill sweater.

“What do you need help with?” I said.

“One of us needs to meet with your sister’s lawyer. I worry that he’s not doing enough for her.”

One of us. Since only one of us ever left the house, that meant I was supposed to meet with LaReigne’s lawyer.

“Is that why you wanted me to come over?”

“I would rest easier if you met him. You could go after court.” The way she said it, I knew she’d gone behind my back and told LaReigne I would.

So I was a nervous wreck walking into family court, knowing as soon as I was done there, I would have to see LaReigne for the first time since I left her in Arkansas.

“Aunt Zee!” Marcus yelled and, before the Gills could stop him, he ran down the aisle to hug me. In four months he’d grown so much, and he had a junior accountant haircut to go with his khakis and button-down shirt, but he smelled like Marcus. My Marcus. Like crayons and grass and somebody who hasn’t been washing behind his ears. I wasn’t prepared for it.

It was the best day and the worst day I’d had since Arkansas. Even while I was hugging Marcus and crying into his hair, I thought about Gentry. Maybe he didn’t hug people, but he was surely missing his family, and that was my fault. As much as I wanted Marcus to be happy, I didn’t deserve to be as happy as I felt.

Not that I got to keep that happiness, because after the hearing, I said goodbye to Marcus, and drove to the county detention center in El Dorado. LaReigne’s lawyer met me in the parking lot. His name was Ben, and he looked like he was about fifteen years old: scrawny with a giant Adam’s apple.

“Is this your first real trial?” I said.

He laughed and then coughed.

“No, of course not. Don’t worry about me, Ms. Trego. I’m going to do everything I can for LaReigne.”

Not Lauren or Lorraine. LaReigne. He was already half in love with her. The ones who were going to fall for her always got it right.

The meeting was in a locked cubicle the size of a bathroom, with a table and four chairs. Ben and I were standing there when they brought in LaReigne, not even cuffed. Just walking next to a corrections officer, carrying a file folder. I’d prepared myself for seeing her in jail scrubs, but I wasn’t ready to see her with all the blond grown out of her hair. She hadn’t been brunette since we were kids.

“So is this an ambush?” she said, once we were in the room together, like I’d tricked her into meeting with me.

“I thought you wanted me to come, but I can go,” I said.

“Don’t be silly. I’m glad to see you.” She held her arms out for me to hug her. I didn’t want to, but I put my arms around her. It was like hugging someone I barely knew. She felt smaller and softer, and she smelled different. Not like when we were kids, when we’d both smelled like Mom’s house—musty and smoky—but not like the grown-up LaReigne, who’d smelled like perfume and makeup. Now, she smelled like prison. Unless Ben pulled off a miracle, maybe she always would.