“Mason, really—”

“I won’t.” Well… “I’ll try not to. I just want to say thanks for always letting us stay here and for letting Logan come with me.”

Genuine warmth sparked in her eyes and her hand fell from her chest. As a fond smile lit up her face, a dimple appeared on one cheek. “He’s a sweet boy. You take good care of him. I know you do.”

I nodded. I wasn’t there to talk about Logan so I said, “Anyway, I wanted you to know that I will never purposely get Nate in trouble.” I turned away, then turned back. “Thank you.” Then I took off. When I got downstairs, Nate and Logan were both on the couch. Neither said anything about me being last and when the pizza was done, nothing was said about not eating it. As we ate and watched a movie, Nate’s mom came down to check on us, and again when we were getting ready for bed. And she cooked breakfast for us in the morning. Every time I felt her gaze on me, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I assumed she thought the worst of me, but I didn’t know what to do. I owed Nate’s family. When our house was full of fights or painful silence, we could always go there. One of his parents was always there. That felt good, for some reason.

When we walked home later that Sunday night, Logan glanced up at me. “Nate’s mom helped me with my homework.”

I frowned. “I thought you didn’t need help with it.”

“I didn’t. It was nice, though, so I didn’t tell her that.”

Anger blasted me. My kid brother enjoyed doing his homework with an adult. I wasn’t wise or old, but f**k, I knew there was something wrong with that picture. When we got to the house and went inside. I ignored the cold feeling in our own home, but I couldn’t stop myself from tensing up. There’d be fighting later. I saw a note on the table and read that my dad had been in the cities all weekend; I knew the fight would be more explosive than normal.

When we went upstairs, Logan asked me, “Are you going to tell Mom we’re home?”

“Yeah.” I pointed to his room. “Get ready for bed. It’s late.”

“Okay.” He took off, but turned around. “Thanks for taking me with you this weekend.”

I nodded. “Go to bed, punk.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, but shot me a grin before darting into his room down the hallway.

I went into my own room. I had no intention of telling her we were home. Nate’s mom usually called and left messages, giving them updates; I knew she would’ve this time. I didn’t want to see my mom. I didn’t want to see if she was wasted or passed out. I went to bed instead.

*

“You can’t bring them here anymore.”

I sat up and ran a hand over my face, groaning. Again. This was f**king happening again. I glanced at my phone and saw it was three in the morning.

My dad yelled back, “This is ridiculous, Helen. Our marriage is not working. We need to stop this charade.”

“Charade?” She laughed. Her voice was muffled through the floor, so I threw on a shirt and headed to the hallway. Her voice became clearer as I did, so I knew they were in the front entrance, right below my stairs. “There’s no charade. I’m telling you the facts. Your children are being affected by this. Stop bringing your women here. I mean it. I won’t say it again.”

“Helen.”

“I mean it. No more. You saw how Mason reacted.”

I padded barefoot down the hallway until I was above them. The lights were still off in the hallway and when I got there, I saw Logan already sitting there. His knees were pulled up and his head was pressed against them. I sat down and nudged him. “When did you wake up?”

He didn’t lift his head. His voice was muffled by his knees. “They’ve been fighting for an hour. I heard them when I went to the bathroom.”

They couldn’t hear us or see us, but we could hear them too well. I could hear the emotion in our mom’s voice as she said, “We need to go to counseling. James, you need to go to counseling.”

“No.” He was calm.

I frowned. Logan lifted his head and held his breath.

Our dad continued, “No, Helen. Our marriage is over. It was over before it even started.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Hearing that, I closed my eyes. Relief, sadness, and anger all blasted me. Logan stirred next to me. “You think it’s for real?”

I nodded. I heard the finality in our dad’s voice. “Yeah.”

Then he said, “Finally.”

I shook my head. This was too messed up. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs to the media room and watch a movie.”

“Okay.”

We stood and left. They never knew we were there; we left through the north stairs, at the opposite end of the house. Neither of us slept the rest of the night. A movie played on the television screen. Logan picked it out, but I never focused on what it was. I didn’t think he did either. Their voices kept going for the rest of the night, but they were muffled since we were further away. I glanced at Logan, he was looking back at me. We didn’t need to hear the rest.

The family was done.

3

POOL BREAK-IN AND CHOICES

I had to get out of that house, so I waited until Logan had fallen asleep. It was a few days later, but for once, the house was quiet. Our dad took off and Mom was around, but once she handed me the keys to my new Escalade, she packed a bag and went to my aunt’s. She asked if we wanted to come along and Logan thought about it, then asked if our cousins could swap with her. She would go there and they would come to our house. She laughed, but I hadn’t. I knew what Logan was thinking. Our mom would cry. She would drink wine, lots of it, and would talk shit about our dad the whole time to our aunt. There’d be lots of ‘I told you so’ and ‘Amen. Just like all the other men’ and other phrases women liked to say. It was uncomfortable. He wanted to avoid being around that, but he wanted to see our cousins. In the end, our mom kept laughing softly to herself as she pressed a kiss to both of our foreheads, then told us to call Mousteff if we needed something.