The Reckless Oath We Made

“That’s what you think I’m doing, isn’t it? Just sitting around, like some pathetic lump.”

Mom pushed against the armrests of her chair, so I went over and got my arms around her. I had to put my foot up on the edge of the chair to get enough leverage to help her stand. My lower back and hip gave off this twangy shudder that I knew I was going to feel for my whole shift. Maybe for the whole week.

“Oh, I’m fine, Zhorzha!” she snapped. “You know, I do manage to get up without your help when you’re not here.”

Sure, she managed to get up by herself, but there was a dank, sour smell on her that told me she wasn’t always making it up in time to get to the bathroom.

“Mom, please, can we not fight?”

“You should have brought Marcus here. I could have watched him while you were at work.”

“I’m sorry, but Gentry has a little sister about Marcus’ age, and I thought it would be less stressful for him there. Because of all those reporters yesterday. All you’re doing is watching the news, and he can’t keep seeing that.”

“They found your sister’s car,” Mom said.

“I heard.”

I gathered up her dinner trash, carried it to the kitchen, and added it to a plastic bag of what I hoped was trash.

While she was in the bathroom, I sat down in her recliner, but the news hadn’t cycled back to anything about the prison-break story yet. I decided to leave before Mom could quiz me about the bag of trash, or accuse me of sneaking around and throwing out valuable things.

“I’m gonna go to work,” I yelled. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she called.

Outside, I took a big breath of fresh air, and carried the plastic bag over to the trash cart. Gentry had pulled his truck around and parked it in front of my car. He was standing there, sort of at attention, watching me, except like always, when I got close to him, he lowered his head and didn’t look at me.

“You really don’t need to—” I remembered what Charlene had said, about how important helping me was to him, and I felt shitty for trying to get rid of him. “Thank you, Gentry. I really appreciate you looking out for Marcus and me yesterday, and bringing me to get my car. Thanks.”

“’Tis my honor.”

“But aren’t you tired?” I said. “You should go home and sleep. I’m just gonna go to work.”

“Be full of care, my lady. And if thou needest aught, call for me.”

“Okay. I will.”

I waited until he got in his truck and drove away, because I had a feeling he might follow me otherwise. After he was gone, I checked my phone. Another voicemail from Marcus’ other grandparents, the Gills. They’d called last night, too, but I ignored it. I’d messaged a few people about buying some weed, and I had an answer from a woman who wanted to buy half an ounce.

We met at the mall and sat in her car to do the deal. Her little girl was buckled into a car seat in back and, for a second, I thought some really judgmental shit about that, before I reminded myself I’d taken Marcus on a drug deal, too. While the woman counted out a hundred bucks in tip money, the little girl told me all about her American Girl doll. I assumed the woman was a dancer, because I didn’t know any waitresses with acrylic nails, and, after we did our deal, I’m guessing she went to drop her kid off at school.

I did another meet-up to make a sale, and then I went to our apartment, where the cops had taped the door shut like it was a crime scene. Seeing the police tape made me glad I’d taken Marcus to Colorado. Otherwise we would have been there when the cops came.

Inside, the police had gone through everything. Every cupboard, every drawer, the closets, the medicine cabinet, even the damn cabinet under the bathroom sink. I felt so sick I spent a few minutes thinking I might puke up my French toast. It wasn’t that they’d left a terrible mess—they had—but knowing some fucking cop had even opened my stupid box of tampons and looked through them made me furious. Everything I owned in the world was in two Rubbermaid tubs, and the cops had stirred my clothes together with some old pastel drawings I’d kept from high school. All my clothes were smudged with chalk.

There was no way Marcus and I could sleep there until I cleaned up. That’s what I was trying to do when the apartment manager walked in and said, “What are you doing here?”

“Dude. I live here. You know me,” I said.

“The owner doesn’t want the police coming around here. You can’t stay here.”

“You can’t kick us out. My sister getting kidnapped doesn’t break the lease.” It pissed me off, because I always paid the rent on time.

“Except you’re not on the lease,” he said.

LaReigne was the only one on the lease, because I’d had this fantasy that I would eventually move out. That never happened, because I couldn’t afford to pay rent on two places. All of a sudden, now that the police had been there, management cared about me sleeping on LaReigne’s couch.

“So my sister got kidnapped and you’re making me and my nephew homeless?”

“That’s not my problem,” the manager said. “You can’t be here.”

I didn’t know anything about how the law worked with me not being on the lease, so I got a trash bag and gathered up some of our stuff: mostly clothes and a few toys for Marcus. The manager followed me around the apartment while I did it.

“You can take your stuff,” he said, like he was doing me a favor. “But you have to give me the key.”

I dragged the bag of stuff I’d gathered down the stairs and loaded it into my car. The manager followed me, waiting for me to give him the apartment key, mumbling about how he didn’t want to call security. I took the key off my ring, and I was about to hand it to him, when I decided I was done playing meek and mild.

“Go fetch, asshole,” I said. I threw the key as far as I could, over the wrought-iron fence and into traffic on Rock Road.

CHAPTER 12

Zee



   After I left the apartment, I went to work, because that was all I knew how to do. If somebody dropped a nuclear bomb on Wichita, I’d probably still show up at work. The twinge in my hip had turned into a stabbing pain, and I was in the locker room sticking a CBD patch on my lower back when Julia walked in and gasped.

“Oh my god, Zee! You don’t need to be here,” she said. I was standing there with my pants unzipped and my shirt untucked, but she hugged me. It wasn’t like we were close friends, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I hugged her back. That’s when the owner, Lance, walked in. He wasn’t supposed to be in there, because it was part of the ladies’ room, but that never stopped him.