Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Dad shoved me into the backseat of their beat-up old minivan, parked right there in the garage.

My stepmother climbed into the passenger seat, belly and all, and said to Dad, “Drive. Before somebody sees us.”

As we pulled out of the garage, I pressed myself against the back window and looked behind us.

My aunt’s building grew smaller and smaller, until it was just a speck that disappeared into the Miami sunset.

I huddled in the corner, my voice shaking.

“You didn’t want me anymore. So why did you come back for me?”

Dad didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes on the road and didn’t say a word.

My stepmother, though, turned around with a big smile and talked to me like I was a baby.

“Winnie, honey, your aunt’s so rich. Living in that great big place.”

“You’ve been staying with her all this time, and she hasn’t given us one cent.”

“You’re your dad’s own flesh and blood. Why should some outsider get to raise you?”

“When we get home, you be good, and Mommy will give you a nice life.”

I bit my lip and said nothing.

So they hadn’t come to take me home. They’d come to use me as a bargaining chip.

We drove all night. They took turns behind the wheel and woke me up once outside a gas station bathroom before shoving me back into the van.

By the time we got back to Youngstown, it was evening of the next day.

The house was exactly the way I’d left it.

No. It was worse.

The corner of the laundry room where I used to sleep was piled high with baby stuff.

A crib, bottles, diapers, crammed in wall to wall.

My stepmother pointed at a folding cot in the corner of the living room. “You can sleep there. Make do.”

She didn’t even give me a blanket. It was Dad who dug an old throw out of the closet and tossed it to me.

Early the next morning, my stepmother hauled me off the cot.

She sat on the couch with her belly sticking out, phone in hand, and waved me over.

“Come here. You’re gonna call your aunt.”

I stayed where I was.

She smiled. The kind of smile that made the back of my neck go cold.

“Just tell her you’re doing great here and she doesn’t need to worry about you.”

“And then just mention, real casual, that she should settle up for all that time you were down there. Have her send it to your dad’s account.”

“You’re our kid, after all. She can’t just keep you for free, can she?”

I balled up my fists. “I won’t.”

My stepmother’s smile froze for a second.

She glanced over at Dad.

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table. His fork paused in midair. Without looking up, he muttered,

“Winnie, listen to your mom.”

“She’s not my mom.”

The second those words left my mouth, my stepmother’s face changed completely.

She slammed the phone down on the coffee table, stood up, and jabbed a finger in my face.

“Oh, think you’re all grown up now? A couple of days at your aunt’s and suddenly you don’t know who your family is?”

“Fine. You won’t call?”

“Then you don’t eat either. When you change your mind, you can eat.”

Dad opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but one glare from my stepmother shut him right up.

That night, I curled up on the cot with an empty stomach.

I listened to my stepmother cooking in the kitchen as the smell of pot roast drifted over in waves.

I buried my face in that old blanket.

All I could think about was the warm, cozy dinners at my aunt’s place.

About Jake fighting me for the last rib and his mom rapping his knuckles with a fork.

When my aunt found out I was gone, would she come looking for me?

Or would she think... well, I’m her brother’s kid. If he took me back, he took me back.

I didn’t dare think about it.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.