Arden nods obediently, trying not to press his lips together, doing his best to look anxious instead of disgusted. “Thanks, Dad. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The words taste bitter, acidic on his tongue. Bile competes with expletives to be next out of his mouth. But neither wins. He pushes himself further than he thought he could. “Can I grab you some dinner from the cafeteria? You must be starving, what with all the extra shifts you’re working. I don’t know how you do it.”

His father smiles, and this time it’s authentic. And why wouldn’t he be genuinely pleased with his son’s newfound enthusiasm for public family unity? “Thanks, son, but you need to rest up. I’ll see you at the house.”

Fighting regurgitation, Arden makes his way around the sick and injured people, and out the automatic glass doors of the waiting room. Behind him a chatter builds, and he hears his father greeting someone with a false, emphatic camaraderie. The sheriff is playing the part, and the crowd is gobbling it up, like he’s some sort of celebrity.

A bit of doubt claws at Arden’s insides as he hoists himself into his truck. Did I do enough? Will the sheriff have mercy on us this time?

He tries to reconcile the word “mercy” to his father. And he can’t.

Twenty-Nine

I unpack a box of clothes and set it on the bed to fold and put away. The next box has books in it; I can shelve those later.

Miss May’s house is not as grand and spacious as Cletus’s mansion, of course, but it’s pretty nice. Modern. Clean smelling, which is more than can be said about some parts of the old plantation house I just moved out of, I guess. And the best part is, she has an honest-to-goodness spare bedroom, which she doesn’t use to store other things in, like most people do.

But there’s something missing here at Miss May’s. I have a key, free run of the pantry, and my own bathroom. Rent is cheap. It’s even closer to the Uppity Rooster than the mansion was.

What’s missing is Cletus. Our philosophical conversations. Our breakfast banter after I get off work at the Breeze. Our mutual, slightly psychotic craving for caramel cheesecake at four in the morning.

At least he’s not dead. Which, after the stroke he’s had, the doctors say, is a miracle.

But there is not room for me in Cletus’s house anymore. For the next few months, he requires round-the-clock care, so the nurse had to take over my room there—it was the only space not used for storing old books, magazines, or deer heads and other miscellaneous, unfortunate taxidermy.

Plus, I saw the look on Sheriff Moss’s face when he caught me in Arden’s arms at the hospital last week. It was this look of finality. If I stayed at Uncle Cletus’s house any longer, the sheriff might misinterpret my intentions toward Arden. I’ve tried calling the sheriff every day since the hospital incident, to explain myself. That it’s not what it looked like. That Arden and I were both there for Cletus and nothing more. But Sheriff Moss is too busy to return my calls.

Too busy. Too holy.

Whatever.

I finish unpacking another box and decide that the smell of frying bacon in the kitchen downstairs is just too tempting to pass up. I follow the alluring scent until I’m practically drooling over a plate of it cooling on the counter. A napkin absorbs its greasy goodness. Miss May pours me a glass of orange juice.

Then she picks up a crispy piece and bites at the corner of it. “Almost unpacked?”

“Yep,” I say. That’s the great thing about not having many material possessions. It takes very little effort to play musical houses with them. Uncle Cletus would add that having fewer possessions gives you less to lose too.

But so far, I feel I’ve lost everything already and it has nothing to do with my clothes or my earphones or my books. No box could ever feel the emptiness I feel right now. Arden and I still have to ignore each other at school, which is actually way more difficult now that I know he loves me. I didn’t get a chance to say it back to him—well, I didn’t collect enough courage in time to do it. And now he might not ever know.

The only comfort I have is that my family will be here soon. I’m hoping Mama will take pity on me and have me back at the house. I don’t want to miss out on the twins, and more importantly, I have to start pushing my parents to get documented this time. To apply for citizenship. It will be much easier to stay on them about it if I live in their house.

“Have you heard from Cletus lately?” Miss May asks, extracting me from my line of thought.

“Talked to him yesterday. He doesn’t like the heart-healthy diet he’s on. And he thinks he’s hallucinating without the moonshine.” He also said the nurse was curved like a mountain highway in Argentina, but that seems too vulgar for Miss May’s proper ears.

“Sounds like Cletus.”

My pocket vibrates then, and I know it could only be Julio. He’s been calling and giving me updates on my parents as they make progress toward us. At first, the calls were short, just a sentence or two. Then, as he got more excited about their arrival, we would talk at length about what we’ll all do together when they get here. I suppose he’s forgiven me in his own way. But he hasn’t invited me back home yet, so maybe not. Ultimately, it will be Mama and Papi’s decision though.

Sure enough, Julio’s number lights up my screen. “Hello?”

“Carly?” Julio sounds stuffy, like he’s got a cold. “Carly, what have you done?”

“Huh? What do you mean?” I take a seat at Miss May’s kitchen table, bracing my forearm on the cold surface of it.