Parts & Labor Read Free Page B

to burn everything I was
wearing to get rid of the throw-up smell. Scarlett sniffed again then shook
her head.
    "Come
downstairs and help. Mom's running late again."
    Then
she was gone. I looked at the clock. It was after five. I stuffed the bear
back into its hiding place—Scarlett knew I still slept with the bear, but she never
made fun of me—then I climbed out of bed and closed and locked the shutters and
window. I swapped out my rec specs for my regular glasses. Mom said the black frames made me look like a young Buddy Holly, but I didn't know who that
was. My hand hurt, and I wondered why, then I remembered I had punched the
wall. Again. I went downstairs and into the kitchen. I found Maddy singing
the Sesame Street theme song—she never got it right—and smearing
strawberry yogurt on the concrete floor like she was finger painting. Scarlett
was starting a load of wash. She yelled from the laundry room.
    "Mom texted me that she was gonna be late, so I got Maddy from her after-school! Let's get the place
cleaned up before she gets home!"
    Scarlett
was a very responsible and mature teenager so Mom gave her a cell phone (family
plan). She was a straight-A student and already thinking about college. She read
lots of books—her latest was a teen vampire romance—which kept her out of
trouble, Mom said. Reading, not vampires. Scarlett Dugan never got into
trouble. She never did stupid stuff like other kids her age did. She never giggled
or acted the fool around boys like the other cheerleaders, even though most
boys thought she was really cute. I guess she was, in a girl sort of way. But
she acted as if she could care less about boys. Clothes were her only
weakness; all she had ever wanted for her birthday or Christmas was clothes. But
her clothes never matched. She wore green with purple with yellow. She said
she had her own unique fashion sense. "I'm different and proud of
it." (I was different and got beat up for it.) Anyway, Scarlett didn't
dress like the other girls her age. She dressed colorfully and responsibly, Mom said. In other words, Scarlett Dugan was the perfect child. Consequently, I suffered from
the "second-child complex" just like every other kid I knew with an
older brother or sister: we could never measure up to the perfect first child.
Scarlett was now on her hands and knees cleaning up Maddy's mess while Maddy
made another mess a few feet away. I pointed at the table.
    "I
put the bills right there."
    "I
hid them," Scarlett said.
    "Will
you help me with math?" I asked. "I got a D-minus on my fractions quiz."
    "Max
…"
    "I
can't concentrate on school work now."
    She
sat back and sighed. "I know. I'll help you. After dinner."
    "Thanks."
    I
pulled a chair over to the sink and climbed up. I put the rubber stopper over
the drain and turned the water on then adjusted the temperature and squirted in
the liquid soap. I piled the dirty dishes from breakfast into the sink. Dad
had built a new counter with a place for a dishwasher underneath, but now we
couldn't afford to buy a new one and the old one was broken and cost too much
to get repaired. So we washed dishes by hand. My hands, mostly. Mom always said every man needed to know how to wash his own dishes and clothes anyway. I never
knew if she was being funny. I had just rinsed the last dish when Mom blew in through the back door with a Whole Foods Earth-friendly canvas grocery bag under
each arm. She kicked the door shut behind her.
    "Sorry,
guys, we had an emergency C-section."
    Mom was a nurse at the hospital downtown. She was still wearing her green scrubs with Kate
Dugan, R.N., Labor & Delivery, Austin General Hospital stitched across
the front pocket. She usually got off at four each day so she could pick up Maddy
from her after-school program, but sometimes women had their babies on their
own schedules. Mom had to go back to work full time, so we had to make some
adjustments. The Army didn't ask about that either.
    "The
Mommy