PROLOGUE
The last time I saw my mother, I mean saw saw her, in real life, she asked for a favor. Our interactions almost always included her asking for a favor and me saying yes, so for that to close out our relationship is some kind of poetry.
“Come on. I just need you to do this one thing for me, Drew.” She should have worn a sensor that played it automatically as soon as I came within range, like those Halloween skeletons that threaten you when you come up for candy.
Somehow, she always seemed to believe it really was just one thing. As though I hadn’t already done “one thing” for her an hour before, a hundred the week before, a hundred thousand in the years before that. Either she never remembered that I’d been doing one thing at a time for her since I was old enough to push the button on the knockoff Keurig (even a kindergartener can do it), or she was hoping that I wouldn’t.
The last one was big, even for her. Neither of us could have known how big. That that one thing would change everything.
CHAPTER ONE
So apparently you need a passport just to go to Mexico?!”
“It’s a whole separate country,” Carna said, peeling the top off one of my yogurts. Goodbye, mixed berry. It was a lost cause; if I wrote my name on the things I bought, everything besides the Easy Mac and frozen pizzas would have a DKH on it. Any fruit, vegetable, or vitamin my siblings consumed was because of me. Why I should feel nutritionally responsible for a fifteen-year-old who would rather bite off my actual head than make her own sandwich was unclear, but I seemed to be doing a pretty good job because she went for the low-sugar yogurt instead of Cocoa Puffs about half the time. “With an actual border. In some places there’s a wall.”
Mom scowled. Mexico’s status as an independent nation was not news to her, but it was an inconvenience. Its stubborn insistence on not allowing people in with just a Wisconsin driver’s license and good intentions might jeopardize what sounded like the best thing (three children not excluded) that ever happened to Heidi Hill.
What was important about Mexico’s national sovereignty? By the unlikely and never-before-mentioned grace of god, a miracle had happened. A goddamn miracle: Justin Timberlake was playing a show on Monday night.
Did Justin know that he’d been Heidi’s top celebrity crush since high school? Not likely. Did Justin know that they shared a birthday, even if she sometimes lied about the year? Or that when they turned thirty she’d had both of their names on her cake? Doubtful. Did Justin know that Heidi’s friend Lisa-in-Phoenix was Facebook friends with a guy who worked for the event planning company and had the power to score passes for “really not that much if you think about what you’re getting”? Now how would Justin know any of that?
But god/Oprah/the universe must have known, because JT wasn’t even touring and, still, there was to be a concert. On New Year’s Eve, even—the only actually fun holiday, according to Heidi. The surprise offer had suddenly popped into Lisa-in-Phoenix’s inbox, which set off a mad flurry of last-minute planning and favor-asking.
Unfortunately, G/O/U were great at surprises but not so good at geography, because they’d booked Mom’s miracle in the aforementioned sovereign republic of Mexico. And they must have been too immortal and invincible to bother researching state department rules and regulations because—
“Now I’m going to have to drive down to Chicago to get a passport. They can’t do the rush ones in Madison.”
“You can’t just walk in and pick up a passport.” I assumed so, anyway. There would be a process. And rules. Some kind of protocol to foil terrorists and domestic criminals fleeing prosecution and middle-aged fangirls who decide to leave the country at the drop of a DM as though they didn’t have three minor children at home.
“I’m going to drive down tonight and be there when they open tomorrow. They said they can do it same day if you pay more and it’s an emergency.”
Lock glided into the kitchen. “Who’s having a ’mergency?” he asked, unconcerned about whatever emergency we were talking about. He was very chill for an eight-year-old, witness to a lifetime of Heidi starting fires and me putting them out. Lachlan was oblivious to stress.
He took a bag of Doritos from the cupboard. I plucked the bag out of his hands and
replaced it with a clementine, nodding to the clock. We had a pact that we wouldn’t start on chips until after noon over winter break, and there was still fifty minutes to fill with stuff that wasn’t crap.
“Mom. If she doesn’t get to see Justin Timberlake in Mexico, she’s going to die,” Carna said.
“You’re going to drag Lock to Chicago?” I asked. It was almost three hours from Larch Leap, plus hours standing around some government office for rush travel documents. I took back Lock’s clementine to puncture the peel with my thumbnail. He liked peeling, but couldn’t quite start them without squashing them. Heidi looked at me blankly. “Carn and I are going to Malcolm’s, remember?” Malcolm was our dad, but not our brother’s, something the man pointed out testily any time we mentioned the kid.
“We can skip it!” Carna blurted.
“No, we can’t.” Makeup Christmas was one of a handful of annual in-person visits to our dad’s. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t any more excited about us coming up to the cabin than we were about going, but he kept careful track of the boxes on the custody agreement he and Heidi had printed off the internet instead of hiring real lawyers. I could blame him for being a subpar father and generally an asshole of a person, but I couldn’t blame him for dotting all his i’s when it came to Heidi. Give that woman an inch and she’ll take your truck.
(I mean that literally. Right before I turned sixteen, Malcolm was late on a couple of checks, and it ended with me getting a dumpy old mini-pickup he used to haul small loads of junk or deer carcasses. They used to call those trucks “toys,” but toys implies something fun instead of something unreliable, inefficient, and embarrassing. It worked out fine for him, though, because the reason he was short on cash in the first place was that he’d bought a brand-new F-250. We missed the day he christened it with deer guts.)
“You should take Lock with you,” Mom said. “It’ll be fun. You can bring skates.”
I glared at her over Lock’s head. Every part of that was a bad idea.
-
We should not take Lock with us. Malcolm didn’t like children generally (which made him a real winner as a substitute teacher and a father), but he hated that kid in particular. It had nothing to do with Lachlan, who was actually pretty great for a second grader. Malcolm regarded our brother as a disease Heidi had picked up after they split.
-
-
It would not be fun. Mostly because of 1. Also because Lock was eight, and we were asking him to come to a makeup Christmas at which Carna and I would receive presents, and he would not. They would be terrible, unwanted presents we would immediately try to sell on eBay, but technically speaking they would be presents, and any present is better than no present when you are eight. If I gave my dad a year’s notice, ten thousand dollars, and physically carried him into the toy aisle at Target, he would not wrap up a Super Ball to make the kid feel welcome. He would probably accuse him of stealing used charcoal briquets to drop into his own stocking.
-
We could bring skates, and we might even get Malcolm to plow a mini-rink on the lake, but it was still a bad idea. Carn and I played hockey until we got to high school, and fighting it out on the ice was one of the healthier forms of interaction between us. Lachlan, however, was the combination of fearless and clumsy that guaranteed a concussion or a broken something, and I’d rather be closer than thirty-five miles from a decent hospital when it happened. Or at least a hospital that didn’t sponsor middle-school tackle and treat head injuries with a raw pork chop and Bayer aspirin. Besides, it was supposed to drop well below zero, and with the windchill you could get frostbite in minutes. No to skates.
No to the whole plan. But Heidi wasn’t looking at me. She was smiling at my brother like she’d suggested an indoor waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells, and he had the moony, hopeful look that said he’d love me forever. Now if I said no, I’d look like I was rejecting him, and the one thing I always tried hardest to protect him from—even harder than from an all-Frito-Lay diet—was the idea that he was unwanted.
My mother’s ability to skip straight to checkmate was something I did not inherit. I got stuck thinking through all the steps—the practical, reasonable, safe, legal steps—which gave her an unfair advantage.
“Fine,” I said, trapped. “We’ll take him. Where are your keys?” She looked confused. “You said I could take your car?”
“Yeah, but that was before I knew I needed it.”
“It’s supposed to snow tomorrow night. You know how the roads are up there.”
“I don’t want it to get all muddy.”
“It’s a literal Range Rover. It’s super bougie if it’s not muddy.”
She shrugged. “Your dad hates it when I have nicer things than him.”
One of Heidi’s most annoying qualities is her immunity to shame. “Can you get Lock’s stuff together?” I finally said to Carn.
“Eww, boy-ee,” Carna said. When we’re not actively fighting, she can be an ally, even though she’s sure our team was assigned by birth rather than merit. Otherwise, she would have made it onto a better squad. “Let’s pack you some layers, bud. It’s cold on the Lesser Starling Chain of Lakes, and Mr. Malcolm does not believe in wasting propane on your little extremities.” Lachlan giggled at extremities.
“He’s going to be pissed when we show up with Lock,” I said to Heidi, who was poking a fork into the Sens-a-Toast toaster (toasts evenly) slot to get her waffle. She’d managed to return the fancy Breville (
, fits bagels, too) to Kohl’s without a receipt, so we were stuck with the off-brand one that seemed destined to electrocute somebody. I leaned over and pushed the little circle to pop the waffle into safe-grab territory before she killed herself and had to miss Justin Timberlake. She’s never been that careful, my mom.
“It’ll be fine. He’s always pissed. At least you’ll know why this time,” she said, eating the Eggo like a giant cookie.
“It’s kind of an unwritten rule. He doesn’t invite Stephanya and we don’t bring Lachlan.”
“Stephanya,” she said with a gag. “She just posted the ugliest painting. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be Malcolm or a bear wearing a flannel shirt.” I should have known that Heidi would follow Malcolm’s fiancée with one of her fake Instagram accounts. “Let me find it—”
“I hope Dad doesn’t make Lock sleep out in the deer stand.” While I complained, I rinsed out the yogurt container that Carna had left on the table and put Lock’s peel in the compost pail I kept under the sink.
“Carna’s slept up there.”
“That’s because Carna was mad. Not because Mal was. And not when it was fifteen below.”
“I was kiiiidding. It’s going to be fine.” She watched me refill the water for the coffee maker. “Oh yeah—I need you back by noon on Saturday to take me to the airport.” I slapped the reservoir down on the counter so hard it cracked.
“I’m supposed to drive all the way back from Starling and then an hour each way to the airport?”
“It’s like fifty minutes.”
“It’s not.” I was beginning to think a bit of a break from her would be worth the hassle. “And you’ll be back Tuesday?”
“No . . .” she said hesitantly.
“Wednesday?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “There was a special deal if you went Saturday to Saturday.”
“You’re going to be gone for a week?” Any other almost-forty-year-old JT groupie who decided to ditch their kids last minute to bring some SexyBack to Wisconsin would return the next day, at least, like she had when she drove to Minnesota to see his Super Bowl halftime show. But Saturday to Saturday? And who does she assume will take care of everybody in the meantime? It’s Gonna Be Me.
“I’m going to say I have a travel blog and see if they’ll upgrade my room.” She scrolled through her phone, calculating potential discounts and freebies.
“That’s a really long
time to be gone,” I said.
Some shade of recognition dawned on her face. “Hmm, you’re right. Seven nights is a lot . . . of changes of clothes. I’m going to need the bigger bag.” She glanced out the window at the storage shed in the backyard, where we kept the suitcases. “Is it super cold out?” Probably, Mother. We live in Wisconsin and it’s December. It has a tendency to get nippy. “Are those your boots by the door?” She looked at me hopefully. That’s a hard no, Heidi Hill. Get your own fucking suitcase.
But that’s about as far as my taking a stand ever went. I would do everything else. I’d make sure there was real food in the house. I’d drive my siblings wherever they needed to go. I’d wake up Carna when school resumed. I’d make sure Lachlan peed before he went to bed and that the liners of his boots dried overnight if they were still wet from recess. I’d salt the driveway so the UPS driver wouldn’t wipe out when she delivered boxes of free products traded for Heidi’s 5-star reviews, and then I’d keep track of them until we needed to ship those same things out again to buyers on eBay. I’d do everything that needed doing, as I always did. And she would go see Justin Timberlake in Mexico.
“Fine. What should I do with Lachlan on New Year’s?” I sighed.
“None of you ever do anything anyway.” She managed to make it sound judgmental. Like our failure to party—on New Year’s or any other Eve—was a disappointment to her. “Why don’t you have people over here? Dard’s got friends, right? Are they all as loud as him?” The people I’d inherited from Darden when we’d started dating the fall of junior year should have counted as my friends, too, but Heidi still considered them all part of the boyfriend package. “I don’t care if people drink as long as they don’t burn the house down.” Not. The. Point. Of course she wouldn’t care. I’d care.
The point was that in a healthy family, the parents wouldn’t assume that the kids, the house, holidays, fresh produce, gas in the snowblower, safe toasters, rules about drinking, the DS-11 passport application form, etc. were my responsibility. “I’ll leave you money,” she added. “If I don’t forget.”
“I’ll remind you.”
“Send me one of your little bills.” She meant Venmo requests for the things I picked up for the house. It was the only way to keep track of what she owed me. (Financially. There was no app to track what she owed me emotionally, socially, or developmentally.) It would be much more efficient if I just took over her bank accounts directly. We practically wouldn’t need her at all.
“You know you’re not going to be able to pick up and leave whenever you feel like
it next year,” I scolded. Everyone else’s parents were obsessed with their babies going to college. My mom was obsessed with Justin Timberlake.
“Huh? Why not?”
My head practically burst into flames.
“Kidding! Oh my god, Drew, your face!” She put a hand on my shoulder and laughed hysterically. “But you’re totally right,” she said, calming down. “This really might be my last chance. ’Cause I’d never leave Lock overnight with your sister.” She was trying flatter me, as though I wasn’t familiar with her momnipulation. “And I mean Mexico? When it’s so fricking cold here?! How perfect is that?” She dropped her jaw and opened her eyes wide, like a super excited emoji. I was the emoji with a completely straight line for a mouth. Or maybe the one without a mouth at all.
“Perfect for you,” I mumbled. I closed my eyes and exhaled deeply, surprised at myself for still being surprised by her. For a second, she almost looked like she felt guilty, and I wonder now if in that second I could have simply said no, and nothing at all would have changed. If none of us would have.
But it passed, like it always did. And then she smiled, tilted her head, and said, “Come on. I just need you to do this one thing for me, Drew.”
CHAPTER TWO
The thing about being raised (“raised”) by someone like Heidi Hill is that you could end up with a very slippery relationship with the rules (“rules”). Like my sister.
But I am a born rule follower, a truth teller, a doer of homework, and a dotter and crosser of all letters and symbols and punctuation that require dots and crosses. And I don’t dot them with hearts or open circles. Just dots, like they are supposed to be dotted.
I meet deadlines. I set alarms. I make lists. I check them. Twice. I never cheat on anything (or anyone). I don’t round corners. I don’t round up. If it was only twenty-one hours since I’d had a fever, I would insist on waiting three more before going back to school, even if there was a class party that day.
Case in point, fourth grade:
“Aren’t you getting on the bus?”
“I can’t go until 10:07. That’s when I checked yesterday and I didn’t have a fever anymore. You have to drive me at 10:07.”
“It’s fricking freezing out. I don’t want to wrap up the baby. Just stay home if you don’t want to go.”
“It’s the Valentine’s party!” I held up my sack of valentines: hearts, cut out of Post-it notes, each stuck to a Tootsie Pop. Heidi had not gotten any even though I’d put them on the list, because she hadn’t remembered to take my list. So I’d improvised. I’d written each name in my best writing, double-checked everyone’s spelling, and added what I thought was an appropriate sticker—dinosaurs for the dinosaur boys, soccer balls for the soccer girls, pencils or books for the ones I wasn’t sure about. “Britelle’s mom is organizing the party.”
Heidi gagged. She gagged whenever Brenda Olziewski or any of the other do-everything mothers came up. ...
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