The house is so quiet these mornings, and Debbie still hasn't gotten used to it. School's been out for a while now, and usually summer is when the Gallagher house feels bursting at the seams with people. This summer's been completely different, though. As Debbie sits at the counter drinking her coffee, there's no one else in the house, not a soul out on the street, not even any homeless men cleaning themselves in the pool. She doesn't know if she could ever possibly get used to this.

Debbie nearly jumps out of her skin as she gets a message notification. She wipes up the dribbled coffee with a discarded napkin and reaches for the phone. It's a text from Lip:

Liam get off okay?

Debbie rolls her eyes and sips her coffee for another minute before bothering to respond. Carl's been in charge of dropping Liam off for weeks now, yet Lip keeps texting Debbie every morning to make sure Carl's done it. She's getting a little sick of it. It was Lip's choice to stay on at school and take summer classes. If he chooses not to be at home, he should get used to the idea that he needs to start trusting the rest of them to keep the show running. But Lip always wants everything. Being in charge without having any responsibility would be his ideal. He doesn't seem to get the fact that this is not actually possible.

When she decides it's better to text Lip back before he texts her again, demanding to know why she's yet to respond, Debbie types a hasty reply:

Nobody here so I assume so.

She's not sure if the bitchy, sarcastic tone she was going for has come across, but it will have to do. She tosses her phone and Lip's stupid dad routine into her backpack and heads out to catch her train.

On her way to the station, Debbie passes the pancake house where Fiona's taken a second job working the morning breakfast rush. Debbie waves at her through the window, but Fiona doesn't see her, and Debbie needs to keep moving; if she ends up having to wait for the next train, she's going to be late.

When she gets into the crowded train car, jammed between all the Loop commuters she not so long ago viewed as aliens but now views as the normal crowd, Debbie sends Carl a text:

Liam get to school okay?

She has to be the one to text Carl because Carl's not speaking to Lip currently. Lip freaked out when Carl mentioned signing up for ROTC in the fall, and then that turned into Lip blaming Carl's friendship with Mickey somehow. And that was it, as far as Carl was concerned. He's been actively ignoring Lip ever since.

"Better he's hanging out with Mickey than with Frank," Debbie heard Fiona tell Lip, though that didn't seem to appease him.

"You don't see any sorta similarity here?" Lip had said to Fiona, "This Army nonsense and hanging out with fucking Mickey Milkovich? The sneaking around, not telling us where he's been all the time, keeping secrets? And now the silent treatment? You don't, uh, notice anything familiar?"

"I see him holding down his job, staying out of trouble, and helping me out with Liam. Jesus, Lip, if Carl wants to try and be the second coming of Ian, I'm not complainin'."

"So when he comes home a couple years from now with his legs and hands blown off in some bullshit military intervention, you won't be complainin' either?"

Fiona had put her hands up in exasperation. "Ian says he doesn't think Carl's gonna stick with the ROTC anyway. He says if he makes the football team, he'll probably drop it."

"Yeah. Ian says. Fuck."

And that had been the end of the conversation.

Debbie's pretty sure Lip's anger is less about Mickey or the ROTC than about Lip being afraid of losing Carl the way he feels like he's lost Ian. Lip blames Mickey for that, and the Army, and Ian. The only person Lip hasn't really gotten around to blaming yet is himself. But that's Lip.

Then Carl texts Debbie back:

Yah

Debbie grabs an open seat as it becomes available and texts back:

Working today or you picking him up?

Carl's got a part-time gig as a busboy at Fiona's diner, but Debbie cannot for the life of her keep track of what nights he works and what nights he doesn't.

Work. Sammi will.

Debbie puts her phone away, satisfied that now at least she'll have an answer when Lip inevitably texts her tonight to find out who's picking up Liam. Liam winning the lottery for a spot in the Head Start year-round pilot program has been great—he's probably the first Gallagher to ever win anything—but it's been a bit of a headache keeping track of who's available to drop him off and pick him up on various days. With Fiona's second job and new boyfriend (boyfriends? No one can keep track), it's kind of fallen on Debbie to make sure things go smoothly, even though Lip thinks he's the one doing that. It's not really that big of a deal, just kind of annoying sometimes. And Carl's been a huge help, surprisingly. It sort of feels like all Carl ever needed to start behaving responsibly was to be given actual responsibilities.

Debbie hauls her backpack up into her lap as the woman sitting beside her gets off and some big dude slides in to take her place. Debbie studiously avoids eye contact and gazes out the window as the train winds its way through the Loop and continues heading north. Most of the commuters get off before the train leaves the Loop, and almost nobody gets on. Few people are leaving the Loop during morning rush hour.

Debbie gets a text from Matty then:

Have fun at work, pretty girl!

She frowns and texts back unenthusiastically:

Thanx

For some reason lately, Matty's texts haven't been exciting her the way they did before. Maybe she's just gotten used to them. Maybe she's just gotten a little bored with Matty. All they ever do are the same things over and over again.

But she doesn't want to think about Matty right now. Instead she concentrates on running through the schedule for today. Breakfast then Tumbling then Swim Lessons then Lunch then an hour of Free Play then the tutor comes then go to the library to return last week's books and pick out more then back to the house for dinner, the girls get Screen Time while Debbie cooks, then Elisa gets home.

Debbie's been working for Elisa since school got out. She's the sister of someone Ian knows from work, and when Ian heard Elisa's nanny had bailed for the summer, he volunteered Debbie for the job. At first Debbie was annoyed at Ian for being so pushy and insistent (she may or may not have yelled at him, and said something overdramatic about not being everybody's baby slave), but it's actually worked out. Watching two kids is a lot easier than watching a dozen and, with Elisa covering all the expense of food and travel, Debbie's making almost as much as she did with the Gallagher daycare.

Debbie hops off at Fullerton and hustles to the quiet, tree-lined street where Elisa's graystone is. It's been kind of weird working up here; Debbie's never spent this much time surrounded by so many rich people. It's a bit like stepping into a movie, the kind that Debbie always flips past on the TV. Everybody around here has really nice hair and shoes and clothes. They all live in houses made from huge blocks of limestone with big chandeliers visible in the glass transoms over their front double doors. The kids in the neighborhood have names like Piper and Kendall and Esme, attend a mind-boggling amount of activities, and aren't allowed to eat sugar or Cheetos. It's a very strange world.

At first Debbie hated all this. She felt self-conscious and shabby all that time, like people could just look at her and know she's Southside trash, all her family's troubles written clearly in her cheap clothes and broken backpack. But, gradually, she's come to not mind it so much. People are generally nice, and it's pleasant to disappear into this movie world for eight hours everyday where everything's catalogue-pretty, and there isn't a lot of drama

The nanny for the kids next door nods hello as Debbie waves and heads up the steps of Elisa's house. She grabs the paper as she does so—Elisa gets the New York Times delivered. Why the hell you would get a newspaper from another city delivered to your doorstep every day is beyond Debbie's comprehension. Then again, she's come to learn that rich people spend money on all sorts of stupid stuff.

The girls cheer as Debbie lets herself in with her key, and Elisa shouts a grateful greeting from her office.

Debbie smiles as she leads her pajama-clad charges into the kitchen, a gleaming white chamber of marble twice the size of the Gallagher's living room, and she starts pulling out supplies to make breakfast.

The girls are chattering happily about the day's plans, and Debbie nods along as she puts together their organic oatmeal and blueberries.

Elisa passes through with a stack of rubber-banded manila folders under her arm and gives the girls each a quick kiss goodbye. Before she heads out, though, she pauses to lay a couple of glossy DePaul University brochures on the counter beside Debbie.

"No pressure," Elisa says brightly, "Just wanted to give you some info on those scholarships we were discussing the other day."

Debbie smiles uncomfortably and nods. "Um, thanks."

"Okay, guys," Elisa says, "Be good for Debbie."

After Elisa has gone, Debbie pushes the brochures away on the smooth countertop and ignores them. "Who wants brown sugar?" she asks.


Maybe the reason she's less into Matty these days is because of Joaquin at the pool. He's younger than the other swim instructors, who are mostly broad-shouldered eighteen and nineteen year old boys, and he's scrawnier too. But he has nice abs on his compact body and the most beautiful skin Debbie's ever seen. He's in charge of the youngest class of swimmers and while they're doing their bobs and adjusting to the temperature of the water, he always chats with Debbie.

She doesn't know why he talks to her. Perhaps it's because, like him, she's different from her co-workers. All the other nannies are either middle-aged South American women or DePaul and Loyola girls who spend most of their time on their iPads. Debbie felt incredibly awkward around them the first few days she came to the pool, but then Joaquin told her he liked her sun hat, and Debbie never thought twice again about the other nannies.

Today while the kids are bobbing, Debbie and Joaquin chat about their schools' football teams, even though Debbie doesn't know that much about it. Joaquin lives in Little Village, and their schools usually play each other a couple times a season.

"My brother might join the football team this year," Debbie says.

"Oh, yeah?" Joaquin smiles, "He a big guy?"

"No," Debbie says, "He's only gonna be a Freshman. My other brother says he'll be lucky to make second string on the JV team. But he likes smashing into people."

"Well, that helps," Joaquin replies with a laugh, then gives her a little nod as he returns his attention to his students. Debbie holds her book up as if to read it, but keeps her eyes firmly on Joaquin. He has an adorable ass.

Later, after the swim lesson is over and Debbie's leading her freshly dressed charges out from the changing room, Joaquin gives her a suave wave goodbye with a knowing smile that seems to imply they share some kind of secret. It makes Debbie's stomach get all light and goofy feeling all the way back to the house.

Once the girls are set up with their lunch (Debbie's gotten very good at making quinoa this summer—Sheila would be proud), she composes a text to Matty:

Are we ever gonna fuck?

She backspaces it away without sending it, though. Then she types:

Are we ever gonna kiss at least?

But she decides not to send that one either. She returns her phone to her backpack without sending anything. Then she picks up the brochures Elisa left for her earlier.

Despite the fact that she's Debbie's boss and occasionally does incomprehensible rich person things, Elisa's actually pretty decent. She insists most evenings on driving Debbie home, and they've spent a lot of time sitting in traffic, just talking. Debbie feels a bit guilty when she thinks about how easily she's opened up to Elisa, telling her about her family and some of things they've been through. It feels like a betrayal to her siblings, but it's just so nice to have somebody who seems interested in listening and asks questions like she really cares. Matty does that a little, but he's a guy, and it's just not the same thing. Talking to Elisa is kind of like having a real mom, or an aunt, or something, who's got her shit together and actually cares.

Elisa's mom was a drunk and her dad was never around and even though it's not the same thing, it makes Debbie feel like she's maybe not totally screwed. She looks at Elisa and the life she has—her nice husband, her nice house, her nice kids, her fancy job as a Dean of something or other at DePaul—and Debbie doesn't believe for a second she could have that. She's starting, however, to tentatively consider the possibility that she could maybe get a fraction of something like it for herself.

But that kind of hope is potentially heartbreaking; Debbie has learned this too many times. So she shoves it away, along with the brochures, in the bottom of her backpack and doesn't think about it again for the rest of the afternoon.

Debbie declines a ride home tonight because she's heading to Lakeview. Every two weeks, Ian has to be up at Northwestern Memorial for some sort of appointment (Ian doesn't elaborate on what the appointment is; Debbie doesn't ask), and it's become a bit of a thing that he meets up with Debbie afterward. She's not sure why he's started doing this with her, why they can't just meet at the Milkoviches' house, but Ian seems to like having an excuse to hang out around up here again. He's said several times that he doesn't miss working at the club, but Debbie suspects he misses spending time in Lakeview. She can see it in the way he takes her someplace different each time, like he's introducing her to a world he really wants her to love as much as he does. At first she didn't get it, just thought he was overly infatuated with all these stupid rich people, but she's slowly starting to see the appeal. It's an intoxicating fantasy, pretending like you belong here. And Ian, unlike Debbie, easily passes for one of them.

Tonight, they're meeting at some pub place that looks like The Alibi Room if you cleaned it up and put it in a Disney movie. Debbie grabs a table, orders a glass of water and scowls over her phone. She's got a text from Lip asking who's picking up Liam tonight, three emails from Matty about some music he wants to send her, a text from Fiona telling Debbie to pick up toilet paper and milk on her way home, and a missed call from Matty who was probably trying to catch her on his break. She responds to Lip so he'll leave her alone, but ignores the rest. She considers reading her book until Ian arrives, but then she spots the brochures and pulls them out, handling them gingerly, like ancient documents.

These brochures are a little bit different than the info Elisa's gotten her previously—print-outs and pamphlets about Medical Assistant Certification at Malcolm X, the BSN program at UIC, Early Childhood Ed at Northeastern ("Academics are pushers," Elisa has joked). The DePaul brochures, some focusing on scholarships, some on programs of study, are less practically-oriented, selling the leafy, preppy Lincoln Park lifestyle as much as anything else. Debbie rolls her eyes, thinking about all the DePaul girls who nanny at the pool. Then she is surprised as she finds a brochure from the law school in the stack with a Post-It note stuck to the front. On the yellow paper, Elisa's written: Possible long-term goal: family law?

Debbie blinks at the note, processing what it means. Then suddenly she is angry. She roughly piles the brochures up, burying the law school one in the stack, and shoves them back into her bag. She kicks it under the table for good measure. Fuck that. Fuck everybody.

Ian has the poor timing to show up just then. He looks slim and inconsequential in his drab janitor's uniform but still manages to turn heads as he makes his way through the pub. Debbie glares at him. It's annoying having three older siblings the world has decided are gorgeous, especially when the world has pretty much let you know from day one that you're, at best, cute in an awkward kind of way. With Ian it's somehow even more annoying because he used to be awkward too, but then one day he woke up handsome. Debbie's been waiting for the same transformation to occur since they look the most alike but, as of yet, she's still as inelegant and round-faced as ever. And nobody takes you seriously when you've got a round face.

"What's wrong?" Ian asks as he sits down, his smile fading at the sight of her sour expression.

"Nothing," she mutters, "I'm just sick of everybody."

"Okay," Ian says with an easy nod. He steals a sip of her water since he doesn't have any yet. Then he slides an envelope of cash across the table.

This is the nominal reason why they've been meeting every other week. Each time he gives her the money, and her job is to parcel it out in small amounts into the squirrel fund over the course of the next two weeks. Fiona's told Ian flat-out that she won't accept any money from him, but he's found a work-around by laundering his contributions through Debbie. So far Fiona hasn't caught on, or at least hasn't said anything. Debbie thinks Fiona knows something's up, but is too attached to the rapidly filling can of money to voice her suspicions. It's starting to seem like the Gallaghers might actually squeak by despite the disastrous first half of the year, but there's still plenty of time to jinx it.

Debbie tucks the envelope into her purse and, with business concluded, listens as Ian tells her about a crazy guy on the train this morning who kept exposing himself while ranting about Richard Daley. Ian keeps laughing while telling the story, but Debbie really doesn't find it that funny. She's seen many genitals on the CTA.

"You want a drink?" Ian asks suddenly, cutting off his own story.

"No."

"I'll order it for you. They'll serve me."

"No," Debbie repeats, "I don't want a drink." He asked her the same thing last time. It's like he's trying too hard, the past couple times she's seen him, to be the cool older brother. She blames the North side. Up here it's like Ian's a brighter, less serious person, talkative and flirting with waitstaff (to get better service, he claims). Debbie wishes she actually got to see him at home sometimes, or even at Mickey's, where he'd act more like himself, but the family's barely seen him at all this summer. Nobody's schedules ever seem to match up anymore. So Debbie supposes she should be grateful for these meet-ups, but they're more annoying than anything. She can't stand whatever act this is he's putting on.

The waitress takes their order then. It's an effort on Debbie's part not to roll her eyes as Ian flirts with the woman—it's so embarrassing to watch. He's not even good at it, but everybody always responds like he's Zac Efron, or something. Debbie wants to tell all these people that Ian is a dork. He used to have frizzy hair and chubby cheeks and so many freckles that his fifth grade teacher kept sending home notes chastising his parents for sending him to school with a dirty face. She wants to tell them how he was kicked out of the Cub Scouts for having lice or how, when he was twelve, Lip punched him while they were roughhousing in the city pool, Ian puked, and the pool had to be evacuated for the rest of the day. Siblings are like archivists of the embarrassing stuff.

"Why do you have to do that?" Debbie asks after the waitress has left.

Ian shrugs. "How's work? How's Peter's sister?"

"She's a bitch," Debbie replies and immediately feels guilty because she knows it's not true.

Ian looks disappointed. "I thought you liked the job."

Debbie feels even worse. "I do. It's fine. Elisa asked me to stay on in the Fall and work after school."

"Is that good?"

"Yeah," Debbie says, "I guess. We could use the money for sure."

"Do you guys need more money?" Ian asks and Debbie gets the impression that if she asked him right now to go out and knock over a bank for them, he would.

"We always need more money."

Ian nods. "I'll see what I can do. Might be able to get some overtime, but they're stingy about it if you don't have seniority. Maybe I can work out something else."

"Whatever," she says. Debbie toys with the straw in her water glass. She puts her finger over the top, watches the water fill up most of the straw, then picks it up, removes her finger, and lets the water fall back into the glass. Then a thought occurs to her for the first time after all these weeks. "Mickey doesn't know you're giving Fiona money, does he?"

Ian looks like he's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but then a smile blooms on his face, and he says, "Mickey worries too much."

Debbie knows that some people are compulsive liars—Fiona's accused Frank of being one for years, of being unable to stop telling lies even when there's no reason for them. Now she wonders if, along the same lines, some people are just compulsive secret keepers.

A message dings on Ian's phone and he replies to it, frowning as he types a really long response. Debbie sits back in her chair and gazes out at the other customers. She wonders if Joaquin ever hangs around up here after work, or if he just goes home. Then she starts thinking about their conversation today, about their schools' football teams. Maybe Debbie should start attending some games in the fall. Maybe she'd run into Joaquin if she did, have a chance to talk to him for more than five minutes. But then she sighs. Summer is like an alternate universe. You talk to people and befriend people in summer that you never would were it the school year and were you in your normal social order. How many times has Debbie thought kids were her friends after summer bonding, only to be treated as if they didn't know her come Fall? She's pretty sure if all the people from his school were at the pool, Joaquin would never talk to her.

"I got a favor to ask," Ian says when he finally puts away his phone, "You think you could get a hold of Fiona's old GED workbooks for me? Without anybody noticing?"

"You're getting a GED?" Debbie asks, doing nothing to hide her surprise.

"Nah, it's for Mickey."

"Mickey's getting a GED?"

Ian smiles that funny, shy smile he only wears when he's talking about Mickey. "Yeah," he says, "Guess he saw what I've got going and wants some of that for himself. You don't really get sick days or dental insurance when you're a pimp."

Debbie begrudgingly has to admit that the job hasn't been the sad dead end she'd thought it would be for Ian. The job itself might be nothing special, but the paycheck and the benefits seem to have done a world of good. There's big, obvious stuff, like removing the burden of going broke from Ian's medical bills, or the fact that he was finally able to replace the tooth he lost last year. But there's little benefits to the job that seem to have been really good for him too. He works out at the campus rec center, of course, is signed up to run in the University's 5k at the end of the summer, and even took Fiona out on a "date" to see a campus theatre performance a month back since he was entitled to free tickets. Fiona joked the other day that Ian's getting more out of Chicago Poly Tech than Lip is.

"So, why's he need a GED then?" Debbie asks, "You got your job without one."

Ian looks confused. "No, I didn't."

"What?"

"I didn't. I had to get my GED before I could apply."

Debbie just stares at him, unable to speak for a second. "So, wait…" she says, "You have your GED?"

He seems puzzled by her continued bewilderment about this. "Yeah. I took it when I knew I was gonna be applying for this job. It wasn't a big deal."

Debbie's eyes are drawn to Ian's stupid long fingers tapping out a rhythm on the side of his water glass.

"Stop that," she commands. Obediently, he returns his hand to his lap.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Debbie asks when she has processed this new information, "Why didn't you tell Fiona? Or Lip?"

"No one asked."

Debbie glares at him.

Ian laughs. "Sorry."

"It's not funny."

Ian shrugs again, somewhat contrite. He looks away and says, "Not like it's anybody's business."

Debbie opens her mouth to read him the riot act about keeping so many stupid, pointless secrets, but is interrupted as the waitress brings their food. By the time they've undone their napkins and flatware and handed each other condiments from their respective sides of the table (Ian wanted the pepper grinder, Debbie wanted the ketchup), Debbie's temper has cooled. She's still royally annoyed with her brother, though.

"I can't believe you pay money for that," she sneers, looking at Ian's salad. As far as she's concerned, he could just be eating the lettuce and tomato that come on top of her sandwich and be getting the same thing for free.

"Had to skip the gym today," he explains, pouring some vinaigrette from the little cup over the top of the greens.

Debbie just shakes her head and unscrews the ketchup bottle. If what Mickey told Carl is to believed, Ian's been hitting the gym every morning before work, on every lunch hour, and again after work most days. Carl had been impressed, but Debbie thinks it's stupid. She jiggles and hits the ketchup bottle several times, but nothing comes out. She reaches for her knife, but Ian stops her and takes the bottle.

"Here," he says, turning it and pointing at a small '57' raised in the glass near the spot the bottle body meets the neck, "See that?"

Debbie nods then watches as Ian does a quick chop that hits the bottle exactly on the glass 57. The perfect amount of ketchup plops out over her fries. Ian smiles and hands her back the bottle. Somehow Ian always knows little tricks like that.

They eat for a while and don't bother talking. Debbie's mood improves as she gets something in her stomach. She always eats light at Elisa's house because, even though Elisa's stressed over and over again that Debbie should help herself to anything she wants, Debbie feels weird about it. For a while she packed and brought her own lunch, but the kids went wild with jealousy over Debbie's peanutbutter sandwiches and Doritos, so now she just has a little of whatever she makes for the kids and waits to eat until she gets home.

As she finishes her sandwich, she looks across at Ian and notices he's doing the same thing with his straw that she had done earlier, drawing up water into the straw with the pressure of his fingertip and then letting it drop. She tries to remember if it was something she picked up from him when they were younger, or if this is something they just both happen to do.

"So, is Mickey gonna get to be in the union too?" she asks.

Ian doesn't take his eyes from the straw. "What union?"

"The janitor union."

Ian laughs. "Mickey would be a terrible janitor."

"I thought that was why he's getting a GED. So he can work with you."

Ian's still smiling at the thought of Mickey as a janitor. It takes him a second to return his attention to Debbie's question and another second apparently to figure out what the heck she's talking about. Then he says, "Nah, he doesn't want to work with me. He just wants to be able to apply for something that's not, you know, moving furniture or tarring parking lots."

"Oh," Debbie says. She drags a fry through her ketchup while she thinks. Matty's supposed to only work a half-shift tonight, which means he might be off early enough to see her for a bit before bed. She hadn't been planning to see him tonight, but now she's finding herself wanting to be around someone from whom she knows exactly what to expect. She doesn't want to think about Joaquin or Elisa or stupid DePaul and Loyola girls or anyone else from up here. She's tired of this strange, glossy world. She wants comfort and familiarity. If Matty's nothing else, he is comfortably familiar.

Ian's watching people walking by outside the window with an oddly blank expression on his face, like he's seeing them, but his thoughts are a million miles away. Then he says almost dreamily, "Wouldn't you love to live up here?"

Debbie makes a face. "Why would I ever want to live up here?"

Ian tilts his head, eyes still following the pedestrians and taxicabs. "If you were going to school, or something. Couple years from now, maybe. I could see you liking it up here."

Debbie crumples up her napkin and tosses it onto her plate. She is done with dinner. She is done with everyone today. "Why don't you go to school up here? You can do that now, right? Apply to college with your secret GED?"

Ian turns back from the window, but he doesn't answer her questions. Instead he says, "I like my job. Think I wanna hold onto it for a while."

"Great," Debbie replies unenthusiastically.

The waitress returns to take their dishes and drop off the check. After she leaves, and Ian opens the portfolio with the bill, he laughs. "She gave me her number."

"Wow," Debbie deadpans, gathering up her things, "Sure Mickey'll think that's a riot."

"You leaving?" he asks as she stands and pulls on her backpack.

"Yeah."

"Thought we'd ride back down together."

"I'm going to Matty's."

"Oh." He seems at a loss, but then puts on a smile. "Well, it was good seeing you."

"Yeah," Debbie lies, "You too."

"See you in two weeks? If not before?"

"Sure. See ya."

"Bye, Debs," Ian says as she walks away. She doesn't look back.


A few days later Debbie has Elisa take her to the Milkovich house instead of the Gallaghers'. Elisa pulls her Mercedes onto the block and Debbie becomes acutely aware of how bad everything looks. There's garbage, miscellaneous debris, and abandoned furniture in the vacant lot beside the Milkovich house, the El rattling on the tracks above. The house next door to the Milkoviches has been condemned—there's plywood over the windows and an orange notice nailed to the door. A shirtless man is napping in a broken lawn chair across the street, and there's a mangy-looking stray dog that starts barking aggressively at their car when they pull up.

"Are you sure this is where you want me to drop you off?" Elisa asks, being careful, Debbie can tell, to keep her tone evenly modulated and not let on her discomfort.

"Yeah," Debbie says, "This is where my brother lives with his boyfr—husband."

Elisa glances at the house skeptically. "Do you want me to wait for you? You're just dropping something off? I can take you home right after. It's not a problem at all."

"No, it's fine," Debbie replies, finding herself growing hot with embarrassment. She lets herself out of the car in a hurry, eager to cut off the conversation before it can continue any further. "Thanks for the ride."

Elisa remains idling at the curb as Debbie makes her way to the front door of the Milkovich house. She raps hard on the door, eager to get inside so she can make Elisa go away and stop watching her. She has to knock again before Mickey finally throws open the door.

He doesn't acknowledge Debbie; instead, he peers over her shoulder at the Mercedes and scowls. "Who the fuck's that?"

"My boss. Can you please let me in so she'll go away? She's waiting to make sure I get in safe."

Mickey shakes his head at the idiocy of humanity and steps aside. Debbie gives a quick wave to Elisa to let her know everything's okay and then ducks inside gratefully.

She follows Mickey back to the kitchen, passing one of his brothers (cousins?) passed out on the couch and Svetlana fussing over Yevgeny beside him. Svetlana gives her a slight nod of acknowledgement, and Debbie smiles at her and the baby. Yevgeny's gotten so big; Ian's said he's already crawling and gnawing on everything he can get his mouth on. Debbie wonders if they've done any sort of baby-proofing, and she shudders slightly, remembering how Liam once licked a socket when Lip and Ian were babysitting.

In the kitchen, Mickey returns his attention to the stove where he's frying up some kind of sausage cut into medallions. Another pan contains something that looks like sauerkraut, though Debbie's not certain. It all smells good, though.

"My brother here?" Debbie asks, carefully staying out of Mickey's way as he stirs the sausage, sending up flecks of hot grease.

"Which one?"

"Ian."

"Not home yet."

"Oh. Well, he wanted me to drop something off. Can I just give it to you?"

Mickey shrugs.

Debbie sets her backpack down between her feet and digs out Fiona's old GED workbooks. She puts them on the table, and Mickey leans over from the stove to get a look at what the books are.

"The hell's that for? He already passed that shit. Didn't need no Practice and Prep," he says, reading off the cover with disdain.

"It's not for him. It's for you."

Mickey sets the spatula down hard on the stove and turns to face her with a hand on his hip. He seems about to say something, but instead he just rolls his lips under and shakes his head. "Ian and his fucking plans," he mutters, returning his attention to the stovetop. He mutters more under his breath that Debbie can't decipher, then he says, "Was he always like that?"

"Pretty much." She takes a seat at the table without being invited to and flips through one of the workbooks with mild interest. "Why wouldn't you just take it?" she asks, "Ian said it was easy."

"Easy for Ian ain't necessarily easy for the rest of us." Mickey shuts off the gas and begins draining the grease from the sausage pan into an old coffee canister.

"Ian's not that smart," Debbie says, thinking about how she and Lip have always gotten way better grades than Ian, even though he always tried harder than either of them. The only classes she can remember him getting A's in were English and Gym. Otherwise, he was pretty much a straight-C student, no matter how much he studied. Lip used to give him a hard time about it, telling Ian that he was walking proof that all the work ethic in the world can't grow native intelligence so he shouldn't stress himself out about it. It didn't stop Ian from studying, though, or signing up for increasingly difficult classes. Ian is a stubborn shit.

"Smarter than you think," Mickey remarks as he tucks the grease can back under the sink and attends to the sauerkraut-looking stuff, "Your other brother too."

"We all know Lip's smart," Debbie replies snottily. No one ever points out that she's smart. She may not be a genius, but her grades are just as good as Lip's ever were.

"Not Lip. Fuck Lip," Mickey scowls, "Carl."

Debbie gives Mickey and incredulous look. "Carl's only going to high school 'cause the middle school principal doesn't want to deal with him anymore."

"See? Solution to a problem," Mickey cuts a straight line through the air with his hand, "How do you get to high school? Piss 'em off so much they send you there themselves. Shortest distance between two points and all that shit. That's how your brother thinks. Valuable fuckin' skill. He don't get caught up on all that wishy-washy shit like the rest of you."

Debbie rolls her eyes. Only Mickey would think Carl's problem-solving skills were something to be praised. It's funny hearing Mickey talk like this, though. According to Carl, Mickey never shuts up. Debbie figured that seeing this in action was a privilege—if you could call it that—that only Carl had earned since he and Mickey spend so much time hanging out. Apparently, Debbie's been admitted past some threshold, though, where Mickey feels free to yak at her. And about her family, like he's some expert on Gallaghers, or something.

Mickey takes a stack of melamine plates from the cabinet and lays them out. Then he starts doling out portions of sausage and the sauerkraut stuff. He continues his tangent:

"Only thing smart about Lip is that he finally fuckin' woke up and took what those colleges were offering him. Sure dicked around about it long enough, though. Man, did that piss your brother off."

"Carl?" Debbie asks, confused. She doesn't remember Carl being especially pissed off that Lip wasn't applying to college. All Carl wanted was Lip to come home and for there to be peace in the boys' room.

"Ian," Mickey corrects her, giving her a look that seems to say she is the stupidest person who has ever walked the Earth. As if she should just know that his thoughts have re-centered on Ian. "Had to hear him bitch about it for ages. You know how much he would've killed for a ticket out like that?"

Debbie doesn't say anything. They all would kill for a ticket out like Lip has.

Mickey starts laying the plates down around the table. "Hey!" he calls out to the other room, "Food! Now or never!"

Debbie's surprised when Mickey sets a plate in front of her before he goes to fetch himself a beer. Apparently, Debbie's invited for dinner. She takes a tentative bite of sausage. It's greasy but good.

Svetlana comes in sans Yevgeny and takes a seat. She pages through one of the workbooks with one hand while she eats with the other.

"He not coming in?" Mickey asks her, referring to his brother/possible cousin.

Svetlana waves his question off. "He is passed out. He snooze, he lose."

Mickey frowns and makes his way into the living room, presumably to wake him up, but Ian comes through the front door just then and pounces on him. Debbie cranes her neck to get a view into the living room. Ian's got Mickey pinned against a wall and appears to be bombarding him with kisses and love bites.

"Hey, husband," he says, "Hey, better half. Hey, ball and chain."

Mickey is trying not to smile but failing. Debbie's never seen him look like that. She's never seen Ian like this either. He looks…carefree.

"All right, all right, husband," Mickey says, pushing Ian off gently, "Hold off a bit, huh? Your kid sister's here."

At the mention of herself, Debbie sits back in her chair so they don't turn and see that she's been spying. Svetlana shakes her head at Debbie and mutters something in Russian.

"Debs!" Ian greets her as he and Mickey come into the kitchen, "You here for dinner?" He snatches a piece of sausage from the frying pan and pops it in his mouth.

"Use a plate," Mickey scolds him, "Fuckin' animal."

Ian grins and ignores Mickey, helping himself to another piece of sausage.

"I just came by to drop off Fiona's old workbooks," Debbie explains.

"Yeah, you wanna talk about that?" Mickey asks with annoyance as he takes another plate from the cabinet and shoves it at Ian.

"Not at the moment, no," Ian laughs. He sets the plate on the counter and eats another piece of sausage from the pan.

"Will you sit, please?" Mickey says. He takes Ian by the shoulder and physically sits him at the table. Then he puts his brother/cousin's untouched plate in front of him. "Eat your dinner."

Ian does as he is told. Mickey takes the seat beside him and for a while, they're all quiet, just eating their food.

"You watch Yevgeny tonight?" Svetlana asks Ian after a bit.

"Of course," he replies around a mouthful of the sauerkraut stuff, "Wanna keep me company, Debs?"

Debbie looks at him. His eyes are too bright, his smile too forced; he's brought his fake act home with him from Lakeview. Irritation tightens in her shoulders. "No," she replies, "I gotta get home to put Liam to bed."

"Okay," Ian nods and Debbie could swear that, for just one second, a bit of sadness or disappointment or something real and melancholy passes over his face. It's gone almost instantly, though, replaced with empty pleasantness.

As if he's sensed it instinctually, Mickey puts an arm behind Ian's back and gives his shoulder a little squeeze. Debbie notes the way Ian leans into the touch, but, just as quickly as it happened, the moment is gone.

"We need to go," Svetlana announces, standing up with her empty plate.

Mickey nods and follows her. "You clean up?" he asks Ian.

"Sure," Ian says as Mickey follows Svetlana out, "Don't worry about it."

"Want me to help?" Debbie offers as she gets up from the table and adds her empty plate to Mickey and Svetlana's stack.

"Nah," Ian says, "You better get home for Liam. It's just a couple dishes and pans."

"You guys should get a dishwasher," Debbie notes, thinking about Yevgeny and how he'll probably soon be producing the same constant supply of dirty bottles, sippy cups, kiddie plates and silverware that Liam does.

"That's an idea," Ian says, cocking his head as he looks at the sink, envisioning it.

"Svetlana'd appreciate it, I bet," Debbie says.

For some reason, this makes Ian laugh. Debbie is about to ask him what's so funny, but decides against it. Instead, she picks up her backpack and remarks as she looks over the messy kitchen, "I miss Mandy."

"Me too."

"You guys still don't know where she went?"

"Pretty sure Mickey does, but he's not saying."

"Why doesn't he go get her then?"

"I don't think she wants him to. Sometimes you just need a break, you know?"

Debbie isn't sure if she understands this or not, but she doesn't have a chance to say anything before Yevgeny starts wailing from the bedroom. Without a word, Ian goes to him.

Debbie remains in the kitchen a few minutes more. She puts the dishes in the sink, wraps up the left-over food, and puts some dish detergent and water over the dirty pans. In the other room, she faintly hears Ian half-singing/half-humming as he changes Yevgeny's diaper. "Oh, Mandy, you came and you gave without taking…hmmm hmmm hmmm…"

A memory instantly comes to Debbie then, from the time when Mandy was living with them. She was painting Debbie's nails a glittery dark blue on Ian's bed, while Ian did chin-ups on the bar attached to the boys' room doorframe. That 'Mandy' song had come on the radio and Mandy remarked that it was the song she was named after, that Terry Milkovich had a soft spot for Barry Manilow. Ian had started laughing so hard at the idea of this that he lost his grip and fell to the floor in a heap of giggles. The sight made both Debbie and Mandy crack up.

As she leaves the house, Debbie doesn't interrupt Ian to say goodbye. She just shows herself out glumly, mourning the fact that everybody has to change.