Miz Allen rakes her hand through the front of her hair, her elbow rooted on the L-shaped crack in our kitchen table, messing it up in a way it'll take a real thorough combing to fix. I understand the impulse, though unlike her, I have to come home to these people at the end of my work day. "Once again, I can't tell you enough how much I should be speaking to your mother about custody arrangements, not Curly's barely legal brother—"

"I know, ma'am," I say in a way I hope sounds convincing, "but Ma's in Shawnee right now, helping our meemaw get around after she broke her hip." Meemaw broke her hip in a barfight over her third husband, Clyde, and even if Ma was offering, she sure as shit wouldn't accept her help doing anything. Ma's in Shawnee because Atomic Liquor won't let her charge any more drinks on credit, and she's not about to let that stop her from celebrating the specter of Hector Diaz leaving her life— and, more importantly, the specter of Montserrat coming at her with razorblades.

Curly's doing okay, even without her around to help him through it. Not dwelling on it, at any rate— he's just not the type, as sensitive as he can be, to let things stick around in his consciousness like scrapings you can't get off the bottom of a pan. Sometimes I swear he's lucky to be dumb.

Miz Allen just sighs. I pull at one of the drawstrings on my WRHS sweatshirt, left over from when I was fifteen, and try not to let my nervousness show on my face— let her smell blood in the water. I almost yank the string out in the process. "I swear, I am really runnin' out of ideas for what to do with y'all."

"So you reckon we can keep him after all?" I ask, like Curly's a puppy we've been fostering.

"Against my better judgement… I'm findin' myself saying yes." She starts flipping through the papers on her omnipresent clipboard so fast, I almost expect them to make a moving picture. "Curly's PO has really noticed an uptick in his academic performance and school attendance— I mean, to a C- grade average, not toppin' the honor roll, but going from failing every class to passing is already more of an improvement than I'd hoped for. Same with the amount of parole violations he… hasn't been committing, this time around. Officer Donnelly has it on the record he claims that you're, quote-unquote, 'always on his ass about this shit.'" The blush on her face from the cuss words, even though she's reading off a page, isn't just a Woolworth's two-for-one special. "Seems that whatever you're doin', it's eased some of his concerns about potential recidivism."

There's a warm glow building inside of me like the rising sun, or like I've just taken a couple of shots in rapid succession. I don't exactly get a lot of praise for my parenting— not from either Curly or Angela, though I wouldn't expect that, or from Ma, who's either criticizing me for overstepping my authority or letting them run so wild she's got the state knocking at her door. It feels good to hear, even from a woman who investigates child abuse for a living. "I've just been listenin' to what you and Officer Donnelly said, really took it to heart," I say with as much self-effacement as I can put on. "How what's happenin' right now sets the tone for the rest of his life. He's already got so much stacked against him, what with the systematic racism and poverty and drug abuse and everything."

I'm hoping to hit on the right assortment of bullshit to get her out of our hair permanently, and I've had enough social worker talk piped into my eardrums over the years, I'm starting to pick up on the lingo. (Though I'm not sure if 'systematic' was the right word, or if it's 'systemic', come to think of it.) Judging by the brief way she smiles at me, though, I'm close enough to all the stuff they taught her in school. "That's exactly right," she says. "I can recommend less intensive monitoring, for certain, and while I can't make any promises—" she scribbles something down on the clipboard— "I will say that my goal is always to keep families together whenever possible." She mutters, not as far under her breath as she could, "at least there's one responsible adult in this one."

I just want her out of here before she remembers our uncles went exactly nowhere from his life, and in fact, that I think Alberto took Curly out skeet-shooting today when he's supposed to be in remedial Spanish class. He'll get some practice in cusses, at least. "That's me," I say with a bright, fake-ass smile of my own. "Responsibility's my middle name." I even remembered to get all the liquor bottles lying around into a trash bag before this visit.

"Curly's very lucky to have a brother like you— that's more than some kids on my caseload," she says, which is sobering enough to make me take her seriously for the first time since she's walked through our front door, though I'm not sure how much Curly himself would agree with that assessment. She reaches out to touch my elbow— from another woman, even a married one, I'd find it flirtatious, she's not so much older than me. The way she looks at me, though, there's no come-on there. She looks downright haunted. "Keep an eye on Angela for me, too, will you? I think she needs it just as much."

"Angela, I swear you been in there for comin' on an hour now." I rap my knuckles against the door hard enough to feel a sting. "We only got one bathroom in this lousy joint, in case you've forgotten, so you want to maybe wrap things up sooner rather than later?"

"Go away!" I think she's thrown something at the wood, which at least flops down with a harmless thump onto the floor. "I don't want to talk about it— just leave me alone!"

"You don't want to talk about what?" I'm getting annoyed enough to want to unscrew the doorknob and take my chances with whatever I find in there. "I gotta piss, okay, and I ain't lookin' for no public urination charge whippin' it out in the backyard. Go do your makeup in your room, I know you got a vanity in there—"

"Like I wasn't stuck knockin' on the door when you and Bonnie was goin' at it in the shower? Or you and Darlene? Or—"

"I swear to God, I'm takin' this thing off its hinges in a minute, and you can argue with me from the hall." I moderate my tone a little. "Are you sick? You got the runs or somethin'? I think we still have some Pepto-Bismol in the medicine cabinet—" Lying untouched, since you can't get high off of it, unlike the cough syrup with codeine.

"Ugh, I said go away already!"

I'm really about to start digging around for the screwdriver when Gabi comes over to see what the hold-up is. "Angela," she says, with a knock of her own, and more gently than I'm feeling like handling her with a bladder like a cow's overfilled udder, "is it your first time?"

Her first time doing what?

"I didn't think there'd be so much of it," Angela replies, dangerously close to a whimper. "I didn't know… when's it supposed to stop? They didn't tell us, in that video in health class."

"Do you want to ask your mama—"

"Why would I ask my mother anything? She's not gonna help me. She ain't even home."

"Honey—" I cringe, that's not how you get on Angela's good side, using any kind of pet names with her. She's thought she was grown since the second she came out of the womb. "How old are you, exactly, again?"

"Thirteen," Angela says in a tiny voice, which is when my dumb ass finally starts clueing into what's happening here, "I'm gonna be fourteen in May. I'm kind of late. I think. It wasn't a real… informative video."

"Oh, honey," Gabi says again, and I want to step in the middle of this like I'm fixing to prevent a train crash, but Angela doesn't squawk a protest as fast as I expected her to. She's quiet from the other side of the door. "It's just part of growin' up… becomin' a woman, you know? It happens to everyone. Do you have any supplies?"

"Not unless you count toilet paper." Angela's face is pale like a bar of Ivory soap, her eyes huge and dark, as she tentatively opens the door a crack— man, I never knew shit about bringing up girls, and this situation is just showcasing my failings front and center. Jesus Christ, am I a moron. "My stomach hurts," she mutters, and slots her kneecaps together. "Like... not my stomach. Lower down? I dunno what to do."

"You don't do much, don't worry," Gabi says— she rifles through her purse, pulls something cylindrical out, then, after a moment's consideration, puts it back inside. "Tampons aren't really… appropriate for girls your age, I think you're gonna just have to deal with pads. Let me show you how to fasten the belt, it's kind of tricky."

I expect Angela to tell her to get bent, I really do— that she'll wait until she can flag down Bonnie, or hell, that she can damn well figure it out herself, she wasn't born yesterday. Instead, she pulls the door open another crack, enough to let her come inside.

I loop my ankles around the legs of this chair and try not to show my nervousness on my face, like I'm in the most crucial hand of a poker game and about to lose a week's paycheck if I throw it. "Shepard, you've been one hell of a pain in my ass, Jones was right to give me the heads-up," Officer Jackson says roughly as he flips through my file, a promising start to our meeting. "I'd say the biggest pain in the ass on my caseload, but you're only eighteen and you got some room for improvement there. At least you ain't tryna argue with me about whether or not you should be allowed to grow marijuana plants on your balcony to cover your supervision fees."

I grimace and make a mental note to talk to Alberto, before his dumb ass gets remanded again. If it's not one of my relatives I'm trying to keep out of the big house, I swear, it's another.

"But I just can't seem to pin you down for nothin'," he continues, like it's a massive disappointment that he can't punctuate the monotony of his job with a good old-fashioned arrest. "I know you're fucking around doin' God knows what behind my back, I wasn't born yesterday—"

"There's this saying, 'bout a tree that falls in the woods, but ain't nobody there to hear it—"

Judging by the way he looks at me, it's the one stroke of good luck Christ ever gave me that I've yet to be charged with contempt of court. I shrink a little, wondering if I've pushed my luck as far as it'll go before this rubber band snaps, when he finally sighs. "You are one smart-assed motherfucker," he says, "and some day, you're gonna get a PO who ain't nowhere near as nice and committed to rehabilitation as me on your case, and it's gonna cost you. But fortunately for you? I find you funnier than the average braindead ex-con I gotta knock around all day long, which is why I just take it. You left the state anytime recently?"

"No, sir." I make sure to add the 'sir' like a cherry on top, just so that he doesn't start having any second thoughts about enabling my comedy hour.

"Well, I mean, that's already something," he says, his mouth flattening into a grimace. "You've shown some dedication to your job, too," he adds, flipping through the fat SHEPARD, TIM file again. "Despite your mama's, uh, tragic and untimely death a few weeks back, that nobody seems to be able to find any obituary or record of."

"She was a real private person," I say. "Wanted arrangements kept within the family."

"Son, I really hope, for your sake, you ain't under the impression that you're a good liar." He pops a mint from the tin on his desk, next to a picture of his wife in some godawful Valentine's Day getup, into his mouth and makes awful suctiony noises. "Against my better judgement, I'm minimizing the amount of time we're gonna spend together even further, to monthly meetings. I can't justify a more intensive monitoring plan. You keep up the good work, we might even get to say sayonara to each other permanently, earlier than you planned. Hell, you might even stand a chance of becoming a contributing member of society."

I smile at him, the crooked edge of a scythe, the smile of a bad man who's gotten away with something he absolutely shouldn't have. "I wouldn't count on it," I dare to say, and I shift my weight onto my feet, prepare to get up and go.

"Tim?" he says with a come-hither gesture, before I can beat it on out of here like a bat out of hell. "I'm serious, about the marijuana plants— tell Alberto he's playin' with fire. If you won't quit associating with known felons, please, God, can you at least try to be a good influence on them?"

I never thought I'd come here of my own volition. Closure is a myth pushed by shrinks and clergy— same breed of snake oil peddler, in my book— and I can't say I've ever felt the urge, in the five years since Santi's been gone, to go bawl my eyes out at his already lovingly-tended headstone. Sometimes you just have to gather your shit the best you can and move on. There's no fucking meaning to be found in any of this.

Lately I've been wondering, though, if I'm not just playing myself. Running from the reality that he's dead and gone, ashes to ashes and dust to dust and all that shit— still living like he'll walk back onto the scene any day now, the same way Tía Mercedes used to keep a massive portrait of him on the table when she invited us over to eat, right next to the conchas and propped up against the pitcher of her too-sweet iced tea. (I always made Curly go in my stead, took the coward's way out, especially as I got older than he ever would. Used him as an avatar for the emotions I couldn't bear to feel.)

"Hey, man." I feel like a fucking clown school graduate, as I stand in front of the headstone, my hands shoved deep inside my pockets— he can't hear me. Cisco, my tía, do they get any real comfort out of this, or do they just feel obligated to pay their respects to a dead boy? Do I dare ask them? "You, uh, enjoyin' how the weather's been warming up lately? There's some more wildflowers growin' around you…"

Like that's what's preoccupying him up in heaven. Maybe I should've brought a bouquet, but Tía Mercedes already covers his grave in enough to stock a whole flower shop; the sickly-sweet stink of rotten peony petals wafts up towards my nose, threatens to make me gag. Jesus, how do people even do this off-the-cuff? Should I have prepared a script or something? Written out a statement on what I've been up to the past few months, just to keep him informed? Santi, I met a girl— Santi, I tried to kill someone— yeah, trust me, you would not believe how those two things are connected—

I scratch the back of my neck in a repetitive motion, the collar of my jacket itchy and tight, and God, do I just want to bolt—

But I don't. I get down on the ground instead, ignore the wet dirt seeping into my pants, and sit with how I feel for once— the discomfort, the awkwardness, the sense that I don't deserve to be here or feel anything at all. I remember one time my daddy took me down to the Gulf of Mexico as a kid, the way I ran into a wave that swept me up and tossed me violently against the shore like I weighed nothing, leaving me dizzy and sputtering as it receded. It's kind of like that, the sudden rush and swell of pain inside of me, my helplessness in the face of it.

Then Santi laughs at me, from somewhere buried deep into the crevices of my brain, where I still remember the sound of his voice. You want my permission to feel bad that I'm dead? Man, you got it. You better still feel bad I'm dead.

It's so absurd I sputter out a laugh of my own, the same way I once dribbled sea water all over myself, and then I can't seem to stop for love or money. That spoiled little fucker— I'm probably profaning his memory, but he would say that. Maybe next time, I'll bring him some flowers, too. Keep him from feeling all lonesome.

So this one is finally finished— thanks to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, followed, etc, throughout, it really does mean so much to me. I'm not going to set future plans in stone, but I do have a sequel to this that I want to pick back up sooner or later, The Long and Winding Road, that really digs more deeply into Tim's trauma and how he leaves behind gangbanging, if anyone wants to watch him suffer even more :)