THEN THE MOMENTS PASSED YOU BY." - The Lumineers (Nobody Knows)

Unlike the other social workers I'd heard about, Miss Johnson seemed to actually enjoy her job. Or maybe she just enjoyed us, since the house wasn't littered with cigarette burns and empty bottles, with parents screaming in the background. The only noise came from the radio playing softly in the kitchen, and the beating of our hearts when she stepped into the living room and asked Ponyboy to follow her back to the table.

We'd known about this meeting for weeks. It was written on every square inch of paper we could find, and Miss Johnson's results would be the only Christmas present we'd need - if they were positive, obviously. The second her tight, brown ponytail disappeared around the corner, my smile dropped and my shoulders slumped forwards. I had nothing against the dress Donna had let me borrow, I really liked it, actually. True to her word, she'd stuck around and helped as much as she could. Donna even spent the night with us - with Darry - so that we'd be all set for Miss Johnson's visit. Hell, I was even wearing makeup. Not the cheap stuff you'd get at the drugstore, either. This was the real expensive kind, the kind she told me she got every holiday. She helped me pull most of my hair into curlers last night, too. Darry said it made us look more put together. I kinda worked, I guess. We'd spent the entire morning cleaning, all of us, in order to keep the house presentable. Now that we all dressed like we popped outta some sitcom, I could only imagine it helped the whole "please-don't-split-us-up-we're-a-happy-family" facade.

I pulled at the fabric of my skirt anxiously, straining my ears for any piece of information that could drift down the hall. Darry was the first of us to be called into the kitchen, as if Miss Johnson lived here and we were the strangers who just wandered in. He didn't bother telling us what she'd asked him since he came back, but it had taken a whole ten minutes. I think we were all afraid to talk - afraid to breathe, really. Even the tiniest action would end with Ponyboy and Soda tossed in a boy's home, me going wherever , and Darry, alone. Sure, I'd barely spoken to him since Tuesday evening, but he was still my brother. As stupid, and selfish, and arrogant as he may be. Sodapop sat beside me on the couch, playing with the tie Darry had forced him to wear. We weren't seeing eye to eye right now, either.

Not after he came home Thursday with the rest of the gang, going on and on about how Tim was trying to start a fight. In all honesty, I knew Tim liked starting fights. Everybody on the east side likes starting fights. But Sodapop shoulda known better than to drag his stepdaddy into conversation, even if it was true. We kept it all under wraps until the gang left, that's when it turned real ugly. It was a screaming match in the middle of the living room while Darry was busy trying to go over the bills in the kitchen. I think our argument was the last thing on his mind now, especially after he asked Darry what Tim meant by "ask your brother whose side he's on."

That's when Darry started yelling at both of us, saying he had everything under control and that if we worried anymore, our heads would explode. These boys really don't know a damn thing. I think Darry's head woulda been the one to explode after Soda said Tim would be swinging by today, but we never got that far. Ponyboy slamming his bedroom door loud enough for the windows to shake was enough for us to break away to our own separate corners of the house.

My eyes move from the small television screen in front of me to the doorway when I hear the floorboards creak. Ponyboy's standing there, still looking far too pale and thin to pass for healthy, Miss Johnson's manicured nails curled around his shoulder like talons. "You go an' sit down now, honey," she says to him sweetly. Her lips are painted a bold red, the same colour as her wine-coloured blouse. Her teeth are big and white, the front two sticking out a little bit further than the rest. Underneath thick, dark lashes, her brown eyes latch onto mine. "Can I talk to Marlene next?"

My legs ache when I'm forced to stand, same with my mouth as I send her a smile. Ponyboy passes me as he moves to take the now vacant seat next to our brother, his hands are cold and clammy when I brush against them. I know there's no wrinkles in my skirt, but I rake my fingers over the fabric anyway. Force of habit, I guess. I follow her into the kitchen soundlessly as Miss Johnson drops into one of the chairs, in front of her folder with our family name printed on it. I take the seat across from her and fold my hands on the table, like I was back in elementary school, rather than talking with some lady from the division of Childrens' Affairs for the entire state of Oklahoma.

I only realize the folder's been flipped open because of the quick gust of wind over my hands. Miss Johnson already has a black pen ready, lingering over a crisp, white page with my name typed in the corner. "So, Marlene, how're you?"

I haven't had a full night's sleep in close to a week. Homework is piling up on the desk in my room, and the only thing I can understand is what subject they're meant for. We've officially eaten all the pity meals women from the neighbourhood had given us, we spent the last of our pocket money to buy enough food to make the fridge look full so you don't separate us. My brother's been stealing our mother's pills since September, and I don't even know why. I don't know why Tim of all people was the one to tell me, either. We can't hang our clothes in the yard anymore, since it's winter now and we don't have enough change to wash our clothes in the laundry mat, so I've spent the last few nights scrubbing our clothes and sheets in the bathtub with enough chemicals coating my hands that I shouldn't be able to feel them.

"I"m doing just fine, Miss Johnson. How are you?" I reply politely. She only nods along, the cross on her neck bobbing along with her. The pen has yet to move, it's as still as the clock hands behind her. "I'm just gonna ask you a couple of questions, alright Marlene? Just answer them honestly, and we'll have nothing to worry about." I nod again, my throat feeling like sandpaper.

"Do you and your brothers get along?"

"Yeah," I manage to say. Maybe not right now, but most of the time. Miss Johnson raises one of her eyebrows skeptically as the silence settles back in. Before I can stop myself, I'm racing to fill it. "I mean, Darry's still adjusting to being a parent instead of just our big brother, but he's trying his hardest. He's doing a good job at it, too."

I'm trying not to sound like I rehearsed everything I want to tell her in the bathroom, but it doesn't seem to be working. Her hand moves faster than I was expecting, dragging the pen across my page in quick, delicate letters. I couldn't tell you how long I sat there, but the questions never seemed to end. I answered them the best I could, obviously. I told her about Sylvia and Donna, I told her that I had good friends I could go to about my problems if I felt like I couldn't tell Darry. I told her about how great of a job we've all been doing to try and help out ever since the accident, I even told her about my grade in science. By the time I look at her again, the page is completely covered. The only blank spaces are beside my name, and near the bottom of the page with enough room for a single sentence.

"I just have one last question, alright, Marlene?"

My throat is sore, I'm tired, and I'm hungry, but I nod anyway.

"Do you want to stay here? Being the only girl surrounded by three teenage boys... It can be quite a challenge."

Living on the east side is a challenge in its own right, but the state didn't come knocking on our door then. The state didn't seem to care when Johnny Cade showed up to the first day of fifth grade with four broken bones hidden under his jacket. The state didn't look Sylvia's way after her daddy blew their rent money on weed and a night at Buck's. The state didn't bat an eye when Tim stabbed his stepdaddy. But maybe that's because they're already too broken to fix. That's why Miss Johnson's here. Not because she really cares about four little orphans, but because if she fixes us, that's four steps closer to meeting her quota for the year and earning a holiday bonus.

"We've already lost our folks," I tell her stiffly. My throat burns, tears sting in my eyes, but I'm not gonna give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry. "We've already lost our folks an' I'm not gonna make my brothers lose their sister." The chair screeches as I push away from the table and rise to my feet and finally uncurl my hands. The feeling of blood running to my toes and fingertips is close to euphoric. "An" I know we don't look like much to you," I say as I point to her necklace and beautifully maintained nails. "We don't go to church every Sunday and I can't afford some fancy polish, but they're all I got left, an' I'll be damned if I let you take me away from 'em."

I loved Sylvia for a lot of reasons. She was quick and clever, funny and smart. Hopelessly beautiful, and she knew it. But the thing I loved most about Sylvia, was that we could go days, weeks, months without talking, and she'd still show up on my doorstep with a second thought if I said I needed her. And if I ever really needed her, it was right now.

The meeting finished with Sodapop after me. When they finally came out of the kitchen, Miss Johnson stood in front of us with a genuine smile on her face. Not one that was used to cover their pity - like the ones at the hospital that day. it didn't seem real when she told us everything seemed to be in order. That the state didn't have a reason to separate us. I wanted to believe her, I really did, but my mind was still swimming from all her questions. One, in particular.

"Why'd she even bother asking me if I wanted to stay?" I ask aloud. I'm upside down on my bed, hair dangling off the side as Syl riffles through my closet. "Ain't the whole point of her job keeping me with them?" She tuts her tongue in such a way, it reminds me of our first-grade teacher. She'd cluck her tongue every time we did something she didn't like, and Syl would do it right back. "This is a cute bra," she says as she runs her fingers over the fabric. "Why don't you wear it?" I don't even have to turn my head to know which one she's talking about. I really do appreciate all the things Donna's done and given me, but I think she's forgetting that we ain't exactly identical. "I'd wear it if I had something to fill it, Syl. I'm flatter than your ironing board."

"Use socks or something. Boys can't tell the difference when they're already reaching through a sweater, blouse, and bra. Lord knows Dally can't, anyway."

When I don't respond, Sylvia flicks a wave of bleached hair over her shoulder and begins to walk over to me. She ends up tripping over the mass of clothes Donna's given me that littered my floor. At least they were able to break her fall. That's another thing I've always appreciated about Sylvia. Life is messy and dirty, and sometimes it feels like it's never gonna get better. I had gone from worrying about my brothers and me, to clutching my stomach as tears rolled down my cheeks and laughter echoed through my room. "These fuckin' clothes, Marley, clean your goddamned room," she spat venomously from the floor. By the time I'd gotten my laughter under control, my clothes were the least of Sylvia's concerns. Underneath my desk - opposite of me - Sylvia fished out the shoebox I'd pulled from my parents' bedroom, the top still coated in a thick layer of dust.

"I dunno what's in there," I say as I flip over onto my stomach. "Took it outta their room when Darry an' I were lookin' for our birth certificates." The devilish grin that spreads across her lips usually makes my blood run cold, now it just makes me anxious. "Well, let's open it now!" She laughs excitedly. My thumbnail ends up between my teeth as she stands up, the shoebox in hand and my mother's writing staring me in the face. Annie and Darrel Curtis '44- My heart palpitates as I register what the numbers meant. Nineteen forty-four. A year before the war ended, a year before Darry was born. It has a dash in the middle, but no end date or year. Like they planned on adding to it. And now they couldn't.

"C'mon Marls, it's pretty much fate!"

I really wasn't in the mood to be teasing the metaphysical, but what other choice did I have? The bed creaks violently as Sylvia sits down next to me, both our legs crossed with the box between us. I look back to Sylvia from the designs traced in the dust. Her eyes are wild and bright, burning with anticipation. For a split second, I watch doubt creep in. Her hand covers mine gently, her nails still sharp, but it's comforting all the same. "I was just kiddin' about it being fate an' all. We don't have to-"

For the first time in what feels to be too long, I know exactly what I want. "Open it."

The first is a picture. A simple polaroid of a man and woman standing beside a truck with a flat tire. There's a sign in the background that I can't make out. Sylvia sits back as I pull the photo closer, eyes strained for anything I can use to identify them. I realize they aren't strangers when my eyes land on the man. Even in black and white, I could recognize my father's face anywhere. He still looks like Darry, even with his hair quite a bit longer and a happy grin pulling at his lips. The woman standing next to him is Momma. Her hair's down in wild curls, one hand covering her face. I can still see the smile she's trying to hide, and I can see the bump forming under her dress. Now that I'm closer, I can finally read the sign. Welcome to Tulsa!

I flip it over quickly, not caring for the dust cooling from it. Daddy's messy scrawl covers the back in long, thin letters. "This is why Annie doesn't drive!" July, '44.

I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and drop the picture on my bed before Sylvia passes me the next one. It's of Momma and Daddy again, this time with a baby in her arms. Darry's smiling at the camera, his eyes and mouth wide. The man stuck in the middle of my parents is Uncle Jim. He still has long, coal-black hair that wraps around his shoulders. He's smiling just as large as my brother. I flip the picture over again, I don't know who's written on the back of it, but I know what it means. "SAY ANNIE'S PREGNANT!"

I know it sounds stupid and selfish, but I'm glad I have the house to myself. My brothers took off not long after Miss Johnson, all to cope in their own ways. At least now, I got a piece of our parents I didn't have to share. Not yet.

There are dozens of more pictures that Sylvia passes me wordlessly. Pictures of Darry, my parents, our house. There's even one of Momma standing in a bathroom, staring at a beat-up and cracked mirror while she traces her lips with lipstick. She's wearing a dress I've never seen before, but I've never seen these pictures, either. The writing is the same as the last picture, in all capital letters and thick, impossible for me to identify. "ANNIE'S FIRST DAY AT WORK."

It's the last picture Sylvia passes me that makes me freeze. I've never seen my mother in a wedding dress, as silly as it sounds. I can see Uncle Jim standing next to Daddy, one hand on his shoulder as Daddy reaches out to hold Momma's hands. I can't tell where they are, but it doesn't look like a church. Hell, I'm not even sure the guy standing between them is a priest. Well, unless priests back then wore blue jeans and cowboy boots. There's only one person standing next to Momma, and it ain't a bridesmaid. He's dressed in leather, with thick black hair and - what I'm guessing - is Momma's bouquet of flowers in one of his hands.

Sylvia's fingers curl around my shoulders, her breath warm against my neck. "What's it say on the back?"

I oblige and flip it over, Momma's writing staring right back at me this time. "Go on and kiss me, loverboy."

It isn't so much the caption that shocks me, or even the picture, it's the date.

"That doesn't make any sense," I tell Sylvia. "Momma always said she had Darry after she got married, but this says it was taken in September of forty-six." For a minute, I want to convince myself it's because of the pills. That she'd been confused when she was writing everything down. I want to pretend that she just forgot to show us these pictures and identify the person holding her bouquet. Sylvia leans further over my shoulder, dark eyes raking over the picture for anything I could have missed. "Why don't we just ask them-"

I can't ask my parents. I can't ask Momma or Daddy anything about these pictures because they're dead. My parents are dead, and there's nothing I can do about it. The picture falls from my fingertips and lands in my lap as the tears sting my eyes. "Marley, I'm an idiot, I wasn't thinkin'," Sylvia tries. I know what she means, what she was trying to say, but the damage is already done. She pulls me into her, her head resting on my shoulder as the tears fall down. "My parents are dead, Syl. They're really gone now."

It sounds stupid. They've been dead for nearly a month, but the fact seems to sink in now that I see them at their liveliest. Back when Darry was their only baby, back when the rest of us were just figments of their imagination. Who my parents were before Tulsa was tucked away under their bed in a shoebox, finally being brought to light. I don't know how long I cried into Sylvia's shoulder, smearing her blouse with all the makeup Donna had spent an hour applying. I cry for so long, I don't even remember who the person standing next to my mother was. Black hair, a leather jacket, tanned skin, and a sly smile. God. I shoulda realized it sooner.

But I didn't, I was grieving. And when I finally pulled away and pushed the hair back from my face, my heart didn't ache as much as I thought it would.

I love Sylvia Jones for a lot of reasons, but that tops the list.