“Ed, it’s my birthday, and I don’t want no fuss. Got it?” Gran jabbed a finger at Ed Earl.
“I’m not fussin’， Ma. Just need to talk to Roo.”
I didn’t want to talk to my uncle. There wasn’t anything to say. I would never forgive him for taking two years of my life. “I have nothing to say.”
Standing, I threw Ed Earl my best “Go straight to hell” look and moved toward the table holding platters of chicken wings, bowls of slaw, potato salad, and fluffy fruit salads made with JELL-O and Cool Whip. I took a plate, even though I wasn’t hungry, because it was something to do and would maybe keep my relatives from trying to talk to me.
But no one in my family ever took a hint.
“Hey, Roo,” said my uncle Jimbo as he slopped a huge serving of baked beans on his plate. “Madison made these.”
“Who’s Madison?”
“Mikey’s girlfriend. She’s real nice. They’re having a baby in the fall.” Jimbo pointed over toward a girl who stood beside Ed Earl’s youngest son. Madison wore shorty shorts, a tank top with something glittery, and too much makeup. She kept glancing over at the side yard, looking nothing like a happy mother-to-be. I tried to angle my head to see who she was looking at but couldn’t get a good look.
“Oh. Good for them, then.” I didn’t want to make small talk. At this point, I wished I hadn’t come. I could probably go ahead and slip out. Gran had her gift, I had made an appearance, and I truly needed a little time with my hair in order to look good for the gala later that night. I would wait for Gran to blow out the candles, and then I would skedaddle.
Jimbo took a bite of beans right over the table, dropping one on his oversize Salt Life T-shirt. He smudged it with a napkin, picking off the bean and popping it into his mouth. Jimbo was the only one of Gran’s kids who had remained single. He’d had some girlfriends here and there, but they never managed to stick. Eating beans off his shirt might have explained that. He smacked a few times in satisfaction and then leveled me with a stare. “You know, you really should talk to Ed Earl. He needs to say his piece.”
“And you need to mind your own business, Jimbo. If he wanted to say his piece, he could have said it to the judge over two years ago when I was being unfairly accused.”
“You could have told them where you got the stuff. You didn’t.”
Yeah, I could have. I had kept my mouth shut during my arrest and trial when I should have squealed like a piggy. Ed Earl and his stupid ring of drug dealers would have gone to prison, and I would have gotten slapped with probation for being a rat. And it’s not like I hadn’t wanted to send my deserving uncle up the river. I had. But Gran might have gone down, too. Ed Earl and some other lowlifes had been making meth in her old trailer on land she owned. He’d even stored the meth in Gran’s outside freezer and given her tainted money, making her an accessory. As much as I wanted to nail my uncle, I couldn’t put Gran at risk. So I became the sacrificial lamb, just as my uncle had intended. He knew I wouldn’t talk and that I wouldn’t get much time for the crime. His selfishness knew no bounds, but according to Juke, he’d gotten enough of a warning from some guys in a cartel that he’d ceased his operations. So at least he’d gotten out of the game.
The result of Ed Earl’s betrayal was Gran refusing him any contact with the family until he cleared his shit out and straightened the hell up. Ed Earl was probably still involved in something illegal—that was his nature—but if he was, he was very quiet about it. Gran ran this family. And family was everything.
All the Balthazars knew that.
Even me.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, smacking a spoonful of potato salad onto my paper plate and walking away. I headed toward the side yard where the kids were zipping around and saw Griffin standing by himself, tapping on his phone. Ah, that’s what Madison was looking at.
I went and stood beside him because no one would mess with me when Griff was around.
He looked up. “Oh, you came.”
“It’s Gran’s birthday.”
He grunted and shoved his phone in his back pocket. “Yeah, well, it’s a command performance. Saw your boss lady a week back. She was seeing Juke.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying the potato salad. Wasn’t bad. Lots of mustard, the way I liked it.
“Not sure she’ll get much out of him. Juke’s on the bottle. Has been for months.”