“I hate her,” Dominic whispers, afraid she might hear him.
“We won’t live here forever.”
“She threw my cars away because she stepped on one.”
“I told you to pick them up. I’ll get you more.”
“You don’t have any money.”
“Let me worry about that.” I’ll steal another twenty from her purse. Half the time she has no idea what’s in her wallet and is too drunk to notice when it goes missing. I again press my palm to his neck and stand. He’s burning up.
“Where are you going?”
“To find some medicine to lower your temperature.”
“You’re coming back?”
“Right back.”
Making my way across the hall toward Delphine’s room, I’m stopped at the doorway by a familiar sniffle. I peek in to see her eyes reddening as she studies the pictures laid out on her bed, pictures of her and the husband who left her a few months before Mama and Papa died. She runs her fingers over them before sensing me standing there and lifts hostile eyes to mine. “I don’t want to be a mother.”
“Then don’t. I’ll feed him. I’ll bathe him. I’ll walk him to school. You don’t touch him, don’t yell at him. I’ll do it all.”
She snorts. “You’re just a kid.”
“Plus adulte que toi.” More of a grown-up than you anyway.
“Surveille ton langage, petit con.” Watch your language, little shithead.
Opting out of another useless argument, I switch gears. “I need Tylenol for his fever.”
She opens her bedside drawer and plucks one of the powdered packets she puts on her tongue every morning for her hangover, and I eye it, uneasy.
“What’s in it?”
“Same as Tylenol. Works faster. Put it in some juice.”
“We don’t have any juice.” She sighs and gathers the pictures from her mattress before lovingly placing them in an old cigar box on her nightstand. Walking over to her dresser, I snatch her wallet from her purse and take a twenty out.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to get the medicine he needs and a new car for him to play with while he’s sick.” The tone of my voice dares her to object. This is the fight I’m up for.
She opens her mouth to argue and instead sinks back into her mattress. “Fine, whatever.”
“We don’t want you for a mother, either.” I crumple the money in my hand and toss her wallet back into her purse. “Just stay away from him. I’ll take care of him.”
“Whatever, kid, close the door.” She rolls her eyes and turns off her lamp, leaving us both in the pitch dark. She’ll pass out in seconds. Fumbling out of her bedroom, I use the dim light from Dominic’s lamp to navigate my way down the hall toward the kitchen to grab some water. I pour half the packet she gave me into the cup and stir it up while staring at the full moon outside the window, just as a roach skitters across the glass. Medicine in hand, I bring it back to Dominic, who’s stripped down to nothing but his underwear, furiously scratching his arms.
“Put your clothes back on, so you can’t scratch.”
“I have to.”
“You can’t. It will get worse and leave marks.”
He stills his fingers and groans as he pulls his pajamas back on. Pajamas that are too small for him now. I can still remember the day Mama and I brought them home after running errands together. I’d picked them out. It wasn’t that long ago they were here, alive.