“Bless you,” I mumble around the mouthful.
“Anything for you, brousin.”
Autumn has lived with us for seven years, since her parents died in a car crash when she was eleven. Ma was a single parent by then—she and my dad had just divorced, which horrified her Puerto Rican family and totally unfazed his Polish one—and Autumn was her niece by marriage, not blood. That should’ve put my mother low on the list of people responsible for a traumatized preteen orphan, especially with all the married couples on Dad’s side. But Ma’s always been the adult who Gets Shit Done.
And unlike the rest of them, she wanted Autumn. “That girl needs us, and we need her,” she told me over my outraged protests as she painted what used to be my game room a cheerful lavender. “We have to take care of our own, right?”
I didn’t like it, at first. Autumn acted out a lot back then, which was obviously normal but still hugely uncomfortable for ten-year-old me. You never knew what would set her off—or what inanimate object she’d decide to punch. The first time Ma ever took us shopping, a clueless cashier told my cousin, “Look at that beautiful red hair! You and your brother don’t look anything alike.” And Autumn’s face froze.
“He’s my cousin,” Autumn said tightly, her eyes getting big and shiny. “I don’t have a brother. I don’t have anybody.” And then she drove her fist into the candy display next to the register, scaring the life out of the cashier.
I scrambled for the fallen candy while Ma put both hands on Autumn’s shoulders and pulled her away from the display. Her voice was light, like there was no meltdown happening anywhere near us. “Well, maybe now you have a brother and a cousin,” she said.
“A brousin,” I said, stuffing the candy bars back in all the wrong spots. And that made Autumn choke out a near laugh, so it stuck.
My cousin tosses me another PowerBar after I’ve polished off the first in three bites. “You working at the grocery store tonight?” she asks.
I take a huge bite before answering. “No, Garrett’s.” It’s my favorite job; a no-frills dive bar where I bus tables. “Where are you headed? Waitressing?”
“Murder van,” Autumn says. One of her jobs is working for Sorrento’s, a knife-sharpening company, which means she drives to restaurants all over greater Boston in a battered white van with a giant knife on one side. The nickname was a no-brainer.
“How are you getting there?” I ask. We only have one car, so transportation is a constant juggling act in our house.
“Gabe’s picking me up. He could probably drop you off at school if you want.”
“Hard pass.” I don’t bother hiding my grimace. Autumn knows I can’t stand her boyfriend. They started going out right before they graduated last spring, and I thought it wouldn’t last a week. Or maybe that’s just what I hoped. I’ve never cared for Gabe, but I took what Autumn calls an “irrational dislike” to him the first time I heard him answer his phone by saying “Dígame.” Which he still does, all the time.
“Why do you care?” she asks whenever I complain. “It’s just a greeting. Stop looking for reasons to hate people.”
It’s a poser move, is my point. He doesn’t even speak Spanish.
Gabe and my cousin don’t fit, unless you think of it in terms of balance: Autumn cares too much about everything, and Gabe doesn’t give a crap about anything. He used to head up the party crowd at Carlton High, and now he’s taking a “gap year.” As far as I can tell, that means he acts like he’s still in high school, minus the homework. He doesn’t have a job, but somehow still managed to buy himself a new Camaro that he revs obnoxiously in our driveway every time he comes to pick up Autumn.
Now, she folds her arms and cocks her head at me. “Fine. By all means, walk a mile when you don’t have to out of sheer spite and stubbornness.”
“I will,” I grumble, finishing my second PowerBar and tossing the wrapper into the garbage. Maybe I’m just jealous of Gabe. I have a chip on my shoulder, lately, for anyone who has more than they need and doesn’t have to work for it. I have two jobs, and Autumn, who graduated Carlton High last spring, has three. And it’s still not enough. Not since the one-two punch we got hit with.
I turn as Ma enters the kitchen, walking slowly and deliberately to avoid limping. Punch #1: in June she was diagnosed with osteoarthritis, a bullshit disease that messes with your joints and isn’t supposed to happen to people her age. She does physical therapy nonstop, but she can’t walk without pain unless she takes anti-inflammatory meds.