Page 116 of Bad Intentions

I gape at her. “He’s your dad too!”

“Exactly. But I have my shit together. So I was trying to figure out if maybe you had a wild side I didn’t want to deal with.”

“Wow.” I look away. Is she serious? “Okay. So you’d just, what, walk away if I did?”

“I mean, if you were into stabbing people⁠—”

“Oh my god, Rika! Seriously?” I look around, making sure no one else is nearby, and lower my voice. “We are talking about this? Here?”

She grins. “Boots, you are so easy to rile up. Chill!”

“I can’t believe you said that.”

“I’m joking. Relax.”

“Yeah, well, at least I wouldn’t ever walk away from my sister. No matter what.”

“See?” Rika squeezes me tighter against her as we walk. Me, limping, her like my crutch. “That’s why I admire you, Boots. You are a better person than me. Now I don’t have to hold back on stealing cars or transporting dead bodies, because my sister will always take me back. Right?”

I shake my head, but I can’t wipe a grin off my face.

In a minute, our grandmothers catch up with us. Grams and I drive home in silence. Her mind is somewhere else, I can tell. Mine is still trying to embrace the new reality, the new story about my family’s past, everything that has to be rewritten based on what Mallory Blain said.

When we get home, Grams starts hustling with the food preparation.

“It’s too early,” I say.

“Yes, but I’m doing a peach cobbler. Then a chicken roast. Side dishes. Donna and I will be doing the Sacred Burn shortly. You are not invited to that one.”

For a moment, our eyes lock across the kitchen. We don’t say a word, just smile at each other.

We don't do parties. We don’t do hugs. We don’t do “cool.” But we do forgiveness. We do second chances. We do “stick together.” And we do “real.” Because it doesn't get more real than your family being shattered by a tragedy and having to stitch it back together.

In an hour, Mrs. Snickett arrives, with a bag that I’m sure has a bottle of Captain Morgan and a pack of smokes, among other things.

Grams puts the cobbler in the oven while Mrs. Snickett starts a fire in the firepit in the backyard. Grams is humming a song under her breath, and, despite the fact that we just came back from a funeral, she’s the happiest I’ve seen her in a while.

Grams and Mrs. Snickett are doing the Sacred Burn, an old-school tradition of burning old things. The things that outlived their purpose but are too precious to throw out and too personal to donate. There will be some old pieces of clothes, probably Grandpa’s. Maybe Mom’s diaries. I hope my childhood drawings burn, too. They suck so bad that I want to bleed out of my eyes when Grams shows them to me. But she holds on to them like they are priceless pieces of art.

When I come out back, Mrs. Snickett shoos me away. “Go on now, go hang out with Rika until dinner. Nothing for you to see here. Just two old ladies dwelling on the past.”

I get it. These two have a lot to catch up on.

So do I. I have a sister, and she’s the coolest person in the world.

I walk out onto the front porch and stand still for a moment, listening to the crackling of fire in the backyard, inhaling the faint scent of smoke. The birds chirp in the trees. Finally, the days are growing warmer and sunnier.

I hear Mrs. Snickett’s rasp at the back. "Remember Pete Cornwell? When he got wasted and told Mikey, ‘I wanna fight you.’”

Grams chuckles. “And Mikey said, ‘Go outside and practice falling down.’”

“And Cornwell got up and tripped and went face down right at Mikey’s feet.”

The two start laughing so hard that, for a minute, all I hear is panting and cackling and I can't help grinning—I don’t remember the last time I heard Grandma’s laughter.

I take out my phone and text.

Me: Your nana and my grams kicked me out of the house until dinner.