I let out a whoop as I come to a stop.

  “You just did that,” he says.

  “I just did that,” I repeat. “I can’t believe it.” I’m in awe.

  “Believe it. Believe you can do it. I do.” He’s quiet a moment while the bike continues to rumble. “Want to try again?” he asks, nearly as excited as I am.

  I nod.

  We loop around the parking lot until Even says, “Let’s not run out of gas. We still have to get back to my house.”

  When we pull into the driveway to Even’s apartment, he stiffens at the sight of his father’s truck.

  When he’s steered the bike into the shed, I pass him the container of cookies from earlier. Still filled with the power of riding the motorcycle, words spill out of my mouth without me thinking them through. “You could come to my house. It’s not much. I mean, it’s actually pretty nasty, but you’re welcome to if you, um, don’t want to go upstairs.”

  “Thanks, Shoog. I better head up anyway. Night.” He turns, his head hanging.

  I walk to my car but stand, listening intently for any shouts or sounds of struggle—as if I could do anything, but still, I wait. Nothing. The light in his room clicks on. With my own sense of heaviness, I return to my house.

  Over the next few days, I sneak out of the house after I’m sure Mama has fallen asleep. I meet Even, after his shift at the garage, in the parking lot at school. He continues his riding lessons. I learn how to work all the controls and how to increase speed, shift, and come to a stop without skidding or jerking, at least not too much. Even is a patient teacher. With each mile I put beneath the tires, I imagine myself a little bit farther out of town. The image of a new life takes shape, one I never in a million lifetimes thought could exist for me.

  I picture a cottage by some far-flung sea, maybe in the next galaxy. Even rumbles home after a day at work, and I sew, making custom clothing for a boutique in town. We share a hot meal. I picture us laughing and smiling. If I squint hard in my mind’s eye, I can almost see myself, well, not quite so fat. But maybe that doesn’t even matter.

  It’s Wednesday night. The next day is Thanksgiving. The block of time between now and someday is too long.

  “So all you have to do is get your license,” Even says, drawing me out of my thoughts.

  “And a bike.”

  “Well, that, too. We have plenty of time. Graduation isn’t until June.” Even breaks into a smile, and even in the near-darkness it glows, radiating warmth and honesty. I fight against a sinking feeling of what life will be like next year, after he graduates, and I’m a senior minus an Even.

  “Tomorrow?” I ask not about riding, but about his plans.

  “I’m going to Will’s. Just hoping my father keeps a lid on it.”

  “Have a good Thanksgiving,” I say.

  “You, too.”

  Mama doesn’t have too many visitors, so the relatives arranged to have the holiday at our house, so she can see them—not her idea or mine. This means I’m mostly in charge of the whole shindig. My aunt will bring a few dishes and my cousin, who was once thin and beautiful, but is now fat like me after having three kids, said she’ll bring the desserts. I’m worried because the house is in rough shape. In other words, it’s a mess.

  Skunk has wreaked havoc by night, and not having been around to pick up after him, I have a lot to do in the next fifteen or so hours. Still high from the bike ride, I brew a pot of coffee to give myself the stamina to stay awake as late as possible to clean and then wake up at dawn to start cooking. Mama took a sleeping pill, and I’m thankful I don’t have to listen to her bark orders from the other room, which she did all afternoon before I left to meet Even.

  I start in the kitchen with the dishes, the counters, the floors, and purposefully throw away two giant trash bags filled with junk. All the cleaning works up my appetite. I dig into a box of low-fat devil’s food cookies. They’re a little stale, courtesy of Od Town, but they fortify me as I move into the dining room. I know everyone will spend the most time in the living room, watching the football game, but I imagine a proper Thanksgiving with everyone gathered around the dining-room table, or at least that is what I’ve seen on TV and remember from when Boo was still alive. She was always one for tradition.

  I fill another garbage bag with old newspapers, magazines, a broken video-game console, several long-dead houseplants, a bag of cat food—I don’t remember ever having a cat—and countless other bits of trash. Skunk comes in through the front door, slams it hard, and grumbles.

  Cabinet doors open and close, there’s rustling, and then he plods into the living room and throws himself on the couch, his belly acting as a shelf for a ream of crackers and a mug of soda. To his side is a box of blueberry Pop-Tarts. It’s two a.m. and he reeks of booze.

  “What the fuck are you doing, lazy shit?” he says, his glossy eyes barely focusing on me.

  “I should ask you the same thing,” I answer.

  He turns to the TV and mindlessly stuffs his face, then washes it down with a mouthful of neon-green Mountain Dew.

  I watch him for a minute, disgusted.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” he asks, slurring. Without letting me answer, he repeats, “I said, what are you looking at?” He leans to the floor and then throws his boot at my head. I duck, and it narrowly misses me, but dents the wall behind me and leaves a brown streak from the muddy sole.

  “Now look at what you’ve done,” I say.

  “Now look at what you’ve done,” he mimics.

  “Don’t wake Mama.”

  “Shut the f-u-c-k up,” he says, spelling out the swear word. He returns his attention to the TV.

  My next chore was going to be the living room, but I’ll wait until the morning. Instead, I wipe the stain off the wall, which needed a fresh coat of paint about ten years ago. Then I bravely head to the downstairs bathroom to make it at least presentable.

  I crawl into bed at three thirty and pass out.

  The next morning I wake, for some warped reason, feeling cheerful about the tasks ahead. Mostly, I want this Thanksgiving to be pleasant and memorable, because this year I have something to be thankful for: Even.

  Throughout the morning, as I check off items on my list, I think about what Even might be doing and hope he’s steering clear of his dad. I can’t help but think of my own scratches and scrapes at the hands of Mama and Skunk. It hurts inside worse than it hurts on the surface, but still, his eye looked painful.

  The turkey is in the oven, the green-bean casserole is ready to go in, Mama’s favorite marshmallow-and-Jell-O ambrosia is chilling, and I’m about to pour the instant mashed potatoes into the pot when Skunk enters the kitchen. He bumps into me, and the dried-potato flakes fly everywhere.

  “Freakin’-a, why’d you have to do that?” I say.

  “You were in the way.”

  “In the way of what?” I ask.

  “You’re in everyone’s way. You’s like a booger that I can’t thump off.”

  Mama hollers at us.

  “You get any beer?” Skunk asks.

  I shake my head and say, “Of course not.” I exit to check on Mama.

  Moments later, back in the kitchen, I clean up the flaky potato mess, hoping to find another box of mashed potatoes, when the oven starts smoking.

  I’m in a lather because I know everyone is going to arrive within an hour and I still haven’t showered. I discover the smoke is just from some juice that dripped on the heating element in the oven. I’d been hoping to make these cute little turkeys out of cookies, peanut butter cups, and candy corn like I saw on the TV, but now I’m worried I won’t have time. The shower gurgles on upstairs.

  “Effin’ Skunk,” I say under my breath. Unwittingly, he’s given me the opportunity to get everything finished, but I will have to take a cold shower since he’ll have used up all the hot water.

  After I’m dressed, the living room is still a mess. I consider just begging Skunk to clean it, but he puts his feet up on the coffee table and turns on the pregame show.

  It’s noon. Our guests should be here any second. I scrounge up some snacks to put out, but the kitchen is a disaster. I’m frazzled and not sure where to start. Instead, I check the turkey and then Mama, but still no guests.

  I check my phone and see Even left me a message: Happy T-Day. Happy. Happy. Happy.

  I detect sarcasm. An awful thought crosses my mind. I worry that Hillary will be at Will’s house for the holiday and fear she might bring Allie if she finds out Even is going to be there. My spirits plummet further.

  After I’ve cleaned the kitchen, made the turkey cookies, and gotten out mismatched dishes, there’s finally a knock on the door. Aunt Sandy and Uncle Bruce come in, letting in a gusty draft, with their three kids. Cousin Amanda follows shortly after. Her kids aren’t with her. She explains they’re with their dad this year. Cousin Jerry arrives with his girlfriend, who doesn’t speak English well. He explains she’s a refugee from some country he can’t pronounce properly.

  Skunk doesn’t say hi to anyone, just grunts. I direct everyone to visit Mama down the hall. The three kids, ranging in ages from four to nine, all have runny noses and sneeze on the green-bean casserole.

  Amanda takes several trips back out to her car, returning with a total of six pies. She says, “Why have three when you can have six? I have pumpkin, apple, blueberry, pecan, banana cream, and my favorite, the cherpumple.”

  “The cher-what?” Despite my love of all things sweet, including pie, I haven’t heard of this particular dessert.

  “Oh it’s delicious,” Amanda says. “It’s a cherry pie, a pumpkin pie, and an apple pie all baked inside cake. You’ll see.”

  I’m not sure whether to be enticed or grossed out.

  “The cherry pie is baked inside a white cake, the apple pie is baked inside a spice cake, and the pumpkin pie is baked inside a vanilla cake. You understand?” Amanda asks.

  Oh, do I ever.

  “Then I put them all together, spread it with chocolate frosting, and see these up on top? They’re little tiny turkey sprinkles. Cute, huh?”

  I swallow back a mouthful of saliva. It sounds heavenly.

  “You be sure to save some room in that little belly of yours for a big ol’ slice,” she says cheerfully, either blind or kind to the fact that my belly isn’t so little, but then, hers isn’t either.

  Before I know it, everyone has dug into the main meal, including Skunk, who’s rude to everyone, including Jerry. But he keeps a close eye on his girlfriend, who wears a low-cut top that invites thoughts about what could possibly be holding everything up.

  I bring Mama a plate, and then return to her room with my own.

  “How’d you like the ambrosia, Mama?” I ask from my perch on the end of her bed. She tries to angle to get a view of the TV as she takes a bite of the yams Aunt Sandy brought.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m just wondering if you like the ambrosia.”

  “Oh, it’s OK. I would have added some of them colored marshmallows.”

  “They didn’t have any at Food Town,” I say, feeling disappointed. I want to add that the white ones and the rainbow ones taste the same.

  “Sugar, fetch me the salt. I can’t taste any of this,” she says, letting her plate fall onto the bed. Because of the conversations I’ve had with Even, this stings more than usual. Then I think of how awful it must be to be stuck in bed, unable to cook for herself or do much else, and I’m sobered.

  I go in the kitchen and find Skunk eating directly out of the pot of mashed potatoes, having poured the entire boat of gravy on top.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Shut up,” he says loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “Mama loves those. And maybe someone else wants seconds,” I protest.

  “Maybe I did, too.” He takes a swig from the can of Pabst that Uncle Bruce brought over and then spits it in my face. Beer mixed with bits of potato covers me from head to chest.

  “How’d you like that?” he asks. He squirts the turkey baster at me and liquid drips down my arm.

  I can’t make myself move.

  “Go on, now. Surely you’ve had enough,” he says through a mouthful of food.

  I have had enough of his violent and immature attempt at a food fight. But before I can step away, he throws the carving knife at me. I dodge with a yelp, hoping that his aim is off. The blade sticks into the plastered wall. This draws no one from the other room.

  Shaking with anger and nerves, I bring Mama the salt. She lit up a cigarette; the smoke hangs dismally in the air.

  “It’s about time,” she says, sprinkling it liberally on her food.

  I hurry upstairs, take a quick detour to my room, and grab a bag of York Peppermint Patties I’d stashed along with an entire grocery bag full of candy after picking them up on markdown after Halloween. This time, I take a warm rinse in the shower. In the privacy behind the curtain, I wonder what Even is doing while I eat the chocolate mint wafers one after another. The chocolate comforts me. The mint cools my simmering fury.

  When I get back downstairs, Amanda is eager to present her cherpumple. With great fanfare, she unveils it and begins to slice, explaining what it contains.

  “Cherplumple is more like it,” Jerry says, looking at all us women, except his slender but well-endowed girlfriend. However, he takes a sizeable piece anyway, and as we chew, for once, everyone is quiet.

  Amanda and I bring Mama a piece. “Nice to see you didn’t forget me,” she says with a nasty edge to her voice. Next to the side of her bed are three empty cans of Pabst. Skunk must have brought them to her.

  As if on cue, Uncle Bruce shouts, “Where the heck did all the beer go?”

  “I brought you a special dessert platter. You see, there is—” Amanda says as she begins to list off the pies, but Mama interrupts.

  “I can see what they are, Amanda, and I can see you’ve eaten your share. You’re as big as a house. Now tell me what in God’s name this is?” She points to the cherpumple.

  Amanda explains with a grin on her face, hoping this will please Mama.

  “Sounds weird,” she says, but then eats the whole thing anyway. As she starts on the blueberry slice Amanda also brought, she nods off.

  “She’s been tired and cranky lately; being in bed will do that,” I say to Amanda by way of excusing her behavior, though words against Mama beg to leap off my tongue.

  As we exit Amanda mutters, “I never knew my cousin to have a nice bone in her body, but, yeah, it’d really stink to be stuck in bed like that.”

  Over the next hour, everyone filters out, without as much as a thank you, except Amanda, who is a well-meaning slice of sunshine. They’ve left me with a moderate mess and a drunken Skunk. He stumbles out of the house—hopefully to wherever it is he goes that isn’t here.

  I plop down in a chair in the dining room, where I view part of the kitchen and a good part of the living room. The remains of the cherpumple sit next to me, a deliciously rich, luxuriously layered sugar-bomb of a companion. I grab a clean plastic fork, dig in, and finish it off.

  I doze and wake to hear what I think is a chainsaw, but is just the combination of Mama snoring and Skunk starting up his dirt bike. It sounds unusually close to the house.

  A draft raises goose bumps on my arms. The sliding glass door is ajar. Skunk backs the dirt bike into the living room and revs it. He takes a good look at me over his shoulder and then rockets through the living room, like a runway, onto the deck, and off a ramp that he’s put out there.

  “Skunk, you can’t use the house for jumps,” I shout. But he can’t hear me, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care. I don’t know what to do. This is one of his worst ideas, all the more so because he’s probably still very drunk or perhaps even more drunk.

  I’m in the kitchen, where it’s slightly warmer, trying to think of what to do. I text Even, telling him what’s happening.

  He replies: Pretty toasted myself, otherwise I’d come. Call police.

  I consider this. What if I call the police? What is the worst that could happen? He could be arrested. Though I could never press charges. I could call anonymously. Hmm . . . how does that work with caller ID? Even said he’d come, but he’s toasted? Drunk? Hopefully he hasn’t been making out with Allie. Why does this stuff have to happen to me?

  Furniture grates across the floor. I assume Skunk’s trying to get a longer start. I begin to dial the police. But he’s my brother, I counter. Then I remember the knife he threw at me. I’m at once terribly worried and afraid that if I did get him in trouble, he might threaten me with worse than a poorly aimed knife. Which fear is greater? I struggle to think clearly over the revving of the bike.

  I pause at the foot of the stairs, then take the rest of the ambrosia with me and go to bed.

  Chapter Twelve

  In the aftermath of Thanksgiving, I’m sinking in disorder. Skunk abandoned his living-room-cum-dirt-bike jump after he dumped it and sprained his wrist. Unfortunately, he claims he can’t remember, though I don’t believe him. Thankfully, from her bed, Mama can’t see the scratches he put in the floor and the trashing he gave the living room. During the long weekend after Thanksgiving, I do my best to put things right before meeting up with Even Sunday evening.

  I tell him about my Thanksgiving, leaving out the peppermint patties, cherpumple, and ambrosia. He fills me in about his far more reserved and respectable afternoon at Will’s house.

  “Hillary was there,” Even says, rolling his eyes.

  “Did she bring Allie?”

  Even bristles.

  “Yeah. She showed up in the evening.”

  “When you were toasted?” I do air quotes when I say the last word.

  “I wasn’t doing wheelies and blowing donuts in the living room,” he says defensively.

  “No, I know. I just wondered—” But I don’t finish. Even seems unusually agitated.