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Ma clai to teach us proper etiquette, but I have no idea why I’d need to kno to eat with anything other than a dinner fork Still, Pop would have my ass if I kicked up a fuss, and of course, there’s no escaping that shit I honestly don’t hteen-year-old, I would be sus as fuck if I didn’t at least grumble a bit

Ma and Pop were s ran their mouths a mile a minute about the party of the century they think their birthday is going to be All the while, Sheila was filling plates and giving advice,out orders, but who am I to say? Happy, that’s what the roouard down, be a real part of it all, but so inside always holds me back

“You two ready?” They’d been playing on their phones, heads bent together, which never bodes well for anybody

“Don’t step one foot out of this house without clearing those plates” Sheila’s spatula was back in play And the whining began

“But it’s too ht remember?” Rosa put on her Oscar-worthy three-year-old bratty toddler act No one ever cleans their plate because she always gives us tooPop and Ma to deal with Sheila, who’d already turned her attention to them before we even made it out of the kitchen “I told you two about your PDA Draco unhand that woman so she could drink her coffee at least”

The sound of the two of the of familial warain left out in the cold I stepped outside into the cool New Englandand inhaled the scent of Fall

I looked around at all the beauty surrounding us, the trees that were now changing colors, and the garden that was changing fro and summer to the hardier fare of autumn It never ceases to amaze me how completely separate this all seems from the other side of our life Here, we’re the prehborhood The one everyone talks about with respect and admiration

Pop is seen as a doting family man who takes care of his ohile just a few hundred miles away, his name is feared and revered I don’t see how no one has ever uncovered the truth, but it’s been years, and I’ve never heard so much as a peep about it I myself learned most of what I know from Gramps

When I was younger, when he first got sick, he’d sometimes ramble on about shit I’d only suspected but never had any proof of At first, I thought he was suffering fro with his nizance on an almost daily basis

It tookit purposely He wanted his only grandson to know the truth, and I guess to o the other way Uncle Garrett and his wife are child-free, not by choice; my aunt can’t have kids They claim not to uess is good enough for them

So, I’eneration Of course, we have distant relatives on Grarandht it up, letting Graet what he said Since his son had claimed me, I was now his as well, and I was to never ain, especially not around my mom

I didn’t get that last part for a long tiot older I think the whole family thinks that Ma has put the past behind her and moved on, but that’s a different story for another time As to the life we live here and the one back in New York, it’s like night and day

Pop has been cleaning up the fas were nowhere near what they used to be by then, it was still pretty rough I’s are even worst now, that with technology, all you need is a little planning to take out the ene a trace

So, though Gra down the eneht, or the tit for tat that’s known to run raet up to see, I think I found a better way In fact, I know I have No one would ever suspectbecause I never show ine would ever alert the authorities to my hand in play