Sharp little fingernails dug into her legs. She gazed at those dirty blond curls and grubby knees. Nell and Jorik thought they were so smart, but neither one of them seemed to know that babies needed a bath before they went to bed.

Freeing herself from her sister’s grip, she stood up and began pulling some clean clothes from the pile she’d tossed on the floor yesterday morning before they’d taken off. When she had everything, she leaned down and grabbed the baby, too.

The digital clock on Mabel’s dashboard read 6:02. Just one time Lucy’d like to sleep in late like other kids her age, but she never got to.

Her sister was heavy, and Lucy banged into the table on her way to the door, but Jorik didn’t move. Then she saw the half-empty whiskey bottle lying on the floor. Betrayal burned inside her. Was he going to turn out to be a drunk, too?

The only time in the past four years when Sandy hadn’t gotten drunk was when she was pregnant. Lucy’s eyes filled with tears. That had been a pretty good time. Even though Sandy’d been with Trent a lot, sometimes it had just been the two of them laughing and talking about stuff.

Sometimes Lucy felt guilty for not being more sad about Sandy dying, but in a lot of ways, she felt like Sandy had died right after her little sister was born, when she’d started drinking again. All she was interested in from then on was partying. Lucy had sort of started hating her.

Outside it smelled like bacon and fresh air. She’d been to a place like this once with Sandy and Trent, and she knew there was usually a rest room with a shower for people who didn’t want to use the one in their motor homes. She had to set the baby down in the grass a couple of times so she could rest her arms. Finally, she spotted a wooden building painted green. She hoped it wasn’t too crappy inside.

She picked the baby back up. “You’d better start walking soon. I mean it. You’re getting too heavy for me to carry. And stop poking me in the eye, will you?”

Babies were always doing crap like that. Waking you up real early in the morning when you wanted to sleep, poking you in the eye, scratching you with their finger-nails. They didn’t mean to be jerks. They just couldn’t help it.

Nobody was in the rest room when they got there, and Lucy was glad to see that it wasn’t too scummy. Her arms felt like somebody was trying to pull them right out of her shoulders, and she barely made it into one of two big shower stalls before they gave out. She plopped her sister on the concrete floor and dumped all their stuff on the wooden bench.