“Riley?” he calls at my back.

I can’t play happy sister right now. Usually I can pretend, suck back my unhappiness and invent games of chase the pig or dig up anthills and let him watch in wonder as a colony comes spilling to the top. I can’t do that today. I take another step out of the room.

The coughing fit hits. Ethan hacks like a frail old man. His bed rocks beneath him as cough after cough rolls through him. I slide my hand down my face, wipe off the mad and sad, and turn around. When he sees me, he smiles behind his cupped hand.

“Better catch those lung pieces so we can stick ’em back in,” I say as I sit next to him. I look over; my moth-eaten bedspread is pulled tight. He made my bed and his. Of course he did. He’ll do anything to keep me out of trouble. As the box springs shake with each cough, I try to think of something nice to do for him. For now, being here is all I got.

When the coughing stops, he looks up at me. “You okay?” He wipes at tears that have sprung up.

He’s asking about me with his blue-tinged lips, flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth. I’ll never be as good as my brother.

“Yep. You?”

He nods. “Were you fighting with Auntie?” His voice is raw from the cough.

“No.”

His small, dark eyes narrow. “How come she yelled at you?”

“It’s Auntie. She’s … you know.” I wind my finger around my ear and loll my tongue out of my mouth. It makes him laugh. The laughing makes him cough. God, I can’t do anything right.

His eyes track to the window where his dad fixes the Jeep. “You’re mad cause Dad won’t let you go to town.”

Ethan adores his dad and it bugs him that we don’t get along. I understand. Two of the four people he loves snipe at each other all day, but even my peacekeeping brother can’t mend the rift between Arn and me.

“Let’s not talk about Arn.” I pick up his comic book and flip through the pages. “Superman again? Haven’t you read this like 800 times?”

“It’s so cool.” His eyes light up and his posture straightens. He turns to the middle of the book, crinkled with use, and points to Superman fighting a monster covered in knotty gray spikes. The dry desert behind them looks like what I see out our back window.

“Look.” He points a dirty finger. “This is where Superman fights Doomsday. Isn’t he awesome?”

Superman is Ethan’s favorite. Whenever something bad happens, a man with rippling muscles flies in and rescues the townsfolk. Superman makes it all okay. I don’t tell Ethan we have no Superman. No one will save us from the monsters that threaten us.

“Can you read it?” His elbow digs into my thigh as he scoots closer.

My mouth tenses as I look down at the little black words. There are some I know. Many I don’t.