“It’s any—you don’t have—I mean, here. You have plenty.” She tugs a shirt out of the laundry bag. They went to the Washateria last week, the one with washers so big Alex could fit inside, but Momma still hasn’t folded their clean clothes, and Michelle will only fold her own clothes, that’s what she said and that’s what she did, so Alex’s Jason Goodyear T-shirt, which Momma brought home from the stadium, is clean but all wrinkly. They left most of their laundry at the Grandpa House and couldn’t go back and get it because one day when Michelle and Alex were coming home from the store there was a police car parked in the driveway and the grandpa and grandma from the pictures were standing on the lawn and the grandpa was waving his arms and shouting something. Alex saw them first and said, Michelle, look, and she stopped the car real fast and turned around in the neighbor’s driveway and they drove away. When they were around the corner Alex said, Michelle, why can’t we go home? She said, Just be quiet now, sweetie. I have to call Mom. Turns out Michelle was the only one who kept everything in her car like Momma said they should and so she still has almost everything. Alex didn’t and now he doesn’t have his coloring books or his Spider-Man shirt or most of his underwear.

Momma shakes out the shirt and pulls it over his head, hard, which tugs at his ears. “Owww,” he says.

She waits for him to put his arms in the armholes. “Any day now, Alex.” Momma musses up his hair and winces. “Jesus, when was the last time you washed your hair? You’re as greasy as a pepperoni pizza.”

“He hasn’t all week,” Michelle says. She is calm like a turtle, slow and round. “How can he, when we’re out of shampoo?” Michelle goes back to her math, which looks like another language, Egyptian or Greek or Chinese. Michelle has a test soon about whether or not she can go to college.

“Jeez, Miche. How am I supposed to know you kids are out of damn soap?” Their new house has three bathrooms: one for Momma—it has a bathtub with a Jacuzzi and it’s just for grown-ups—one for kids, which has a bathtub but no walls, and one downstairs for guests. That one just has a pipe where the toilet is supposed to be. Alex is old enough now that he takes baths by himself, which he likes, but sometimes they’re too hot and sometimes he misses Momma helping and telling stories about when she was little and swimming in the ocean. She had good stories about swimming in the ocean. “I’m never in there. Trying to give you your pri-va-cy.”