How can my parents be gone?

I was starting to wonder if it would ever feel real. Part of me hoped not. That might be more than I could handle.

I heard Asa on the phone with the bank. Dad hadn’t paid the mortgage since they bought the house, and they were going to foreclose. The only way we could stop it was if we paid off the entire loan. They wouldn’t even listen to reason about letting us catch up on the payments.

Asa’s temper snapped as soon as he hung up the phone. “It’s because Commodore motherfucking Riscoff is on the board. They won’t cut us any fucking slack.” He said it to Aunt Jackie, but I was pretty sure the whole neighborhood heard him.

So now I’m going to be homeless.

Our parents didn’t have life insurance or a single dime of savings. Mom and Dad were supposed to be buried in their plot at the cemetery, but Asa only had enough saved up from his army pay to cover a cremation. Aunt Jackie offered to take out a second mortgage to buy caskets, but Asa wouldn’t let her.

His reasoning? “What do they care now, anyway? They’re dead. We can bury their ashes instead. There’s no point in making you go into debt to buy a box where they can rot.”

Even though his crude words had made me cry, he’d had a point. It still hurt to know that the choice was taken from us because of money. But right now, everything came down to money. Mostly the fact that we had none.

I was a coward for letting Asa and Jackie deal with everything, but what help could I really offer in this situation? None.

So instead, I stared at the light green wall of Cricket’s bedroom from where I was curled up on her bed. I crushed her pillow to my chest and wished I could live anyone else’s life but my own.

I’d almost managed to doze off, but the front door of the house slammed and Asa yelled.

“Get the hell off our property, motherfucker! You aren’t welcome here.”

My chin jerked up as my entire body started to vibrate. There was only one person who would piss Asa off that badly solely by existing.

I rolled over on Cricket’s bed, and it was the fastest I’d moved in days. I ran to look out the window, and sure enough, Lincoln stood in the driveway.

Asa stalked toward him, using the rifle in his hand to point at Lincoln’s truck, and his voice was loud enough to filter through the single-paned glass.

“You get back in your truck and get the hell out of here, Riscoff.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“Well, I’m the one with a gun. So, fuck no, you aren’t seeing my sister.”

“I—”

“Rango already told me all the bullshit you spouted off at him. Whatever you think you had with Whitney? It’s just as dead as our folks and your dad.”