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No Way Home	By : Flagg1991 Category: +G through L > The Loud House Views: 2161 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Loud House nor will I profit in any way from this story

Chapter List
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There are good days, and then there are bad days; sitting on her pink coverlet and trying but failing to focus on the novel before her, Meagan Loud couldn’t decide which this day was. One minute she was happy that her father was coming home because she really missed him, then the next she wished he’d go away because she remembered how much he and Mom argued, and she didn’t like it when they argued.

A thin, wispy girl with sandy blonde hair in a ponytail and thick glasses perched on her proud nose because she was very near-sighted, Meagan was ten, six when her father moved out of the house. She couldn’t remember much about being that age (who was her best friend at the time?), but she could vividly recall lying awake in bed and listening to her parents screaming at each other in the next room, her tiny heart racing and her body trembling because she was terrified that soon, they would start screaming at her.

It wasn’t even Dad she was worried about, it was her mom. When she and dad fought, she got into really bad moods; she’d sit at the kitchen table with her legs crossed and her foot jittering restlessly, her face set in an ugly scowl and tension so thick in the air it literally pressed against Meagan’s chest like a dark hand. If you did something wrong, she snapped at you. Stop spilling things, goddamn it!; I’m not in the mood for this, go away!; and the dreaded you’re just like your father even though Meagan didn’t do anything.

Mom still had her moments, but they came much fewer and much farther between after Dad left, and even though Meagan missed him, she didn’t miss the chaos.

Now Dad was coming back and it could very well start all over again.

It was only for a visit, she cautioned herself, that was all. Mom said he wanted to see her and her siblings so he was coming on a bus. Meagan wanted to see him and hug him and tell him all about her new life living with grandpa, but...even though it made her feel kind of bad...she didn’t want him to live with them.

What if he did, though?

The prospect filled her with dread...dread tinged with a thin, silvery line of hope. If he was different, and Mom was too, then it’d be fine. They could get another trailer in the same park as auntie Lupa, just like before, and be a normal family. She’d miss grandpa and grandma and all her aunts, especially auntie Leni, and she’d really miss her brother Lucas, but to have her Mom and Dad happy and together would be worth it. Plus, they could always visit on the weekends like they used to.

Now she was even more confused and undecided than she was before. She blew a puff of air that rustled her bangs and adjusted her glasses, wincing when the clamp pinched the bridge of her nose. She hated these things: They were big, ugly, and slipped off every time she tilted her head forward. They were the only ones her mom’s government health insurance would pay for, so she was stuck with them. Taking them off and throwing them in the trash like she did when she was little, pinching them between her thumb and forefinger like they were stinky, was out of the question, because unless something was really close, it was blurry and she’d be libel to trip and break her face. Grandpa called her Mr. Magoo; he was a cartoon character from way back who was blind as a bat and walked around with his arms out like a zombie. Poor guy, she knew just what that was like.

That wasn’t even the worst part about having bad eyes - reading was. She loved to read, but after awhile she got a headache over her left eye and had to stop. Sometimes it only took a few minutes, and others she could read chapter after chapter, sitting on her bed or in the shade of the big oak in the backyard...then boom! Like being shot. That’s usually when she grabbed Lucas for a game of make believe; setting the couch cushions on the living room floor and pretending they were Huck and Jim floating down the Mississippi or reenacting swashbuckling sword fights from Treasure Island with cardboard wrapping paper tubes...until her asthma acted up and she had to stop. Or until he knocked her glasses clean off her head and then laughed when she shambled around trying to find them. He hit really hard for a five-year-old, and a couple times he broke them in half, which made Mom freak. You broke your glasses again???

Well, no, Mom, technically he broke them.

When her eyes and lungs combined to rob her of her two favorite pastimes, she always had thinking. She could spend hours lying on top of her covers and using her imagination - Mom said she was weird, but imagination is awesome, it can take you deep into the heart of a forbidden jungle, or all the way to robot pirate island. You could be a spacewoman, a cowgirl, or even a pirate.

She liked pirates a lot; they sailed the high seas and had adventures and got to stay up past 10pm if they wanted. Her favorite movie was Hook, it was about adult Peter Pan. She didn’t care about him, though, she liked Captain Hook and Mr. Smee. Captain Hook got a bad reputation, but he wasn’t such a bad guy. He...well...hmmm...heeeee was a snazzy dresser. That has to count for something, right? It did to Mom and Grandma. They were always talking about people’s clothes and stuff, and always making her let them play with her hair and do her makeup. Meagan hated when they gave her elaborate hairstyles; they were so uncomfortable and top heavy, so that when she turned her head too quickly she almost lost her balance. The make-up was worse. She didn’t mind lipstick too much, or rogue, but not eyeliner or that lash stuff. She didn’t like people messing with her eyes - do you know how easy it would be for your make-up artist to slip and sink the pencil deep into your retina? Too easy. Way, way too easy.

She sighed and stared at the lines on the page; her head was starting to hurt even though she hadn’t read very much, and the ink began running. Her English teacher, Mrs, Wadsworth, suggested she try reading Ray Bradbury - he writes about adventures in space, he’d be right up your alley - and she got a book of his short stories from the library. She wasn’t overly enamored with him, though. Science fiction was okay, especially the soft stuff like Bradbury, but, eh, maybe she just wasn’t in the frame of mind to really take it in. Her stomach was a roiling pit of anxiety and every time she tried to dip in her thoughts wandered. Hmmm. Were there any of auntie Lydia’s cookies left over? Nothing clears your head and gets your mind off your worries quite like a chocolate chip cookie.

Closing the book and setting it aside, she shifted off the bed and to her feet, her hands instantly smoothing the front of her blue and white dress; Mom didn’t like it when she walked around with wrinkles in her clothes, and after so much admonishment, Meagan acted on reflex alone.

She went into the hall and down the stairs, her hand trailing the bannister - she read a book once where a woman fell down the stairs and became a quadriplegic (that means your arms and legs don’t work) and ever since she made a conscious effort to be careful on steps. She wasn’t an overly nervous girl, but losing feeling from your neck down is serious stuff, who wouldn’t want to take preventative measures?

A high, girlish scream rose sharply behind her, followed by a series of thumps, and she cringed. Something small and hard crashed into her, and she started to lose her balance. Her heart rocketed into her throat, and, reacting on instinct, she threw her self against the banister and held on tight, her glasses slipping from her face and falling, clattering to the end table below then onto the floor. A blurry figure rounded the newel post and streaked through the living room, the telltale crunch of glasses underfoot telling Meagan that...well...her glasses got crunched.

Aw, man.

“Lucas!”

Meagan turned and squinted up the stairs; a figure, like a vision glimpsed underwater, stood at the top. Meagan couldn’t be sure, but it looked like its hands were sternly on its hips. “Smack him in the back of his head for me, will you?” auntie Lizy said.

Uh...no, she was not going to do that, but okay. “What did he do?” she asked.

“Little shit jumped off the dresser and elbowed me in the face,” she said indignantly, her voice thick and slurred. She worked overnight as a waitress at an all-night truck stop on Route 10 and slept during the day. Or tried to, since Lucas liked to wake her up. It wasn’t that he was unsupervised or anything, auntie Leni usually watched him, but he honestly enjoyed bothering his mom when she was trying to sleep. A few days ago, he and Meagan were going through the mess under her bed when she found a toy microphone: You talk into it and it echoes. He got excited and asked if he could have it, so she gave it to him because pffft, she was basically a grown up now, she didn’t need it. An hour later on her way to the bathroom she passed Lizy’s door, and there he was standing on the dresser, screaming into it as loud as he could and wiggling his hips, his audience being auntie Lizy humped under the covers, stirring and muttering curse words. She finally threw a pillow at him and knocked him onto the floor, where he laughed hysterically.

“O-Okay. I’ll hit him.” Meagan was lying, she wasn’t going to hit her little brother. Unless he made her really mad, which did happen sometimes.

“Good,” auntie Lizy said and disappeared, “make it hurt.”

Alone, Meagan turned to go down the stairs, then remembered her glasses were broken. Luckily, she had an emergency pair.

In her nightstand.

In her room.

She sighed and hung her head.

Blasted poor eyesight.

Holding onto the rail, she slowly navigated up the stairs, her steps small and uncertain, her heart begging to pound as visions of her falling and snapping her spine in half danced mockingly through her head. Don’t look down, don’t look down.

Actually, if she did all she’d see was blur, so that was kind of beside the point.

At the top, she moved along the hall at a shuffle, her fingers trailing the wall. In her room, she toddled to her nightstand, opened the drawer, and rummaged around until she found her spare. They were even bigger and uglier than the last pair.

She slipped them onto her face and the world swam into focus. There. Her heart was still slamming and her chest felt tight. She took out her inhaler, stuck it into her mouth, and took a deep breath. Better safe than sorry.

Done, she dropped it back into the drawer, closed it, and went downstairs. Her glasses lay in three pieces on the carpet, the plastic frame splintered and the lenses broken beyond repair. Meagan stood mournfully over them like a woman over the body of a loved one, then squatted and scooped them into her slender hands. I never liked you before, she thought, but now that you’re gone, I am stricken with grief.

Not really, but she sure wasn’t happy about this.

Maybe she would smack Lucas in the back of his head.

Lupa Loud sat on the threadbare couch, grabbed her pack of Kools from the coffee table, and lit one, drawing the smoke into her lungs and releasing it through her nose. Warm early afternoon sunshine fell through the blinds and painted the tiny living room rich gold, its warmth lying across her shoulders like a blanket. She crossed her bare legs and took a sharp drag, her brow lowering over her dark, stormy eyes. On TV, canned laughter accompanied a fat man falling down. She hated sitcoms because they were all the same and had been for eighty years, but she couldn’t find the remote and she didn’t feel like changing the channel manually, so...ha ha ha ha ha.

Not that she gave a shit what was on, she had more important things to worry about.

Last night, before she went to work, Mom called.

Lemy was coming into town to sign the adoption paperwork.

Honestly, she didn’t know how to feel about that. In a way she was glad that her father would have legal custody - he was far better off financially than she was - but she really, really didn’t want to see Lemy.

Too many bad memories.

She leaned forward and tipped the cigarette in a glass ashtray; her head was starting to ache and her eyes felt like they were coated in sand. She worked the 3-11 shift at Oak Springs nursing home in Elk Park and could never fall asleep until 5am after getting home, so being up before two wasn’t something she liked or was used to. Sleep came harder than usual, though, and she laid awake in bed well into the soft purple light of morning before dropping off, only to snap awake again and again. She and Lemy had not been on good terms in years, and he knew something about her...something that she had told no one else, something that she struggled to forget, something that she was terrified he’d either let slip or intentionally tell everyone to get back at her. He swore he never would, but he was too unpredictable, especially when he drank.

That was her main reason for not wanting him here.

With a sigh, she sat back and crossed her legs again; she was naked save for an oversized wool sweater than slid down one shoulder. She picked it up at the Goodwill and used it as pajamas. It was itchy at first but she got used to it; beggars can’t be choosers.

The front door opened, and she looked over as Luya slipped in, followed by her friend Skylar. The latter was a short, fat red head in a pink hoodie and jeans so tight they made her legs look like overstuffed sausage casings. The former was short and thin, twelve but small for her age; her long hair was dyed bottle black save for a single white skunk strip that annoyed the hell out of Lupa every time she saw it, and her brows were angled down in the most manufactured display of sullenness Lupa had ever seen. She wore black jeans with holes in the knees and a ratty black T-shirt over a plaid button up with fraying cuffs; Lupa couldn’t help but roll her eyes at her daughter. She reminded her of the tryhard posers she and her friends used to make fun of in school, and there were times she was embarrassed to be seen with her in public.

Lupa looked hurriedly away and focused on the screen. She never looked too hard at Luya’s face because she didn’t like what she saw there.

Like Lemy, bad memories swirled around her in a choking, noxious cloud, and in her darker moods, Lupa almost wished he’d taken her with him.

Neither girl spoke as they closed the door behind them and went down the hall to Luya’s room, the floor creaking sickly under them. The trailer, a single wide on a dusty dirt road surrounded by others of its like, was prefabricated in the year 2004, and had been sitting in its current location since 2032. The electrical wiring was fried and barely worked, there was a gaping hole in the bathroom floor, the doors stuck, the carpet was matted with decades of spills, and things had a way of falling apart at the slightest provocation. It looked even worse on the outside, the white metal siding covered in wide rust spots, the skirting missing in places, and the front sagging as if exhausted after a long, hardscrabble life.

The girls disappeared into Luya’s room and shut the door, and Lupa sucked the filter of her cigarette like a woman seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle. She and Luya didn’t have a very good relationship; they were like roommates at this point...or two nations who [barely] tolerated each other but could devlove into war at any moment. Lupa tried to be friendly with her daughter, but Luya was going through a little teenage attitude phase, and the last thing she felt like dealing with was being talked down to by a fucking twelve-year-old. She worked long, hard, backbreaking hours to support her, and Luya didn’t appreciate any of it; nothing Lupa gave her was ever good enough, and nothing she did was ever right, and when Lupa did speak to her, Luya’s tone was always dismissive and dripping with sarcasm. I hate living in this trashy ass trailer, she told Lupa during their last fight.

Then go live with your father.

Pffft. He’s even worse than you are.

Lupa had never come closer to punching someone in her life. She kept telling herself to be patient with her, that she was just upset about Lemy leaving, but the more Luya pushed, the more Lupa wanted to strangle her. She worked doubles three times a week, she drove a clunker piece of shit that broke down every fifty miles, and she constantly went without so that Luya could have...by the end of the day, her nerves were shot, and she didn’t have patience.

She drew one final drag and stabbed the cigarette out in the ashtray, then sat back and crossed her arms again. It was cold despite the sun; she kept the heat low to cut down on cost, and every winter they froze. She didn’t know which was worse: That or sweltering in the summer. Probably sweltering - you can always put more on, but you can only take so much off. There were a few times she didn’t have the money to pay the electric bill and they got cut off. Lupa didn’t mind it herself, but Luya did nothing but piss and moan the whole time. I can’t charge my phone, wah. I’m missing my favorite show. I wanna go to grandpa’s house.

Then go.

And when she did, she made damn sure to tell everyone they didn’t have power like the goddamn little tattletale she was. Dad would take her aside and offer her money, but she never took it. No, it’s fine, I just forgot to pay, that’s all. She hated taking from him, literally fucking despised it; the few times she did, she felt two inches tall afterward. Poor charity case Lupa can’t take care of herself or her daughter, she needs Daddy to help, just like he helped buy the trailer...and the car...and groceries more than once. She knew her aunts all thought that; when she went over to the house, she could feel them silently judging her, especially Lola. She thought she was so much better than everyone else, but without Dad she was just a washed-up beauty queen running a failing small town hair salon.

She absently slipped another cigarette out of her pack and lit it for something to do, her hands trembling as she sparked the lighter. She hoped Lemy wouldn’t be in before she went to work; if she could avoid him while he was here, she would. She was dropping Luya off on the way in, though, and there was a good chance she’d have to see him, or even talk to him.

A shudder raced down her spine.

Deep in the pit of her stomach, though, something stirred like the faint kiss of butterfly wings. Longng, perhaps? There was a point where she loved Lemy, and thought that maybe, despite his issues, they could be together, a point when she honestly wanted them to be together.

Then she woke up one morning and smelled the coffee - actually, she didn’t, because the bastard stole her coffee pot and hocked it for drug money...along with her TV, her stero, and the old X-Station Dad gave Luya. He broke in through a window while she and Luya slept, carried the shit out the front door, and loaded it into someone’s car. Lemy told her later that his buddy Gordon was driving, and he paid him with a twenty he slipped from her purse.

Then he laughed.

And she slapped the shit out of him.

He wasn’t that bad in the beginning, he always drank too much but she accepted it because he was a good man otherwise. Or so she thought. As time wore on, he got worse...or maybe the blinders started to slip off. Who knows? She didn’t. When they got together, she was in a bad way and she needed him, so who’s to say she didn’t delude herself? A drowning women doesn’t take the time to interrogate the person throwing her a life ring; she grabs it with both hands and holds on. Once upon a time, he tossed her a life ring, and she didn’t look too closely at it.

Letting him into her heart was the biggest mistake she ever made.

She finished her cigarette, stubbed it out, and got up. At the TV, she hit the power button, then went into her room through the kitchen, turning slightly sideways to pass between the table and the edge of the counter. The sticky linoleum floor popped under her bare feet and her big toe caught one bent corner of the rusted floor vent; pain exploded in the center of her skull and she hissed over clenched teeth. “Shit.” She drew her foot back and looked at it; the skin wasn’t broken, so at least she didn’t have to worry about tetanus. Check that off the list.

In her room, she went to one of the bulging black trash bags piled in the space between the bed and the closet and opened it; the clothes inside were wrinkled but clean courtesy of the laundromat. She had a washer and dryer, but neither worked: The washer didn’t wash and the dryer didn’t dry. Typical.

She sat the bag on the bed and rummaged through it, pushing aside pants, shirts, underwear, and socks in search of a uniform top or bottom, whichever came first. When she did laundry, Luya insisted that their clothes not mix - she had to have her own cycle because she didn’t want her stuff contaminated by mom germs or something. She also wouldn’t eat anything Lupa cooked; though lazy as shit, she made her own dinner every night - Hot Pockets, Bagel Bites, and the occasional box of Kraft macaroni and cheese if she was feeling energetic.

You know, it was really easy sometimes to think her daughter hated her guts.

Pulling out a light blue scrub top, she sighed.

Next, she shifted through until she found matching pants, then pulled the sweater over her head, tossed it aside, and got dressed, neglecting underwear because thinking of Luya depressed her and she just didn’t give a shit. She pulled out a ball of socks and selected two - one dark green and the other dark purple. She held them up, looked from one to the other, and wondered what it was like to have a life where having matching socks was a real concern. She had so much other shit weighing her down that the thought of caring whether her fucking socks were the same color or not seemed a strange and mystifying custom practiced in an odd place far, far away. She thought of her aunt Lola - she was exactly the type of woman who’d care; if her socks didn’t match it’d be the end of the world and she’d throw a temper tantrum like a spoiled, overgrown child. Pfft. Must be nice when your biggest problem is something so fucking trivial.

She yanked them on, slipped into her Crocs, and grabbed her purse from the nightstand, making sure to count her money. Fifty-two dollars to last until her next check...in nearly a week. She sighed again; she needed gas for the car, groceries, and cigarettes.

Her chest clutched in mild panic. God, if she didn’t have cigarettes, she’d go crazy.

That was something she’d have to worry about later. Right now she just wanted to get Luya to Mom and Dad’s. One step at a time in this life; anything more and you’d trip.

Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she went into the living room then down the hall to Luya’s door; it was flimsy, splintered, and didn’t hang right in the frame; it wouldn’t close all the way and if you forced it, it got stuck. It was like that when they moved in, but Luya slamming it all the time in her little bitch fits only made it worse. She started to knock, but said fuck it; she paid the bills here, not her daughter. She opened it and poked her head in: Luya lay stretched out on the bed with one knee propped up and her arm bent behind her head, her face glowering at the water splotched ceiling. Skyler sat next to her, swiping the screen of her phone.

The smell of mold, mildew, and other, less nameable things washed over Lupa, and her face puckered in disgust. Clothes, empty CD jewel cases, and bits of trash littered the matted carpet. Torn and yellowed posters of stupid emo bands plastered the wood paneled walls, and a stack of dirty plates and empty glasses crowded the nightstand. A rush of indignation colored Lupa’s face and she started to snap, but stopped herself. If Luya wanted to live in a fucking pigsty, let her; they already had roaches, what more could her filth really add?

Skyler looked up but Luya did not. She didn’t like looking at Lupa as much as Lupa didn’t like looking at her. “We gotta go,” Lupa said.

Before Luya could protest - or, more likely, completely ignore her - she withdrew.

Fifteen minutes later, Lupa sat in the driveway behind the wheel of her battered 2025 Intrepid, watching the front door and smoking, the driver window cracked just enough for her to tip her ash. The radio was on, music whispering from the speakers like the midnight voices of tortured phantoms. She smiled wryly at how melodramatic that sounded, then frowned. “Fucking asshole,” she spat and laid her hand on the horn. If Luya didn't hurry up, she was going to go back in there and drag her out by her skunk hair. The DON at Oak Springs (director of nurses) was a big, fat, hateful woman named Debbie, and if Lupa was so much as two minutes late, she’d come waddling down the hall and corner her at the time clock. You’re late. Again. Don’t you know what time you’re supposed to be here?

Lupa hated that bitch.

With a passion.

She took a drag and the front door opened, Skyler coming out first, followed by Luya. They nodded to one another, and Skyler hurried down the stairs then across the yard, disappearing between two trailers with a glance over her shoulder. Lupa didn’t like that little bitch; she was another disrespectful little shit.

Hands in her pockets and gaze downcast, Luya walked over to the car at the speed of angst, her feet not never lifting from the ground. By the time she slid in, hot anger throbbed in Lupa’s chest like fire and it took everything she had not to say something. She threw the car into reverse and backed out into the street, her cigarette jutting from her thin lips and the smoke stinging her eyes. She spun the wheel, turned left, and started down the dirt lane; decaying trailers, all just as bad or worse than theirs, lined the way like ancient tombstones in a forgotten cemetery.

They were on Route 15 into town when Luya finally spoke, her voice a low, monotonous grumble. “I don’t know why I have to do this.”

Lupa flicked her cigarette out the window. “Because your father wants to see you.”

“I dont wanna see him,” she sneered.

Lupa took a deep, steadying breath. It was hard for Luya to not have a father in her life, and Lupa felt bad for her. She and her own father weren’t particularly close, but he was there during her childhood, and it wasn’t until Lemy left that she realized just how important that was to a child’s development. Third wave feminists tout single motherhood almost as a preferable alternative to the traditional nuclear family. Yes, a woman can raise a child on her own, but the ability of her to do so does not make the arrangement desirable. A child needs both parents. Luya didn’t have that, and even if she wouldn’t say, it bothered her.

But of course she couldn’t just be happy that her father was in town, no, she had to be sullen and resentful because that’s how she hid her pain. She thought she was slick with that shit, but she wasn’t - Lupa herself once did the same thing. “I know,” she said, “but he’s still your father and -”

“No he’s not,” Luya said, staring out the window. Her shimmering reflection painted the glass. “He stopped being my father the day he left us.”

Lupa sighed. She wasn’t wrong, and she wasn’t wrong to be upset with him, though Lupa wished she wouldn’t be. Just suck it up, will you? “Everyone makes mistakes,” she said lamely, “life is hard, and fucking it up is real easy.”

“Umhm.”

Maybe it was Lupa’s imagination, but she thought she detected an accusatory hint, like Luya was saying Yeah, Mom, I know, I watch you do it all the time. Lupa’s grip tightened on the wheel, her knuckles turning white and her lips pursing. Every time she tried, this is what Luya did. Every fucking time.

Which is why she rarely tried anymore.

When they reached Mom and Dad’s house, she pulled to the curb, drew another cigarette from her pack, and lit it. “Try to be a little forgiving with him, okay?” she said around the filter. “You don’t have to be daddy’s little girl or anything, but don’t be a fucking dick either.”

“Yeah,” Luya mumbled and got out.

“Have a -”

She slammed the door and started across the yard, her hands slipping into her pockets and her head hanging. Lupa narrowed her eyes and watched her go, the urge of slap her across the back of the head doing battle with the urge to pull her into a tight, fierce hug.

Instead of doing either, she put the car in DRIVE and pulled away from the curb. Maybe later, she thought.

Maybe.

Meagan sat aside the Crayon and scrunched her lips to the side as she considered the picture before her. It didn’t look much like a pirate ship, but it would have to do. Her art skills weren’t the best, however she did like drawing, so naturally she would get better over time. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. She glanced at her little brother; he was bent over his own piece of art, the tip of his tongue plastered to his upper lip in concentration and a purple Crayon clutched in a white-knuckled death grip. A lank spill of messy brown hair fell across his forehead, and his little feet kicked back and forth, his heels hitting the wood piece connecting the front legs of his chair. Was there a technical name for those things? There must be, everything has a name, but Meagan didn’t know what it was. Well, she’d have to change that; she liked learning new things, and not knowing what something is called irritated her because you can’t articulate yourself very well if you don’t even know what you’re talking about.

That would have to wait, though; she wanted to see what her little brother was drawing. It must be something important if it kept him from fidgeting and getting up after two minutes. She leaned over and craned her neck to see his paper, her mouth dropping open in a perfect O of surprise when she saw a pirate ship that made hers look like puke. It wasn’t the most perfect pirate ship ever, but it was far and away better than her pirate ship. Envy filled her and she pursed her lips in frustration. Didn’t auntie Lizy say she could hit him? She didn’t want to before but she sure did now.

Sensing her, he covered his paper with his arms and shot her a dirty look, his big brown eyes narrowing to dangerous slits. “No,” he said simply.

“I wasn’t looking,” Meagan lied and went back to staring at her own drawing. It looked even worse now, and she blew a puff of air.

“Yes, you were,” he accused, “you’re not a’possed to look at other people’s stuff.”

“I didn’t see anything,” Meagan said with a shrug, then her jealousy got the better of her. “Except some chicken scratch.”

Lucas glared at her. “It’s not chicken scratch.” He was silent for a moment. “What’s chicken scratch?”

She started to reply, but realized that she didn’t know. Sure, she knew that it meant bad, sloppy, you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourself but where did that saying come from? Chickens had claws so they had to scratch the ground when they walked, which would probably leave marks behind. Hm. That had to be it. She didn’t really feel like explaining it, though; she and her poorly drawn pirate ship had a pity party to get to. “It means it’s a very nice drawing.”

Lucas’s face brightened. “Thanks!” He whipped his head around and started working on it with renewed vigor, as if heartened by her encouragement, which made her feel kind of bad for calling it chicken scratch. “I’m almost done, I just gotta add the thingie and the other thing.”

The thingie and the other thing, huh? He didn’t even know what the parts of a ship were called, but he could draw them better than she could. It wasn’t fair, She picked up her glass and took a long drink; the milk was getting warm and yucky, but the mushy chunks of cookies leftover from snack were still good. She sat it down and looked at the clock on the wall: It was just after two. Fifteen minutes ago, auntie Leni left to go pick up Dad in Detroit, and soon he was going to be here. A ripple of anxiety went through Meagan’s stomach, and she turned back to her picture.

Being the kind of girl who liked having the ability to articulate herself, she took a moment to shift through her emotions like a woman untangling the biggest, nastiest knot ever. She was scared that things would go back to the way they were, but the more she thought about it, the more she hoped they could kind of go back, only without all the yelling and throwing stuff. She missed her dad a lot and sometimes it made her sad that he wasn’t around to do stuff with, like reading her bedtime stories. She was a little old for that, but she wouldn’t complain one bit if he did. And imagine the possibilities of having a third guy around...he, her, and Lucas could have the most epic cardboard-tube-deathmatches ever recorded. And maybe, when everyone else was asleep, she could crawl into his lap like she used to when she was little, and they could watch TV together; she kind of really missed the safe, warm feeling of being in his arms. She was smart enough to know that dads are just normal guys, but when he held her, she felt like literally nothing in the world could hurt her, not even a nuclear bomb like the one we dropped on Japan.

Except his beer breath. That didn’t hurt, though, it just made her nose crinkle.

In addition to all that, she was just nervous. It had been so long since she saw him; it felt like it was going to be weird. Should she run up and hug him, or play it cool? She supposed it would depend on which emotion was dominant when she saw him.

Was she overthinking this? She did that sometimes. It was like a curse, because once she started thinking too much, she got tangled like a fly in a web until she was hanging upside down and screaming for help.

She should think about something else.

“Done!” Lucas cried and slapped the Crayon down.

Like Picasso over there. He was a really good artist but he didn’t like sitting still long enough to really do anything; he’d rather run through the house, jump on stuff, jump off stuff, climb stuff, fall from stuff, trip over stuff, and knock stuff over. That was a big one; if it could possibly be knocked over, he’d knocked it over at least once. Including people. I only draw things I love, he told her one time, which, she guessed, was incentive enough.

“Can I see it?” she asked.

“No!” he cried. “I forgot something!” He picked the Crayon up and started to draw again.

Meagan looked at the clock. Two minutes had gone by. Two minutes closer to Dad time. Two minutes closer to seeing if maybe he could live with them again.

Now she was nervous again; it burst against the inside of her chest like vomit, and she realized she needed to talk about it. “Did, uh, your mom tell you about Dad?” she asked.

“Umhm,” Lucas said with a nod, “he’s coming here.”

He didn’t sound like he cared one way or the other, which confused Meagan. “Aren’t you nervous? You’ve basically never met him.” Lucas was barely four when Dad moved to the city. Did he even remember Dad? She didn’t remember anything from when she was four. Some stuff, she guessed, but it was really hazy and disjointed.

The little boy shook his head. “No.”

“Really?” she asked. He was a better artist than her and he wasn’t consumed with nerves the way she was. Humph.

He nodded. “Yep.” He slapped the Crayon down again and held out his picture.

Meagan looked at it then at him.

He shook it. “Here,” he insisted and beamed brightly.

Really? Did he have to rub her face in how much better he was?

She took the paper and looked at it. A beautifully rendered pirate ship, sails puffed with wind and the masthead done in exquisite detail. Two stick figures stood on the poop deck, one small with messy brown hair and the other slightly less small with big glasses and a ponytail; she wore a pirate hat slouched slightly to one side and held a cutlass in her hand. An arrow pointed her her with the childish legend: BEST KAPTEN EVER.

“That’s you,” he said proudly and pointed.

Meagan’s heart swelled and she smiled. He might be hyper and really annoying sometimes, but then he did really sweet things like this that made up for it. He was like a Sour Patch kid. “Thank you,” she said earnestly. “I love it.”

“I’m your first mate and we just got back from Hungry Pirate Island,” he said with an air of wonder.

Meagan laughed at his serious expression. “What’s Hungry Pirate Island?”

“It’s a restaurant,” he said, “on an island. You had a cheeseburger and I had chicken nuggets.”

Lucas loved chicken nuggets, they were his favorite meal ever. She liked cheeseburgers, plain, because who wants to bite into a yucky, drippy tomato? Or, oh God, an onion? Those things were the worst, they made her eyes water and her throat swell up like a balloon. She wasn’t allergic to them or anything, they were just really gross. And spicy. Why did people even like them? She wanted her food to taste like food, not dirty armpits.

“Sounds like a good lunch,” she said.

“Yep. It was really good.” He turned to face the table, grabbed another piece of paper, and picked up his Crayon again.

Then set it back down and looked at her, his forehead crinkling in confusion. “Meagan?”

For some reason he reminded her of a lost little puppy dog, and she felt bad for him. “What?” she asked.

He didn’t immediately reply, instead he scrunched his lips from side to side in thought. “What’s my dad like?”

Ah, so he didn’t remember Dad, or at least not very well. “He’s…” she started, then flicked her eyes to the ceiling as she considered. What was Dad like? Other than big and strong and like a safe harbor in a storm. She tried to recall his personality, but struggled. He was fun and loved playing; he never got mad at her or yelled like Mom used to do; he told really funny jokes; sometimes he fell asleep on the floor, in the bathroom, and once on the front lawn (she learned about narcolepsy from a book and wondered if he had it); and one time, she thought she remembered him peeing on himself, which was kind of embarrassing, but accidents happen. She, uh, peed on herself a couple months ago. It wasn’t her fault, though; she drink a lot of juice at school then it all hit her on the walk home. “He’s…” she started, but a low, rumbling voice cut her off.

“A fucking prick.”

Meagan looked over her shoulder and tensed. Luya stood in the threshold to the dining room, her hands at her sides and her eyes slitted like a snake. Luya was her sister but she lived with her mom on the other side of town, so they weren’t really close; even if they did live near one another, Luya wasn’t very warm. Meagan didn’t think she’d ever hugged her older sister, and she imagined that if she did, it would be like hugging a cactus.

That’s been in the freezer for a hundred years.

After being dipped in corrosive acid.

Normally if someone cussed in front of Lucas, she’d admonish them because come on, he’s a kid, he doesn’t need to hear that (and maybe she didn’t like hearing it either...because it reminded her of her Mom and Dad being mad at each other), but she didn’t have the courage to do that to Luya. Honestly, Luya kind of scared her. She was bigger, older, and Meagan always got the impression she was one sharp poke away from punching someone.

Still, she couldn’t let her talk about Dad like that and get away with it. “He is not,” she said, her voice a mix of indignation and trepidation.

“Yes he is,” Luya said and crossed to the fridge. “He left us because he doesn’t love us.”

Lucas blinked as if struck, and Meagan gasped, then glared. “That is not true.”

“Totally true,” Luya declared. She opened the door, bent, and rummaged around, sifting the contents heedlessly back and forth, knocking over bottles and cans and spilling a container of baking soda with a sneer of contempt, as though it were to blame, not her. “You’re just delusional.”

“No, I’m not not,” Meagan said. Anger squeezed her chest like a fiery hand; Luya was always downtalking Dad...if she was talking him at all. Maybe she was big and tough and didn’t want a father, but Meagan wasn’t. She was kind of a dweeb or something, and dweebs like hanging out with their dads, she guessed. “He just...” she didn’t know what he was, but it was not a P-word.

Luya pulled out a Go-Gurt and slammed the door closed with her hip. “He’s just a loser,” she said, “like you.”

Meagan flinched, and Lucas’s face darkened. He whipped around and gave Luya the dirtiest look he could muster, which, if you asked Meagan, was too cute to be really dirty. “She is not - hey, that’s mine! I hid it for me!”

One step ahead and anticipating his response, Meagan nodded sharply. “Yeah, I am not - wait, you hid a Go-Gurt?”

Go-Gurts were one of the sweetest treats life had to offer, and suddenly dumb Luya and her dumb attitude didn’t matter as much anymore. Hiding a Go-Gurt like a thieving bildred was a high crime punishable by keelhauling in her book.

Stricken, Lucas shrugged. “I hid one for you too...but then I ate it.”

Luya rolled her eyes and shook her head like they were the two biggest dorks ever, then she went into the living room.

“Why did you hide them?” Meagan asked. “We’re the only ones who eat them.”

“Nuh-uh,” he said defensively, “I caught your mom eating one when I came down for a midnight snack one time.”

Oh. For some reason, that did not surprise her. Mom seemed like the type who’d sneak Go-Gurts from the fridge when no one was looking, then pretend that they were icky and for kids the rest of the time.

She sighed. “Alright. I guess you have a point. Not that it matters since...Luya...got it.” She pronounced her sister’s name with sour distaste, and threw a worried glance over her shoulder, certain that the older girl would be standing there, summoned like Bloody Mary when you say her name in the mirror. She was not.

“Yeah,” Lucas said glumly, “I woulda gave it to you, though.”

Even though she was the one who got robbed of a delicious cotton-candy flavored Go-Gurt, he looked so sad that she wound up consoling him. “It’s okay,” she said, “I’ll ask Grandma to get some more.”

Mom liked saying no, Meagan had learned, but Grandma didn’t even have that word in her vocabulary (she must have missed school that day). When ever she asked for something, Grandma pinched her cheek really hard and said anything for my little princess. When she was younger, she used to say I’m not a princess, I’m a pirate (or a spacegirl, or a policegirl, whatever she felt like that day), and Grandma would laugh. Of course you are. She didn’t like getting half her face ripped off, but it was a small price to pay for yummy Go-Gurts.

Lucas perked up. “Can we get the strawberry kind this time?”

Meagan took his chubby cheek between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed...hard. “Anything for my first mate.”

He yelped, shot out his arm, and rammed his palm into her shoulder; she sucked a sharp intake of breath through her teeth and her glasses fell from her face, landing on the table.

Okay, she was really going to smack him in the back of the head this time.
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