Prologue
“It’s okay, Em. She hasLoo Pus,” my little brother reminded me as I held the ice pack to his cheek. Shoving my hand away to hold it himself, he muttered “I’m not a baby.”
As if I had forgotten either fact on his first day of junior high.
My twelve-year-old brother is not a baby and my mom has Lupus. I still flinch at the sound of the hideous word that had changed our lives irrevocably. Well, the second most hideous word, anyway.
Deborahwould be the first.
Three and a half months ago, shortly after my mother’s diagnosis, my dad decided his assistant Deborah was worth moving across the country to California for. They’d been having an affair and she’d had enough of being his dirty little secret, moving to LA to pursue her acting career. Now they were getting married and he was “managing” her or whatever, leaving us here.
The three of us trying to stay afloat in the midst of Hell.
My mom, frequently ill and angry, lashing out at us unpredictably as her condition progressed, had just slapped my brother for telling our dad on the phone that she hadn’t been out of bed all week. As if, at twelve years old, he was somehow supposed to know the intricate rules of the games adults played.
“It’s not okay, Ethan,” I said, straightening. “I’m well aware of what she has.” I kissed the top of his head and carried my mom’s breakfast past him into her room. “Lupus is going to be the least of her problems,” I bit out under my breath.
“I heard that,” she sneered when I handed her the plate of scrambled eggs.
“Hear this,” I growled right back, leaning down into her personal space. “If you ever, and I mean ever, lay a hand on him again, I will pack us both up, and we will move to California with Dad. That will be the last of us you ever see.”
She huffed out a breath of disbelief and glared at me. I inhaled the scent of her unwashed hair and sweat.
“If you think I’m bluffing, or you think I’m going to let you take your anger out on him ever again, try me.”
Suddenly her eyes filled and her mood shifted instantly.
“I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.” She looked at the bed and the plate and waved her hands. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t supposed to be my life.”
“I could say the same thing, Mom.”
She placed her head in her hands. I sighed. A tinge of sympathy weighed on my chest, but the anger that flashed hot when I saw the bright red handprint on my brother’s delicate cheek still remained.
“It is, though,” I said, slightly softer than before. “And we have to figure out a way to deal with it. Before it destroys us all.”
She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “How’d you get so smart?”
“Good genes, I guess.” The truth was, after Dad left, I went from being an average high school student to an in-home nurse and single mother overnight. It had been an extremely difficult summer, but now, I was used to it. I just wasn’t used to throwing school in the mix.
Before her Lupus diagnosis, my mother was an extremely successful divorce attorney. She worked such long hours that I’d always taken a great deal of responsibility for Ethan. But when Dad was here, at least I had help.
Her shoulders slumped forward. “Tomorrow will be better.”
She said it with the sad resignation of someone who’d said it a hundred times only to see it proven false each and every time.
“I’ll check in on my lunch period.” I handed her a glass of water and a handful of medication. “I’ll help you take a bath tonight when I get home, if you like.”
She mumbled what sounded like “okay,” and began to pick at the eggs with her fork. “They need more salt,” she complained.
“Dr. Lewis said to avoid salt, Mom. I put lemon pepper in them.”
She made a sour face then resumed pushing them around on her plate and ignoring me.
Once I was out of her room, I closed her door and leaned against it.
My cell phone chimed and I pulled it out of my back pocket.
Dad, the screen said.
