Don't Fail Me Now Read Online Free Page B

boonies by any means.
    â€œOf course,” Janet says, a little impatiently. “I mean, do you see friends, have people over?”
    â€œYes,” I say. But the truth is I haven’t brought a friend home in years, not since I was a kid. There was this one girl in particular I remember, named Excelyn, who was Mexican and had black braids down to her hips. She would come over after school, and we’d watch cartoons or play with Cass while she bounced in this little chair that hung in the kitchen doorway, and Mom would cut grilled cheese into long strips that she called monkey fingers. There was also a girl named Rosemarie who didn’t go to my school but was the daughter of one of mygrandpa’s parishioners who tried to help Mom for a while after her parents passed. For some reason I don’t remember any identifying details about Rosemarie except that in the bathroom at her house, there was a clear, round liquid soap dispenser that matched the seasons. In December it would have a little Santa hat floating in it; in April, a nest of colored eggs; in July, an American flag. At the time, it seemed like an unfathomable luxury item, and later, when things got bad, I sometimes thought of that soap dispenser, convinced that if we were the kind of family who had one, it would have protected us somehow. Made everything perfect.
    â€œSo you have a social life outside the home?” Janet presses.
    â€œYeah,” I lie, trying to sound casual, like I don’t eat the same fast-food bean burrito for dinner every night in the cramped booth right by the men’s room exit, which is the least popular booth due to the pervasive urinal-cake stench, and therefore the only one my manager will let my latchkey siblings park themselves for hours on end.
    Janet scribbles in her notebook and then looks up at me, fixing me once again with Meaningful Eye Contact. We’re so close I can see the contact lenses glistening on her slate-colored irises.
    â€œHave any of you suffered physical abuse at the hands of your mother or another adult in the home?” She asks this in the same tone of voice that she used when she asked how old we were.
    â€œNo,” I say, forcing myself to keep calm for Denny’s benefit. I glance across the table at Cass and see in her face that she’s thinking the exact same thing I am:
We could take her.
    Janet furrows her brow sympathetically. “I know it’s a sensitive topic, but this is a standard question in cases wheresubstance abuse is also present.” She thinks I’m lying, when for once I’m not. I bite down hard on my tongue.
    Denny holds up the drawing he’s been working on, oblivious to the tension in the room. “Look!” he cries. “It’s a
T. rex
eating a
Brachiosaurus
!” Denny has worn out the red ink cartridge on Janet’s bribe pen making spurts of blood shooting out of every possible place on the dinosaur’s body, and she smiles at him before jotting something down in her notes. Great.
    â€œNo,” I say.
    Janet nods. “Not even slapping, spanking, that sort of thing?”
    I look over at Cass again. Of course Mom handled us rough sometimes when we were mouthing off or misbehaving, but we got it no worse than anyone else we knew. And if anything, the drugs made her seem kind of helpless. She was always much more likely to float through the house like a ghost or lock herself in her bedroom than take anything out on us. For better or worse, she took it all out on herself.
    I briefly consider telling the truth but then decide that I’m not going to give this bitch the satisfaction. “Nope,” I say.
    â€œBut you can confirm that substance abuse is present in the home?” Janet looks at me expectantly, pen poised to write down what she thinks she already knows. And I get that she’s just doing her job, and that I probably should be grateful that she’s using words Denny can’t