Luke looked past him, through the open trailer door, toward the kitchen where his mother used to stand making grilled cheese on Sundays, humming off-key to old radio songs. Ellen Harlan had been gone thirteen months, dead from a cancer that moved faster than anyone believed it could. She had been the kind of woman who apologized when she bumped into furniture. After she died, Dean started drinking earlier in the day, yelling louder at night, and treating the boy in front of him like an unpaid debt.
“I’ll go in the morning,” Luke said. “I’ll leave. Just let me stay tonight.”
Dean laughed.
“You think this is a negotiation? You ate my food, used my electricity, wore clothes I paid for.”
“My mom paid for most of this trailer,” Luke said before he could stop himself.
