Free Safe from Harm (9781101619629) by Stephanie Jaye Evans

didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—she’s very sensitive, isn’t she, Alex?’ And I said she hadn’t hurt my feelings and Alex said no, I wasn’t very sensitive, so of course then Phoebe’s saying, ‘Is she
in
sensitive, Alex? Is that why she’s able to leave you all summer?’”
    I was getting mad, the way my child had been manipulated.
    â€œSo first she stops at Kroger’s to get the ingredients to her ‘Grandpop DeWitt’s Power Punch.’ It’s like her favorite beverage and this is what it is, Dad, you’re not going to believe this. It’s lime sherbet, three packets of grape Kool-Aid, and ginger ale. You put everything in a blender. We get to her house and she makes this famous ‘power punch’—it’s supposed to have vodka, too, but no we didn’t, you should see your face, Dad—and it is disgusting and I don’t see how vodka would make it any better—not that I’d know, Dad, so relax.”
    I had swung my legs off the bed. “Are you telling me Phoebe drinks?” I know teenagers drink. But the girl had my daughter in the car.
    â€œI’m telling you that according to Phoebe, when Grandpop DeWitt makes his power punch, he puts vodka in it. That’s what Phoebe says. So maybe that’s true and maybe it’s a lie, how am I going to know?
    â€œThen Phoebe’s stepmom comes into the kitchen and sees the glasses of power punch, and she sees the sherbet container and the empty Kool-Aid packets on the cabinet, and she slaps her chest and staggers back like she’s having a heart attack and she says, ‘You have broken a hard-and-fast.’ You would have thought she’d found us cooking meth in her kitchen. She goes running out screaming for Phoebe’s dad and I grabbed a paper towel and I swept the whole mess into the garbage can. Phoebe said to leave it—her stepmom was always on about something, but Alex helped me and we had the countertops scrubbed and the blender rinsed and draining before her stepmom got back dragging her dad to see what we’d done, not that we’d done anything. Alex and I couldn’t even drink the stuff, ours went in the sink, but Phoebe sucked it down like it was a Vanilla Frappuccino after a day in the desert. My mouth was practically black from the one swallow I took.” Jo gave a shiver of distaste. I knew the shiver was for the drink but I got up and draped her quilt over her shoulders. She was still damp with sweat and the air conditioner was on.
    â€œHer dad gets her stepmom calmed down, he says, ‘We’ve got an audience here, Liz,’ meaning me and Alex, because, yeah, embarrassing. Turns out Liz is way diabetic so she doesn’t keep sweets in the house. That’s what the Kool-Aid and sherbet fit was over, which, okay, I get that but then she also adds that she doesn’t want obese children. She said that right out. I don’t want obese children either, but I don’t go around saying, ‘I
don’t
want
obese children
!’”
    That last was done in a dead-on mimicry of Lizabeth, complete with hands on hips and head cocked.
    â€œAnd then. Then Phoebe takes us up to her room, and gives Alex the whole ‘Story of Phoebe’s Tragic Life,’ which I’ve heard before, twice, and she was all serious and crying and we were holding her hands because even though I
hate
Phoebe Pickersley, I wish she were
dead
—”
    I was off of that bed in a flash, “Jo!”
    â€œYou know what, Dad? Mrs. Thompson says I have a right to my feelings.”
    â€œNot those feelings, you don’t. Not ever. Don’t you ever let me hear that kind of hatefulness coming from one of my girls. You’re working for the wrong side when you talk that way. I mean it.” Jo had shocked me. There are lines we can’t cross when we choose our road—Jo had crossed one.
    Jo hid her face behind