Free Unkiss Me by Suzy Vitello

father, a married man from Boston, is the only one of the dads who sends her any money.
    This kitchen is much smaller than the last kitchen. The only counter space is two warped swaths of linoleum on either side of the stained enamel sink. No place for Irene’s segmented box of Lithium. No place for the economy-sized containers of oatmeal and Cheerios. Who designed this place, Irene thinks, and why does the refrigerator sound like a nest of bees?
    Irene brings the bowls out, two at a time. Morris, the steadiest and most careful of the offspring, pours the pitcher of reconstituted milk into colorful Tupperware cups. Yolanda was okay with ovo-lacto-vegetarianism just last week, but now, no deal. She places a hand over the rim of her orange cup. Irene puts an empty bowl in front of her daughter. This is what you can get used to, she says to Yolanda. And there’s lots more where that came from. Yolanda sits at the far end of the pale yellow Formica and aluminum table. There is a box of Zestas in the center of the table. The kids all grab for a plastic tube of them, but Irene is prepared for this and she slaps at their hands. She tells them they must open one tube at a time. She’ll be damned if she’s going to fill the cabinets of another apartment with boxes and boxes of stale crackers.
    Yolanda pulls the Zesta box to her in order to read the ingredients. What do you think you’re doing? Asks Irene. Only people who eat chili get crackers. Yolanda pushes the box back to the center of the table, knocking over her empty cup. She flings her chair back with her butt and stomps off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Irene jumps up from the table and strides off to the bathroom, pounding on the cheap, hollow door with the fleshy part of her fist. Don’t think you’re going to stay in here all evening young lady. I’ll take the door off its hinges, I mean it!
    Morris is snickering. He never liked Yolanda anyway. Want me to get the screwdriver, Mom? He says. He knows where it is, which box, and where the box is. I’ll deal with it, Morris, Irene tells him. If she were forced to admit it, she has about 600 times more respect for Yolanda than she has for her tub-of-lard son. If there’s one thing she hates more than a willful child, it’s a suck-up, tattletale.
    Bob starts to cry. The tears leaking out of his eyes make a trail through the grime on his cheeks.
    Hester hands Bob a piece of paper towel, and tells him it’s all right, Bobby. Eat your supper, Bobby. But Hester herself isn’t eating her chili. She’s chewing her cuticles.
    The fitz-fitz sound of a shower that hasn’t been turned on in a while comes from inside the bathroom. God damn it, says Irene, giving one last pound on the door.
    Wellfleet has separated all the components of his chili, giving a sort of pie chart look to his meal. He crumbles two saltines over the top, rearranging the crumbs until equal proportions exist over each quadrant. Wellfleet’s dad was a sperm donation. Irene, who wanted at least one of her offspring to provide for her in old age, chose to combine her DNA with that of a nuclear physicist. Wellfleet is the only one of her children in the TAG program. He volunteers at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry once a week, in the physical science room. Irene herself is no dummy. She’s figured out how to keep five kids alive. Feed them. Negotiate the red tape of the Oregon Health Plan so Hester can get her anti-seizure medicine, Morris, his asthma inhaler, and her own meds, the bi-polar stuff, even her tubal—though, in hindsight, pregnancy was much better than Lithium as a mood stabilizer.
    Irene sits back down and spoons chili into her mouth without looking up. Instead of a cup of powdered milk, Irene has a tumbler of Gewürztraminer. Irene works at a discount gourmet store and frequently brings home bottles of wine. Sometimes, she brings the kids European cookies dipped in Swiss chocolate and hazelnuts. On payday, she