Free The Summer Kitchen by Lisa Wingate

up around the edges like a dog’s when it’s growling. “Knock it off, Cass. Yes, you are.”
    “I’m not watching her kid!”
    He sighed, like he was tired. “She’s gonna pay you, all right?”
    “Yeah, I bet.”
    “And she’s gonna help pay rent, too.”
    “With what?” In the bathroom, Kiki flushed the toilet, then turned on the water. “She hasn’t got any money.”
    The kid decided she needed to use the bathroom, too, I guess, because she wiggled away from me and went and beat on the door until Kiki let her in.
    “Kiki gets paid every night,” Rusty said. Rusty could be so dumb. He’d believe anything anybody told him, especially if she was hot.
    “Yeah, sure.” I waved a hand toward the bathroom door. “Then why didn’t she have any money last night?”
    “Her old man beat her up. She couldn’t work a couple days.” Rusty’s face turned hard and determined. It went through my mind that if Kiki’s boyfriend beat her up, he might do the same thing to my brother. If Rusty got hurt and lost his job, we were dead in the water. “Where does she work?”
    “Down at Glitters,” Rusty answered, looking at his watch again.
    “She’s a stripper ?” The words came out so loud the lady next door probably heard them.
    “Shut up.” Rusty leaned over me and pointed a finger in my face. “You just shut up your smart mouth, Cass. That’s enough. Kiki needs a place to stay, and we need the extra money. It’s time you did something to help out, instead of sitting on your butt every day. I’m tired of doing it all!”
    I just stood there with my mouth open. Who did he think washed the dishes, and cooked supper, and made his sandwiches for lunch, and cleaned his nasty work clothes off the bedroom floor, and lugged the laundry across the street?
    Kiki came out with her kid on her hip. She set the kid on the sofa and gave it a kiss on the head, then she and Rusty started for the door.
    “I need some money.” My voice was a little thin line choked in my throat, so I didn’t really feel it. “The kid’s hungry.”
    Kiki blinked at the kitchen, like maybe she was seeing more than one of everything. The shiner had turned an ugly shade of brown and yellow and was almost swelled shut.
    Rusty dug in his pocket and came out with a dollar bill and a wad of change. “I’ll go cash my check after work,” he said, and then the door closed behind them.
    I stood there for a long time, not sure what to feel. Finally I went over to the kitchen and counted the money. Two dollars and eighty-nine cents. That’d buy a couple more packs of doughnuts.
    The kid came and wrapped her arms around my leg, which she didn’t need to do. I wasn’t stupid. I knew you couldn’t, like, lock a little kid in an apartment and just leave her there alone.
    She didn’t even have shoes on.
    I’d have to carry her across the street in her shirt and underpants. That’d be fun.

Chapter 5
    SandraKaye
    The street lay in the long shadow of afternoon by the time I’d finished putting a coat of paint on the cabinets. Outside, children were returning from a day at school. I watched as they disappeared behind windows and doors shielded with the heavy iron burglar bars that had become a fixture as the neighborhood declined. It occurred to me that after months without maintenance, the bars on Poppy’s house might not be in good working order. I made a mental note to check them. I’d buy some new padlocks, too, and hang the proper keys inside each window. If a family came to live here, they might not think about the burglar bars. They might not be able to afford locks that were easy to open. A few new smoke detectors would be a good idea, too. . . .
    On the back of a crumpled receipt, I started a list of items to pick up at the store. Jake would have been proud. At kids’ summer camp and the rec center where he’d volunteered, he’d taught a fire safety course. Jake loved kids.
    “Spring and fall, change them all,” I muttered, and in