Free Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (9781101559833) by Morgan Callan Rogers

food.
    Carlie sat down at the kitchen table. Ben, still naked, bounced around the floor, grinned and twirled around, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Robin held on to my hand. “Where’s Robert?” Carlie asked.
    â€œOh, he’s working,” Carlie’s mother said. She wore a checked green housedress and old sneakers that scuffed as she walked. She emptied coffee grounds into a garbage pail that was almost full, then rinsed out the basket and put fresh coffee into it.
    â€œI’m sorry I haven’t been down,” Carlie said. “It’s a ways away.”
    â€œIt’s good to see you,” Carlie’s mother said, quickly. She looked at me and said again, “Aren’t you pretty, dear?” She smiled and I saw Carlie in her. “How old are you?” she asked me.
    â€œSix,” I said.
    â€œShe has your hair,” Carlie’s mother said. “That curl.”
    Carlie said, “She’s got my mouth.”
    Carlie’s mother smiled and said, “God help her.”
    â€œHow old is Robin?” Carlie asked.
    â€œFour and a half.”
    â€œWhere’s Liz?” Carlie asked.
    â€œShe and Robert got divorced,” Carlie’s mother said. Then she said to Robin, “Why don’t you show Florine your toys?” As we left the kitchen, I heard Carlie’s mother say, “Got to drinking. Robert had enough, and . . .”
    I followed Robin up a steep set of stairs that led to another hall crowded with more plastic baskets of laundry. Robin’s room was at the end of the hall, past a bathroom and another room on the right with a crib in it.
    Her room was stuffed with dolls of all shapes and sizes. “You got a lot,” I said.
    â€œHere’s their names,” Robin said. She held each one up and told me its name. After each name, I said, “Pleased to meet you,” and I shook its hand and we giggled.
    â€œWe could be sisters,” I said to her.
    Robin said, “Okay,” and we looked at each other, wide eyed.
    â€œYou can come stay with me, sometimes,” I said, and Robin jumped up and down. Then she said, “Let me brush your hair.” She took a tiny blue brush from a shiny plastic doll case on her bed and combed through my pucker brush of curls. Her small hands tickled like moth’s wings as she pushed my hair back from my face. Then I combed her long straight hair. When I finished, I said, “Let’s go ask Daddy and Carlie if you can come home with me,” but we’d no sooner cleared her room when Ben began to cry downstairs and I heard a man’s raised voice. Then Carlie shouted and I said to Robin, “We got to see what’s going on,” and I dodged around the hall clutter, ran down the stairs, and twisted away from one of Tiger’s hooked paws to reach the living room.
    Carlie’s mother held Ben, the man still sat in his chair, and Daddy stood beside Carlie with his hand around her shoulder. Carlie stood stiff and stared at the man in the chair.
    The man pointed one finger at Carlie and said, “I don’t care whether you come to see us. Far as I’m concerned, you been dead for years.” Then he turned the chair around and went back to the boxing match. Carlie’s mother carried Ben out of the room.
    â€œYou’re wrong, you old bastard. I came alive when I left this place,” Carlie said, her voice caught between a cry and a growl, to the back of the man’s chair. “I’m done. I’m not coming back.” And then she went down the hall and out the door.
    The sound of coffee gurgling and punching the top of the pot drew Robin and me into the kitchen, where Carlie’s mother stood, head down, arms locked at the elbows, holding on to the sides of the stove. Ben stood beside her, gripping her dress.
    Daddy walked out into the kitchen and said, “Come on, Florine.” He bent down and I let go of