Free At-Risk by Amina Gautier

change the people around me, the Blue who could make my brother quiet and sullen while reminding our mother how to smile.
    â€œBlue’s nice,” I said. “I hope he comes back again.”
    Peter didn’t say anything.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œThere is.”
    â€œI thought he was supposed to have come for me.”
    â€œHe did,” I said.
    â€œYeah right,” Peter said.
    â€œThen what did he come for?”
    He wouldn’t talk.
    I jabbed him with my toothbrush. “Tell me.”
    â€œYou’re too young.”
    â€œAm not. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Or else you’ll have to smell me.” I lifted my arms and revealed my armpits.
    â€œYou’re such a baby,” Peter said.
    â€œTell me. Tell me. Tell—”
    Peter clamped his hand over my mouth. “Okay!” he said. “Just be quiet.” We went to our room and he pulled out one of Blue’s lettersto our mother and showed it to me. It was short, just one sentence: “Deloris baby, sometimes the nights here so long it can make a man cry.”
    We woke one night to hear our mother at the door.
    â€œWhat are you doing here at this time of night?” she asked.
    It was Blue’s voice. “Please, baby. Let me come in.”
    â€œAre you crazy?”
    â€œBlue’s here,” I said, excited. I began to crawl out of my bed.
    â€œGet back in the bed,” Peter commanded from his top bunk.
    â€œBut—”
    â€œShh!” he said. “Listen.”
    We heard our mother saying something about it not being right with us asleep in the house.
    Then Blue: “Deloris, please. I got to come in. I can’t be out there tonight. I need help. If you don’t help me Deloris, I won’t make it. Just let me stay. I’ll sleep on the floor. Don’t let me go back out there tonight.” He sounded like he was crying.
    â€œI can’t.”
    Blue said, “Come on, Deloris. You used to love me, baby. You know it.” He crooned, “Deloris, youuuu used to looovvve me, giirrlllllll.”
    When we woke up the next morning, Blue was fast asleep on a heap of oily blankets on the living room floor.
    â€œIt’s not right to kick somebody when they’re trying” was all our mother said.
    Blue began to stay with us. He would come to our house with oil-stained clothes. Sometimes there were perfectly round holes in his jeans from where the chemicals that leaked on him from under the cars had eaten all the way through the material. Once a week, he had to buy some sort of corn husker liquid to clean the layers and layersof grease and oil caked on his hands. During the day, he was at his old job working on cars. In the evenings, he was with us, making our mother laugh once again. He was able to bring something out in her we’d never seen. Something that softened her. Blue brought bottles of Grey Goose or B&B and he and our mother would sit in the living room, drinking. Occasionally, we could hear their laughter as we drifted off to sleep.
    Before she’d ever met my father, our mother had loved Blue. Another woman she had been. A medical assistant who smuggled free hypodermics out to her boyfriend, because although she didn’t like his shooting up, she wanted him to be safe. A young woman strutting past the junkyard where he worked, wearing halter tops and Sergio Valente pedal pushers to catch his eye, hoping he’d stop her to talk.
    The three of us were working on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle one rainy afternoon two weeks later when Blue asked us nervously, “Is it cold in here?”
    â€œI’m fine,” Peter said.
    â€œMe too,” I said, but I saw Blue shiver.
    â€œCome on, let’s go for a ride,” he said.
    Blue drove us down Atlantic Avenue under the train tracks. Small drops of water from the tracks sprayed down across the car window. We were framed on both sides by the rusty steel