Free 1 Straight to Hell by Michelle Scott

right.  This isn’t yours.  Sorry.”  My laugh sounded strangled.  “My mistake.”
    There was real hunger in his eyes.  “No, these are mine.  And my wife’s.”  He gave a cough so phony that it wouldn’t have fooled Grace.  “I’ve got this virus, see?”  He grabbed boxes and began shoving them down the front of his sweatshirt.
    I didn’t relent and continued to lunge for the boxes.  I could almost feel Miss Spry’s eyes on the back of my neck, her hot gaze boring into me.
    “Are you in rehab?” I asked him.
    For a moment, he blinked in surprise, but then his eyes hardened.  “What the fuck is it to you?”  He snatched a box from under his car.
    “Call your sponsor.  Right now.  Right this second.”
    He shoved me backwards, tumbling me onto my butt.  Then he pawed at my arms, dislodging the horde of boxes.  I tried to fight him off like a rapist, but in the end, I gave up.  Sobbing, I flung the boxes at him.  “Take them, you shit!  Just take them.”
    So he did. And when he left me, he was whistling like someone who’s won the lottery.
    I sat on the dirty asphalt, wiping my eyes and runny nose with the back of my arm.  Asshole!  Dick!  I wasn’t sure who made me angrier: the meth cooker or Miss Spry.
    I thought she might bring me back to her office to shout at me, or worse.  A wave of dizziness rose, and my vision grayed.  But when my eyesight cleared, I saw that I was squatting on the steps of the funeral home as the mourners exited the building.
    My dad hurried to my side.  “Lilly, are you all right?”
    Jasmine, Ariel and Grace came over as well.  “Did you miss the funeral,” Jasmine asked.  “I didn’t see you there at all!”
    “I was there,” I lied.  “Standing at the back of the room.  I just couldn’t bear…”  In my mind’s eye, I saw the strange man in the gray sweatshirt happily carting off his boxes of sudaphrine.  “I just couldn’t bear to…”
    My weird little family – Jas in her chic designer clothes, Ariel in a Goth getup complete with black, fishnet stockings, and little Grace in her purple sparkling shoes – crowded around me, and I realized how much I loved them.  And how much I desperately needed them.  “I didn’t want to do it,” I finished.  “I couldn’t.”
    “It’s okay, Mom,” Grace said.  All three of them hugged me, and I hugged back, crying and crying as if my heart would break.

Chapter Five
 
 
 
    The day after my mother’s funeral, I sent the girls back to school.  They both protested, but for different reasons.  Grace said her tummy hurt though she ate two immense bowls of Frosted Flakes, and Ariel – older and wiser – claimed she was still too upset over Carrie’s death to sit in class.  “You never met my mother,” I reminded her.
    “It’s not just her death,” Ariel said.  “It’s death in general.  It makes me sad.”
    “You know what makes me sad,” I asked.  “Illiteracy.”  I held out her backpack.  She narrowed her eyes at me and yanked it out of my hand.  Grace, still whining about her stomach, kissed me before leaving.  Ariel, on the other hand, slammed the door so hard that the windows rattled.
    I counted to ten, then hurried outside to crouch behind the hedge that separated my yard from my neighbor’s.  I waited, predator-like, behind the bushes, peering through the gaps in the leaves so I could watch as the girls walked to the corner bus stop.
    I’d resorted to this undercover behavior after Ari moved in with us.  It seemed that, most mornings, Ariel would get to the bus stop and keep right on walking.  Hours later, I’d get a call from the school secretary saying that she never made it to class.  Then I would have to spend half my day touring every public park, comic book store, and tattoo parlor in the city looking for her.  But on the other hand, if I tried to actually walk the girls to the bus stop, I would be met with such outraged shrieking (from both