Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 754(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
“Thank you, Mom.” I felt a wash of warmth, her words giving me renewed energy as I picked up the speed of my work. I liked knowing she thought Grandpa Castañeda would be proud of me.
“Follow in his footsteps,” she told me. “But also, forge your own. If anyone is capable, it’s you, my smart boy.”
“I will, Mom.”
She smiled, stepping closer and ruffling my hair. “I know you will.” She turned, heading for the door. “And, Tuck,” she called, nodding to the pitchfork in my hands. “Never lose your sense of decency. It’s your badge of honor.” She shot me a wink, but her expression faltered as she began to turn, stumbling, catching herself, and then stumbling again.
“Mom?” I dropped the tool, rushing toward her as she fell. “Mom!” I yelled, barely catching her before she hit the ground. Panic jolted my system, my arms trembling as I held her. “Dad!” I called through the open door. “Dad! Somebody, help!”
four
Tuck
Ten Days Ago
“You’re home early,” my uncle said through a mouthful of turkey sandwich, setting it back down on the plate in front of him.
“I got let go.” I tossed the apron I’d forgotten to leave behind over the kitchen chair. I’d return it tomorrow to the restaurant. Or maybe I wouldn’t. What was another theft on my record, especially one that wouldn’t be officially reported? They’d obviously expected me to steal something. Why disappoint them?
My uncle was studying me casually. “I told you—you should have disclosed your record.”
I fell into the chair with a sigh. “Yeah. Well.” I felt defeated, no energy left in my body to do much of anything, not even form a meaningful sentence. Alfonso obviously guessed why I’d been fired anyway, so why use a bunch of words to explain? Yeah, I should have been honest about my criminal record, but recent history had taught me that didn’t go well when attempting to find employment, and so I’d lied. And I’d hoped that, if they did check, they’d let it slide that their dishwasher had served time.
Clearly, that had been a miscalculation, even though I’d worked hard, showed up every day on time, and kept my head down. Apparently, I wasn’t even worthy of scraping dried food off other people’s dirty plates.
“What are you gonna do now?” my uncle asked.
I looked away, tapping my knuckle on the table. What are you gonna do now? That was the question. The one I’d been trying to answer for the last four months since I’d been released from prison. Only, what I did now didn’t seem to be up to me. Once…once I’d had a legacy. Now I had a criminal record and extremely limited employment options, if any existed at all.
But I pushed thoughts of legacy far, far away. That had been taken from me a long time ago and it wasn’t something worth dwelling on. “I don’t know,” I murmured. But I had to do something. The terms of my probation required me to have a job, not to mention I’d racked up some serious debt before I’d been sent to prison. And adding to that, I had a responsibility to help two people who’d suffered the fallout of my failure.
Hopelessness flooded me and for a moment I felt crushed under its unseen weight. My uncle had taken me in when I was seventeen, put up with a whole slew of bad behavior over the years, and then taken me in again when I was released, but he had issues of his own and lived paycheck to paycheck as it was. He couldn’t afford to help me financially, and though I appreciated the roof over my head, the thought of living on my uncle’s couch for even one more month, made that weight grow heavier.
Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth. It’s leagues better than the lumpy cot you slept on for six years in a windowless cell. That was true, but it did little to bolster my mood. Because in prison, I’d had an end date to move toward. Here, in the outside world, it was becoming increasingly clear that I was still stuck, even if in different ways, just as I’d been behind bars.
Strangely enough, I hadn’t minded the dishwashing job. It was solitary work, and I’d become a solitary person since I’d been locked up. I’d grown used to—almost comforted by—a rigid schedule and precise way of doing things. Loading that machine, pressing the button, listening to the whir of the brushes and the gush of the water, and then unloading, separating, stacking…and then doing it all over again, was mindless work, but it fed my new affinity for order. There was a word for what had happened to me during those six long years where I woke at the exact same time every morning and was directed through my day by others: institutionalized. I was well aware, and so I recognized that the loss of the job wasn’t simply about a paycheck—paltry though it was—but about having the meager sense of order I’d regained being taken away.