Hud caught Nina’s eye when he heard her. “I’ll go with you,” he said. “To get the milk.”

“Me, too,” Jay added.

As the three of them headed out, June lit a cigarette and closed her eyes on the couch. Kit was playing with Legos in front of the TV. June’s arm relaxed as she stretched out, the tip of her lit cigarette grazing Kit’s hair. Nina gasped. Jay’s eyes went wide.

“Kit, you’re coming with us,” Hud said. “You need more toothpaste. For your … teeth.”

Kit looked at them quizzically, but then shrugged and got up off the shag rug.

“What’s going on?” Kit asked when they got to the car.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hud said as he opened the door for her.

“Everything’s fine,” Nina told her as she got in the front seat.

“You never tell me anything,” Kit said. “But I know something’s up.”

Jay got in the passenger seat. “Then you don’t need us to tell you. Now, who wants to buy the cheapest jug of milk and spend the rest on a pack of Rolos?”

“I want at least a fourth of the pack!” Kit said. “You always take more than your share.”

“You can have my share, Kit,” Nina said, putting the gear in reverse.

“Everyone be quiet now. Nina needs to concentrate,” Hud called out.

As Nina slowly backed the car out of the driveway and did a three-point turn onto the road, Kit looked out the window and wondered what it was that her brothers and sister wouldn’t tell her, what it was that she already knew.

In the end, it was the TV that gave her the words.

• • •

About a year later, when Kit was ten, she was with June on the couch, watching a TV show. In the scene, two brothers were confronting each other about a murder. And Kit saw one brother take a whiskey bottle out of the other’s hand and call him a “drunk.” “You’re a drunk,” he said. “And you’re killing yourself with this stuff.”

Something clicked in Kit’s head. She turned to look at her mother. June caught her eye and smiled at her daughter.

Suddenly, Kit’s body started to burn with rage. She excused herself and went to the bathroom, shut the door behind her. She looked at the towels hanging on the door and wanted to punch through them, punch through the door itself.

She had a name for it now. She understood what had been nagging at her, scaring her, unsettling her for so long.

Her mother was a drunk. What if she was killing herself with that stuff?

• • •

The next week, June burned dinner.

There was smoke in the house, a flame in the oven, the smell of burnt cheese settling into the tablecloth and their clothes.

“Mom!” Nina yelled, running through the house as soon as she noticed the smoke. June sprang to attention as her children invaded the kitchen.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she said, pulling her head off the table, where she’d fallen asleep. Her movements were stiff, her processing slow.

Kit clocked the bottle of Smirnoff on the counter. She wasn’t sure if it was the same bottle that had been almost full yesterday, but now there was barely any left.

Nina ran to the oven, put on a glove, and pulled the casserole dish out. Jay ran in and got up on the counter, immediately disabling the smoke detector. Hud opened all the windows.

The macaroni and cheese was nearly black on the bottom, scorched on the sides and top. You had to cut it open with a knife to find the familiar pale orange it was supposed to be. June served it anyway.

“All right, kids, eat up. It’s not so bad.”

Nina, Jay, and Hud all sat down as they were told, prepared to act as if everything was fine. They passed around plates, put their napkins on their laps, as if this were any other meal.

Kit stood, incredulous.

“Do you want milk with dinner, Kit?” Nina said, getting up to serve her younger sister.

“Are you kidding me?” Kit said.

Nina looked at her.

“I’m not eating this,” Kit said.

“It’s fine, Kit, really,” Hud said. Kit looked at Hud and watched his face tense, his eyes focus in on her. He was trying to tell her to drop it. But Kit just couldn’t do it.

“If she doesn’t want to eat it, she doesn’t have to eat it,” Jay said.

“I’ll go make us all something else,” Nina said.

“No, Nina, this is fine. Katherine Elizabeth, sit down and eat your food,” June said.

Kit looked at her mother, searched for some embarrassment or confusion. But June’s face showed nothing out of the ordinary.

Kit finally snapped. “We’re not going to pretend you didn’t just burn dinner like we pretend you’re not a drunk!”

The whole house went quiet. Jay’s jaw dropped. Hud’s eyes went wide in shock. Nina looked down at her hands in her lap. June stared at Kit as if Kit had just slapped her across the face.

“Kit, go to your room,” June said, tears forming in her eyes.

Kit stood there, silent and unmoving. She was awash in a tumbling cycle of guilt and indignation, indignation and guilt. Was she terribly wrong or had she been exactly right? She couldn’t tell.

“C’mon, Kit,” Nina said, getting up and putting her napkin on the table. Nina grabbed her hand gently and led her away. “It’s OK,” Nina whispered to her as they walked.

Kit was quiet, trying to figure out if she regretted what she’d said. After all, regret would imply she felt like she’d made a choice. And she hadn’t. She felt she’d had no other option but to say out loud what was hurting so much within her.

When Nina and Kit disappeared down the hall, Jay and Hud looked back at their mother.

“We will clean up, Mom,” Hud said. “You can go lie down.”

Hud caught Jay’s eye. “Yeah,” Jay said, despite the dread growing within him that it was going to be his job to clean up burnt cheese. “Hud and I have this under control.”

June looked at her two sons, already fourteen. They were almost men. How had she not noticed that?

“All right,” she said, exhausted. “I think I’m going to go to sleep.” And for the first time in a long time, she walked into her bedroom, put on her pajamas, and fell asleep in her bed.

The boys cleaned up the kitchen. Jay scrubbed the Pyrex as hard as he could to get the char off. Hud poured out the full glasses and wiped down the light dusting of ash on the counter where the smoke had settled.

“Kit’s right,” Jay said in a whisper as he stopped scrubbing for just a moment and caught Hud’s eye.

Hud looked at him. “I know.”

“We never talk about it,” Jay said, his whisper growing louder.

Hud stopped cleaning the counter. He took a deep breath and then let it out as he spoke. “I know.”

“She almost set fire to the kitchen,” Jay said.

“Yeah.”

“Should we …” Jay found it difficult to finish his sentence. Should we call Dad? Jay wasn’t even sure how they would do such a thing. They didn’t know where their father was or how to contact him. If they did, Jay would have liked the chance to see him. But once, years ago, when Hud had broken his nose falling off the monkey bars at school and needed surgery to have it straightened, Jay overheard June tell his grandmother, “I would sooner turn tricks off the highway than call Mick and ask him for anything.” So even saying it out loud, even suggesting it, seemed to dishonor his mother. And he wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t. “I guess I’m saying, what are we supposed to do?”