Crooked Little Lies by Barbara Taylor Sissel

Kenzie’s pink tote from her and slung it over her shoulder, smoothing her daughter’s silky dark hair back from her face. “Did you have fun? How was the ballet?”
    “Sublime.” Kenzie’s second love, after ballet, was language. In school, vocabulary was a favorite subject. “I want to dance like that.”
    “It’s hard work.” Lauren led the way into the house.
    “I know. I have to want it more than anything else.” Kenzie repeated what Lauren had said so many times.
    She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of Kenzie loving something that much. Passion was never easy; it wasn’t a joy every moment. She’d thought when Kenzie asked for ballet lessons in first grade, it was only because Amanda wanted them, but when Amanda quit to join the pep squad, Kenzie stayed with it. She attended classes three times a week now, and they had recently bought her first pair of toe shoes. Kenzie was over the moon.
    “I went to Fishers’ and got pumpkins,” Lauren said.
    “Really? For jack-o’-lanterns? Can we carve them now?”
    Lauren smiled, all at once feeling light with gratitude that her headache was gone, the Oxy was gone, her children were home safe, a fish was filleted, and the laundry was done, all the small things. “Sure. Unless you have homework,” she answered Kenzie.
    “No. I finished it Friday in study hall.”
    “Put your things away, then, and tell your brother if he’s finished his homework to come and help if he wants to. We’ll take the pumpkins outside on the picnic table.”
    Kenzie headed up the stairs and then paused. “Mom?” she asked, turning slowly around. “Is Daddy still mad at you?”
    “I don’t think so.” Lauren was puzzled. “Why?”
    “Because, you know, last week, when you didn’t charge enough for that job when Daddy took down the Anderson barn? He said you made him lose, like, a ton of money, and how was he supposed to make it up?”
    Lauren’s heart sank. It was dumb, really dumb, but she’d so hoped Kenzie would forget about it, the ugly argument she’d witnessed, her mom and dad shouting at each other at the top of their lungs—worse than kids. Worse than any performance Kenzie and Drew put on when they got into it. It still rankled. It was true; they had lost several thousand on that job because of her mistake. She’d transposed the numbers on the contract, and no one caught it until the job was done and signed off on at an amount way below what it had cost to get the barn down. They’d been counting on the income, had needed it to make their month.
    The day Jeff discovered the discrepancy, Lauren and Kenzie were just coming into the warehouse when he barreled out of his office, yelling something about Lauren screwing up, intimating that she must be back under the influence. It was a moment before she realized he was blaming her as if he wasn’t equally responsible. He’d taken the contract to be signed. He should have checked it over, seen her error. That was why it was called a partnership.
    Almost instantly, she felt on fire, just lit up. She yelled back at him—things like if he was going to accuse her of being back on OxyContin every time she forgot something or made a mistake, why should she bother with recovery? Where was the end of his suspicion? When would he consider her debt paid and let her out of guilt jail? Poor Kenzie was flattened against the wall, dark eyes huge with alarm. Yelling was taboo in their family, like hitting and saying shut up . Lauren and Jeff pointed to themselves as examples. They didn’t do these things, therefore Drew and Kenzie shouldn’t, either.
    But those rules only made sense when applied to the family they’d once been, before Lauren tumbled from the church bell tower, smashed her head and her pelvis, and plummeted down the OxyContin rabbit hole. She looked at Kenzie. “Your dad should have—” Lauren began, but then she stopped, biting down on the influx of her panic and aggravation. Kenzie didn’t need excuses.