Riding Tall by Kate Sherwood

call. “Fuck,” Joe said. “What the hell was she thinking?”
    “Let’s go find out,” Mackenzie said softly. “Can I pull you up? And what is that on your wrist? Is that a new kind of cast?”
    “It’s a splint,” Ally said, eager to be part of the conversation. “They can’t put the cast on until the swelling goes down. He’s supposed to ice it and take the anti-inflammatories, and then we’ll take him in tomorrow. Dr. Michaels said I can help put the cast on, if I want. I did a co-op at the hospital last year, and she knows I want to be a vet.”
    “So this has worked out pretty well for you ,” Joe growled. “But it’s going to get a lot less pleasant if I find out you knew Lacey was planning to drink at school today.”
    Ally frowned, suddenly serious. “I didn’t know. Lacey’s… she’s weird about alcohol. You know, because of her parents. She doesn’t usually drink at all. But I’ve seen her get totally wasted a couple times. I don’t know why she’d do it at school, though.”
    “I don’t know why either.” Joe heaved himself to his feet, staggered just a little, and headed for the door. “Ally, you stay here.”
    “But I’m coming,” Mackenzie said, obviously ready for an argument. “And I’m driving.”
    “I’m sore all down one side,” Joe said. It sounded less like whining if he was sharing the information for a reason. “I don’t want to fold myself up in your little car.”
    “Newsflash,” Mackenzie said with a raised eyebrow. “I can drive your truck. You let Lacey drive it, for God’s sake. You really won’t trust me in it?”
    Oh. Well, now that Joe thought about it, there was really no reason they couldn’t do things that way. “Okay. You can drive.”
    They were halfway to town when Mackenzie said, “You’re really hurting, huh?”
    “What?”
    “Usually when I drive, you stare at the road like you think you can control the car telepathically. You keep one hand on the door handle and the other near the parking brake. But today you’re just staring at the floor, flinching every time we hit a bump.”
    “I’m not hurting too much,” Joe lied. “I’m just thinking. What am I supposed to do with Lacey?”
    “You’re the one with all the parenting experience. Lacey’s your fourth teenager, isn’t she?”
    “Sarah and Ally were never any trouble. Not like this. I worried about them… you know, going out to parties or whatever. Worried that they’d get hurt. But they never did stupid stuff like this. This is more of a Nick move.”
    “So what’d you do with Nick?”
    “I yelled at him. Grounded him, and then listened to the whole ‘you’re not my father, you can’t ground me’ bullshit. So, first, not pleasant for anyone, and second, it didn’t really work. He did stupid stuff all through high school, and he’s probably down in the city doing stupid stuff as we speak. It’d be nice if Lacey could actually change her behavior, you know?”
    “She should be seeing a counselor.” There was something about the way Mackenzie spoke the words that made Joe feel like they’d been building for a while. “Jean is great, and you’re great, but she needs more than that. Most teenagers are a bit fucked up, just from going through too many changes too fast, and then you add in all the extra crap Lacey’s had to deal with? She’s doing really well, but she could be doing better.”
    A counselor. Will had insisted that the whole family go to a grief counselor after their parents had died. Joe hadn’t had much to say, but he’d tagged along so the other kids would think he approved of the process. But he wasn’t sure it had really done any good. Their parents were dead. No amount of counseling was going to change that.
    And Lacey’s parents were dead. Her sister was brain-damaged. What the hell was anyone going to be able to say that would do her any real good?
    “I went to one,” Mackenzie said, taking his eyes off the road long enough to