Sundays brought a sort of peace. Sun spilled through the windows. An Italian roast filled the air with a warm, rich aroma that eased the mind. There were no fighting employees. No deliveries to sign for. No calls to suppliers nor negotiating with the bank. And few customers came in outside of regulars who valued quiet as much as I did.

     I looked around my kingdom and sighed with contentment. My own corner of the world. Just a girl and her shop...

     "It's boring as fuck when nobodies here!"

     ...And her dumbass cousin.

     I stirred the can of coffee grounds I'd been low-key smelling and side-eyed him . "Jackson, you're ruining my mood."

     "I thought you asked me here to help me with this G.E.D shit. Not work for free."

     "If you don't like my methods you're free to go to a prep class."

     "That shit cost a hundred and thirty dollars."

     I smiled with abandon. "Then I guess you'd better multitask."

     He frowned but continued his bitchfest. "How you gon' work and study at the same time."

     I pulled the G.E.D. practice site up on my phone and casually browsed the material. "I know for a fact it can be done. I had two jobs in college."

     He raised his eyebrows at that like I knew he would. "You ain't have money for college?"

     "My parents didn't save one red cent for my education." I bit the bitterness away and kept the light smile on my face. "I worked at this mom and pop coffee shop—the Rise and Grind—for three years."

     "Auntie Gina drives a Mercedes."

     "So?" I asked as I read through some language arts questions.

     "So, y'all got money."

     I laughed. "No. I have a mom that loves to stunt. Most of the time we were broke."

     "For real?"

     "Yep."

     "Wow."

     Just the mere mention of my mother's spending habits exhausted me. I drifted away from him for a time and kept myself busy doing very little until we eventually closed at one. The two of us reconvened in the kitchen where I put him to work helping me deep clean the big appliances.

     "It mostly looked like critical thinking questions." I sprayed a fine mist of disinfectant on the inside of the fridge and wiped it down with the sort of efficiency gained only with practice. "It should be easy."

     "I wasn't exactly a A student. If I didn't drop out they would've flunked me." He stood by the sink, a mop in his hands and the top of his work boots shiny from spilled water.

     "That was a long time ago. You can handle this."

     "Easy for you to say. You're smart."

     "You're smart too."

     "No, I'm not." He grabbed a sponge full of cleaning solution and wiped down the sides of the donut fryer. "I ain't go to college. Or start a business. I ain't even get through the eleventh grade."

     "Well, so?" Though I wore a mask the smell of industry grade product was still making me pleasantly light-headed. "Plenty of morons get far in life on dumb luck or their ability to game the system."

     "Game the system?"

     "Yeah. Everyone in college isn't a genius. I know I wasn't." When I was satisfied I grabbed a bucket of fresh water and started wiping the chemical residue from the fridge.

     "But you are smart."

     "I am. But I'm also confident in my abilities." My hands itched behind thick rubber gloves. "Half of this is believing in your own ability to succeed. If you go around defeated before you've even tried you may as well give up now."

     He nodded. "I know...but sometimes it feels like the whole world's against me."

     "I know. Sometimes I feel like that too." I pulled the gloves from my hands and sat them aside. "Anyway, you know I got your back."

     "Sure," he said. "As long as it's not your boyfriend."

     I couldn't help but sigh. "Not this again."

     "If it's me or him, you side with him."

     I started moving food from the counter back into the fridge. "If this is about him arresting you, that was a long time ag—"

     "It ain't about that." He moved to help me, starting with the dairy products. "I was an asshole back then."

     I shrugged, barely listening. "You made mistakes."

     "'Mistakes'." He said sadly. "Do you even know what I did?"

     Despite being cousins, we hadn't been close during childhood. We were five years apart and lived on opposite sides of the city. Outside of pleasantries during the holidays at Grandma's house, the beats of his life had seemed to play in the background of mine. I was a child when most of it happened, and my mother had only shared the basics of what was truly going on.

     ...Uncle Martin's dead...

     ...Aunt Jackie lost the house...

     ...They moved over there off twenty-second street...

     ...Jackson dropped out of school...

     ...His court date's coming up...

     ...They gave him five years...

     I barely remembered Uncle Martin, but then I was only seven when he died. As for my cousin, I never really knew him until I got that call from mom. They were letting him out early and he needed gainful employment.

     He was a better worker than I'd anticipated he'd ever be. "Did they tell you what I did?" His gaze was unblinking as he waited for my reply.

     "Just...what was important."

     "I changed."

     "I know."

     "Every day I wake up, a thirty-three-year-old man living with his mama, working two dead-end jobs and getting nowhere." He shoved more food into the fridge a little harder than necessary. Dates facing out as I'd taught him. "Sometimes it's hard...to stay straight."

     "Jackson—"

     "When I got out I made a promise to mama, grandma, you, my parole officer, and God that I wouldn't reoffend. I won't."

     "What does that have to do with Manny?"

     "He's seen my record. He knows everything I ever did. Even the shit I was too ashamed to tell anyone about." He leaned back against the freshly cleaned counter. "Every time he looks at me it's like he sees nothing but what's in that record."

     "I know he can be a little..."

     "Judgmental. Rude. Stuck-up—"

     "I was going to say 'square', but yeah. I don't think he means to do it on purpose."

     "Still makes me feel like shit."

     "I'll talk to him."

     "Don't bother," he said with a shake of his head. "Fuck him."

     I of course would ignore that and run interference anyway because far be it for me to let things go. "Let's go over this test," I said with a grin.

     "Aight," he smiled back before quickly giving me the business. "But no more getting free labor out of me."

     "No promises."

     Jackson and I spent the next two hours looking over the G.E.D websites practice material. When we were done he went home and I almost closed up before I remembered it was Sunday and Johnny was still upstairs. I bounded up the stairs, mostly out of nosiness and found him wrist-deep in oil paints.

     Even though I'm sure he heard the echo of my shoes on the wooden floors, he didn't turn when I entered. He only kept moving the brush over canvas with a trance-like concentration. I looked over his shoulder with the entitlement only earned when you own the place.

     "What is it?" I said.

     "A landscape." Talkative as usual, I see.

     "It's nice."

     He scoffed. "'Nice is a four-letter word'. One of my professors used to say that. Real art should provoke an emotion."

     "That makes sense."

     "I hated that prick," he dabbed a splotch of green with annoyance. "Great eye, but pretentious as hell for someone whose greatest contribution to art is making freshman cry." He forgot himself for the moment and smiled at the memory.

     "I didn't realize art school was so rigorous."

     He sat his palette down and turned to me. "Art is subjective. It can be hard to please a professor. Standards aren't exactly uniform."

     "That's why I always loved math. Nothing subjective about numbers."

     "That's why I hated math."

     "I have a job for you next Saturday if you're free."

     He picked up an old rag and wiped his paint stained hands. "It's not illegal is it?"

     "How often do I ask you to do something illegal—don't answer that!" He surprised me with a smile. "There's going to be a children's tea party and I need extra hands for set up and clean-up."

     He nodded, "Okay."

     "Cool. So I'll rent the tuxedo and get you a top hat and monocle and you can play the grouchy butler. Think, Mr. Peanut, but way more silly."

     "You know what, I'm just remembering I'm busy that day."

     "I already penciled you in."

     "Unpencil me."

     "The little girls will be so disappointed."

     "Life is disappointing. It's better they learn that now."

     "I can't think of anyone better to teach them that than you."

     "At least you asked this time instead of just luring me into your car like a pervert."

     "Oh, I was deep cleaning the fridge earlier. I'm probably still high."

     He laughed. Like, laughed laughed. Like, from the gut. It startled me a little. You wouldn't expect that kind of sound from such a dower man but there it was. It was deep and playful, and I caught myself wondering what type of man he may have been before he was the sad man I knew.

     Or maybe I wasn't the only huffing cleaning supplies today. Who knows?

     "What time do I need to be here?" He said when he caught his breath.

     "Party starts at eleven. Get here by ten."

     "Okay." He picked up a wrist watch that he'd thrown on the table and looked down at the face.

     "You can stay for a while longer if you want," I said. "Just lock up—"

     "No, I should start cleaning up anyway. I don't want to miss the bus." He turned back to his easel and started moving squeezed paint tubes from the table to the clear carrying case he'd bought a while back.

     "You want a ride?"

     "No. It's fine."

     "Alright." I smiled at him before turning to leave. I had somewhere to be anyway.

*************************************

     Jubilant blue eyes smiled down at me. I smiled back before pulling open a trash bag. There wasn't much to throw away. At least nothing that belonged to me. Most of the room was already clean if not cluttered. Still my old desk was stacked with paperwork that I admit should have been thrown out a decade ago.

     However, most of the mess wasn't even mine. There were haphazard piles of as-seen-on-tv appliances, cheap purses, various tools, and a blend of items that could only be described as 'out of a catalogue'. A spare vacuum leaned against my bookcase. An outdated cpu sat dusty and unused. Cardboard boxes overfilled with books of the Christian, business, and get-rich-quick variety.

     It seems my room had become a storage facility since I'd been gone.

     "Start with the trash," my mother called from the living room.

     "Nothing's trash."

     She came through the door and pointed at the walls. "The posters."

     "Sailor Moon is iconic!" I yelped. "Dad got me these for Christmas. Remember? I was eleven and obsessed."

     "Well now you're twenty-eight and Miss Moon is occupying space in my new gym." Her skin was still a bit red from standing outside in the sun. Apparently she'd decided on a whim to touch up the paint on the outside of the house today.

     "Why does my room have to be the gym?" I sounded more petulant than intended.

     "'Cause it's my house." Her eyes narrowed under a pink and green baseball cap.

     "Can't it just be a teen themed guest room? What if I fall into destitution and have nowhere to go?"

     "There's a homeless shelter on Adams street. Your uncle can probably pull some strings since he's there so often."

     I laughed so hard my whole body shook. "There's some A-plus mom-ing going on in this room right now."

     She smiled. "I know. I should give seminars."

     "So why the mad dash to clean the whole house after eighteen years of slack?"

     Her hands moved to her hips. "I need an excuse to clean my house?"

     "No, but I know when there's tomfoolery afoot." Who did she think she was dealing with?

     "I'm refinancing," she said with a lackadaisical shrug.

     Now, that surprised me enough to give me pause. "...Why?"

     "Credit cards."

     "Ah." I knew something was wrong. "So you need all hands on deck to make the house look pretty for the pictures."

     "Yep."

     "How many cards?" I tried to keep my voice calm, even though my thoughts were running away from me.

     "Six. All maxed," she said calmly.

     A breath caught in my throat. "...How?"

     "I need to buy things...groceries—"

     "Six maxed credit cards for groceries? For one person—"

     "Yeah—"

     I shook my head. "That can't be all. Have you been online shopping again?"

     Her eyebrows knit. "So what if I have? It's my money—"

     "How much do you have in savings?"

     "Nothing." She said it so casually!

     "Why not? We talked about this last time remember?"

     She threw her hands up. "I don't want to talk about this anymore!"

     I heard myself yelling back, "I'm just trying to hel—"

     "If you want to help, help me clean!"

     "Whatever you say!" My lips pressed tightly against the thing I really wanted to say, but unfortunately, I'd been brought up to never disrespect my mother with perfectly logical questions. Even when she's wrong. "But you should sell that timeshare—"

     "Just clean!" She said over her shoulder as she stalked out of my room.

     She wouldn't budge. I knew that. So, I swallowed my words—again—and got back to the task of making my room presentable for appraisal. But even though my mouth was closed, my mind still passed its judgment. How does someone max six credit cards? How can someone who makes so much money be so bad at having it? How can someone so old still struggle with this? Why am I even surprised? It's not the first time.

     I sighed and shook my head. There was no arguing with her. I knew that. Instead I moved toward the study desk pushed next to the bookcase. The top was littered with old piles of sloppily stacked homework that had been thrown there without thought. I ran my fingers over the smooth wooden surface of the desk and smiled as I looked over old doodles scratched into the wood with a mechanical pencil. Most were shapes—hearts, stars, and 3-D cubes. Some—written very small—were words.

     Evie hearts Maurice

     Mrs. Maurice Knight

     Mrs. Evelyn Knight

     ...I don't think Maurice ever said more than five words to me between seventh and twelfth grade. But I guess teen-aged hormones don't always care about that. I got to work stuffing stack upon stack of old homework into the garbage bag. As I calmed down my thoughts drifted from my mother to Peters.

     Peter's mom had asked him to come home just like mine had. Did he feel fondness for the home he'd grown up in like I did? Did he see the table in the hallway and remember all the times he'd probably ran by it as a kid? A table he used to draw at? A rug he used to trip over? The swing on the tree?

     Or was it nothing but a house of horrors for him? Did seeing her set him off? Maybe she attacked him. Maybe it was self-defense. Maybe...I don't know...

     I was somewhere between trying to dust the bookcase and hiding stuff behind the folds of the old white ball gown hanging in the back of my closet when mom got bored and came to gossip about one of the Six Wives of my Uncle. All talk of money had been laid to rest as she vividly retold the tale of former Aunt Shanice.

     "...She asked to borrow money again. I wanted to ask her if she can't sell her old-ass, funky-ass body for drugs anymore...but I am a Christian..."

     "What a mean thing to say," I scolded, though I admit I laughed.

     "You don't know her. She's been a crack-whore for thirty years. She calling everybody up for 'rent' money, but we all know what it's really about."

     "So, how much cleaning do you need me to do?"

     She ticked rooms off her fingers like she was talking to a maid or something. "Your room. The living room. Dining room. Kitchen. Both bathrooms. My room. Hallway. And Office."

     "Well, golly. That sounds like the whole damn house." There was only a hint of sarcasm in my voice, I swear.

     She ignored me for once. "Inside and out."

     "Out?"

     "I got some paint from Home Depot. I'm gonna touch-up the paint outside. Soon as the sun goes down a little."

     The paint outside had been chipping and peeling for years. "And we only have a week to do this? Goddamn..."

     "Watch your mouth! And don't take the Lord's name in vain."

     "Sorry."

    "And you'll never catch a husband cursing like a man," she said with a wag of her finger.

     "Any husband of mine would give as good as he gets."

      "And that sarcasm," she sighed and shook her head. "With that attitude I doubt I'll get grandchildren any time soon."

     "I don't know why you want them. They'll be just as snarky as me."

     "Who'd you think you got your sense of humor from? Your daddy?" She rolled her eyes. "Only thing he contributed was child support and your volatile mood swings."

      "I don't have mood swings!"
"You do when you don't want to be bothered."

     "Everyone gets irritable sometimes." I swear, I put the tiniest bass in my voice and everyone thinks I'm mad or something.

     "You look like that side of the family too."

     I gasped. "Now that's just mean."

     "At least you didn't inherent his big ass forehead."

    "He says the same about you." My impression of dad was to lower my voice, "'At least you didn't get her beak of a nose'."

     She screwed her mouth up and shook her head. "Jackass."

     "Turnabout is fair play." I laughed

     "Have you seen him lately?"

     "He'll text every few months or so."

     She nodded. "I think we can do it." When she was done with a conversation she often swerved without caring if you could keep up with her or not.

     "Sure. If you believe in miracles."

     "You know I do." She raised an eyebrow like she was waiting on me to challenge her. "Don't you?"

     I pursed a stubborn lip and risked a lecture on faith. "I believe God helps those who help themselves."

     "Exactly." She smiled with abandon before turning to go back to cleaning through the junk in the living room. "Now help yourself to cleaning up this mess."

     She's my mother. I'm obligated to honor and obey...but damn if she doesn't push it sometimes.