Everyone hates each other, but I feel like the glue that keeps the family together. And it's not out of shared love for me.

Even at the table, we're separated. Regina has a chair between us, and Mom and Michelle have two seats between them, but Michelle and I are on either side of him.

"Michelle, please pass the salt," Dad says with his eyes on Mom at the end of the table. As she sips her water, Michelle glances at him beside her over her glass.

She quickly sets it above her plate of mashed potatoes and Salisbury steak to reach toward the middle of the table.

Mom glares back at him as he takes the little white container, but only he and I notice. They haven't spoken since earlier, either because of Regina and Michelle coming home or because there wasn't much left to say, but I think that even if I didn't hear her ask for a divorce, I'd know there was trouble in paradise.

"Joseph, there's plenty of seasoning on your food already," she says with a chuckle that gives me goosebumps. It's forced and cold, matching her attitude.

He turns the container sideways and repeatedly shakes the salt onto his plate in a circular motion. With a sigh and while shaking his head nonchalantly, he says, "Yeah, well, seasoning's like a marriage: what some feel is perfectly fine, others may not think is enough."

"Well, that's an opinion." He sets the salt next to his glass of sweet tea and picks up his fork. Regina stops chewing to stare at Mom, and Michelle glances around the table with furrowed eyebrows. "I'd just hate for your doctor to take your toe because you refused to abide by his suggestions."

He leans forward with a smile and jokingly says, "Well, I still have all ten, and I can't see myself losing one any time soon."

She rolls her eyes onto her plate and mumbles, "I'm not trying to tell you what to do, Joseph. I'm not your mother."

She scrapes through her steak with her fork and knife, slicing it into thin chunks.

Regina swallows her food as she drops her fork onto her plate. She sits back in her chair and crosses her arms.

Aside from Mom rattling her plate, the table is silent. Michelle watches Dad to her left, waiting for him to respond, but he just stares across the table at Mom. His smile fades the longer he watches her cut her food.

"Teresa, what's going on with you," he softly asks. She shrugs and lifts her fork to her mouth while looking at him. He drops his fork, and as he sits back, he drags his hand down his face.

"What's going on," Michelle asks through awkward laughter. Mom and Dad don't break eye contact. Regina sits her hand on her forehead, massaging between her eyebrows with her thumb while staring at her plate. "Why're you two arguing?"

They don't answer her.

My chest feels heavy, like an elephant is sitting on it, and my stomach grumbles. Regina glances at me from the corner of her eye before dropping her arm and staring at the ceiling light.

I wanna say something, but I know I'll only make things worse.

"Mom?" Michelle stares at her, her mouth twitching underneath her forced smile. Michelle turns to him. "Dad?"

"They're getting a divorce," I blurt out, and my stomach churns. I know it'll come back to bite me, but seeing Michelle this way makes me sick.

It makes me nauseous, knowing they hear her but won't respond. We're not kids—especially Michelle—so why hide it?

"What," Michelle says in a whisper. Regina looks at Mom, then at Dad, before bringing her hazel eyes to meet mine. Michelle turns to Mom and asks, "Mom, is she serious?"

"I don't plan on leaving your mother, but that's what she wants," he says, motioning to her with one hand while the other sits on his lap.

"Why though?" She flicks her attention from one to the other, and her jet-black bob swishes with each head turn.

"Joseph, don't put this only on me," she says with her index finger to her chest while she holds her fork in that hand.

"Why not? You're the one who asked for a divorce," he says, and she relaxes her eyebrows. "I was fine with the way things were, the way things are."

"Which is exactly why I need a divorce." He narrows his eyes at her in thought. "You're too comfortable, knowing our kids are out of control."

"Out of control?" He looks at Regina, who's staring at Mom.

She whips her head to Regina and raises her voice when she says, "Yes, out of control, Gina. Remember when I talked to you about your aunt giving you alcohol?"

"Wait, what?" I swallow my spit and clench my back teeth together. Michelle sits up, and Dad brings a hand to his face. He squeezes his nose bridge with his eyes shut.

"It was just a beer." She rolls her eyes as she speaks with an annoyed tone.

"Regina, you're fifteen." We all look at Michelle.

"Shut up!" Mom and Dad raise their voices, chastising Regina, but she says, "No, I don't need this one telling me how old I am; like she has the moral high ground."

She pushes from under the table, and her chair scrapes the floor. She storms out of the dining room with all eyes on her.

"Regina," Mom yells after her, turning in her chair.

"No, let her go." Dad lifts a hand to gesture for Mom to stop. She looks at him with her body turned, then glances in Regina's direction.

When she faces us, I ask, "Can I go to my room?"

"I don't care, Leila." She fans me off like I'm unimportant, and if these people were my real family, I'm sure it would hurt worse.

I stand up and follow behind Regina with a lost appetite. I walk down the hall and stop in front of her room when I see her door open.

She's pacing back and forth with her hands on her head and some of her braids between her fingers. She's huffing and puffing, her cheeks inflating and deflating.

She glances at me and double-takes. She stops pacing and breathing heavily long enough to say, "Leila, get the hell away from my door."

"I don't wanna make you mad." I lift my hands at chest level.

"Then walk away." I watch her march back and forth from one side of the room to the other. This continues for a few seconds before I step through the frame, and, like I set off an alarm, she quickly stops to look at me. "Are you stupid? I said, Get out!"

I slowly walk closer, like a ranger approaching a bear, but she doesn't maul me.

We stand face-to-face, and I watch her hazel eyes turn glossy. When her lip quivers, I throw my arms around her and pull her in.

"It'll be okay, Gina," I mumble. Her arms dangle at her sides, but she rests her forehead against my shoulder.

Her shoulders jump, and her tears drip down the front of my arm. It's like the hug melted her cold exterior, and all the emotions she showed through anger poured out.

"Why do they do this to us?" I know it's a rhetorical question, so I don't respond. She sniffs back snot and coughs like she's clearing her throat of phlegm. "I've kept my grades up since the last time they did this shit; I haven't done half the shit I did at that time," she trails off and sniffs. Regina's voice cracks and raises multiple octaves similar to Minnie Mouse's as she asks, "What do I gotta do?"

I don't know.

I stammer, "I don't think it's our job to keep them together." She sniffs. I run my palm up and down her back to soothe her. "Maybe if they can't do it themselves, they should divorce."

She finally lifts her arms, but instead of embracing me, she places her hands on my upper arms and shoves me away.

"Leila, what the fuck?" I stumble back, scrunching my face just like her.

"What do you want me to say? If they hate each other, then why would you want them to stay together and be miserable?" I settle on my feet and speak with my hands.

"Because we're their kids, dumbass!" She has a trail of snot from her nose to her top lip, and her eye makeup is running in dark streaks.

"And you think a divorce will change that? No, you're just selfish." Her face relaxes, and mine slowly does the same.

My real parents have their ups and downs, but I've never heard them mention splitting up. Even throughout the arguments about money or issues with my health when I was younger, they always managed to get through it together.

I can't relate to these people, and by the way that Regina's looking me up and down, I think she knows that now.

"Get out of my room," she says flatly. I walk backward, with her following me to the door.

I open my mouth to apologize, but I'm met with her slamming the door in my face.

***

"Gina," Mom wails like a parent whose child passed away. I flinch upright in bed, my heart hammering in my chest the more I struggle to kick my legs from under the blanket. She keeps screaming, crying, and calling for Regina, which only makes the back of my head throb.

I don't want to think the worst has happened, but it's nighttime, and when I step into the hall, I see Michelle standing in front of her door, reading a crumbled paper, while Dad struggles to hold Mom up. Mom's body is limp in his arms, one hand on his chest and the other squeezing the back of his satin top.

"What's going on?" My voice cracks, and my throat tightens as they turn their eyes toward me. I look at Michelle, whose expression doesn't change. She stares at me with her natural eyebrows drawn in at what I assume is written on the paper.

Unlike her, Mom's face changes. She stands up straight and turns to me with a dark stare, like, if she could, she'd kill me either for what I said at the table, how I've been acting lately, what happened to Regina, or all three.

"What'd you say to your sister last night," she asks, and I glance around the hall at them. Dad's eyes are low, like he's either tired or worried.

"We just talked about what happened at the table." Mom places her shaky fingers on her trembling mouth and turns to him. When he pulls her into his arms, I ask, "What happened?"

"Gina ran away, Leila," Michelle says. She looks at the paper in her hands, and I exhale in relief. I step closer to read it with her.

"Leila, go next door with your sister and get Wallace, his boys, and LaToya," Dad tells me. Michelle folds the letter and tucks it in her gown's chest pocket.

We turn to walk away, but we only take one step before Mom says, "I don't want her here."

"It ain't about what you want; it's what you need, Reesa. We can't do this search party if you're crying or passing out." She rests her face against his chest, sniffing back snot and tears. He nudges his chin upward at us. "Go on, you two."

I stand there, watching him rub her back with his chin on her head. I follow his eyes to Regina's door and stare at the orange light pouring out of her room—the light from her lamp.

I trudge behind Michelle, who has already reached the door, and she holds it open for me. My arms and legs start to feel heavy like they're drenched in cement, and with each step closer and closer to her, they feel like they're ready to fall off my body.

'Why do they do this to us.' I hear Regina's voice in my head so clearly that it sounds like she's behind me. When I step onto the porch, I look over my shoulder and see Mom weeping in Dad's arms.

Michelle has the knob in her hand as she steps beside me on the welcome mat. The door closes between us and them at the speed of a carousel, but when it's shut, I drop my head.

"Come on," Michelle says, walking down the steps. I follow her without taking my eyes off the ground.

What will I tell Keenan? This is probably worse than occasionally messing up and mentioning things that'd never happened before. I somehow managed to split up a family and cause everyone to hate each other.

The wind blows across my face like someone breathing on me, hitting my arms, legs, and ears. My ears twitch like I heard my name, and goosebumps appear. I wrap my arms around my torso for warmth, but it doesn't help. As we walk along the sidewalk, my bare feet absorb the ice-like temperature, making it impossible not to shiver.

We reach Keenan's yard. They left their porchlight on and the light on in one of the bedrooms. I glance at Michelle when she steps forward, then I look at the front of the house again.

I can't see him. I can't tell him what happened; he'll get so angry with me.

I look over my shoulder at our quiet neighborhood. Some cars are parked along the road in front of the houses, but most are in the driveways. I look up at the starless sky and watch the clouds float across the moon like a see-through sheet.

This feels like a normal night. The bugs and birds are asleep; the breeze shakes the trees and sends leaves flying in all directions in shades of red, orange, and yellow.

"Leila, what're you doing?" Michelle is standing on the porch, staring at me with her eyebrows drawn in. She speaks in a low voice but with a sharp tone. "Get over here." I walk toward her and as I go up the steps, she says in the same volume, "You know how I feel about that; if we're walking together, you stay beside me or in front of me."

I nod and keep my head down. She stares at me for a few seconds, then takes a deep breath while lifting her hand to her forehead. She massages above her eyebrows with one hand and raises the other fist to the door. She bangs on the door like the police, her shoulders jerking with each knock, and then drops both arms.

I stare at her satin bonnet that matches her three-piece pajamas: pants, a blouse, and a robe. Like me, she's not wearing slippers or socks, but her sienna complexion hasn't lost its color, unlike mine.

She starts to knock again but stops when the person at the door unlocks it. We hear the locks clicking and the knob rattling, then they swing open the door.

Uncle Wallace looks at her, then me, and back to Michelle.

"Good morning," he drags it, and it sounds more like a question than a greeting. "What're you two doing out here this late?"