Chapter 26

On Memoir: Dad had been trying to distract us from the fact that a whole person was missing from our lives.

It was December and the desert was cold and loveless. My brother and I laid on the couch in front of the television reciting lines from Rocky III. The screen glowed through the soft haze that forever enshrouded us. We faced each other with our feet stretched out in front and our legs staircased on top of one another.  

Our palms were sticky and our lips were stained with the rainbow from shoving handfuls of Skittles into our mouths.