Starlee's Turn (The Wayward Sons 2)

I push through the little picket fence and past the wildflowers, the petals drooping with the heat. In Dexter’s last letter he said it was already starting to cool in Lee Vines.

I wipe the sweat off my forehead with the hem of my shirt. I can’t imagine.

Bracing myself for the low burning anger that rolls over me every time I’m in my mother’s presence, I climb the stairs to the porch.

My mother may have taken me away from Lee Vines, my grandmother, and the boys I love, but she hasn’t been able to pry them from my heart or me from theirs.

That’s the problem when you give a caged animal a taste of freedom.

They just want more.

2

Starlee

The first week of homeschooling is like any other week of homeschooling. Boring. Focused. Short. When I was younger, my mother would take me on little field trips to fill the gaps in my day-to-day adventures, but all that stopped when I hit high school and my academics were more about hard numbers and facts. Colleges didn’t care if I went to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. Things were tense between us by then anyway, and neither of us wanted to spend that much time together. We already spent all of our time together.

I’d passed my summer online classes in California and was able to transfer the credit. At this rate, I’d graduate by December and enroll in our local college by January. I’d be eighteen in three weeks, an adult. I waited for the day to come, feeling like there would be some kind of change, but I knew better. Even if I enrolled in college in January, I’d still be expected to live at home. I saw no escape from this. Not any time soon.

Or I didn’t.

Not until recently.

Not until my mother had relented right after we returned home from California and she’d allowed me to get the babysitting job. For the first time, I had something I’d never had before.

Money.

I saved every dollar. Every dime. I spent nothing except postage for my letters to the boys. What else would I

buy? Movie tickets with friends? Late nights at the Dairy Queen? I even have some stashed away from the small salary I’d been given by LeeLee.

If I can work the rest of the year, picking up babysitting jobs in the neighborhood, I may have enough to get back to California some day. That’s the dream that keeps me going.

“Starlee! The mail is here!”

The mail. That’s the other thing that keeps me going.

I hop up from my bed and run down the stairs. It’s Wednesday. The day after Tuesday. Pie Tuesday, to be specific.

The square box sits on the counter and a surge of excitement runs through me. The mystery of what kind. Angels Apple Pie? Charlie’s Chocolate Cream? Leelee and I are up to season nine and each episode is like peeling back pieces of the Wayward Sons—I understood them a little bit more.

“How long are those boys going to send these to you?”

Until I’m there to eat it fresh, I wanted to spat back. “I’m not sure why you’re complaining about homemade pie being delivered to our house each month.”

I grab the scissors and cut the tape on the box. The scent of sugar and buttery pastry hits my nose. It smells like Dexter, and my heart twists with the sadness of not being with him.

My mother peers inside. There’s a little note taped over the plastic. “Prophetic Pear,” she reads. “What in the world does that mean?”

I shrug, pulling it out of the box and pocketing the letter hidden beneath. “Inside joke, Mom, you wouldn’t get it.”

She rolls her eyes. “I guess it makes sense for that boy to send you a thank you pie. You did get him out of some serious trouble.”

I place the pie on the counter.

“I didn’t ‘get’ him out of trouble. I did the right thing. Something I’d think you’d expect of me.”

“I expected you to follow directions at your grandmother’s house, not wander around at all hours and get yourself in trouble!”