Dad’s hand froze in the air.
“What did you call us?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Bennett.” I gripped Aunt Claire’s shirt, my voice small. “Aunt Claire said I’m Mot
related to you anymore.”
Dad’s face went pale, bit by bit. He stood up and looked at Aunt Claire. His eyes went red.
“Claire, this is what you’re teaching him? We’re his real parents!”
“Real parents?”
Aunt Claire pulled me behind her. “Real parents wouldn’t choose a dog over their son!”
Dad opened his mouth but couldn’t speak.
Aunt Claire took me upstairs.
They stood downstairs for a long time. Then they crouched down, holding the LEGO box, shoulders
shaking.
I didn’t look back.
Uncle Mark found out the next day.
He took me and Aunt Claire to a friend’s farm to see the horses.
He didn’t ask anything on the way. At a red light, he said suddenly.
“If they come again, tell me.’
“You don’t have to get involved.”
Aunt Claire said. “It’s no trouble.”
He looked straight ahead. “I know people like them are the hardest to get rid of.”
“They don’t miss Leo. They just can’t let go.”
I turned to look at him.
He held the steering wheel, fingers resting near the horn. There was an old scar on his knuckle.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen people like them.”
The farm was huge. I touched a horse for the first time and smiled so hard my eyes curved.
Uncle Mark stood beside me and taught me to hold my hand flat so the horse could smellit.
The horse’s breath hit my palm, warm and ticklish.
“Uncle Mark, their fur is so soft.”
“Yeah. Way gentler than a dog.”
I froze, then laughed out loud.
It was the first time I’d laughed that loud since coming to Rockport.
Aunt Claire watched me from outside the fence. After a while, she smiled too.
Mom and Dad came back three more times.
The first time, they waited outside the apartment complex all night.
When I left for school in the morning, Dad rushed over and knelt in front of me.
“Leo, I’m begging you. Give me one chance. I’ll change everything-”
I walked around him and waited for the school bus.
The second time, they brought Grandma.
Grandma had aged a lot. She held my hand and cried.
“Leo, we know we were wrong. The family can’t be without you.”
I pulled my hand back. “Grandma, Mom and Dad signed the transfer papers themselves.”
“It’s too late for this now.”
The third time, Dad was drunk and pounded on the door in the middle of the night.
Aunt Claire called the police.
As the police took him away, he shouted in the hallway.
“Leo Bennett! You’ll regret this! You won’t even take your own parents. You’re an ungrateful bra!”
The hallway was quiet. The motion-sensor lights went out one by one.
I lay in bed thinking, Ungrateful brat. Fine.
Grandma told me Connor’s ending over the phone, crying.
His real mother took him. Before she left, she cleaned out the family’s money.
Biscuit went with them. He ran off halfway there and was never found.
When he ran off, the other half of the braided charm was still around his neck.
Grandma cried so hard on the phone she could barely breathe.
“Leo, come home. Grandma will braid you a new charm.”
I wasn’t a forgiving kid.
“Okay.”
After I hung up, I looked out the window.
Aunt Claire and Uncle Mark were waiting downstairs. They stood on either side, leaving a space in
the middle.
That space was for me.