Summer Sanctuary by Laurie Gray

your mom or Matthew for everything they do, and I’m not going to start paying you. We take the money we have, and we use it to buy what we need. You need anew pair of shoes? We’ll get you a new pair of shoes. But nobody needs a $100 pair of shoes. I understand you want them. You need to understand we’re not buying them.”
    And that was that. I’m not sure Mark had figured it out yet, but he wasn’t getting the Jordan Jumpman Jeter shoes.
    I waited until after dinner when I was helping Mom clear the table to talk about packing my own lunches from now on. Finally the two of us were alone in the kitchen. “Mom,” I asked, “what time in the morning do you get up and pack our lunches?”
    â€œOh, I’m usually up at 5:30, and I have the lunches packed by 6:30. Why?” Mom scraped the plates and handed them to me to put in the dishwasher.
    â€œWould it be okay if I started packing my own lunch?” I knew she’d want to know why, and I’d been thinking about that. Sure enough, that was the first thing she asked.
    â€œWhy do you want to start packing your own lunch?” Mom really was kind of suspicious about everything.
    â€œI just thought you might appreciate having one less thing to do … with the baby coming and all.” I wasn’tready for too many questions. “And I know that I need to pack something healthy from each food group. It’s not like you keep a lot of junk food around the house, anyway.”
    Mom brushed her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. The bigger the baby got, the more tired Mom always looked by the end of the day. I could tell she was ready to sit down and put her feet up during our after-dinner reading hour. “I don’t see why not,” she said, mussing my hair like she does with Johnny when she wants to make him laugh. “Guess my first baby’s growing up.” Mom smiled, and I was thinking that this might be a good time to go double or nothing.
    â€œI was thinking, too, Mom, that I’m old enough and responsible enough now to have my own library card. I know that you’d have to sign for it and all, but I’d take really good care of it and of the books I check out.”
    Mom leaned back against the counter and took a deep breath. “Anything else?” she asked.
    â€œNope,” I said. I knew I’d won and flashed her my best grin. “I’ll bring home the form for you to sign tomorrow.” She put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me toward her. Her belly was getting biggerevery day, but I always felt like an only child again when Mom hugged me.

Twelve
    I HAD MY own temporary library card by Wednesday morning, but I could only check out two books at a time until my permanent library card came in the mail. That was fine with me. I was packing my own lunch and sharing it with Dinah underneath our tree every day now. She always had interesting stuff to share. Beef jerky, squashed Twinkies—junk food my mother would never feed us, but that I felt obliged to eat so I wouldn’t hurt Dinah’s feelings. And the canned fruit was always good.
    I couldn’t wait to show Dinah my library card. She didn’t know it yet, but I got it for her. We were munching on a box of Ritz crackers that had expired last week, when I flashed her my card.
    â€œThat’s great, Matthew,” she said, tilting her head at me and scrunching up her eyebrows. “I guess I thought you already had a library card.”
    â€œWe have a family card,” I said. “And my mom keeps a list of everything we check out for school and to make sure nothing’s overdue. Now I can check out things on my own, and my mom won’t necessarily know about it or ask me any questions.”
    Dinah’s eyes lit up. She chugged some water to clear the crackers from her mouth. “So what are you going to check out first?”
    â€œI can only check out two books at