She stole the money from the old water jug my parents saved change in for vacation. She left us at the water’s edge while she made her purchase. “Don’t tell anyone,” she said. But I did. Not because she had taken the money for cigarettes, but because I didn’t like being left outside by all that water with nothing stopping it, or me. The summer I was twelve, my brother and I would walk to the River from our house and order steak fries and Pepsis while our parents were at work. We would watch the men sitting at the bar, smoking and drinking, most of whom lived nearby and knew our father. We would use half a glass bottle of Heinz ketchup for our fries, licking salt from our fingertips. When the bartender brought the bill, I’d slide it back to her with sticky fingers and tell her to put it on my dad’s tab, that he’d be in later, I was sure of it. And she would, and he would. I got a job at the River as soon as I was old enough to obtain a work permit. I could have worked anywhere in town, but I wanted to work there.
