Chapter 5: Burnt Sugar

Friday night, Nico declared Mandatory Family Bonding. Cards. Bad grappa. Worse decisions. I played, because the alternative was sitting upstairs alone listening to a building that never stopped creaking, and because I'd stopped sleeping without a chair under the doorknob and a boning knife in the nightstand. Benny got dared to eat a spoonful of chili paste and briefly met God. Sal admitted he'd cried at a commercial about a dog waiting at a window. Nico took a dare involving the neighbor's...