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Izzy stared at the casket as it was lowered into the ground, wind whipping against her dry eyes, stinging and heavy with the smell of rain.

A plain wooden box.

Nothing ornamental or pretty—nothing at all to show the precious person it held. A person who was still very much needed on this side of life by the two children she was leaving behind. This was her mother’s fate: to be buried in a standard coffin, in a no-name plot provided by the city. A fate reserved for those pitiful souls who had no one left to bury them, and no money to their name. Her mother was lowered into the ground... with only her brother and her to look on.

This was no funeral, was her bitter thought. This was the ending of a life that didn’t matter. A sweeping under the rug of all the details and nuances that made up a person who’d left no mark on the world. None, but the two of them. It might as well have been her in there. With every bit of dirt they tossed on their mother’s resting place they buried her soul, too. Because now that her mother was gone, she was well and truly alone.

Izzy wanted to feel rage. She wanted to feel pain. Tears, screaming, anything—anything to break this still-beating stone in her chest. Agony would have been welcome compared to this nothingness.

But she’d lived this nightmare for too long now. Her soul was empty. All that was left was the husk of who she once was.

It was the slight tug at her hand that pulled her from her thoughts. Shiloh was watching her, not the coffin. Too small, she thought. Too young to understand that their mother was gone. That she was never coming back. Too fragile for the harsh reality they were now in—the implications of which, even now, were not lost on her. It had hauled her from sleep the past few nights and filled her with a terror that was quickly becoming the only thing she could feel anymore.

And yet...

And yet she still felt the need to protect him. He was a child. Though she was still a child herself, Shiloh was only four. When her mother told her about him, she never could have understood how deeply he would impact her life. How he’d quickly become the center of everything for her.

Shiloh had never known love or peace except through Izzy. Even their mother hadn’t cared for him the way she had. She’d always been sick, in and out of hospitals with bruises she couldn’t explain to the nurses, or in bed trying to ease the pain with sleep and the pills she seemed to have an endless supply of.

Things would be different now. No more mornings wondering if she would wake up to her mom making them breakfast. No more checking that she was still breathing before getting herself and Shiloh ready for school. No more walking into the room—which was always kept dark—softly calling out to her, too terrified to wake her up. Too terrified to know if she wouldn’t wake up at all.

There was no more wondering now.

With a weary sigh, Izzy looked down at her brother. “Come on, let’s go back.”

Shiloh glanced once more at the mound of freshly turned dirt before allowing her to pull him along.

Each day moved on in a half terrified blur.

Izzy would wake up, quiet as a mouse, hoping that their dad hadn’t made it home the night before. If she found the living room empty, she’d prepare a pitifully small breakfast for herself and Shiloh before going to wake him up. There were a few mornings where he would be passed out on the couch. They’d go without food on those days. Better to avoid any confrontation altogether.

They lived like mice in their own home, scurrying about only when it was safe, living as quietly as possible to avoid getting caught in their father’s snare.

On good days she would walk Shiloh to his school early enough to make it to her own campus on time. When they were late... well, her mother’s cell phone was gone, and the school had no way to contact her father to let him know about her many tardy days. If she wasn’t careful, the school might try to find another way to contact them. She didn’t know what she’d do if they came by the house.

By the end of her school days, Shiloh was waiting with his teacher, helping her clean the room or wiping down the white board. He always loved helping where he could, always offering where there was work to be done. Izzy suspected it was one of the many reasons his teacher hadn’t reported them to the state. Shiloh was clean and well cared for. His clothes were raggedy, but patched, his face clean and full of that adorable baby fat. For better or worse, Shiloh was as happy and healthy as any other kid his age. It had never been unusual for Izzy to come get him after school, and she certainly didn’t need to hear Izzy’s excuses about where their parents were.

They were doing it. They were making it through without their mom. Her cooking was barely edible, and she was more tired than she’d ever been, but they were alive. They were surviving.

However, all those thoughts came to a crashing halt one morning when she opened the cupboard and found it nearly empty. They’d used the last of their oatmeal the day before. The eggs had been gone three days before that.

Mom had been the one to go shopping.

She’d always had enough, just barely enough money. Izzy had no idea where she’d gotten it from. Not when her mother never worked. Her father... she wasn’t sure what he did, but he had to have money for the booze he drank every day. And he was gone at the same times. She’d always assumed he’d worked, even if they rarely saw the fruits of that labor.

Her hands wavered on the cupboard. She couldn’t very well go ask him for money. The thought alone made her stomach flip and her hands shake. Izzy had suspected that her father had only not hurt them because he’d simply forgotten they were there. She was in no rush to remind him of that fact, that they were technically his responsibility, and the only outlet he had now that their mother was gone.

Maybe she could get a job? Shia would have to come with her... she couldn’t imagine what that would look like. Drumming her fingers against the cupboard, she grabbed a random group of food items and closed the cabinet. Maybe she didn’t know what that would look like, but she wasn’t prepared for the outcome of not getting one, or what that might mean for her and Shia.

The next day she left her schools office with a work permit. It had been shockingly easy to get. But it seemed that everyone in her sphere were aware that her mother and father were only honorary presences. And unlike those in her sphere, she didn’t have the luxury of humiliation as she rushed to pick up Shiloh from school.