The Wrong Family

Winnie arrives home from work and is annoyed by the ugly car parked across the street from her house. She has reapplied her makeup and is excited to celebrate her 15-year wedding anniversary, but Nigel doesn’t remember the occasion and roots around looking for food until he finds powdered eggs—part of a disaster survival kit they received for their wedding. Winnie is disappointed that he doesn’t remember. She was hoping to try one more time for a baby, someone who would love her unconditionally. Winnie reflects that her marriage has seen a lot of “trouble” due to both her actions and Nigel’s.

Winnie reminisces about meeting Nigel after being set up on a blind date. She did not think Nigel was her type, but she fell for his smile. Nigel was raised by a single mother and wanted a modern, downtown home, but Winnie fell in love with a larger, older house on Turlin Street near Greenlake Park. She bought the house without discussing it with Nigel first, and they had to cash out his 401k to fix a black mold problem when Samuel was a newborn. Nigel insisted on adding a rental suite with a separate entrance to bring in extra income.

Juno recalls how she used to live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she had a therapy practice called Sessions in a converted Burger King building. She had a husband and two stepsons, but something went wrong: “That was before she more or less burned her life down and ended up in Washington” (34).

Now, Juno spends time with Sam in the park and learns that he feels like he doesn’t belong in his family. Juno thinks that Sam is special and feels protective of him.

Winnie is in the middle of a phone call with Nigel. She tells him that her brother, Dakota, has been kicked out of his home by his wife, Manda, for gambling. Winnie has already given Dakota a key and invited him to stay with the Crouches. Nigel is unhappy about this turn of events, but Winnie’s older sister, Shelly, has insisted that it’s Winnie’s turn to take care of Dakota.

In exchange for putting him up, Dakota fixes the doorbell that Nigel never got around to installing. Dakota has a history of emotional outbursts and once broke Samuel’s video game console, so Winnie takes Sam out to eat as a preemptive apology. She orders everything off the dessert menu, something she would not normally do. They discuss her old job as a case manager working with the unhoused at Illuminations and how she has no interest in working there again. Winnie privately recalls a woman who came into Illuminations asking for Winnie and wanting her home address.

Juno reflects on the time that she and her husband, Kregger, moved to Alaska so he could work on a new oil pipeline while she finished her thesis. She had a part-time job at the Piggly Wiggly.

Back in the present, Juno finds Dakota’s constant presence in the house oppressive but notes that the Crouches turned off the house alarm so that he can leave and return as needed. She makes herself a sandwich and takes the last pickle, which is “risky.” She then goes upstairs and snoops through Winnie’s things, reading her diary. In one entry, Winnie has written, “Day after day it eats me. I am tired, but not tired enough to kill myself” (62). Juno finds some LED tap lights that she decides to take. She then goes into Sam’s room, where she sees his blog and is impressed by his skills. She notices an unpublished post speculating that he’s adopted. Juno thinks to herself, “Snooping was wrong, but what [is] the harm in taking a little peek—it [isn’t] like she [is] some stranger off the street” (64).