Pere is living the life in central Florida. Money is tight, but odd jobs at the marina keep him in mac ‘n’ cheese and Chesterfields and pay the few bills that can’t be put off. His good buddy Clyde, who lives in an identical condo across the street, can always be relied upon for bait and swapping lies. One day is the same as the next, until his girlfriend, Missy, is sentenced to two-years at Lowell Correctional in Ocala for methamphetamine possession. In Ohio, Missy’s ex-husband puts their ten-year-old daughter Tammy on a Greyhound direct to Florida. Skinny and blonde and small for her age, Tammy steps off the bus with only a pack of colored markers and a black trash-bag of dirty clothes. Pere is suddenly a reluctant surrogate father, trying to survive on a shrinking income, and struggling to maintain his own fragile sobriety. Together, Pere and Tammy are an accidental family wandering lost in the land of temporary tags and disability checks, where the smell of caustic chemicals and fried food hangs in the air like wet laundry, and in the course of a single day they find out who needs taking care of, and who, exactly, is taking care of them.

Thomas M. Atkinson is a writer and playwright from southern Ohio. His short stories have been anthologized in the US, UK, and Ireland, and have appeared in The Sun, December, Southern Indiana Review, North American Review, Tampa Review, Madison Review, Doubleback Review, Indiana Review and others. His novels include Strobe Life and Tiki Man. His fiction and drama have received numerous awards, including five Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards. www.thomasmatkinson.com