Excerpt from The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She put on her work pants and a navy blue T-shirt that read 9TH STREET BAKERY in yellow-colored ink. In a backpack she put a change of clothes and her class work and went upstairs to find her mother in the living room asleep on the couch, the TV still on. Lynette shut it off and went to the bathroom. The toilet hadn't been flushed and used toilet paper was on the floor. She picked it up and flushed it. She cleaned the seat, used it herself, then washed her face and brushed her teeth and hair.

Her brother sat on his bed dressed in matching red Portland Trail Blazers sweatpants and hoodie. His walls were covered in twenty-year-old Portland Trail Blazers, Winterhawks, and Beavers posters. He slept on a twin bed in the corner of the room, a black, red, and white Trail Blazers comforter covering it. A Superman lamp sat on a dresser. Two Superman night-lights were plugged into the wall sockets.

"Shoes," Lynette said.

Kenny smiled but shook his head.

"Don't play around. We're gonna be late if you do." She picked two pairs of sweats up off the floor, smelled them, and then folded them and set them on top of his dresser. She found his red-and-black Blazers knit cap and put it on his head. "Don't take it off. That's an order. We can't keep losing hats."

She looked on the floor for socks, found two, smelled them, and put them on his feet. "Tomorrow we cut your nails."

He shook his head.

"They're getting gross. Let me see what you put in your backpack?"

He wrapped his arms around it.

"Come on, Kenny."

He shook his head.

"Alright, then, suit yourself. Let's just get our shoes and go."

She grabbed his hand and they walked out to the main room to see the TV on again.

"Can't sleep?" asked Lynette.

Their mother looked at them from the couch. She was covered in a leopard-print electric blanket. "I always forget how early you get up." She reached to the coffee table, found her cigarettes and a lighter, and lit one as she lay on her back. "What time are you bringing him home?"

"I get out of class at two. I'll be here by two fifteen and then I have my shift at three thirty. I called Sally, but she can't watch him. I figure I'll lock him in his room with a movie. He'll be alone for just over two hours if you come home right after you get off."

Their mother coughed. "I might not go to work today."

"You sick?"

She nodded and a trail of smoke left her mouth.

"Then you keep him."

Their mother slowly shook her head. "Nah... . I'm just wishing. I have to go in." She put the cigarette in an ashtray, sat up, and said, "Come here, Superman." She patted the couch and Kenny went to her. "Be a good boy today. Do what your sister says." She kissed him on the forehead and then lay back down.

Lynette locked the front door and, on the porch, zipped up her and Kenny's coats. The old house behind them was shingled with gray asbestos siding and the single-paned windows were original and painted white. It was a thousand square feet and across the road was a concrete wall blocking the sight and some of the traffic noise from Interstate 5.

It was January and raining and forty-one degrees when Lynette and her brother walked across the lawn to her red 1992 Nissan Sentra. She opened the passenger-side door and Kenny got in. She put on his seat belt and walked around to the driver's side. The car started on the second try. The heater hadn't worked in a year and their breath fogged the windows inside the car. She drove with one hand on the wheel and the other holding a rag she used to wipe the condensation and steam from the windshield.

"There's a red car passing us," Lynette said half-heartedly to her brother. "Do you see it?"

Kenny smiled and pointed at it.

She put her hand on his arm and squeezed. "Maybe seeing your favorite colored car so early means we'll have a lucky day."

Excerpted from The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin. Copyright © 2021 by Willy Vlautin. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.