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We might be old friends, but we were both weighted down with adult burdens.
Jack didn't call.
That night I lay sleepless, my arms rigidly at my sides, watching the bars of moonlight striping the ceiling of my old room. It was the distillation of the all the bad nights I'd had in the past seven years; except in my parents' house, I could not resort to my usual methods of escape and relief. Finally I got up, sat in the little slipper chair in the corner of the room, and turned on the lamp.
I'd finished my biography. Luckily I'd brought some paperbacks with me from Varena's, anticipating just such a night... not that I would have picked these books if I'd had much choice. The first was a book of advice on dealing with your stepchildren, and the second was a historical romance. Its cover featured a guy with an amazing physique. I stared at his bare, hairless chest with its immense pectorals, wondering if even my sensei's musculature would match this man's. I found it very unlikely that a sensible fighting man would wear his shirt halfway off his shoulders in that inconvenient and impractical way, and I thought it even sillier that his lady friend would choose to try to embrace him when he was leaning down from a horse. I calculated his weight, the angle of his upper body, and the pull she was exerting. I factored in the high wind blowing her hair out in a fan, and decided Lord Robert Dumaury was going to end up on the ground at Phillipetta Dunmore's feet within seconds, probably dislocating his shoulder in the process... and that's if he was lucky. I shook my head.
So I plowed through the advice, learning more about being a new mother to a growing not-your-own child than I ever wanted to know. This paperback showed serious signs of being read and reread. I hoped it would be of more use to Varena than Ms. Dunmore's adventures with Pectoral Man.
I would have given anything for a good thick biography.
I got halfway through the book before sleep overcame me. I was still in the chair, the lamp still on, when I woke at seven to the sounds of my family stirring.
I felt exhausted, almost too tired to move.
I did some push-ups, tried some leg lifts. But my muscles felt slack and weak, as if I were recovering from major surgery. Slowly, I pulled on my sweats. I'd committed my morning to cleaning Dill's house. But instead of rising and getting into the bathroom, I sat back in the chair with my face covered by my hands.
Being involved in this child abduction felt so wrong, so bad, but for my family's sake I couldn't imagine what else I could do. With a sigh of sheer weariness, I hauled myself to my feet and opened the bedroom door to reenter my family's life.
It was like dipping your toes into a quiet pond, only to have a whirlpool suck you under.
Since this was the day before the wedding, Mother and Varena had every hour mapped out. Mother had to go to the local seamstress's house to pick up the dress she pla
The list of errands grew longer and longer. I found myself tuning out after the first few items. Dill dropped A
"Is getting married always like this, Aunt Lily?" A
"No. You can just elope."
"Elope? Like the animal?"
"It's like an antelope only in that you run fast. When you elope, the man and woman who are getting married get in the car and drive somewhere and get married where nobody knows them. Then they come home and tell their families."
"I think that's what I'm go
"No. Have a big wedding. Pay them back for all this," I advised.
A
"That'll do it." I nodded approvingly.
"Maybe in the whole world."
"Even better."
"Do you have a boyfriend, Aunt Lily?" Yes.
"Does he write you notes?" A
"He calls me on the phone," I said. "Sometimes."
"Does he..." A
"He hasn't yet."
"What does he do to show you he likes you?"
Couldn't share that with an eight-year-old. "He hugs me," I told her.
"Ewwww. Does he kiss you?"
"Yeah, sometimes."
"Bobby Mitzer kissed me," A
"No kidding? Did you like it?"
"Ewwww."
"Maybe he's just not the right guy," I said, and we smiled at each other.
Then Mom and Verena told A
"You can manage at Dill's by yourself, can't you?" Varena asked anxiously. She'd returned from dropping A
"I'll be fine," I said, hearing my voice come out flat and cold. I'd enjoyed talking to A
Mother eyed me sharply. "You didn't sleep well," she said. "Bad dreams again?" And she and Varena and my father stared at me with matching expressions of concern.
"I'm absolutely all right," I said, trying to be civil, hating them thinking about the ordeal again. Was I being disgustingly self-pitying? It was just being home.
For the first time it occurred to me that if I'd been able to stay longer after the attack, if I'd toughed it out, they might have become used to me again, and they would have seen my life as a continuation, not a broken line. But I'd felt compelled to leave, and their clearest, most recent memory of me was of a woman in horrible pain of both kinds, plagued by nightmares waking and sleeping.
"I'll go clean now." I pulled on my coat.
"Dill's at work checking his inventory," Varena said. "I don't know how long he'll be. We'll be picking A
Mother and Varena were still fine-tuning their agenda when I walked out the door. My father was working a crossword puzzle, a half smile on his face as he caught snatches of their discussion. He didn't loathe this wedding frenzy, as most men did or pretended to. He loved it. He was having a great time fussing about the cost of the reception, whether he needed to go to the church to borrow yet another table for the still-incoming gifts, whether Varena had written every single thank-you note promptly.
I touched Father's shoulder as I went by, and he reached up and captured my hand. After a second, he patted it gently and let me go.
Dill owned an undistinguished three-bedroom, three bath ranch-style in the newest section of Bartley. Varena had given me a key. It still felt strange to find a locked door in my little hometown. When I'd been growing up, no one had ever locked anything.
On the way to Dill's, I'd seen another homeless person, this one a white woman. She was gray-haired but sturdy looking, pedaling an ancient bicycle laden down with an assortment of strange items bound together with nylon rope.