Pieces of Me (21 page)

Tears slid down Leo's face. “Don't cry,” Dylan said. “You're not lost now.”

I knelt in the dirt and wiped the tears away with my hand. All I could see was a small purple bruise on Leo's cheek. “Are you all right?” I asked.

He swallowed and nodded. I wrapped my arms around him, and Dylan leaned his small, warm body against us. I sent a silent prayer of thanks skyward.

We went back to the room. Leo carried Dylan, and I pulled the wheeled cart. We had granola, applesauce and yogurt for breakfast. Dylan was wild from lack of sleep. Leo was very, very quiet. I was cold, inside and out.

After we'd eaten, I pulled Dylan onto my lap. “I need to talk to Leo for a bit,” I said. “Could you play train with Fred for a while?”

“Can we go to the park after?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Can I have a cookie?”

I reached over and wiped a splotch of applesauce from his chin. “Yes, you can have a cookie.”

“Can I have a cookie now?” He grinned at me.

“If you stop asking questions, yes.”

The grin got bigger. He threw his arms around my neck for a quick hug and then climbed off my lap and raced over to get a peanut butter cookie from the bag on the table.

I moved over to sit by Leo. “Where's Q?” he asked in a low voice.

I felt my face tighten. “I don't know,” I said.

Leo stared down at the floor. “It's all my fault.”

“No, it isn't,” I said. I looked over at Dylan. Fred was sprawled stomach down on one of the train cars, and Dylan was driving it around the table legs. I put a hand on Leo's arm and kept it there even when I felt him flinch under my touch. “This is my fault and it's Q's fault, but it sure as hell isn't yours.”

“I couldn't do it,” he whispered. “I thought I could act older and keep track of the cards and all the dumb stuff people do to give themselves away when they bet, and I couldn't.” His eyes filled with tears. “I wrecked it. I wrecked it for all of us.”

Dylan was sharing a bite of his cookie with Fred, who was still on the train but on his back now. “Leo, when we collect bottles, how many does Dylan pick up?” I asked.

“I, uh, I don't know. Seven or eight, maybe,” he said.

“Six,” I said. “I counted.”

Leo pulled at a loose thread on his shirt. “He's just a little kid.”

I dipped my head, tipping it sideways so he pretty much had to look at me. “Yeah. There's no way he could ever gather up enough recyclables for us to get enough money to get out of here. Just like there's no way you could win enough money playing poker. You're a kid, Leo, just like Dylan. Older yeah, but otherwise there's not much difference. It was a stupid, stupid idea. It wasn't real.”

“Is Q coming back?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said, leaning back against the wall. “It doesn't make any difference. Whatever we do, it's you and me and Dylan. No running away. Okay?”

I couldn't see his face. I kept my hand on his arm and waited out the silence. And then, finally, he said, “Okay.”

After lunch we took Dylan to the park. Leo chased him all over the play climber, and I pushed him on the swing until my arms were two pieces of floppy spaghetti.

For supper we had sandwiches and salad. There was no money for milk, but I had a small container of soy milk that was still cold from the remnants of the ice. After we ate I methodically searched the room, hoping I'd find a bit of change, a forgotten twenty-dollar bill or something of Q's I could sell. I didn't find anything.

I sat up most of the night trying to figure something out as I watched Dylan and Leo sleep, but there were no answers in the dark. This was real, and like I'd told Leo, there wasn't going to be any running away.

In the morning we ate some of the yogurt and the last sandwich in the cooler. The ice had melted, and I knew the last couple of containers of yogurt weren't going to be any good.

I packed the peanut butter, the bread, apples and cereal into my two shopping bags. All the blankets, the sleeping bag and our one clean towel went into one of Q's boxes. I piled his things neatly on his empty air mattress. Mostly I went from one chore to the other without thinking beyond that.

“Are we leaving?” Leo asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “The landlord will be here at lunchtime for the rent for next week, and I don't have any money.”

He exhaled softly. “Where will we go?”

“I don't know yet,” I said. “I'll figure something out.”

There was too much to carry, I realized, and I couldn't leave the food or the blankets behind. “Leo, would you take Dylan and go out and find us a grocery cart?” I said. “There's always some around the gas bar.” I knew he wouldn't run if he had Dylan with him.

He hesitated for a moment and then turned to Dylan. “C'mon, squirt,” he said. “Let's go.”

I stacked all the things we couldn't take along one wall, and then I swept the floor and cleaned up the bathroom. I didn't really know why it was important to leave the place clean, but it was.

Before the boys came back, I walked down the hall and knocked on Lucy's door, but she wasn't there. I went back to the room for a piece of paper and a pencil. I didn't know what to write. I settled for
Thank you for everything
, and signed my name. Then I slipped the paper under her door.

We took two bags of food, the blankets, a garbage bag with a change of clothes for each of us, Dylan's toys and the school stuff. We didn't really have room for the books, but I wasn't leaving those behind.

We ate lunch down by the river. I would have gone into the library for a while, but we couldn't leave the shopping cart.

Once it started getting dark, we headed along the street in the direction of the organic foods market. I'd noticed an old building being renovated along there that had a garage in the back. The house was boarded up and surrounded by a chain-link fence, but the garage was open and we went in.

It was piled with stuff that had obviously been saved from the house—wood trim, a fireplace mantel, a chandelier—but it was fairly clean and completely dry.

“Maddie, I wanna go home,” Dylan said.

I crouched down beside him. “I know you do,” I said. “But we have to stay here for tonight.”

His lower lip wobbled. “Fred doesn't like it here.”

“Do you think he would feel better if he had a cookie?” I asked.

He nodded slowly. I fished in the bag of food, found the cookies and gave him the biggest one.

Leo was prowling around the back of the garage. “Maddie,” he called. “I found some boxes.”

I eased my way around a pile of wood. Leo had found several flattened cardboard boxes piled by the back wall of the garage. I spotted what looked like a blue tarp on the floor. “Bring that too,” I said, pointing.

Using the tarp and the cardboard, we made a little lean-to in one corner of the garage. It was pretty much the only thing I remembered from being a Brownie, other than how to make s'mores.

I put Dylan in his sleeping bag in between Leo and me. The plastic tarp and cardboard trapped our body heat, and it wasn't really cold at all. Dylan fell asleep with his head on my lap.

I dozed off for a few minutes and then woke up with a jolt, unsure of where I was. It was dark outside, just a little light coming in through the dirty window on the opposite side of the garage. I looked over at Leo. His head was tipped back against the blue tarp, and he was staring into the darkness.

“Hey,” I said softly.

He turned his head to look at me. “What are we going to do?” he whispered.

“I'll figure something out,” I said quietly.

“If we go to a shelter, they'll ask a lot of questions.”

“I know,” I said. “It might not come to that.”

“I'm not going back, not ever,” he said, his voice low and rough with anger.

I reached across Dylan and found Leo's hand, holding it tightly in mine. I wanted to say I understood, but how could I? I wanted to say it would be okay, but how could I do that either?

“He said…he said no one would believe me if I told,” he whispered.

“I believe you,” I said fiercely, tightening my grip on his hand.

“He said he would hurt my mother…and I knew he could do it.” I could feel the tears sliding down my face.

“And…and ruin my dad.”

Ruin my dad
? Oh God! Oh God, it wasn't Leo's father. My breath stuck in my chest. It wasn't Leo's father who had…

“Leo, who…who hurt you?” I managed to choke out.

“My grandfather,” he whispered.

I could feel the folded-up flyer in the back pocket of my jeans. I'd held on to it for some reason I couldn't explain to myself. They were looking for him. They cared about him. They loved him. And if I told Leo, our family really would be finished.

I reached over Dylan, still sleeping, with my free arm and pulled Leo into a hug. He put his head on my shoulder and cried. And so did I.

seventeen

We were awake and out of the garage before any of the workmen showed up, and we'd put the tarp and boxes back neatly against the end wall of the garage. We pushed the cart to the park. I used a knife to pop the lock on one of the bathrooms so we could all pee and wash our hands. Then I wiped up the sink and relocked the door behind us.

We had cereal, yogurt and water for breakfast. I wondered where Q was waking up. He'd made his choice, and I was making mine. Dylan took Fred and raced over to the slide. Leo got up to go with him.

“Hang on a sec,” I said. My heart was pounding so hard, it should have banged its way out of my chest. I pulled the paper out of my back pocket and handed it to Leo.

He frowned. “What is this?” he said.

It was hard to look at him, but I made myself do it. “Just…just look at it,” I said.

He unfolded the page and stared at it. His hands started to shake, and so did the paper. He looked up at me.

“Nothing was your fault, Leo, nothing,” I said. “It's all your grandfather. He's evil…he's…garbage. They love you. They've been looking for you all this time.”

He shook his head.

“Yes,” I said. I pressed a hand against my mouth for a moment so I could get my breath. “I should have told you, and I'm sorry I didn't. But…but…they love you. I promise they do.”

He looked at me, stricken. “But I love you,” he choked out. “And Dylan. You're my family. You need me, Maddie. I want to stay with you.” He crumpled the flyer into a ball and threw it on the grass.

I grabbed his arm. Both of his hands were squeezed into tight fists. “Sit,” I said, pulling him down onto the bench beside me. I looked over to where Dylan was going down the smallest slide with Fred on his lap, and then I turned back to Leo.

“You need me,” he said, his face tight with stubbornness. “I can help you with Dylan and we can collect more bottles and I can get a job and we can make it work.”

“Stop,” I said. “Let me talk.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Leo, you and Dylan, to me it's like I'm your mom, not your big sister, your mom, and I know that sounds weird because I'm not that much older, but that is how it is. I love you two more than anything in the world.”

“We're a family, so we stay together,” he said.

I looked skyward for a second and then back at him. “I'm not done,” I said.

He nodded but didn't say anything.

“Do you know what it was like when I didn't know where you were?” I said. “It felt like a piece of my heart had been yanked clean out of my chest. If you ran away again, it would be like that all over again. Every bite of food I had would make me wonder if you had enough to eat. When I lay down at night, I'd wonder if you had somewhere safe and warm to sleep.

“And I'd look for you. I'd walk the streets day and night. I'd look inside every building in this city. I'd stop every single person on the sidewalk and ask if they'd seen you. As long as I could breathe, I'd look for you.”

My eyes filled with tears. “That's how your mother and father feel,” I whispered. “That's what they're doing.”

He swallowed a bunch of times, trying to keep his own tears down. “You don't know that for sure.”

I put both hands on his shoulders and forced him to look at me. “I do know that for sure,” I said. “I know what's in her heart because you're my child too.”

“I'll never see you again, or Dylan,” he whispered.

“Yes, you will,” I said, reaching up to cross my heart with one hand. “I promise.”

Dylan was at the top of the slide again with Fred. He waved at us, and I waved back.

“He deserves better,” I said. “Better than a father who would leave him in the parking lot at All-mart with a stranger. Better than sleeping on a cardboard box and collecting bottles along the riverbank. He deserves a house and a yard and a dog and a swing set. He deserves a real bed and shoes that didn't come from the garbage. And so do you.”

Tears slipped down his cheeks, and his nose was running. He wiped his face with the end of his shirt. “Now?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I'll get Dylan,” he said. He started across the grass, then stopped and ran back to me, throwing his arms around me. “I love you, Maddie,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” I whispered back.

I watched him walk over to Dylan. This was the right thing to do. I knew that. What I didn't get was why the right thing had to hurt so much.

We left the cart in the park. I put Dylan's toys in my backpack, and we left everything else behind, just the way we were leaving that life behind. I carried Dylan all the way to Pax House because I didn't know if I'd ever get to do that again.

Jayson was on the door, and he didn't even ask me what I wanted. He held open the door and said, “Hannah's in her office.”