Where We Belong (43 page)

“I’ll come visit soon,” she said.

“Good. That would be good. Thanks.”

I jumped out.

And started the long, slightly scary job of making my way back home.

By the time I walked home from the bus station, it was almost five in the afternoon. I opened the door with my key. Sophie was asleep—or, at least, asleep-looking—in the middle of the rug. My mom was sitting at the kitchen table with her back to me.

“I’m home,” I said, kind of sing-songy. Like Ricky Ricardo telling Lucy he was back from the club.

Nothing. Not a movement. Not a word.

I have to admit that really iced me down. I knew she’d be mad, but I thought she’d be blustery, yelling-at-me mad. I didn’t expect the great nothingness.

Then I saw what she had in front of her on the table. But I was hoping I was wrong. Because I was still hanging over by the door, not wanting to get closer to her.

I went closer. And it was just what I was hoping it wasn’t. My father’s wallet, watch, and wedding ring were sitting on the table in front of my deadly silent mom.

“You went into my locked trunk? That’s, like, the only privacy I get.”

“I don’t think that’s our biggest issue here, kiddo.”

“I had the key with me. How did you get in? Did you break the lock?”

I heard her say something, but I didn’t hang around to make out what it was. I sprinted to the other end of the apartment. Around the room divider. The metal trunk was sitting on my bed, its lid wide open. Sophie could have been shredding my Himalayas book if she’d gotten it in her head to. I took a quick inventory, to make sure everything was still there. Everything that wasn’t on the table in front of my mom, that is.

It all seemed to be there. But then I thought of Nellie’s note. And then I couldn’t breathe, until I remembered I’d taken it with me. At least, I thought I had. I plowed through zippered pocket after zippered pocket of my backpack, and when I wrapped my hand around it, that’s when I let myself breathe again.

I flipped the lid of the trunk closed and took a good look at the lock. She’d broken it.

I stuck my head around the divider again.

“Nice,” I said. “Now I have not one place in this whole house where I can keep anything safe.”

“I’m not letting you make me the bad guy here,” she said. Still deadly calm. “I want to know where you were.”

I dropped my backpack onto the rug and shoved the note into my jeans pocket and walked to the table and sat. It hit me hard how tired I was.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you. Because I can’t. Because it’s somebody else’s privacy involved. All I can tell you is that I had a chance to do something to help somebody, and I did.”

“
Where
, though? In what
location
?”

“I went back home.”

“Bad place for a girl your age.”

“I was a girl a lot younger than this in that city, for a long time, and I survived to talk about it. Why did you break the lock on my trunk? How was that going to get me back?”

“I was looking for clues on where you might’ve gone. I figured you had some kind of secret. I thought you’d run off with some boy… or… person… and maybe I could find you.”

“I left you a note saying I’d be back today. How is that running off? And there’s no… person. I’m not with anybody.”

She levered her chin in the direction of the objects on the table.

“Why were these in your trunk?”

“I’ve got a better question. Why are they in our house at all? You told me they were stolen.”

“You’re trying to twist things back onto me again. How did they get in your trunk?”

I sat back. Folded my arms over my chest. Now I was getting pissed. And now the anger was making me extra icy and calm, too.

“I put them there.”

“Why?”

“So you’d eventually notice they were missing. And then you’d know that I know that a lot of what you told me about Dad was a lie. And then you’d have to tell me why we have the things you said got stolen off him that night, and what really happened. I wasn’t stealing these things. You want them? Fine. Take them. They’re yours. But tell me the story you should have told me all along.”

“It was a robbery.” But her icy calm had turned into more of an anxious, defensive thing.

“With nothing stolen.”

“Attempted robbery.”

“Mom. All you have to do is type his name into a search engine, and it brings up the newspaper stories.”

I expected her to say something. Maybe not much of a something. But something. “Oh.” Or “Crap.” Or something.

Nothing.

“Did it have to do with the gambling?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should have told me that.”

“You were six.”

“So instead, you told me he was just minding his own business. Like all you have to do to get murdered is just walk out on the street. You don’t even have to make a bad choice to bring it on.”

“Well… you don’t.”

“But what’s going to scare a six-year-old most? I’d rather think he did something to bring it on. Something I could avoid doing. Instead of making me think the world is not only viciously violent but completely random.”

“It is,” she said.

I pushed the chair back, and the squeak made her jump. I got to my feet.

“This is getting us nowhere.”

I walked back to my little bedroom area and picked up my damaged trunk. I was halfway to the door with it when she tried to stop me with words.

“You do
not
walk out that door.”

My first urge was to keep going, but I stopped to challenge her instead.

“Or…?”

“Let me tell you how it’s going to be, kiddo. From now on, you do not walk out that door unless I know where you’re going. Or you relinquish all the rights you’ve earned over the years. I am the mother, and you are the kid.”

“Really? Starting when?”

“Watch it, kiddo. Watch yourself. You’re still under my roof.”

I set the trunk down at my feet.

“Your roof? How do you figure that? How did you earn us this roof? This is not your roof, this is Paul’s roof, and the only reason you get to live under it is because of me. I got us this roof. Now let me tell
you
how it’s going to be. If you ever invade my privacy again, I’m leaving home. I’m old enough to be an emancipated minor. I’ll work and take care of myself and live someplace where something I own gets to be mine and only mine.”

Then I grabbed up the trunk again and walked out. It wasn’t a very graceful exit, because I had to lean the trunk on the railing of the landing to close the door behind me. But she didn’t say a word or try to stop me.

But it did occur to me that she might have some words by the time I got back.

I hauled the trunk up Paul’s back stairs and knocked.

“Angie?” he called through the door.

“Yeah, Paul, it’s me.”

“Come in.”

I found him in the living room, playing Solitaire on the coffee table.

“Hey,” I said.

“Where’ve you been? Your mom was a bit upset.”

“She didn’t come up here, did she?”

“No, she just called on the phone and asked if I knew where you were. Which is marginally okay. What’s that?”

“Oh. This. This is like the one scrap of privacy I’ve had for my entire life. And my mom broke the lock on it while I was gone. I was wondering if you could fix it. You said once a long time ago that you had a garage shop. You know. With tools, where you could make things.”

“Let’s take a look at it.”

I set it on the rug, and he turned on the lamp on the end table and leaned in and examined the damage.

“Can you fix it?”

“In practical terms, no. Almost everything can theoretically be fixed. But sometimes it requires parts. See this little metal piece right here? That snapped when she pried it. This is an old trunk, and the lock mechanism is something that was made especially for it. So I think you need a new trunk.”

“I spent all my money.”

“Even your secret stash?”

“What do you think I was traveling on for the last two days?”

“Ah. Well. Does it have to be a trunk? Or does it just have to hold things and lock? I have some big wooden boxes out in the garage. A lot of different sizes. Part of a project I never got around to finishing.”

“But do they lock?”

“Any wooden box can lock. You just have to go to a hardware store and buy a hasp. I could put that on for you. And then you could lock it with a small padlock.”

“That might be good.”

“Come take a look at what I’ve got.”

So we walked down the back steps together and up the slope to the garage. He let us in through the door near the woodshed. Turned on the overhead light.

“I’ve got to get this cleaned up,” he said. “So Rachel can get her car in.”

“She’s coming for a visit?”

“She is. She called me and suggested we visit more often.”

“When did she call?”

“Last night. When you were gone.”

I swallowed the big excited-but-nervous thing and said nothing.

He headed for the far end of the garage, the shop end, and I followed him. He pulled an old sheet off a big pile of stuff that turned out to be nice-looking pieces of lumber, wooden dowels… and big wooden boxes.

“Any of these look big enough?”

“This one would be great.”

I touched it. Ran my hands around the edges. It was heavy, dark wood, nicely finished. Smooth and rounded at the edges and corners. It was not as tall as my old trunk, but it was as wide and almost as long.

“This would be perfect, if you really don’t mind parting with it.”

“Not doing anybody any good down here. Except maybe the spiders.”

“I’ll walk down to the hardware store in the morning. I think I’ve got that much change left.”

But only because Rachel fed me dinner and breakfast and gave me a ride to the bus station. Of course, I didn’t say so.

“So,” he said. “Total state secret? Or are you dying to tell somebody where you’ve been? So long as that somebody’s not your mother?”

I pointed straight up to remind him she was on the other side of the garage ceiling. I didn’t know if she could hear through the floor, but I was in no mood to take chances.

He dusted off the big wooden box with a corner of the sheet and handed it to me, and we headed upstairs.

When we were far enough away from the apartment, I said, “It had to do with the… situation I was telling you about. Where I was a total coward. That situation kind of stayed on my mind since we talked about it. I wanted to make it right.”

Which was the truth. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

“So, you saw her?” he asked, as we walked up the back stairs.

“I did.”

“Was it terrifying?”

“At first. It got a little easier as we went along.”

He opened the back door for me.

“And by the way,” I said, “I think my mom knows. Because she said she thought I ran off with some boy, but then she changed
boy
to
person
.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. Yeah. That sounds like mom-speak for ‘I’m on to you.’ How do you think she figured it out?”

“Well, she’s been waiting breathlessly for me to show some interest in boys. She must have noticed how far behind schedule I am. I just don’t think it’s that hard a guess. You know?”

“I guess our moms know us. Just set that box down here in the back bedroom, and we can leave it here until you get the hardware. If you want, you can put your things from the trunk in it, and I’ll guard it with my life until we get it locked up.”

“Thanks. But my mom’s been plowing through it, anyway.”

He looked into my face for a minute. I couldn’t decide what he was thinking.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Starving. I was hoping my mom would ask. But instead, we just had this nasty fight.”

“Come sit in the kitchen. I’ll cook. I’m hungry, too.”

I followed him in. Watching him. Tracking something in him that felt a little… different.

“You seem happy,” I said as I sat down at the table.

“Do I? How would some cold shrimp with cocktail sauce be for a snack? While I’m cooking?”

“It would be absolutely amazing.”

“Done. I just have to thaw them under running water for a couple of minutes.”

As he stood at the sink doing that, he said, “Happy. Yeah. I guess so. I just felt like… I’m not referencing this correctly. Rachel called last night. Like I said. It felt different. I can’t explain it. It felt like something had shifted. She didn’t actually say anything different from before. But there’s always this… I don’t know. I don’t want to say
wall
. It’s trite. But there’s always some kind of structure that keeps us at a little bit of a distance from each other. And it’s like she just stepped over it. Or something. Might be totally my imagination.”

“I don’t think it is.”

He looked back at me. Curious. But only mildly, I think.

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. Just an observation. We all go around saying we don’t know where we stand with other people, because we don’t know what they’re thinking. Which is true. But we can
feel
where we stand with them. But then we get back into our heads and start second-guessing what we feel and get ourselves all confused and tangled up again.”