Savers? More than Skip was able to produce all by himself, I was pretty sure. But had he helped create this one? I didn’t consider Susanna a reliable anything, let alone a reliable source about Skip’s romantic trysts. But the eyes — they were exactly like Skip’s.
How many illegal things had I done in the past forty-eight hours? Bring it on. I was on a roll. A weird exhilaration flooded over me. Then I realized I was shaking. And I really wanted to cry.
I glanced at the girl again. No matter what, it wasn’t her fault.
“How old are you?” I asked, trying to sound friendly.
A brief moment of meeting my glance in the mirror but no answer.
Susanna had mentioned schooling, but the girl didn’t look more than five or six years old. Although, given her life until now, it’d be fair to expect she’d be small for her age.
I tried another question, this one usually easier to answer by the younger set. “What’s your name?”
Her eyes were just barely level with the bottom of the window in the back seat, and she kept them fixed on the never-ending gray clouds as though she was bored with the interrogation. The seatbelt crossed her thin shoulder and chest, pinning her flat like a prisoner. Her hands rested limply in her lap. She probably didn’t weigh enough to be out of a child’s protective car seat, and I hoped we didn’t attract the attention of a state patrol trooper.
“Well, my name’s Nora,” I chattered cheerfully. “I live on a farm, sort of. We have a couple pigs and a goat. A bunch of boys live on the property too. But they’re nice boys,” I added hastily, remembering the preliminary war of the sexes common in the elementary school ages when the other side was considered to have cooties. “Right now we have another little girl visiting too. Her name’s CeCe.”
No reaction.
She hadn’t come with a suitcase, identification, anything. I doubted she had tags sewn into her clothes with her name, social security number and birth date on them. Like during the Depression when extra children were shipped off to relatives, arriving at strange train stations with only the clothes on their backs and delivery labels pinned to their shirts as though they were pieces of luggage. Free labor for the cost of room and board, as it were.
I chewed on my lip and tried to decide how to explain the girl’s presence to Clarice. One thing I was sure of though — Walt’s reaction. Never, ever leave a child in a situation where harm may come to them if you’re given the opportunity to help. That’s why Mayfield was a home for strays of all types.
The miles seemed to fly by, mainly because my mind was working overtime. I kept to the speed limit and drove sedately in the slow lane even though my brain was doing anything but, to no avail.
She was just starting to nod off when I pulled up in front of the Gonzales’s house. We had maybe another hour of solid, if gray-tinted, daylight left, and I was going to need all of it for the trek ahead.
I slung my tote across one shoulder and hefted the little girl out of the back seat. “You okay?” I murmured.
She burrowed into my other shoulder and wrapped her arms around my neck. I took that as a yes and set off.
Her legs dangled from around my hip, her feet bumping against my thighs as I hiked. She’d looked small, but her extra forty-plus pounds made me breathless in a hurry.
My arms burned from clasping her, and I was panting raggedly into her hair. But she clenched me so tightly, I didn’t dare set her down for a rest. This little girl, whoever she was, needed something reliable in her life, and I was going to be it.
With my center of balance off-kilter, I had to study every step, avoiding rocks and roots, finding the smoothest path. Every once in a while, with shorter intervals the farther we went, I stopped and leaned against a tree, easing the strain off my back, catching my breath, psyching myself up for the next incline. The little girl snuggled in
How many illegal things had I done in the past forty-eight hours? Bring it on. I was on a roll. A weird exhilaration flooded over me. Then I realized I was shaking. And I really wanted to cry.
I glanced at the girl again. No matter what, it wasn’t her fault.
“How old are you?” I asked, trying to sound friendly.
A brief moment of meeting my glance in the mirror but no answer.
Susanna had mentioned schooling, but the girl didn’t look more than five or six years old. Although, given her life until now, it’d be fair to expect she’d be small for her age.
I tried another question, this one usually easier to answer by the younger set. “What’s your name?”
Her eyes were just barely level with the bottom of the window in the back seat, and she kept them fixed on the never-ending gray clouds as though she was bored with the interrogation. The seatbelt crossed her thin shoulder and chest, pinning her flat like a prisoner. Her hands rested limply in her lap. She probably didn’t weigh enough to be out of a child’s protective car seat, and I hoped we didn’t attract the attention of a state patrol trooper.
“Well, my name’s Nora,” I chattered cheerfully. “I live on a farm, sort of. We have a couple pigs and a goat. A bunch of boys live on the property too. But they’re nice boys,” I added hastily, remembering the preliminary war of the sexes common in the elementary school ages when the other side was considered to have cooties. “Right now we have another little girl visiting too. Her name’s CeCe.”
No reaction.
She hadn’t come with a suitcase, identification, anything. I doubted she had tags sewn into her clothes with her name, social security number and birth date on them. Like during the Depression when extra children were shipped off to relatives, arriving at strange train stations with only the clothes on their backs and delivery labels pinned to their shirts as though they were pieces of luggage. Free labor for the cost of room and board, as it were.
I chewed on my lip and tried to decide how to explain the girl’s presence to Clarice. One thing I was sure of though — Walt’s reaction. Never, ever leave a child in a situation where harm may come to them if you’re given the opportunity to help. That’s why Mayfield was a home for strays of all types.
The miles seemed to fly by, mainly because my mind was working overtime. I kept to the speed limit and drove sedately in the slow lane even though my brain was doing anything but, to no avail.
She was just starting to nod off when I pulled up in front of the Gonzales’s house. We had maybe another hour of solid, if gray-tinted, daylight left, and I was going to need all of it for the trek ahead.
I slung my tote across one shoulder and hefted the little girl out of the back seat. “You okay?” I murmured.
She burrowed into my other shoulder and wrapped her arms around my neck. I took that as a yes and set off.
Her legs dangled from around my hip, her feet bumping against my thighs as I hiked. She’d looked small, but her extra forty-plus pounds made me breathless in a hurry.
My arms burned from clasping her, and I was panting raggedly into her hair. But she clenched me so tightly, I didn’t dare set her down for a rest. This little girl, whoever she was, needed something reliable in her life, and I was going to be it.
With my center of balance off-kilter, I had to study every step, avoiding rocks and roots, finding the smoothest path. Every once in a while, with shorter intervals the farther we went, I stopped and leaned against a tree, easing the strain off my back, catching my breath, psyching myself up for the next incline. The little girl snuggled in
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