“Does this couch pull out?” Nick asked some time later. “Molly’s fallen asleep.”
Tess glanced up from the newspaper she was reading. Molly was slumped over in a corner of the sofa. “No, it doesn’t pull out, but one of you can sleep there.”
“Then it’ll have to be me,” he said, “so Molly can sleep with you.”
Tess wasn’t sure whether to marvel at the way he took charge of the situation or his omission at seeking her approval of the plan. Without waiting for a reply, Nick shook Molly awake. Tess headed for the bedroom, followed by Nick dragging Molly behind him. As soon as Tess drew back the bedcover, Molly flopped onto the bed.
“She can sleep in her underwear,” Nick said. “You take off her clothes while I set up the couch.”
Tess watched him leave the room. Obviously, he’d had plenty of experience at looking after Molly. In spite of his constant bickering with her on the way home, Nick really cared for his sister. Tess figured that, except for providing a place to stay and paying for dinner, the two didn’t really need her at all.
Which was good, she thought, considering that after tomorrow they’d be gone and she could get on with her life. Encouraged by that, she tucked Molly under the covers and headed for the linen closet to get some bedding for Nick.
He’d changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants and was watching a baseball game on television. He hurriedly flicked off the set when she entered the room.
“Go ahead and watch it if you want. I’ve some work to do anyway. I can set up my laptop on the kitchen counter,” she said, setting a comforter and pillow on the sofa next to him.
He mumbled something inaudible, but turned the set back on as he sank farther into the cushions. His hair was spiked up from pulling the T-shirt over his head and, against the bulky frame of the couch, he appeared much younger than his thirteen years. Tess suddenly recalled what Alec Malone had said about the kids reaching Chicago all on their own, despite never having been outside Boulder.
“How did you manage to get all the way to Chicago?”
His answer was nonchalant, as if he’d made the journey many times. “Bus to Denver and airplane here. We took a taxi from the airport to your office ’cause I couldn’t figure out the transit map.”
Welcome to the club, she was thinking. “And how did you pay for the tickets?”
The look he gave her was a blend of embarrassment and pride. He hesitated for a moment, then admitted, “I used my dad’s credit card for the airfare. I was at our house getting some things with Alec. There was a stack of mail and Alec asked me to go through it to separate out the junk. One of the envelopes was my dad’s new credit card and when Alec wasn’t looking, I…well, I kinda kept it in case I might need it.”
“Some airline clerk let you use a credit card?”
“I bought the tickets over the Internet. It wasn’t hard.”
Tess let that register a moment. “So when you took the credit card, you obviously were planning to run away.”
His head turned sharply away from her gaze.
“Weren’t you?”
The face that swung back to her was red, contorted with anger. “They were gonna separate us, put us in different foster homes. And then Molly’d probably be adopted because she’s little and cute and I’m a teenager. No one wants teenagers.” Nick swiped a hand across his eyes. “And I’d lose my sister.”
Tess tried to think of something to say but found she couldn’t speak at all. When she finally managed to, she knew she had blundered the instant the words came out. “Well, I’m sure you’ll still be able to see one another.”
She didn’t know when she’d last felt so intimidated by a look. He flicked off the television, tossed the remote aside, got up from the couch and headed for the bathroom. She noted the square set of his adolescent shoulders, somehow more adultlike from behind, and oddly familiar.
Tess closed her eyes, forcing herself to stay calm when the bathroom door slammed shut. She began cleaning up plates, glasses and leftover pizza crusts and was just setting up her laptop on the diner-style eating counter at the kitchen end of the room when Nick returned. Without a word, he placed some of the couch cushions onto the coffee table, turned off the lamp next to it and lay down, his back to Tess.
She watched him for a bit, then slipped her disk into the computer and logged into her file. After a long silence, she said, “I’m sorry, Nick, I didn’t mean to sound so unfeeling. But really…this Alec Malone sounds like he has your best interests at heart. I’m sure he’d see that you and Molly would keep in touch.” Her voice trailed off into the room.
Nick didn’t say a word. He was either asleep, she decided, or pretending to be. She turned her attention back to her work but after ten minutes, gave it up. On her way into her bedroom, she pulled the comforter over him and quietly said good-night.
Molly was sprawled in the middle of the bed. Tess stared down at her small face, flushed with sleep, then gently rolled her over until there was enough room for herself. She took her nightwear—designer T-shirt and boxer shorts—out of a drawer and went to the bathroom to change. The silent and shapeless lump that was Nick didn’t move as Tess walked back and forth to the bathroom and the kitchen for her nightly glass of water.
By the time Tess got back to the bedroom, Molly had reclaimed the bed’s center. She repeated the rollover, climbed in and automatically reached for her bedside reading, the latest literary prize winner. But after several attempts at the first paragraph of a new chapter, Tess set the book aside, extinguished the light and sat, propped against her pillows to think. Snippets of unrelated and varied events whose only connecting strand was her father overwhelmed her.
English Leather aftershave and the patch of toilet paper on his cheek or neck. Battle wounds, he’d tease. You’ll have them someday, but on your legs. Tess never understood what he’d meant until she was a teenager and by then, she’d made herself stop thinking about her father anyway. She recalled how he’d swing her up into the air or let her climb onto his back while he rode her around their tiny living room. And last of all, the way he’d marched down the sidewalk that day, his shoulders ramrod straight.
Like Nick’s, Tess thought. She expelled a mouthful of the day’s emotion, held in check the way she’d taught herself so many years ago, and sank under the covers. Eventually, she fell asleep until cries in the night shook her awake.
“I want my mommy,” wailed Molly, over and over.
Tess turned over to find the girl sitting upright, in the middle of the bed again. Using her elbows to push herself up, Tess wrapped her arm across Molly’s trembling shoulders and drew her closer.
“Shhh! It’s okay, Molly.”
Molly tucked herself into the crook of Tess’s arm and sobbed for a few more minutes before dropping off to sleep once more. Wide-eyed and soggy from Molly’s tears, Tess lay perfectly still and awake until the break of day.
BY THE TIME the taxi pulled up in front of her condo building, Tess was ready to call it a day. The problem was, it was barely past one o’clock. She’d gotten out of bed at six-thirty when a pert and lively Molly, unscathed by the night’s tearful episode, insisted on watching the Saturday morning cartoon shows. Tess had reluctantly joined her, offering her now empty bed to Nick whose adolescent sleep patterns demanded extra time.
Two hours later, when Nick finally arose, Tess staggered zombielike to the street below in search of supplies for breakfast and lunch.