bed last night.” She sighed. “He’s not the first and he won’t be the last. Thankfully it didn’t go through the mattress pad. You take care now, Luke. Have a fine day.” She was looking directly at him, her eyes hopeful. Except it was what was behind them that was hopeful. He thought again, They changed me. I don’t know how and I don’t know how much, but yes, they changed me. Something new has been added. He was very glad he’d lied about the cards. And very glad they believed his lie. At least for now.
He made as if to leave the doorway, then turned back. “Think I’ll get some more ice. They slapped me around some yesterday, and my face is sore.”
“You do that, son. You do that.”
Again, that son warmed him. Made him want to smile.
He got the bucket that was still in his room, dumped the meltwater into the bathroom basin, and took it back to the ice machine. Maureen was there, bent over with her bottom against the cinderblock wall, hands on her shins almost all the way down to her ankles. Luke hurried to her, but she waved him off. “Just stretching my back. Getting the kinks out.”
Luke opened the door of the ice machine and got the scoop. He couldn’t pass her a note, as Kalisha had passed one to him, because although he had a laptop, he had no paper and no pen. Not even a stub of a pencil. Maybe that was good. Notes were dangerous in here.
“Leah Fink, in Burlington,” he murmured as he scooped ice. “Rudolph Davis, in Montpelier. Both have five stars on Legal Eagle. That’s a consumer website. Can you remember the names?”
“Leah Fink, Rudolph Davis. Bless you, Luke.”
Luke knew he should leave it at that, but he was curious. He had always been curious. So instead of going, he pounded at the ice, as if to break it up. It didn’t need any breaking, but it made a nice loud sound. “Avery said the money you’ve got saved is for a kid. I know it’s not any of my business—”
“The little Dixon boy’s one of the mind-readers, isn’t he? And he must be a powerful one, bed-wetter or not. No pink dot on his intake.”
“Yeah, he is.” Luke went on stirring with the ice scoop.
“Well, he’s right. It was a church adoption, right after my boy was born. I wanted to keep him, but pastor and my mother talked me out of it. The dog I married never wanted kids, so it was just the one I gave away. Do you really care about this, Luke?”
“Yeah.” He did, but talking too long might be a bad idea. They might not be able to hear, but they could watch.
“When I started getting my back pains, it came to me that I had to know what became of him, and I found out. State says they’re not supposed to tell where the babies go, but the church keeps adoption records going all the way back to 1950, and I got the computer password. Pastor keeps it right underneath the keyboard in the parsonage. My boy’s just two towns over from where I live in Vermont. A senior in high school. He wants to go to college. I found that out, too. My son wants to go to college. That’s what the money’s for, not to pay off that dirty dog’s bills.”
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, a quick and almost furtive gesture.
He closed the ice chest and straightened up. “Take care of your back, Maureen.”
“I will.”
But what if it was cancer? That was what she thought it was, he knew it.
She touched his shoulder as he turned away and leaned close. Her breath was bad. It was a sick person’s breath. “He doesn’t ever have to know where the money came from, my boy. But he needs to have it. And Luke? Do what they say, now. Everything they say.” She hesitated. “And if you want to talk to anybody about anything . . . do it here.”
“I thought there were some other places where—”
“Do it here,” she repeated, and rolled her basket back the way she had come.
19
When he returned to the playground, Luke was surprised to see Nicky playing HORSE with Harry Cross. They were laughing and bumping and ranking on each other as if they had been friends since first grade. Helen was sitting at the picnic table, playing double-deck War with Avery. Luke