get some rest.
When Blair and I arrive home, the neighbor is sitting in our drive. He’s just seated there on the pavement, with his knees up to his chest, sort of rocking back and forth. When my headlights land on him, and thank God they do, he looks up and stares back at me wildly, like a frightened animal. And he seems surprised to see me.
Putting the car in park, I open my door and get out, using it as a sort of buffer between him and myself. “Are you okay?”
He shakes his head back and forth, the same way he had earlier. “How is she?”
“Lucy?” I really don’t want to have to break it to him that she probably isn’t going to make it through the night. But I suppose he knows that already. These days news travels fast.
His eyes shift, portraying confusion. “Naomi.”
It strikes me as odd that he knows my daughter’s name. But then, he lives next door. “She’s okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t have left the hospital if I weren’t,” I say, glancing back at the car. Blair, who was asleep in the backseat, has woken up and is staring at me wide-eyed and expectantly, as though she’s caught her second wind. “It’s late,” I tell Theo. “And you shouldn’t be out here. It’s cold.”
“My mother refuses to let me in the house. She’s going to send me back to that place.”
“What place?”
“Not the hospital,” Blair gasps. She has leaned her head out the door, and with a shy smile, she waves. “I’m sure she’s lying. Mommies always do that.”
“She’s not lying,” Theo says. “I’ve done something terrible.”
Blair looks at me and back at the neighbor. “It’s okay. I do lots of bad things.” She shrugs. “Daddy always says mommy is full of—”
“Empty threats,” I tell her. “Daddy says I am full of empty threats.”
“You really shouldn’t have repairmen coming and going when you’re not home. That’s what mother is mad about. She says it’s none of my business. She says I’m getting paranoid again. It’s the medication.”
“Repairmen? You mean the roofer?”
He looks away. Eye contact is not his favorite thing.
“Well, you guys have repairmen all the time. Since the fire…”
His voice changes. “We don’t have children.”
With resignation, I gather Blair from the car, cast and all, and we hobble to Mrs. Crump’s front door. “Mrs. Crump? It’s Amy Stone. From next door. Can you please open up? I need to talk to you.”
Blair looks at me. Theo waits on the steps. Somewhere around the fourth set of knocks, the old woman opens the door. “Hi. Good evening.” My voice comes out unnaturally high-pitched and nervous, as it strikes me I have no idea what I am going to say.
“What can I do for you?” she asks gruffly.
“Well,” I start, and then pause to gather my scattered wits. “You remember when I dashed in and saved your life?”
“I’ll never forget it.”
“Good—”
“But you should have just let me perish. Would have made for a better story.” She looks down at Blair. “And like they say, I’m old, and nothing good happens after fifty.”
My brow raises. “Great to know.” I’m in no mood for this tonight, so I don’t leave her room to get a word in edgewise. Once she gets wound up, it’s hard to get her to stop. “Anyway, the reason I’m here is—I found your son—” I glance over my shoulder. “I found Theo in my driveway.”
“Did he—”
“Anyway, he said you two had some sort of squabble, and being that it’s late, and it’s cold out, and it’s almost Christmas, and I’ve had a really shit couple of weeks—I was hoping that you could do the right thing and let him back inside.”
“He didn’t tell you what he did, did he?”
“Quite frankly, Mrs. Crump, I don’t give a damn.”
She looks at me, clearly taken aback, and opens the door. I gesture for Theo to cross the threshold. After he has, I hoist my daughter up. She wraps her legs around me, her cast digging into my hip, and we head home.
Mrs. Crump calls after me. “I bet you’d care if you knew what it was!”
Later, as I’m putting Blair to bed, she asks if I think Theo’s mommy is going to send him away.
“I don’t know.”
“I sure hope not. Theo is my best friend.”
“He can’t be your best friend, sweetheart. He’s a grown man.”
She shifts away from me. “He is!”
“What makes you say that? You hardly know him.”
She flops over and looks me up and down.