“Well, it’s win-win,” said Marlin. “Charlie likes it, don’t you, Charlie? And when I’m at Al’s for an hour in the morning I just make them play inside while I’m gone.”

“What do you go over there for anyway?” asked Fiona.

“He’s helping me with my cookbook.”

“I don’t know how you can stand going over. The place is such a mess.”

“He actually hauled the stuff like the tub and the fridge off the front lawn and took them to the dump. And he fixed the trailer steps and window screen and took all the beer cans to recycling.”

“Humph,” said Fiona. “There’s always more where those came from.”

“There don’t seem to be,” said Marlin, as if realizing this for the first time. “There’s a bunch of Coke cans, though. But he actually puts the empties in his recycling bin. It’s a lot neater. Anyhow, we hardly notice our surroundings. Rewriting takes a lot of concentration.”

“It’s got nothing on babysitting a toddler,” said Fiona.

Fiona had dubbed the toddler the golden beast. She had her from nine to five every day. She would bike home every night at five-thirty done in and cranky. “There is nothing worse than spending the day trying to amuse a toddler. It’s the opposite of concentration. Your mind goes to jelly. At least she takes a nap and I get one hour to read in the afternoon. Otherwise I’d go stark, staring mad.”

“And at least you make a bunch of money,” said Natasha. “Does that mean I get to go to strings?”

“No, Nat, I’m sorry,” said Fiona. “I wasn’t counting on Miss Webster and Mr. Pettinger paying for us but I kind of was counting a bit on their help with living expenses if they lived here too. Now we’re back to square one and we need every penny.”

“Oh, speaking of which, here.” Marlin ran to her backpack and took out a stack of twenties, including the one that Fiona had given her that morning. “I was giving Al his weekly twenty bucks and he not only gave it back, he gave back all the twenties we gave him.”

Fiona took the pile of twenties and stared at them as if she didn’t know what they were.

“Well, there’s a surprise,” she said finally.

“He said to make sure Charlie knew and that also, Charlie, you know that you are still welcome to come look for Billy Bear with him every Saturday if you want. He says he’s still going.”

Charlie shook her head.

“Go if you want,” said Fiona. “Don’t mind me.”

“And he also said that he’s going to come over and talk to you after dinner tonight, Fiona. He has a plan.”

“Oh, gee, what now?” said Fiona. “Didn’t he get the message that I don’t want to see him?”

“He’s very sorry about, you know, what happened,” said Marlin.

“I still don’t want to talk to him. Not ever,” said Fiona.

“Well, you don’t have to,” said Marlin. “But you know what Mom used to say about forgiving your enemies.”