“I don’t want to go to bed,” she said petulantly, sounding nothing like my mom. “You have to leave. Monty will be home soon, and it hurts him when you come over. He won’t admit it, but it does. Robbie is too old for you to see him anymore. He’s going to remember you.”

“Alice,” he whispered, his eyes closed. “Monty is dead. Robbie is in Portland.”

“I know.” It was a faint, resigned whisper, and I felt ill.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Let me get you in bed. Do it for me. I’ll sing you to sleep.”

She protested, and he swung her up and into his arms as easily as if she were one of his bass guitars. My mom let her head fall against him, and he turned to me, still plastered into the corner. “Please don’t leave,” he said softly, then turned and carried her out.

My heart pounded as I stood where I was and listened to their progress through the house, my mom’s soft inquiries and his rumbling responses. It grew quiet, and when I heard him singing softly, I staggered to the table, reaching blindly. Numb, I sank into the chair my mother had been sitting in, my head dropping into my hand as my elbow found the table.

I felt sick.

Twenty-three

The acidic scent of tomato soup was comforting, helping to mask the fading smell of hot metal and burnt amber. My stomach rumbled, and I thought it pathetic that I could be hungry when I was so strung out. Course, I hadn’t eaten anything last night other than a handful of tiny wieners on sticks and six little squares of cream-topped pumpkin cheesecake.

The soft sound of a wooden spoon thumping the top of a saucepan brought my gaze up from the faded linoleum table, and I watched Takata awkwardly pour the steaming soup into a pair of thin-walled white bowls. He looked funny making dinner—or maybe it was an early breakfast, now—the rock star puttering around in my mother’s kitchen, hunting for things in a start-stop motion that told me he had been here before but had never cooked.

My face twisted, and I forced the bitter emotion away. I was sure he had an explanation. The only reason I was sitting here was because I wanted to hear it. That, and because the I.S. was probably looking for Trent’s car. And I was exhausted. And he was making food.