“Please. Like I need to beg for trim. No, baby, right now I need a place to live. And after that …” His smile is bright. “I’ll let you know.”

“What if it’s something I don’t have?”

He shrugs, unconcerned, his gaze sharp as a razor. “If there’s one thing I know about you, Jewelann, it’s that you’ll find a way to get it.”

CHAPTER
13

THERE HAS NEVER been a single time when I haven’t been here when Eli gets home from school. Even though I want to run, run, run, I can’t. So I turn my attentions to something else, something normal. Dinner prep. I sort ingredients. Pull out a cookbook. Sift and measure, crack an egg, compost the shell.

Make a plan, Jewelann. Be ready. I wasn’t always good at keeping myself together, but I’m a master of it now. By the time Eli walks through the front door, I’m … not calm, but I am collected.

“Mom, I’m home!”

I greet him with a smile from my place at the counter, where I’m stuffing a roasting chicken with oranges and raw garlic. “Hey, you. How was school?”

He slings his backpack over a kitchen chair and heads for the fridge to pull out the pitcher of iced tea. “Fine. What’s up with the guy in the extra garage? Says his name’s Christian?”

“You talked to him?” I rub the chicken with sage and thyme and rosemary. Salt and pepper. I cover it with foil and slide it into the oven, then wash my hands.

He takes a glass from the cupboard. “Yeah. He was throwing stuff away when I got home.”

I’m furious at the thought of Christian getting rid of stuff after I told him not to, but I keep my voice light. “He’s fixing up the carriage house.”

“Why?” Eli frowns as he pours tea.

“Well, it needs a lot of work, and I guess Dad thought it would be good to renovate it. Christian’s going to do some of that work for us in exchange for rent.”

Eli grunts. So much like his father. “But why does Dad want to rent it?”

Why. Why. Why. As a little boy, Eli’s favorite word had been why. There are times I’d give anything to go back to those days, no matter how frustrated I’d been. I clutch at the memory.

“You’re going to college in a few years, right?” I force a laugh. “We’ll need the income.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Eli fixes me with a look far too intense for my comfort. “Are you having money problems?”

“You,” not “you and Dad.” My little shopping buddy. That’s what I used to call him on those endless trips through thrift shops and yard sales. Don’t tell Daddy, and Mama will buy you a toy, whatever toy you want. I haven’t taken Eli with me in a long, long time, but I’m sure he remembers.

Don’t tell.

Of course he remembers.

“No. But college is expensive.” I hear the front door open. Ken is home early again, no warning. “Don’t worry about it. Me and Dad will take care of it.”