Cinnamon stood there trembling. Then her eyes grew fiery, defiant.
“Cally died?” she asked. “Cally died and you didn’t tell me! You didn’t even call!”
I just stood there, stunned. She was right, and I had no defense.
“I calls you and calls you, and you never answers your phone-”
“Cinnamon,” I repeated.
“Fuck you. My name’s not Cinnamon!” she screeched. “It’s Str-”
But she choked that off. Then her lower lip began trembling.
“Cinnamon, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you about Cally,” I said quietly. I was relieved. Her surprise meant she almost certainly wasn’t in deep, and Tully looked as shocked as she was. “I never got to talk to you in private, and before I knew it, I was on the run from the police-”
“Old witch! ” she barked, immediately looking away. “You still could have called!”
I drew a breath and looked up into the air. That hurt, but not because of the witch crack. I could slough that off: it was just as Vladimir had said, caused by the Tourette’s, something that had popped out under stress, not even in the same tone of voice as the very next sentence.
It hurt because her accusation was true. I could have called. Cinnamon had been wearing me out. It was hard being a mother. It was far more than befriending a kid and filling out a few forms. It was real work. And when all this nonsense had started, I had used that as an excuse. Not that I didn’t need to be fighting the graffiti; of course I did. But I used it as an excuse to take a break from Cinnamon, and called it work. My mom, in contrast, had found time to call me almost every day-even on the day she died of cancer.
I looked down at my baby girl. Her lip was still trembling. She still thought, to this day, that I was trying to get rid of her-an impression she’d gotten from a few wisecracks I’d made the first day Lord Buckhead had cajoled me into taking care of her.
I frowned. My sharp tongue had left scars we’d have for the rest of our lives. Now my slack ass was an inch away from reopening those wounds and pouring in a whole shaker of salt. Like it or not, I was going to have to take the reasons I’d not called her and defend them.
“Cinnamon,” I said firmly. “I’m sorry I left you in the dark, but I’m on the run. I had to cut everyone off- they’re trailing all my friends, not just Saffron, but even Doug and Jinx. And I had to turn off my phone. I had to. The police can track you with your cell phone.”
Cinnamon dropped her phone like it had stung her, but Tully just laughed. “Don’t listen to her, Cin, she’s just tryin to weasel,” he said. “They can’t track your cell phone.”
I spread my hands. “And yet, I’m here,” I said. “They may seem like it at times, but cell phones are not actually magic. They’ve got little radios in ’em. They talk to cell phone towers. Each phone has a chip with its own little number so the tower knows the call is paid for, and who to beam the call back to. How could they not track a cell phone? They wouldn’t work! ”
Cinnamon leapt out and turned off her phone.
“Damage is done at this point,” I said. “I’m here.”
“Why?” she said sullenly, twisting her neck in its collar.
“You disappeared,” I said. “I wanted to know you were safe.”
“ You disappeared,” she shot back. “You tossed me off on the Palmottis and ran! ”
“I was forbidden to see you,” I said.
“If you cared, that wouldn’t have mattered!” she shrieked.
“If I violated a court order, I might never have seen you again.”
“That law is stupid,” she said. “If you cared, you would have called!”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “I was-I am -on the run from the police.”
“For what?” Tully snorted. “Run a red light in your little blue car?”
I glared. I wanted to bite his head off, but I decided to keep my insights to myself until I knew more. “No, for arson, you ingrate. For the fire that blew up the little blue car.”
“You blew up the blue bomb?” Cinnamon said, paling.
“No!” I said. “The tagger did.”
“It’s writer,” Tully said.
“Thanks for cluing me in, Tully,” I said, glancing at him in bitter triumph. Writer indeed. “Anyway, they’re going after me because the fires started right after I got out of jail.”
“Why… why did they put you in jail?” Cinnamon said.
I sighed. “They charged me for killing Valentine.”
“Valentine?” Cinnamon said, turning white. “But… but you saved me from him!”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I did.”
Her mouth set. “So… so you knows the law is stupid, you’re on the run from it, and yet here you are to take me back to the Palmottis! What, did he fink me, and you called your square ex-boooyfriend to sniff me out so you wouldn’t look bad?”
“She never said she was going to take you back,” Tully said.
“No, she’s right, down to the ex-boyfriend part,” I said. “She’s a genius, remember?”
“Cin, a genius?” Tully laughed, and she hissed. “Then why’s she in the stupid class?”
“It’s Special Topics, not Special Ed,” I said. “Tully, think for a second. Here you are, on the run, hiding out, free to do whatever you want, and what are you two doing? She’s doing number theory while you’re banging on an obviously busted stereo.”
Tully’s brow furrowed, and Cinnamon said, “The speaker wire, doofus.”
Tully turned the stereo over, found a wire hanging loose from the speaker, broken off. “Aw, man,” he said. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Give me that,” I said, as Cinnamon giggled. I flipped the stereo over, pressed the red and black tabs that released the wire from the back of the speaker, and handed it back to him. “Strip that, then plug it back into the same holes.”
“Wow,” Tully said. He popped a claw and picked at the wire, then pulled a switchblade and started making real progress stripping the insulation off. “Where’d you learn that?”
“You learn a lot in college,” I said, “trying to make do.”
Cinnamon was still giggling, but then her face fell.
“Stop it. You… you can’t fool me!” she said, glaring. “You don’t- fffuhh! -you don’t cares about me. You didn’t even care enough to mention you just found out I was with a boy.”
“I didn’t just find out you were with a boy,” I said. “I’ve known for weeks. He’s sweet on you, knows your new name, uses it often enough to shorten it, hangs around enough practically to hover, and you’re not even swatting him away.”
Her mouth hung open, then set, trembling. “Shut up!”
“It was easy to figure out,” I said. “I’m your mother.”
“You’re… you’re not my real mother,” Cinnamon said. “We only just met… ”
“I am too your real mother,” I said, opening my arms. “I’ve always been your mother your whole life. We just didn’t know it yet.”
That got her. Cinnamon’s lower lip started trembling again. Then she pounced.
“Oh, Mooom,” she said, crushing the life out of me. “My Mooom. I’m sorry.”
“Can’t-breathe-” I said, hugging her back as best I could. “I’m sorry I left you.”
“What are we going to do?” she asked, head jerking a little as she did so.
I sighed, leaned back, put my hands on her shoulders. “We’re going to fight,” I said. “Which means we have to play the game their way, at least a little.”
“But whyyy?” she asked. “I don’t wants to go back to the Palmottis. We could run-”
“And live like this?” I said, extending my hand across the shed.
“It isn’t so bad,” Tully said.
“Tully, you live in the margins,” I said. “You’re always hiding in an unused warehouse or broken down shed, where someone can come along and shoo you away. But you should have your own place, with full rights. You should be able to turn into a wolf in a public park and run free. And the only way to do that is to engage the world, head on.”
“That kind of thinkin’ gets a werekin shot,” Tully said.
