“Sure,” she said, knowing that the real question was, What are you doing here? “I, um, I drove here by mistake. You know, driving home on autopilot.” She offered an ironic smile. “It takes some adjustment, this homeless business.” She couldn’t bear to look at his expression—a mixture of compassion and kindness—so she leaned back and studied the spot where the second-story bedroom window used to be.
“Do you know,” she asked, “that when I was a kid I used to climb out the window and onto that branch?” She pointed at the maple tree. “I never once got caught.”
“What were you doing, sneaking out?”
She tried to figure out the source of the sharp note in his voice. “Depends,” she said. “It was usually to meet my friends down by the river and hang out. Sometimes we went to the drive-in movie at Coxsackie. I wouldn’t say we were juvenile delinquents or anything. I really tried to stay out of trouble for my grandparents’ sake.”
“I wish all kids tried to do that,” Rourke said. “It would make my job a hell of a lot easier.”
“I always felt sorry for my grandparents, because of my mother,” Jenny explained. With each breath she took, the panic in her chest was subsiding. “She broke their hearts. There was always a sadness in them—my grandfather, especially. When the doctors told him he wasn’t going to make it, he said maybe she would come back for his funeral.” Jenny stabbed the toe of her boot into the snow. She’d always felt she should somehow atone for her mother’s abandonment. “Since my mom would never come back to see them, I promised I would never leave them.” At a very young age, Jenny came to realize that her job was to keep her grandparents’ sadness away, and she had played that role for years. It felt strange, not having to do it anymore.
He was quiet for a few minutes. She did the self-check the doctor suggested. Moments ago, she’d been an eight out of ten. Now she’d subsided to a six, perhaps even a five or four, a huge relief. Maybe it was that half a pill she’d taken. Or maybe she was finally moving past this phase.
“There were several boxes of reports about my mother’s disappearance,” she said. “They were lost in the fire.”
“The department has everything archived,” Rourke assured her. “If you want, I can check and see what they’ve got in the records.”
“Thanks. I’ve been thinking about her more than I usually do, these past few days.” A sprinkle of snow flurries started. “It’s funny, but some part of me thought she might come back after my grandmother died.”
“Why is that funny?”
“Poor choice of words. Strange is more like it. It was strange for me to think of that. I mean, if she didn’t come back when her father got sick and died, and she didn’t come back after her mother had a stroke and we filed for bankruptcy…if those things didn’t bring her back, then it was silly to think Gram’s death would.”
He didn’t say anything, and she was glad. Because one conclusion was that her mother had never come back because she was dead. Jenny refused to think that. If Mariska had died, they would have heard.
“What’s ironic,” she said, “is that Philip showed up, out of nowhere, practically. Just when I think I’m completely alone in the world, this whole other group of relatives shows up.”
“You don’t ever have to be alone,” he said.
His words and the tone of his voice startled her. “Rourke?” she asked softly.
He seemed to catch himself, and then the Officer Friendly mask dropped back in place. “What I mean is, you’re part of this town,” he explained. “Everybody here loves you. Your best friend is the mayor.”
“You’re right. I’m incredibly lucky.” She took in a long, slow breath that chilled her lungs. “There’s very little I’d call good about what happened,” she said. “Finding myself homeless, with my family gone, is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
“You don’t have any enemies,” he pointed out.
“Unless they find out someone torched my house.”
“No one torched your house.”
“Well, one good thing came of this. Being homeless has opened up a world of possibilities for me.”
“Meaning?”
“I can start over with a clean slate, anywhere I want.” She watched his face but couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “That’s why leaving here is going to be so hard.”
He didn’t move or make a sound. In fact, it was so quiet that she could hear snowflakes landing on the fabric of her parka. She waited, breath held, anticipating his next question.
It never came. He simply stood there, stone-faced.
Maybe he hadn’t heard. “I said, I’m leaving Avalon.”
“I heard you.”
“And you don’t have anything to say about that?”
“Nope.”
“Rourke—”
“It’s your life. Your decision. I don’t get a say in it.”
Tell me you want me to stay, she thought. Just say the word, and I won’t go. Then she felt pathetic. If he did tell her that, would she stay? “Say something.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“I want to hear what you think of my plan.”
“Does it matter what I think?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you matter to me,” she blurted out. Then, in horror, she backpedaled. “It’s just that you’ve been so generous. Too generous. I feel bad about the way I’ve inconvenienced you. I’ve imposed on you for too long. I can’t just move into your life, Rourke.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s wrong. We’ve each got our own lives to live, and we can’t keep cramping each other’s style.”
“So now I’m cramping your style.”
“No. My God, you are frustrating to talk to.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’ve decided to go to New York,” she said. The impact of the decision reverberated through her. This was the first time she’d said it aloud. “I’m going to be staying in Olivia’s old apartment. Philip Bellamy suggested it. He wants me to get to know him better, meet his sisters and spend some time with his parents—my grandparents—and… I don’t know.
