It’s barely sprinkling.
“Plus I’m cold and frightened.”
At least one of those is a lie.
“Match? Anyone in there want to buy a match from an orphan? Well, half an orphan? My mom’s still alive. I think.”
He’ll stay out there and stay out there and talk and talk because nobody ever goes away and other people might notice and I shouldn’t let him in but it IS cold and it IS late and I should just go to bed FUCK.
She flipped on the porch light as she opened the door, temporarily blinding whomever-it-was so she had a few seconds to size him up. And there wasn’t much to him: a preteen boy bundled into a bulky navy jacket, jeans, tennis shoes. The porch light illuminated his freckles, the spiky dark blond hair, his tentative smile. But his most striking feature was a pair of bright green eyes, exactly like those of the fox cub she’d picked up earlier.
“I don’t need any matches,” she said.
Grin. Shrug. “Worth a try. C’n I come in anyway?”
She sighed and stood aside. Shoulders hunched, he passed her, then glanced around as she closed and locked the door. He didn’t seem tense or frightened. Shy, she wanted to say, except he’d hammered on her door in the wee hours and had no qualms about walking into a stranger’s house. Embarrassed? No, too strong. Abashed? No, that was a synonym for embarrassed…
“Sorry to wake you,” he mumbled to the floor, reinforcing abashed.
“I was awake. I’m a short sleeper.”
His head jerked up; bright eyes gleamed. “Four hours or less a night, huh? Bet that’s nice.”
She smiled. “You’re the first non-doctor I haven’t had to explain that to.”
“I read a lot of books. Lots, mucho, beaucoup.”
“Clearly.”
He unzipped the heavy jacket and pulled out a small, tattered bundle. “Net said you’re a teddy bear doctor. D’you think you could fix this? I brought money.”
She took the bear, examined it. Loved hard, obviously; lots of matted fur, a missing eye, a third of the stuffing had leaked out a hole in the belly, which someone had then carefully taped with black duct tape. Old, dried stains, but no new stains or so much as a speck of dirt. Loved hard and cared for, then.
It was late.
It was really fucking late and she’d had a long fucking day and no one in this neighborhood understand the concept of business hours or locks and Jesus Christ this was asking too fucking much so he was gonna have to hit the road now.
“Sure I can,” she heard herself say, and led him to the kitchen.
* * *
“Are you a spy?” she asked.
“Are you?” he countered, which she had to admit was pretty neat.
Not that she was going to dignify that with an answer. “Or do you just have an aversion to business hours?” she asked. Then she thought about the diffident way he’d handed over the bear. “Or do you not want people to know you care about an old stuffed animal?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Well played,” she muttered, and got a giggle out of him. “Who’s Net?”
“She’s my caseworker, Annette Garsea.”
The red-eyed monster who broke through a screen door because she thought I was stealing a fox cub? she thought but didn’t say.
“Some of us call her that,” the kid continued, “because she’s our safety net.”
“Mmmm.” That was almost adorable. She’d brought her emergency surgery kit to the kitchen and was nearly finished; now she was switching out the remaining stuffing for soft, clean polyfill and back-stitching the hole. “Just about done here.”
“Great! I’m Dev Devoss, by the way. And I already know your name.”
“Because of course you do. Is there a reason that you waited until the witching hour to stop by?”
“There’s a bunch of reasons.”
I’ll bet. “Great. Okay, I think Osa’s good to go for now.” Osa… Pretty sure the kid had named his bear Bear, just in a different language. She’d look it up later. “New eyes, new stuffing, a few other details.” She’d replaced much of the bear, but not the worn fur, because there was a careful line of demarcation, and it was different for every toy. Cross that line, and you’re no longer repairing an old bear, you’re making a new one, and then you’re dealing with a sad kid and irked parents. “But going forward, here’s my advice. If you want it.”
He gave her a look patented by mouthy preteens everywhere. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Osa’s fur gets matted like that because you’re air-drying her. Does your house have a dryer?”
“Sure, I live with Mama Mac.” It wasn’t a casually tossed off comment; he’d straightened in the chair and made the declaration with real pride. And he didn’t say he lived there, he said lived with.
Foster, then. Or adopted. Doesn’t take family for granted, or a roof over his head.
“Uh-huh, and she’s old-fashioned, and I’ll bet she likes to line-dry whatever she can, even this time of year.”
“Hoo, yes! I mean, I kind of get it, because the sheets do smell awesome afterward but they’re also kind of scratchy. And it takes forever to get wet sheets on the lines; my sister Caro helps, but it’s still…yuck. But a guy can’t complain about stuff like that without sounding like a wimp, faible, weichei.”
“Yeah, and God forbid anyone call you a weichei.”
“I’ve got a rep to worry about,” the child replied, absently cuddling his mended teddy bear. “And speaking of reputations, you’ve got one for—”
“I’ve lived here for two days,” she protested.
“Exactly.”
“Genau, exactamente.”
His small face lit up. “You speak German? And Spanish?”
“No,” she deadpanned. “Was there anything else?”
“I dunno. Was there?”
Lila looked at the boy and thought about the fox. It had come frisking up to her with no signs of aggression, tame as a domesticated dog, running up to her, darting away, then coming back. At one point, it gently rested a white paw on
