“You have a dishwasher,” he pointed out, indicating the machine in front of her.
“I like doing it by hand. I like how it makes me feel.”
They worked in silence for a while, falling into a comfortable rhythm. Then Ross said, “They’ll come looking for me, you know.”
She nodded. “They already have. One of them, at least. Findo Gask, minister of the faith.”
“There will be more. It will be dangerous if I stay.”
She looked at him. “No duh, as Robert would say.”
He didn’t know who Robert was, but he got the message. “So maybe I should go after tonight.”
“Maybe you should. But maybe coming here was the right thing to do. Let’s give it some time and see.” She handed him a juice glass. “Let’s get one thing straight, John. I’m not asking you to leave. We crossed that bridge last night.”
He finished drying all the glasses, stacking them on a towel spread out atop the counter. “It means a lot. I don’t know when I’ve been this tired.”
She smiled. “It’s funny, but I thought I was going to end up spending Christmas all alone this year. Now I have a house full of people. It changes everything.”
“Life has a way of doing that.” He smiled ruefully. “It keeps us from becoming too complacent.”
They had just finished putting away the dishes when a knock sounded at the front door. Nest exchanged a quick glance with Ross, then walked down the hall to answer it. He stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes listening to the slow drift of conversation that ensued, then walked to the kitchen window and looked out.
A county sheriff’s car was parked in the drive.
CHAPTER 10
Bennett Scott walked out of Nest Freemark’s backyard and into Sinnissippi Park, head lowered, wincing against the brightness of the sun. A crystalline coating of frost lingered in shadowed patches of brittle grass and crunched beneath her boots when she walked on it. She watched Harper skip ahead of her, singing softly to herself, lost in that private child’s world where adults aren’t allowed. She recalled it from her own childhood, a not-so-distant past tucked carefully away in her memory. It was a world she had gone into all the time when growing up, often when she was seeking escape from Big Momma and the unpleasantness of her real life. She supposed Harper did the same, and it made her want to weep.
“Mommy, birdies!” the little girl called out, pointing at a pair of dark shadows winging through the trees.
“Robins,” Bennett guessed, smiling at her daughter.
“Obbins,” Harper parroted, and skipped ahead once more, watching the fluid movement of her shadow as it stretched out beside her.
Bennett tossed back her dark hair and lifted her face bravely against the sunlight. It would be better here, she thought. Better than it had been on the streets, when she was using all the time. Better than in the shelters, where she always kept her switchblade in one hand and Harper’s wrist in the other. Better, even, than in the rehab units where she always felt used up and hopeless, where she went through the litany of recovery and still craved a fix all the time. She had tried to shield Harper, but the truth was, everything originated with her. There was no protection without separation, and she couldn’t bear that.
But it had happened a few times, just because it was necessary if she was to survive. That was behind her now, so she could bear to think of it again, if only just. But she had left Harper in places rats called home and with people she wouldn’t trust a dog with if she were thinking straight, and it was something of a miracle that nothing bad had happened to her baby. Coming back to Hopewell and to Nest was an attempt to set all that straight, to prevent any more incidents, to stop exposing Harper to the risks her mother had chosen to embrace. The men, the sex, the sickness, the drugs, the life— all rolled up into one big ball of evil that would drag her down and bury her if she gave it enough space in her life.