Call It What You Want(89)

“Says who?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it.

“You don’t get to decide who deserves to have what,” she says. “Or who doesn’t, for that matter.” She pauses, then pulls a pendant out from under her shirt. It’s a heart twisted into the shape of a mother and a baby, with diamonds mounted onto the setting. “Your father gave this to me the Christmas before he died. Do you think I should sell it for money?”

Owen swallows. “Of course not.”

“You don’t really need that Xbox upstairs. Should we sell that for money?”

He flinches and doesn’t answer that.

She puts her hand on Owen’s forearm. “You said they wouldn’t miss it. But how do you know? How do you know those earrings weren’t special to that woman?” Her voice has softened. “What puts you in the position to determine the best use of what you were planning to steal?”

He looks down. “You don’t understand.”

“Of course I understand. Of course I do. Just like I know there are people out there judging me for this necklace or judging you for getting a free lunch. Other people don’t have the challenges we have, Owen. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own.”

Owen is quiet, very still in his chair. I wonder if he’s even breathing.

Finally, he looks up. “I’m still not sorry.” He pulls his arm out from under her hand. “Maybe that makes me a bad person, but I’m still not sorry.”

She stares at him. “Owen.”

“I’m not,” he says, backing away. “No one got hurt. It might not have been right, but it still doesn’t feel wrong.”

“Come back here,” she says.

Owen doesn’t. He heads up the stairs.

She turns her gaze on me. “Were you a part of this little crime ring, too?”

“No!” I want to flee, too, but the part of my brain that controls my good-girl tendencies keeps me pinned in this chair. “I didn’t know until they’d done everything.”

“And that Rob boy was arrested?”

I swallow. “The Tunstalls decided not to press charges.”

She takes a long breath and lets it out. “I regret the day I trusted that man with one cent of my money.”

And “that man’s” son apparently wasn’t much better. I bite my lip and look down. I do not like this feeling.

She puts a hand over mine, and I look up in surprise. “Owen can make his own decisions. I don’t blame Rob for all of it.” She pauses. “He seemed like a very lost boy.”

“He is,” I whisper.

“Are you a lost girl?”

As soon as she asks the question, I realize I was. I was a lost girl. Lost in everyone’s impressions of me. Lost by letting their impressions replace the ones I have of myself. I force myself to hold her gaze. “I’m not lost. I want to do the right thing.”

“Most of us do,” she says ruefully. “The problem is that it doesn’t always look the same for all of us.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Rob

It’s well after dark, and Mom still hasn’t come home. I don’t know where she’s been all day, and I really don’t care. Maybe she’s over at the Tunstalls’ house, and they’ve all been laughing it up about how clueless I am.

The nurse never came today. Maybe Mom canceled her because she was home, or maybe the woman didn’t show up. Either way, there’s a part of me that was glad to be left alone, even if it required taking care of Dad. I can’t get him upstairs by myself, but spending one night in his chair won’t kill him. We had dinner, and now we’re bingeing Doctor Who on Netflix.

As the hours wear on, though, resentment builds in my chest. It’s not the first time Mom has walked out on me and Dad. Always before, I’ve had some sympathy.

Tonight, I do not.

Her key slides into the lock just before ten. Dad has fallen asleep in his chair. I pause the television and wait.

She sneaks into the house as if she expects us all to be asleep, then jumps when she meets my eyes from the hallway.

“You’re still here,” she says.

“Where else do I have to go?”

She winces, then looks past me, to Dad. “Do you want some help getting him upstairs?”

Like I’m in charge. “He’s already asleep.”

“Oh.” She hasn’t moved from the doorway.

She says nothing.

I say nothing.

Finally, I turn back to the television and press play.

My shoulders are tense, wondering what she’s going to do. As the minutes tick by, I think she’s slipped out of the room and gone to bed.

The resentment grows, threatening to crowd my organs out of my rib cage until there’s nothing left but anger.

Then she steps into my field of vision and presses the button to turn off the television.

“I need to talk to you,” she says quietly.

I’m frozen in place, my eyes locked on the black mirror of the screen. I don’t want to hear this, but I do.

She eases onto the couch beside me, her face a shadow in the darkness of the room.

“Yes, I knew,” she says.

No kidding. I do not thaw.