Far from the Tree(58)

The light in Linda’s eyes disappeared so fast that Joaquin could have sworn someone blew out the flame behind them. “It’s not that I don’t— I really, really like living here.”

“We really like you living here, too, Joaquin,” Linda said. “That will never change, you know that.”

Joaquin did know that. His brain knew it 100 percent. It was the rest of him that had trouble sorting through it. “I just think that things are really good right now? And maybe we shouldn’t mess with it?” His voice had started doing the same uptick that Maya’s had done earlier that day, a question instead of a statement.

Linda was chewing on her lower lip, but Mark just nodded. “Absolutely, bud,” he said. “We always want you to feel comfortable here. Whatever you want, that’s what we want, too.”

Joaquin felt the load lift off his heart. He even smiled a little. “Cool,” he said. “Great. Thanks. And, I mean, I do really appreciate it. I’m not lying.”

“You’re not a liar, Joaquin,” Linda said, her voice tight. “We’ve never thought that.”

“Cool,” Joaquin said again, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I’m gonna take the trash out, then. Is this everything?”

He had almost made his getaway through the back door when Mark’s voice stopped him. “Joaq?” he said, and Joaquin turned to see Mark standing next to Linda, his arm around her shoulders, his knuckles tight and white.

“Yeah?”

“The Buchanans. Joaquin, we would never . . . we would never do what they did. You know that, right? We love you. You’re ours, no matter what.”

Joaquin forced himself to nod. “Yeah, totally,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He stood next to the trash cans for a minute longer than necessary, trying to get his heartbeat back under control. You control what you do, he had told Maya earlier that day, and he knew he was right. He loved Mark and Linda too much to let them adopt him, so if the decision was his to make, Joaquin would make it.

It was, he reminded himself as he went back inside, the right thing to do.





GRACE


So over here,” Rafe said, loudly enough for his coworkers to hear, “we have our finest assortment of slicer-dicers. They slice and dice. It’s not just a clever name. And over here— Are they gone?”

Grace peeked around the corner. “Um . . . yes. All clear.”

“Whew.” Rafe’s shoulders visibly sagged. “Pretending to work is way more exhausting than actually working.”

“Funny that,” Grace said, patting one of the oven mitts in the shape of a chicken. “These are cute.”

“To some people,” Rafe replied, then slipped his apron over his head. “Thanks for coming to visit me after work, by the way.”

“Well, thanks for texting me,” Grace said. “It was nice to have a reason to blow the dust off my phone.”

“Oh, go on, I know your mom texts you all the time,” Rafe said with a wink. He was one of the few people Grace had ever met who could actually wink, instead of doing something that looked like a halfhearted blink. She liked that about him. “Where do you want to eat? The same dark booth at the sandwich place around the corner, I assume?”

Grace nodded. She wasn’t ashamed of Rafe, of course. She was only ashamed of herself.

“Well, good, because day-old sandwiches taste way better when you eat them in semidarkness.” Rafe folded up his apron, then gestured toward the Employees Only door. “Let me go clock out and then the night is ours.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her, and Grace punched him in the shoulder in response. “I love a woman with a violent streak,” he said, then disappeared before she could really clock him.

“So it turns out that Maya’s mom is an alcoholic,” Grace said as they walked, positioning herself between Rafe and the wall just to keep anyone from catching a glimpse of her.

“Wow,” Rafe said. “Did she tell you all of this?”

“Her mom fell and hit her head, so she called me. My parents and I ended up at the emergency room with them.” Grace could see Maya’s pale face, her eyes blown wide open from shock, the way she had clung to Lauren’s arm even after Grace and her parents had arrived. “Her mom went to rehab the next day. Pretty scary stuff.”

“Indeed,” Rafe said. “So let me guess. You’re worried that Peach’s parents are now going to get divorced and become alcoholics?”

He was kidding, though, and Grace knocked her hip against his without thinking. “No,” she chided him. She thought again of the letter, of the photo of Peach wearing the sailor outfit. “They actually sent me a letter last week. I know Peach is in good hands.”

Rafe raised an eyebrow at her. Grace had never met anyone whose eyebrows were so expressive. She wondered if it was maybe just a muscle twitch. “Really?” he said. “Like a thank-you letter?”

“Kind of. They were just telling me how much they appreciated what I had given them, how much they loved Peach. They sent a photo, too. She was wearing a sailor outfit.”

“That sounds cool of them.”

“Yeah, they said they would send letters and photos for the first year.” Grace could hear the measured calmness in her own voice. “It made me start thinking about maybe finding my mom. Our mom.”