The Reckless Oath We Made(19)

I burned through eleven friendships in high school. Eight my junior year. Three my senior year. Those were the early days, before I figured out that people didn’t mean I could stay as long as I needed. Before I figured out that sex made a difference. It’s harder for people to kick you out when you’re having sex with them. Or their dad. Or whatever.

One of the first things you learn from sleeping over at people’s houses is that everybody’s family is weird. Maybe not your family’s kind of weird, but weird.

So Gentry’s family was super nice, and it was great to have my own bed, and for Marcus and me to have our own room, but I knew Charlene didn’t really mean we could stay as long as we needed. Plus, living with LaReigne for the past two years, I’d forgotten how much hard work it was being a guest.

I missed having the option of going back to sleep. That was the trade-off to being a perpetual guest. You got to eat and not worry about where it came from, but you didn’t get to lie in somebody’s guest bed all day and cry. You had to get up.

I had to get up.

I guessed Gentry had just come home from work, because he was wearing steel-toed work boots and jeans instead of cargo shorts. I was wearing the T-shirt and panties I slept in. So that was awkward. After he finished in the bathroom, I took a shower and put on the last pair of clean clothes I had. That was the first thing I needed to do: go by the apartment to get clean clothes for me and Marcus. Before that, I had to get Marcus up, which, considering he’d been up half the night crying and having bad dreams, was almost impossible. It was only eight o’clock, though, so I had a couple hours before work. If I could get him up and take him to Mom’s house by then, it would be okay.

When I went out to the front room, Elana was there watching some kind of educational video, and Charlene was in the kitchen.

“Good morning, hon. How do you feel about French toast for breakfast?” she said.

“Oh, you don’t need to fix me anything.”

“Well, it’s already cooking, so you might as well have some. Does Marcus like French toast?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s just having a hard time getting up this morning.”

“That’s all right. I’ll fix him some breakfast when he gets up. Go on, sit down, and I’ll bring it to you.”

In the dining room, Gentry was reading the newspaper, but he folded it up when I sat down.

“How slept thou, Lady Zhorzha?” he said.

“Oh, okay.”

“My mother said thou passed the night ill, that thy nephew was much distressed, and for that I am sorry.”

I don’t think Gentry understood I was trying to tell a polite lie. “Well, he had to find out eventually, I guess.” That was what I said, but then I spent a whole minute trying not to cry.

Charlene carried in a baking pan with these huge, fluffy slabs of French toast on it. It was the most beautiful French toast I had ever seen. Golden brown and bubbly and dusted with powdered sugar. After the first bite, I cut a second one, but didn’t eat it. I stuck the syrupy mess in the middle of my palm and stood up.

“It thee liketh not?” Gentry said, and he actually looked at me, so I knew I was acting pretty kooky.

“It’s perfect. It’s the most amazing French toast I’ve ever had.”

It was so incredible, I carried it down the hallway to Marcus, and waved it under his nose.

“If you get up now, you get French toast,” I said. “Otherwise, you’re getting oatmeal for breakfast.”

That probably wasn’t true, but it got him up. I led him down the hallway with the bite of French toast like bait on a hook.

“Look who decided to get out of bed,” Charlene said.

He ate two whole pieces without saying a word, which was a record for him. After he finished the second piece, he said, “When can I go see Mommy?”

I’d been thinking about having a second piece of French toast, too, but that killed the urge. I felt like the whole night had been a terrible dream, and I was going to have to live it again. Like Groundhog Day.

“Buddy, I don’t know.”

“But you said the police were going to bring her home. When?” He had a little mustache of syrup and powdered sugar that was so cute I would have laughed, but it was just fucking sad right then.

“They are,” I said. “They’re gonna find her and bring her home, but I don’t know when. I hope really, really soon.” All the same stuff I’d told him last night.

“Can we go to the prison and look for her?”

“She’s not there. I told you, they took her away. We’re gonna go to Grandma—”

“You don’t know she’s not there if you didn’t go look,” Marcus said. It was the kind of thing LaReigne told him when he’d lost a toy. How do you know it’s not there if you didn’t look? I guess he thought it worked for everything. He sniffled, but instead of crying, he shouted, “You don’t know! You don’t know!”

“Master Marcus, be not wroth with thine aunt,” Gentry said. I wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but I was a guest in his house. Plus Marcus stopped yelling and looked at Gentry, who took the newspaper and unfolded it. “’Tis here, writ in the paper. Canst thou read?”

“No. I can only do my alphabet.”