The Night Visitors(22)

“Nah,” she says, “but if you could choose between a cyber hand and your regular hand, which would you choose?”

While Oren is pondering this Mattie pops his shoulder back into the joint. Oren emits a sharp cry and his eyes flutter like he might faint. I feel like I might as well. But then his eyes get big and he gives Mattie an appreciative look. “Hey, you fixed it!”

“Yep,” Mattie says, “good as new. It’s going to smart for a while though.” She looks at me for the first time, those wintry lilac eyes as cold as the December sky. “We’d better get him back to the house and put some ice on it. Get some Children’s Tylenol in him as well.”

“We’re going back to your house?” I ask. “I thought—”

“Change of plans. Sister Martine is making arrangements to move you tomorrow.”

“But won’t that cop check on your house after seeing you here? Isn’t there any other place we can go?” The last place I want to go is back to that creepy old house with this bitch looking at me like I’m a child abuser. Like she knows the first thing about dealing with a kid.

Although she did know how to fix a dislocated shoulder. I wonder where she learned that.

She gives me a nasty look. “Sorry. My spare vacation house is being redecorated. And I don’t want to involve anyone else in . . . this.” She says this like she’s talking about a turd she found on her carpet. “As for the police, I can take care of Frank Barnes. If he comes by I’ll keep him out.”

Frank? So she is chums with the police. I’m liking this less and less. “Take us to a motel,” I say. “We can stay there until the nun’s ready to move us.”

Mattie’s mouth goes hard. Before she can say anything Oren whimpers, “I want to go to Mattie’s house. My arm hurts . . . and . . . and . . .” He’s working himself up to a full-out tantrum and I’m afraid he’s going to come out with some ugly accusation against me, but instead he sobs out, “. . . and I left my Han Solo there!”

“That you did, kid,” Mattie says, smiling down at Oren. The smile’s gone when she lifts her face to me. “It’s one night, Alice. It’ll be the best thing for the boy.”

What can I say to that? I shrug. “Sure. Why not?” I get up and offer my hand to Oren, but he cowers against Mattie. He’s not going to let me live this down quickly. I shrug again. “Have it your way,” I say, and get in the backseat of the car.

Mattie helps Oren to the car. He’s really hamming it up, limping like it was his leg I hurt and not just his arm. When Mattie goes to put him in the back with me he says he wants to sit in the front. Mattie acquiesces but makes sure Oren buckles up.

No one talks on the ride back to town. Mattie turns on the radio, which is tuned to NPR—big surprise. Oren doesn’t even ask to change the station, which he does whenever I’m listening to a talk show. He’s on his best behavior now. I’ve seen him act this way with me after Davis has gone after him. Sure he’s an angel with you, the kid’s a great actor. He’s a little shit with me. I’d always thought it was a pathetic ploy to shift the blame onto a child, but now that I’m on the receiving end I can kind of see what Davis meant. The kid is a great actor. How long before he convinces someone that I’m the monster? How long before he convinces me?

Suddenly the idea of being alone with Oren on the run—cooped up in crappy halfway houses, living off the charity of nuns and social workers, then winding up in some shitty Section 8 housing—seems unbearable. But what other choice do I have?

It’s then I remember Social Worker Scott. The only male social worker ever assigned to Oren, and the one decent one who seemed to really like Oren—and like me. In fact, it became obvious that he liked me liked me. So much so that Davis was jealous, said Scott was just hanging around because he wanted to screw me. That was what the last fight was about. When Davis came home and caught Oren and me getting ready to leave he accused me of running away with Scott.

Now I wish we had been. Although he tried to pretend otherwise, it was clear that Scott came from money. He’d gone to a fancy college upstate and always had the newest iPhone. He drove a Volvo. We wouldn’t have had to take the crappy bus with Scott; he’d have taken us to Canada in his Volvo.

Maybe he still would.

Although I ditched my cell phone, I know Scott’s phone number. I memorized it because I was always afraid to put it in my Contacts in case Davis looked through them.

Just as I’m thinking this Mattie pulls into the Stewart’s where she picked us up last night. “I’m going to get some Children’s Tylenol and an ice pack for Oren’s arm,” she says, barely glancing back in my direction.

“Can you get me another one of those bear claws, Mattie?” Oren asks in a pathetic little whimper.

“Sure, kid,” she says. Then, deigning to look back at me, “Do you need anything, Alice?”

“I’m good,” I say. “And no more bear claws for Oren, please. He had three cavities at his last checkup.” There. How’s that for good parenting?

“Oh, I think just this once, to take his mind off his arm.” She gives Oren a sugary smile that turns to a warning scowl when she turns to me.

“Sure,” I mutter under my breath as she gets out of the car, “you’re not the one who’ll have to pay the dentist’s bill.”