The Night Visitors(26)

Now the porch is home to a sagging old sofa and bins of toys. The toys are there for kids to play with while their parents are inside filling out forms for food stamps, complaining about their spouses, or just taking a much-needed break. And when I open the front door the intern at the front desk—Arianna or Andrea or something like that—looks up at me and says, “Oh good, Doreen’s looking for you. Did you let your phone run down again? There’s a kid upstairs with her who says he’s staying with you?”

The upward lilt in Alana’s—that’s it—voice could be millennial speech or incredulity that I’ve violated Sanctuary’s protocol and taken a client home. I don’t care. I cross the wide-planked floor in three assertive strides and lean over the counter to speak in Alana’s ear. “There’s a woman right behind me who is looking for her son. Tell her he’s fine and that Mattie’s gone to get him. Sit her down and give her some forms to fill out.”

“Wh-which forms?” Alana asks, her kohl-rimmed eyes bugging out. Another volunteer, a young college student from Bard, looks up from the food pantry.

“Myers-Briggs personality tests for all I care. Just keep her busy.”

Alana smiles. The interns all love drama. She’s smart too, despite the multiple piercings, millennial speak, and name that sounds like a yoga pose; she’ll figure out a way to detain Alice.

I open the door that says STAFF ONLY. As I’m closing it I hear the front door open and Alice’s voice demanding where that woman Mattie Lane’s gotten to. I take the stairs two at a time. I should have just enough time to call Frank from the office phone (Alana is right; I did forget to charge my phone last night) and then Doreen will help me keep Alice and Oren here until Frank arrives. It’s for the best. Alice is clearly not stable. If Oren did stab his father and he’s tried as a juvenile, I can testify at his hearing. The juvenile detention centers aren’t as bad as they used to be. Doreen and I could make sure he ends up at one of the better ones, and Doreen will help me keep track of Oren in the system. Just because I’m turning him in to the police does not mean I am giving up on him. If I’d told Frank my suspicions about what was going on in my own home thirty-four years ago, Caleb might still be alive.

When I reach the top of the stairs I hear Oren’s voice. He’s happily telling a story about Luke Skywalker’s training as a Jedi. When I round the corner I find Oren sitting at Doreen’s overflowing desk, a plate of cookies and a glass of milk perched precariously amid casework files and training manuals. When Doreen looks up my heart swells. She’s in her late fifties with dark bags under her eyes, gray in her dark curly hair, and a stain on her faded sweater, but to me she looks beautiful. How did I ever think I could do all this without her?

“Here’s Mattie now,” she says in a bright, calm voice. Only I would hear the strain beneath its surface. “I told you she’d be here soon—sooner if she’d learn to charge her phone.”

Oren laughs—he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine—and holds up his hand. He’s grasping a green toy in his fist. “Oh good, now we can go back to your house. We need to rescue Han Solo from the ice caves and I found someone who can help.” He waggles the toy in his hand.

As I walk toward him I feel as if I’m floating two feet off the floor. The toy in his hand is so old the green paint has flaked away and one of its long ears has chipped off. But I recognize it. A late-1970s-model Yoda. The same one that Caleb buried in the hollow thirty-four years ago.





Chapter Eleven


Alice


THE BOHO CHICK with the pretentious name at the front desk tries to tell me that Mattie’s gone to find Oren, but I can tell she’s lying. Her eyes slide over toward a door with a STAFF ONLY sign on it and she might as well be pointing to where Mattie is. She pushes a clipboard with some forms on it toward me, but I ignore her and head toward the door.

“Hey!” Boho calls.

A bearded guy wearing a THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE T-shirt comes around from the desk and gets in between me and the closed door. “Can I help you?” he asks. His breath smells like ramen noodles; there’s even some stuck in his beard. He reminds me of Scott, always trying to help, always putting his nose where he shouldn’t. Like going around to the house to check on me and Oren. That’s what must have happened. Scott went to the house and found Davis injured and mad as hell that Oren and I had gotten away. Knowing Scott, he would have tried to help, and knowing Davis—

That’s why Davis has Scott’s phone. It’s not Davis whose body the police found at the house; it’s Scott’s.

The room spins and I feel faint. Ramen guy reaches out a hand to steady me but I bat it away.

“You can get the hell out of my way,” I say, angry at this guy for looking like Scott when Scott is dead, “so I can get my son and get out of here.”

The Scott look-alike holds up both hands. “I can hear that you’re angry . . .”

“Can you, asshole? I’m so glad your ears are working. What about your feet? Can they walk your skinny ass out of my way?”

Fake Scott blinks at me. He’s not used to being talked to like this. He must be new to the job. He probably grew up in a nice house where nobody yelled and went to a nice college where everybody talked about “safe spaces.” Like Scott. Well, there are no safe spaces in this world. Certainly this place isn’t, for all it’s called Sanctuary.