All the Little Lights(49)

“How long is a while?” I asked.

Mama turned to me, remorse in her eyes. “I’m sorry for the things he said to you. It won’t happen again, I promise.” I sat down in front of the plate she placed on the dining table. “Now eat. I have a few things to do yet. We’ve got several coming down for breakfast. So, so much to do, and I didn’t sleep well last night.”

She left the room.

“Baby?” Althea said, appearing from the pantry, tying apron strings behind her back. She picked up a rag and began to clean the stove top. “Did we wake you?”

“Did you clean up after Uncle Toad, or did Mama?”

“Well, you just never mind that.” She peered out the window. “Better eat up. Your boy is here.”

“Oh,” I said, shoving a sausage in my mouth and grabbing two biscuits and my jacket before hooking my arm through the straps of my bag. Elliott was already standing on the porch when I opened the door.

“Bye-bye, baby!” Althea called.





Chapter Fourteen Elliott

I held the door open for Catherine with one hand and held wrapped huckleberry bread in the palm of the other. “Breakfast?”

“Thanks,” she said, holding up another one.

I chuckled. “We’re already sharing a brain. We’re meant to be.”

Catherine blushed, then sat in the passenger seat. I closed the door, jogging around to the other side. She was quiet, and that made me nervous. “Everything okay, I guess?”

“Yeah. Just tired,” she said, staring out the window as I pulled away from the curb.

“Didn’t you sleep well?”

“I did. I think.”

I glanced down at her arms, noticing multiple angry, red, half-moon marks on her skin from wrist to elbow. “You sure you’re okay?”

She pulled down her sleeve. “It’s nothing. A nervous tic.”

“So what were you nervous about?”

She shrugged. “Just couldn’t sleep.”

“What can I do?” I asked, feeling desperate.

She leaned back, closing her eyes. “Right now I just need a nap.”

I touched her knee. “You sleep. I’ll drive.”

She yawned. “I heard Anna Sue is having a Halloween party next week.”

“So?”

“So are you going?”

“Are you?”

Catherine’s eyes opened. Even through her exhaustion, she seemed surprised, as if she were waiting for me to admit I was joking. “No. Dressing up as someone else doesn’t interest me.”

“Not even for one night?”

She shook her head, closing her eyes again. “No, and especially not if it involves Anna Sue Gentry.”

“Looks like it’s popcorn and a scary movie marathon at my house, then?”

She smiled, her eyes still shut. “Sounds perfect to me.”

Catherine’s shoulders sagged, her body relaxed, and her breathing evened out. I tried to drive slow, taking any corners wide. Just before we reached the dirt road I’d had in mind, Catherine scooted over and hugged my arm, resting her cheek against my shoulder. I used my other hand to put the car in park and turn off the ignition, and then we sat on the side of the road while she slept. Her nose made the slightest wheezing sound, and even though my arm and my butt began to go numb, I didn’t dare move.

The sky opened up for a few minutes off and on, raining down a light mist. I played on my phone until the battery was at 1 percent, and then I slowly maneuvered to plug it into the car charger, looking down at the girl snuggled up next to me. Catherine seemed so much smaller than when we first met—more frail, more delicate, and still she was tough as nails. I’d never met anyone like her, but I knew that had something to do with the fact that I’d never loved anyone else the way I loved her, and I never would again. She was more important to me than she knew. I’d been waiting to get back to her for so long, and now that we were sitting together in the quiet, cold car, it seemed surreal. I touched her hair, just to remind myself that it was real.

My phone rang, and I scrambled to answer before it woke Catherine. “Hello?” I whispered.

“Hey,” Dad said.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah?”

“So I promised your uncle John I wouldn’t call and ask you for anything, but Kimmy lost the apartment, and we’ve been staying with Rick, and he’s got this new girlfriend and her and Kimmy don’t get along. I haven’t been able to find a job, and things just aren’t looking real good. I know . . . I know you’ve got a birthday coming up and your aunt Leigh always gives you a couple hundred bucks. If you could ask her for it early and lend it to me, I swear I’ll get you paid back by Christmas and then some.”

I frowned. “You’re asking for my birthday money I haven’t gotten yet?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? We’re going to be homeless in a week or two.”

I clenched my teeth. “Get a job, Dad. Does Kim or whoever have a job?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“If you’re wanting to borrow money from me, it is.”

He was quiet for a few moments. “No, she ain’t got a job. Are you going to lend it to me or not?”