Candy Colored Sky, стр. 44

Thirteen

It takes me a few minutes to wrap my brain around where I actually am. Our sofa has never been the greatest place to nap, let alone attempt a full night’s sleep. I gave up my bed willingly last night, though, to someone who needed it a whole lot more than I did.

Mom helped me bring down some extra blankets when she got back from the Trombleys’ house. It was Morgan who came to the door, her torn-up eyes and defeated posture reminiscent of her sister’s. The entire family spent the day with a victim’s advocate, sitting in a board room at the Oak Forest police station while investigators descended on the first solid lead in Addy’s case.

Someone’s security camera picked up a white car driving down a nearby street around the right time. They were looking for vehicles that didn’t live in our area, and this particular license plate fit the profile. Police tracked it to a home owned by a single woman in her late forties who lived near the Missouri state line, almost four hundred miles away. When they got to her home, it was filled with cats, animal feces, stacks of old magazines and newspapers, and trash. The white car and the woman were gone, but they found one of Addy’s skates in the garage among a pile of random objects like tools and old children’s toys. According to neighbors, the woman hasn’t been home in more than a week.

Nobody saw a little girl.

The smell of coffee lifts me out of my haze and I turn to find my mom working in the kitchen.

“How was your sleep?” she asks.

I grunt through a stretch and get to my feet.

“Eh,” I say, shrugging a shoulder.

“Rough morning I guess, huh?” She pours me the first cup from the fresh brew and I take it from her.

“Yeah, pretty rough,” I say, running my hand along my side where the uneven couch cushions jacked up my sleeping position.

“Because of the couch or the beer Grandpa gave you last night?” she deadpans with pursed lips, then blows the steam from the top of her coffee cup.

I’m not a good liar. I’ve never had much reason to lie, so after a few seconds of stammering through false starts of an excuse, I give up.

“How’d you know?” In my head, I’m already blaming Gramps.

“Jonah, hon. Your grandpa buys the cheapest beer on the planet. I could smell it on you the moment you walked in from the garage.” She laughs at my expense.

I should have gone with the ‘Gary spilled a beer’ story. I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull the lie off longer than a minute anyhow.

“Sorry,” I say, bowing my head and staring at the brew in my cup. The weight of shame pushes down my shoulders.

Mom steps in close to me and kisses the top of my head.

“Don’t be. Your grandpa gave me my first beer, too.”

I breathe out a short laugh and look up at her.

“Really,” she continues, joining me at the table. “I bet if he had the means, he would have let your dad and me smoke weed with him also.”

My eyes grow wide.

“Mom!”

“You’re damn right I would have.” I turn at the sound of Grandpa’s voice as he coughs his way through a rough good morning.

“I hear your grandson cleaned everyone out last night.” My mom’s scornful expression has shifted into a smug one as she flits her gaze from me to Grandpa and back again.

“Ha! Little shit’s a card counter just like his dad,” Grandpa says on his way to the fridge.

“Just like you, you mean,” my mom teases, swatting at him gently.

Grandpa laughs in agreement and goes to work pulling out the eggs and butter. While he gets started on breakfast, Mom finishes up her cup and gathers her things for work, leaving me and Gramps with a semi-serious warning not to cause any trouble.

There’s a lot to catch my grandpa up on, but before I can share the difficult details of why Eleanor is sleeping in my room, the sound of her feet hitting the wood stairs draws my grandpa’s eyes over his shoulder.

“That Jake idiot show up early for breakfast before school?” Grandpa asks.

Before I can explain, his mouth drops open at the sight of a very weary and worn-out Eleanor at the bottom of the steps.

“Hi,” she croaks. I think maybe she believes her lips are smiling but they aren’t. She’s as blank as a canvas, her face ghost white except for the sprinkle of freckles. Even her lips are pale.

“Well hi, young lady. You joining us for eggs this morning?” My grandpa looks to me for approval but I’m dumbstruck because no! Nobody is ever here for eggs. He doesn’t quite understand how bad this is.

“I’d love some,” she says, her voice faint and her body going through motions as she pulls out a chair and slips into it beside me. I stare at her until her eyes manage to find mine, and I wordlessly check on her heart and her head.

“Thanks for letting me take over your bed. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupt, ending with a closed-mouth smile. We hold each other’s stare for a few seconds, and I can’t help but sense that she doesn’t know what to say or do next. Not only with me, but with everything.

“I can call off from school today. Stay home, maybe just hang out with you and watch a movie or—”

She shakes her head and mutters, “It’s fine.”

“One military special coming right up,” Grandpa says, sliding the first plate across the table to our guest. Eleanor picks up the fork but when my grandpa turns his attention away she just pokes the barely cooked yolk