“You’re not even going to try and explain yourself?”
Patience had never felt more dirty and exposed as she did under his stare, but she managed to hold herself together. “Why should I? You don’t want to listen.” No, he would judge her like everyone else had. The same way she judged herself. Why stick around to listen to condemnations she’d said to herself?
Stuart blocked her path. “Try me.” Between the shadows and his stony expression, it was impossible to read his thoughts
They weren’t the words she had expected to hear, and Patience hated how they made her heart speed up with hope. “You’re really willing to listen?”
“I said I would. Don’t you think you owe us an explanation?”
Us, as in him and Ana. With the shock of discovery wearing off, guilt began to take hold. She owed Ana way more than an explanation, but the truth was a good place to start. “Fine, but not here. Please.” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the silhouette of a person standing in a window. “I’ll tell you everything when we’re at the brownstone.” Then she’d move out and never bother him or Ana again.
Neither said a word the final few blocks. Such a different silence compared to when they had left the hotel. Then, the air had hummed with romantic possibility. This long walk was nothing but cold.
Naturally Nigel was waiting for their return, meowing and running back and forth for attention. Without a word, they walked into the kitchen so she could give Nigel his midnight snack. Attending to a cat’s needs had never taken so long.
“You ready to talk?” he asked when she’d finished rinsing the can.
“Not much to say.” She’d already decided to give him the shortest version possible. Less misery that way. “I needed money and dancing was the only job I could find that would pay me enough.”
Minus the part where she turned down the offer twice before finally giving in, and only then because her creepy boss at the burger place wouldn’t give her more hours unless she slept with him.
“Interesting.” He pulled out a chair and motioned for her to take a seat. “Now how about you give me the full version?”
The full version? Her heart hitched. She’d never told anyone the whole story. “Why do you care about the details? It is what it is.”
“Because I care.” The words warmed her insides, until she reminded herself he meant “about the details.” He was, after all, a lawyer. Naturally, he’d want to collect all the facts.
Question was—how many facts did he need? She’d buried so much of her story that even she wasn’t sure of everything anymore.
Taking a seat, she wiped the dampness from her palms on her dress. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Try the beginning.”
“I was born.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Where did she begin? “I suppose everything really started when Piper was born. My mom—don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t a horrible mother. I mean, she didn’t beat us or let us starve or anything like that. She just wasn’t into being a mom, you know?”
A quick look across the table said he didn’t, but she plowed ahead. “I think she thought a baby would keep Piper’s dad around, but...”
She shrugged. That was her mother’s pipe dream, not hers. “Anyway, as soon as I got old enough, she left taking care of Piper to me. But I told you that already.”
“‘A fancy cake for Mrs. F,’” he recited. “How old were you?”
“Twelve or thirteen? Thirteen, I think. It wasn’t that hard,” she added quickly. As was the case whenever a person looked askance at the arrangement, her defensiveness rose up. “Piper was a good kid. She never caused trouble, always did her homework. Plus, she could cook.”
“A thirteen-year-old taking care of a five-year-old. You didn’t resent it?”
Her automatic answer was always no. For some reason—the way Stuart looked to be reading her mind maybe—the answer died in favor of the truth. “Sometimes, but I didn’t have a choice. She was family. I had a responsibility.”
From behind his coffee cup, she saw Stuart give a small nod and realized if anyone understood the importance of family responsibility, he would. After all, wasn’t his devotion to Ana the spark that had led to this conversation?
She continued. “When my mom died, Piper and I were left alone. I promised her we would stay together no matter what.”
“And that’s why you needed the money? For Piper?”
“Yeah.” She stared into her cup, unsure how to continue. Talking about Piper was the easy part. It wasn’t until after their mom died that the story turned bad. “My mom left us broke. Worse than broke. Actually. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“What about assistance? There are programs...”
“You don’t understand. It wasn’t that easy.” How could he? Man like him, who never wanted for anything.
“But surely—”
“We were living in our car!” She hurled the answer across the table, the first time she’d ever acknowledged what happened aloud. “We were afraid if we told anyone, Piper would end up in child services, and I swore that wouldn’t happen.” In her mind, she saw her sister’s frightened face, heard the desperation in her voice. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the memories stayed all the same. “I couldn’t break my promise to her. We were all each other had. Losing her would have been like...like...”
“Losing your own child.”
“Yes.” His answer gave her hope that he understood. Opening her eyes, she stared across the table, silently pleading her case. “I would have done anything to keep her safe. Anything.”
This was the place in the story where she should stop. Having justified her actions, there was no reason to share any more. The problem was that talking about the past was like cracking a glass. Once begun, the crack didn’t stop spreading until it reached its natural end. And so the words continue to flow. “There was this guy who lived near us. Named Ben. He was always hitting on me, telling me how hot I was. Used to tell me a girl built like me could rake it in at the club where he worked. I always ignored him. Until I didn’t have a choice anymore.”
Unable to sit still any longer, Patience pushed herself away from the table and crossed to the back window. Her distorted reflection stared back at her in the glass. “It was January. We hadn’t eaten all day. I’d lost my job—we didn’t have money. Piper had a cold. Sounds like one of those over-the-top TV movies, doesn’t it?” she said with a hollow laugh.
“Go on.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she whispered. The desperation and shame she’d felt that fateful day returned as fresh as ever, rising up to choke the air from her lungs. “I told myself it was only for a little while. Until Piper and I were on our feet.” The delusion of youth and hopelessness.
“How long did that take?”
Why was he asking? He could guess the answer. Until she went to work for Ana.
“That’s the trick life plays on you,” she said, resting her head against the glass. “You tell yourself it’s only for a few weeks, a few months tops. Next thing you know, a few months turns into a year. Two. After a while, you start to think maybe you can’t do any better. I mean, you’ve got no experience, so any job you can get doesn’t pay nearly as much and that’s assuming you could even get another job. Who’s going to hire someone who danced on a table?”
“Table? Is that—?”
“Yeah. A drunk grabbed my ankle.” Her breath left a smudge on the pane. Using her scarf, she wiped the mark away. If only life could clean up so easily. “Sometimes I think, if only I’d held out one more day...
“I can still feel their eyes on me,” she whispered. “At night. Watching me with their dull, glassy eyes. Fantasizing about what they want to do with me.” She slapped a hand against her mouth to keep from gagging as the memories began to choke her. A sob broke through anyway. “They made me feel so dirty.”
“Shh.” Once again Stuart was there, his face joining hers in the glass. Didn’t matter that he wasn’t touching her, his proximity was good enough.
“But I kept my promise,” she said. “I kept us off the streets and I gave Piper a normal life.” Of all the regrets she had in her life, keeping Piper safe wasn’t one. “Whenever things got really bad, that’s what I would tell myself. I kept my promise.”
Behind her, Stuart let out a long, loud breath. An echo of her own exhaustion. She hadn’t expected to share so much. Telling Stuart details she’d never told anyone...the ordeal left her raw and exposed. “You said you wanted the long version.”
“Yes, I did.”
There was another sigh. Patience imagined him washing a hand over his features as he tried to digest everything. What would he think if he knew the one detail she’d kept back? But how could she tell him when she could barely admit the secret to herself?
“I know you think I had some big agenda, but I didn’t. I ran into Ana and she confused me with a job applicant. I let her believe that’s who I was and interviewed for the job.” She turned so he could see she was being as honest as possible. “Ana was the first person besides Piper who ever treated me like I mattered. I swear I would never hurt her. I just needed to get out.”