Hansel 4(15)

I turn to Lana, who’s working on a New York Times crossword puzzle at the kitchen table.

“So that’s all they said? The manuscript?”

She nods, not looking up. “Yep.”

When I called Lana from the car the night before last, she came running, but I think she thinks I’m seriously insane.

“And you told them Ray would call them back?”

She nods. “Her. She said her name was Rebecca.”

I chew my lip, and turn back around to the oven cleaning kit I’ve been looking at. The oven’s pretty clean, but it could always be cleaner.

Lana looks up and gives me a smirk. “You, and oven cleaner? Do you want to talk?”

I shake my head.

“Well for God’s sake, don’t clean the oven. Didn’t Hally say the housekeepers were coming in just a few hours?”

“Yeah.”

Lana swats her hand at me. “Go walk around. Do some snooping. Rake leaves. Something.”

I check Echo’s baby monitor, wondering for the millionth time if Luke adopted him as a baby, and nod. “Okay. I’ll go.” I turn around in the opening between the kitchen and the den. “Lana?”

She looks up. “Yeah?”

“Thanks again. This means the world to me.”

She arches her brows, and like usual, I can’t read her expression. “I’m glad that I could be here for you, Leah.”

The house is big. Like big. A good six or seven thousand feet, I think. And everywhere, he’s in these rooms. Pieces of him I’ve never seen before. A guitar in the sunroom. Three desktop computers in a dusty pile in a guest room. A pipe in the bathroom, loaded down with half-smoked herbs. His room, I’ve never seen. Raymond had us put him in a seldom-used guest room. But I think it’s the one at the end of a long hall, because that’s the only room whose door has consistently stayed shut.

I wander into a cavernous library, filled with books to the ceiling. A huge desk, and a huge chair, like a king’s throne. There’s a laptop, notebooks, pens. I don’t dare open them. There’s a framed quote: “Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.” Wonder what that means to him. I write it in my iPhone’s notepad app.

I walk down the hall that leads to the bedrooms, ravaging the wall prints with my eyes, and peek into a half-opened door.

Just like I thought: Echo’s room. It’s decorated with old baseball prints, and filled mostly by a queen-sized bed with a navy blue bedspread. The rest of the space in the room is filled by a bookshelf, a large blow-up penguin, and a dresser topped by framed photos of Luke and Echo.

Wearing fly fishing gear. Smiling from the summit of a mountain. Sitting with a birthday cake. I examine Luke’s face in every photo. His smile is so relaxed. His cheeks look fuller. In the fishing shot, his hair is a little longer, blowing in a breeze.

A piece of paper on the desk has a sloppily printed name in the left-hand corner: Echo.

Did Luke foster him first? Did he want to try to save a child from his experience? I run my hand over the desk, made of cherrywood, and obviously new. Echo is very clearly loved. I bet Luke would do anything for him.

I turn a slow circle, looking at the black and white baseball prints on the wall. The prints jog my memory, and I think of my Aunt Shelly. She fostered a kid for a while. I remember going with her to pick out some of his bedroom décor. It was baseball, just like this.

Heat starts in my chest shoulders, rising up my throat, into my cheeks. I grab for air as my head heats up. Tears sting my eyes.

My Aunt Shelly’s boy was named Lucas. I remember seeing him one time, as he and Shelly left the movie theater, and my sisters and I walked inside.

He had dark hair and hazel eyes.

I whisper, “fuck.”

I lie on Echo’s bed, push my face into the pillow, and cry.





CHAPTER FIVE

Lucas



I’ve been awake for a while, staring into the camera perched on a cardboard box at the foot of the bed, and no one has come. The pinch of the needle and tape in my inner elbow made me think of the hospital after Shelly, so I used my teeth to pull it out. After that, I’ve just been sitting here, waiting for my head to clear, and my hands to stop throbbing.

I can’t see the damage through the thick gauze bandages, but I think I remember someone saying something about surgery for one of them. It must be the left one. That one hurts the worst.

My hands are propped up on some pillows that look like they came from a hospital. I’m covered with white sheets, which also make me think hospital. But the room doesn’t smell, and the furniture around me looks kind of familiar, if I squint the right way.

I think it’s safe to say, I lost my contacts somewhere along the way.