Willow shrugged, nodded, smiled, and looked worried all at the same time. “I’ll walk home with Darcy,” she said.
Susan gathered up her brood and herded them out the door and into her car.
“Come on, kid,” Darcy said to Willow. “The walk will do you good. Clear your head.”
“I wish it really could. I wish it could clear my mind of the image of my mother—naked!—with Otto. He still had his shirt on and his pants were down around his knees. I saw his butt. So weird.”
“Yes, well, sex can look pretty bizarre.” They crossed South Prospect Street and walked along Atlantic Avenue. The sidewalk was so narrow they had to walk single file. Darcy was glad. She didn’t want to answer all of Willow’s questions about what she’d seen.
When they reached Pleasant Street and could walk side by side, Darcy asked a question of her own. “Did you have sex with Logan?”
Willow shook her head violently. “Yeah. No. Maybe.”
“Well, which is it?”
“We didn’t do it. But we messed around a lot. I touched his—him. He— I can’t talk about it. It was fun, it was exciting, he’s so hot, and he wanted to be with me and I don’t know whether I let him touch me because I enjoyed it or because I was so impressed, kind of honored that someone so old would pay attention to me.”
Darcy put her arm over Willow’s shoulders. “You’re pretty smart for someone your own age, Willow.”
“Well, I know this much. Sex makes a mess of everything.”
Darcy walked quietly, wondering how to respond. Finally, she said, “Sometimes it does. But sometimes, if there’s love, it makes everything all right, at least for a while.”
17
Darcy and Willow arrived at Darcy’s house to find Susan’s car parked in front of her house and Susan sitting on Darcy’s doorstep. The front door was open to the Brueckners’ house and sounds of the boys shouting carried out to the street. Darkness had fallen, and the lights of the houses up and down the street glowed, softening the edges of the houses, blurring the trees, erasing the lines on Susan’s face so that she looked young again.
Susan rose. “Willow, let me pay you tomorrow, okay? I’m in too much of a flap and the boys are wild, and their father just got home.” Before Willow could respond, she reached out and folded Willow into a hug. “You did such a perfect job, taking care of my sons. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Mrs. Brueckner—” Willow cried.
“It’s not your fault Henry cut himself. My sons are walking disasters. I’m only surprised a hurricane didn’t hit the house at the same time.”
If you only knew, Darcy thought.
Willow had frozen, as if she were playing the old game statues.
Darcy reached out to take Willow’s slender wrist. “Come with me, Willow. I’ll make hot chocolate.”
Willow allowed herself to be pulled away from Susan. The three kissed each other’s cheeks and said good night. Susan went into her noisy house and shut the door.
“It’s too hot for hot chocolate,” Willow said as she trudged next to Darcy to her house.
“You don’t have to drink it,” Darcy responded calmly. She needed hot chocolate, preferably with a shot of rum in it. Making it would give her something to do while she thought about this mess, and it would allow Willow a chance to settle down. Sometimes sitting at a table, turning a spoon over and over, staring down at a cup of warm sweetness was exactly the thing that helped one’s poor confused brain to mend.
Willow sank into a chair at the kitchen table. Darcy gathered the box of Hershey’s cocoa powder, the sugar, the milk and carefully mixed them in a pan. She didn’t speak. She focused all her attention on the easy concoction, as if she were a scientist creating the world’s newest, most potent antibiotic.
It was quiet in the kitchen. As if she and Willow were serene.
But, Lord, this was a mess, and Darcy had no idea how to advise Willow.
She poured the hot chocolate into mugs, sprinkled the tops with miniature marshmallows, and sat down with her own mug.
Willow stirred her drink. Without lifting her head, she mumbled, “I can’t tell Boyz. That would be too gross. Besides, it would hurt his feelings.”
Darcy sat back in her chair, surprised that Willow was worried about Boyz’s reaction. Immediately, a sense of relief moved through her. So Willow cared about Boyz, and felt cared for by him, connected to him.
“Maybe,” Darcy suggested, “you could talk to your mother about tonight. Let her be the one to tell Boyz. Or not.”
Willow lifted her head. “Really?”