The room was quiet. I sensed Amir’s unhappiness. When Rosalie spoke, the edge in her voice had softened. “So the two of you live with your older brother...” She trailed off, waiting for me to continue.
“Bear.”
Her white-blond eyebrows shot up. “Bear! Bear and Merrow. And Amir. What remarkable names.”
“Mom...” Will said. He seemed embarrassed by her.
She ignored him. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“I... I’m not sure.”
“I couldn’t find any pain medicine,” Will said. “I’m sorry. This isn’t our house. Friends of ours let us borrow it for the week.”
Rosalie studied me. The pain I was in must have showed in my face, because she walked over to a cabinet in the kitchen and returned with a bottle of whiskey and a glass. She poured out a splash and handed the glass to me.
“In a pinch,” she said, “this counts as medicine.”
I took the glass from her. The whiskey burned my throat, but it did, almost instantly, dull the pain I was feeling.
In my relief I felt a rush of goodwill. “You know,” I said, “we were only curious to see what the house looked like. That’s why we hopped over the wall.”
“We’re not thieves,” Amir added. We both knew that it was surely what Rosalie had been thinking since the moment she’d set eyes on us.
“I never thought you were,” Will said.
Rosalie studied us, her lips pressed together in a thin line. If she believed us, I could not tell. “What is your doctor’s name?”
“Doctor Clark.”
“I’ll look him up. He needs to see that wound.” When she left the room, I was relieved that Tiger followed her.
I suddenly longed to curl into the armchair and take a nap. I gave an involuntary shiver.
“You’re cold,” said Will. He flicked a switch on the side of the fireplace and blue-gold flames burst from the logs.
“We should go,” Amir whispered. Seated on the arm of my chair, he looked uneasy. The stains on his blue jeans and ring of brown at the neck of his T-shirt seemed to stand out against the backdrop of the white kitchen. I knew that my own clothes had the same marks, that my hair surely had the same dull sheen as his. We did not belong in that beautiful house. Amir—both of us—had every reason to be nervous. We’d been caught trespassing. The longer we stayed, the closer we were to finding out the consequences of our actions. Will seemed forgiving, but itwas impossible to guess what Rosalie was thinking. What if she hadn’t left the room to call Doctor Clark, but the police?
I nodded my agreement to Amir, but when I tried to stand, it felt as though shards of glass were sinking into the meat of my calf. I sank back into the chair. Amir’s expression grew more anxious.
“Merrow.”
“I’mtrying.”
Rosalie returned holding a small phone. “Good news. Doctor Clark is on the way. He tried very hard not to reveal the details of your file to me, but I’ve cracked tougher nuts on Christmas Eve.” She pointed the phone at me. “You are in need of a tetanus shot.” She looked at Amir and then me again. Her head tilted to the side, her expression relaxing. “In the meantime, how about a little something to eat?”
At the mere mention of eating, my stomach, as it was prone to do, growled. I hoped the noise of the fire’s flames was enough to cover it, but when I heard Amir’s stomach make an echoing call, I knew that neither of us was fooling anyone. As Rosalie busied herself in the kitchen, I wondered what other details of our life Doctor Clark had revealed to her. Amir and I exchanged a look. I was relieved to see that his excitement mirrored my own. The promise of food always had a way of preempting our other feelings.
AGIRL WHOdid not look older than ten appeared just as Amir was helping me to the table. She stared at us with open curiosity.
“Hello,” she called, stopping in the doorway. Her hair wasas pale as Will’s, and she wore it in two long, neat braids that fell in front of her shoulders. I felt a twinge of shame thrum within me. Bear’s voice was in my head, telling me that my hair looked like seaweed. I trimmed the ends myself with our house scissors, but I knew my efforts did not improve the situation by much. When I touched my hair, it felt unclean below my fingers. This little girl’s hair shone like silk. In the light of the room, it glowed, just as Will’s had seemed to when he’d knelt before me in the driveway.
“Hello,” I said.
Amir looked at the girl and nodded.
“This is Emma,” said Will. “My sister. Emma, these are our guests. Merrow and Amir.”
“Come sit by me, Emma,” said Rosalie. I could not help but notice that she gestured to the seat that was the farthest from the end of the table where Amir and I sat.
