Page 52
Manny comes out from behind the desk and stops beside me.
"He was asking about you and your mom yesterday evening," he says quietly, then disappears around the corner.
In my head, Carson is in a field somewhere on another planet. He's a voice on the phone every two weeks and a check that shows up in my mailbox.
He isn't supposed to be standing ten feet away from me in Florida.
Mom loops her arm through Hildie's and starts walking her toward the day room, the aide falling in beside them. And then it's the two of us in the hall.
The courtyard doors let in a bar of white light that falls across the hall bench. I'm still holding the ginger ale, cold in my fist, sweating down over my knuckles.
Carson takes it out of my hand, even though I don't ask him to. He lifts it away the same way Mom lifts pans and sets it on the windowsill.
Then he crosses to the alcove where the vending machines hum, drags a chair back by its top rail, and plants it in front of the bench with the legs squared to the floor.
"Sit down. Put your feet up."
I sit down and put my feet up, because my jaw is still on the floor and he's barking orders. My heels are on the seat before I catch up to the fact that I did it without a word first. I let a man I've spent a total of twelve hours in person with arrange furniture around my body. That's not me. I fight Mom for a foil pan.
The cool bench takes my weight. My ankles thank me before my pride catches up.
Carson stays standing. He turns his hat once in his hands, a slow revolution by the brim, then sets it on the bench beside me.
Three thin white lines run across the back of his hand, healed over and pale against the tan. I look at them and don't ask. His eyes go to the shark tooth on its cord, then lower, then to the wall.
"How long are you here?” He asks.
"Until they come."
His eyes come back to mine.
"What?"
"The twins. I'm staying with Mom until they're born."
For the first time since he walked in, I can read something on his face. He didn't know.
"I told you I was coming down for a while," I add.
"You said you were visiting your mom."
"I said I'd be at my mom's for a while."
"That's not the same thing."
I shift on the bench and reach automatically for my ginger ale before remembering he put it on the windowsill.
"I didn't realize there was a reporting requirement."
His jaw tightens. "There isn't."
"Okay, then."
"But you moved."
"Temporarily."
"From North Carolina to Florida."
