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“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.”
