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Or what?she texted.
The dots pulsed; she watched, eyes aching, laughter carrying up from downstairs. She stared at the screen. That’s when she felt it, the now too-familiar pain in her abdomen. It was like a mean, angry finger poking into her mercilessly.
No. No!
She doubled over with it when the phone started pinging and pinging, message after message.
Or I’m going to
blow
your
house
DOWN
Bitch.
16
Henry
1997
“Well here it is,” said Miss Gail.
She placed a plump hand on Henry’s arm and gave a little squeeze.
The room was big and sunny with two twin beds pushed up against opposite walls. Each side of the room was furnished with a bedside table, a desk and chair, a dresser as well. The right side of the room was clearly already inhabited, walls covered with posters of anime characters, and some photographs. It was tidy, though, bed made, books stacked in a neat pile on the desk. A stuffed bear was tucked into the covers, tattered head on the pillow.
“It’s not The Plaza,” she said, looking at him. She had big kind eyes, magnified by thick glasses, a crooked smile. “But I promise you that you’ll be safe and cared for here, Henry. Which maybe doesn’t seem like much after all you’ve lost. But there we are, okay?”
He nodded. He hadn’t spoken much since he’d identified Alice’s body. He found that words died in his throat, or got stolen by his breath which seemed too thin to carry their weight from his mouth. In fact, everything from that night forward was a bit of a blur—a million questions, embraces and pitying looks from strangers.Isn’t there any family, son, someone we can call?
But there was no one. No one he’d ever met, or even heard of.
What about your father?
He didn’t want to say what Alice had told him. That his father was a sperm donor. It seemed so—clinical. Like there was something so wrong with him, that he was somehow notnatural, notreal.
I never met him. My mother wasn’t sure who he was.
One of the police officers spent a few days looking for Alice’s family of origin. Henry stayed with Piper’s family until the state found placement for him at Miss Gail’s.
Finally, after a few days with Piper’s family, in their big, tidy house, with Piper’s kind, generous parents who cooked for him and did his laundry, and shuttled him back and forth to the police station, Miss Gail came for him.
You’re always welcome here, Henry, said Piper’s mom as they walked him out to Miss Gail’s older but well-kept minivan.Weekends, holidays, whenever.
Piper hugged him hard, then ran away into the house.
He hoped he properly thanked them, but it was as if a strange fog had descended around him. He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t feel anything at all.
“Get yourself a little settled,” Miss Gail said now. “We have to go back to the police station after lunch. They still have questions—about your mom. I’m so sorry, honey.”
He saw that she was teary, but he just nodded.
She took him into a soft embrace which he didn’t mind but couldn’t bring himself to return. When she left, he lay on the bed and stared at a large crack in the ceiling, his bag with his few belongings on the floor beside him. Then he looked out the window at the tall oak that stood in the yard. He felt that he was floating, untethered, belonging nowhere.
