Chapter 6

M rs. Horner,

Attached please find my follow-up report in regard to your spouse, Miles Quentin Horner. I have provided supplementary documentation in the form of video clips, audio messages, texts, emails, and contemporaneous accounts from witnesses. I trust that you will find this additional information satisfactory.

Please note the most recent text chain between Mr. Horner and Ms. Shawna Coquine, dated March fifteenth (highlighted in Exhibit N and beginning with the message, “Time for you to blow me, bitch”). This exchange indicates that they have scheduled a meeting for today, March eighteenth, at 5:30pm at the Hotel Cadillac downtown. Management records show that Mr. Horner has reserved room 492, a suite.

And he’d done it under his real name, the jerk. I continued with my email.

Please be aware that any action which you, the client, undertake pursuant to this transfer of information is solely at your own discretion. The investigator assumes no responsibility or liability.

Good luck, and goodbye.

Pith Investigations

I read my email again, then I read through it for a third time. I’d been holding off on contacting Mrs. Horner, because I felt so angry. No, sad. No, I was frustrated, but also sympathetic.

Ok, maybe “conflicted” was the best word for my emotional state. While I wanted to scream, “Open your eyes, woman!”, I also thought about her three kids and how she seemed so confused by her husband’s behavior. She’d sent me a few more emails with questions about my previous report, and it was clear that she was hoping that I’d been totally wrong in what I’d told her. She still had her fingers crossed that it had all been a monumental mistake.

Honestly, as I started the second round of research, I had been secretly hoping that I might find an excuse. Maybe there was something that could have explained some of his behavior. Like, could the text with Shawna Coquine about blow jobs have been only a joke? No, because the exchange that followed was also plenty explicit. And that Coquine woman had a background that pointed to professional experience with that type of meeting, and she wasn’t the only professional whom he’d been contacting, either. At 5:30, that guy should have been coming home from the office and making dinner for his kids, not having an assignation with an escort.

It was repulsive. So I was also repulsed, as well being as angry, sad, frustrated, and sympathetic. Sugar! It was terrible to send this email but it was also unfair and unprofessional to make my client wait. This was my job, after all. I was only showing her the truth, just like shining a flashlight down a sewer. I hit send and then stood up and went to my bathroom, feeling bad enough that I sprinkled cleanser in the tub and got down on my knees to scrub. I’d had some supplies delivered, including sponges and soap, and I’d already cleared out the kitchen sink. Surprisingly, that room didn’t look much better. It had been disappointing to see only more problems even after washing and drying all the dumb dishes.

The tub looked better too but as I stood to rinse it, I saw that now the sink was worse in comparison. I was also thinking that the shower curtain had begun its life as a solid color, which meant that the pattern I saw on it now shouldn’t have been there. I yanked it off the plastic rings and the bar went crashing down onto the floor, where the tiles probably also needed to be scrubbed. I seethed for a moment and then picked it all up. I carried the mess into my bedroom and threw it out the window into the backyard. It would have been a lot better if I could have tossed everything back there, both the giant mess inside my house and also the tangled thoughts in my head. I just didn’t know what to do, about my brother or about my neighbor. There was no solution as easy as throwing it out the window.

But as I discarded the old shower curtain, I saw that it was still sunny and I also felt a hint of spring in the air. My neighbors had been out in force today, walking up and down the block and chatting, exercising their dogs (and dragging one cat) as they went. It was a beautiful Saturday and spring did seem to be at hand. It was still chilly, of course, and there was a storm forecast for the next day, but when you lived in the north, you had to snatch at good weather where you could. I remembered doing that when we’d been kids. The moment it had gotten even a little bit warm, we’d all been in the yard playing, making a huge mess. Nicola hadn’t ever been angry when we got our clothes dirty and she’d always jumped into whatever fun we’d been having. She’d come up with a lot of games, too.

I decided again that she was going to be a good mom.

And speaking of parenting, my own mom was preparing to head back to Michigan from California. She and Patrick were wriggling him out of an apartment lease and tying up other loose ends before they left. Since he’d already lost his job, giving notice wouldn’t be a problem but he had managed to amass a lot of stuff that they needed to deal with (according to Juliet, who had been in contact with them). They were packing and shipping between visits to the hospital, but Esme was set to be discharged soon. I wondered how a five-hour flight with a baby would go. I had some experience with infants—I did remember Brenna and Grace as babies, although Nic had been the one who’d mostly dealt with them. Anyway, it seemed like a terrible prospect to be stuck in a metal tube with a tiny, nonverbal entity who couldn’t be bribed or argued into staying quiet.

While I’d been thinking about their trip, I’d been walking through the house and pulling my hair into a ponytail. I’d also put on some shoes (not the slides. Never the slides.) Now I opened my front door and breathed in the fresh air and sunshine. It did feel better to be outside, even partway. I saw the cat-on-the-leash lady again, striding along the sidewalk in front of my house, and I nodded at her in a neighborly manner. She nodded back while the cat looked aloof. I saw them glance around my yard, taking it in before they both seemed to sniff and then moved on. I also looked around and saw a lot of sticks on the ground. Where had they all come from? Why had they seemed to accumulate only in front of my residence, when there was so much other real estate on the street?

I could pick up a few of them, at least. It might suck some of the enjoyment out of the beautiful weather but at least I’d still be outside. I looked at the stunted trees in my yard and noticed some branches which also seemed poised to break and fall, thus producing more sticks—and I thought, suddenly, of a beach in the Caribbean where coconuts hid behind palm fronds and waited to dive-bomb unsuspecting people while they walked beneath the bright moon. No, they probably weren’t as dangerous as sharks, but it was certainly true that there was hidden peril, even on a beautiful beach.

My yard was not a beach and was not beautiful. The cat had been correct to give it side-eye, and I walked back to my garage and found an old, metal garbage can.

“Hey,” a voice called after a while. Honestly, it felt like I’d been stooping and grabbing for hours, but it couldn’t have been that long. Danny walked across the street, gloves and some folded paper bags in his hands. “You can use these,” he suggested.

“Thank you.” I put on the gloves and he opened one of the large bags for me. “This is a terrible job,” I commented.

“It’s better if you don’t let so much build up,” he pointed out. I was ready to tell him that before, I’d been letting nature do its thing, but I stopped myself. Yes, he was correct that it would have been better if I’d done a little work over the seven years that I’d lived here, rather than waiting for everything to decay or blow away.

“Whatever,” I said, but without a lot of rancor. I saved that for the sticks.

Danny asked me about Patrick and his situation and as we talked, he started picking up stuff, too. He also got a rake from his garage and eventually, we filled every bag he’d brought. By that point, the front did look a lot better. It was much more in kind with the other yards on the street, except I did notice that my plants were a little wonky, and there was definitely less grass and more dirt patches. Also, the front path still had all that stupid, slippery moss…sugar. Why was there always so much more to accomplish?

But I was grateful for Danny’s help. “Thank you,” I said, and he nodded.

“Now the neighbors will act nicer to you,” he answered. “I’ve seen them give you a few looks. That woman walking with the cat sure did. What in the hell is she doing with that animal on a leash?”

“I don’t know, but I really don’t care what people think of me,” I said. “The neighbors can all gang up with pitchforks and I’ll still tell them kiss it.”

“I remember that about you. It was something I admired in high school, how you didn’t give a shit. You’d say anything to anybody.” He smiled. “You’d give teachers a piece of your mind, you’d tell off other kids.” But he lost the smile as he continued. “You stood up my dad, and you definitely told me what you thought about me.”

I looked at him, my mind also back in high school. “I didn’t believe that I had anything to lose back then,” I said slowly. “I didn’t have to worry about getting in trouble and setting a bad example because in my family, Nicola was the one for everyone to emulate. I didn’t care about being nice, like Addie, and I didn’t have a bunch of friends or teammates that I was trying to impress like Juliet did.”

“You were fearless.”

“Isn’t that funny? I guess I was, in a lot of ways.” I shook my head. “I was also a big jerk. I used to seek out conflict, like, I started arguments on purpose, for fun.” No, it hadn’t exactly been fun—it was that I’d wanted to get a reaction. I’d wanted attention just like the athletes and other stars of the school had received. I’d written disparaging articles for the paper and tried to minimize their page spreads in the yearbook while also craving that spotlight for myself.

“Yeah, I also remember that you picked fights,” he said. “That part I didn’t like.”

I’d had a chip on my shoulder for sure and no, it hadn’t been a good look. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, because in a lot of ways, I still had that dumb chip firmly in place.

“What are you doing today, besides helping me?” I asked.

He pointed toward his own house. “I had opened the garage door to get some air when I saw you stomping around.”

“I wasn’t!”

“I’ve never seen an angrier stick-gatherer. And I’ve seen plenty,” he told me, and laughed. In spite of being sweaty (with several scratches), I laughed, too. “I was going to start going through some of those boxes with an eye to get rid of it all. I guess that’s why I came over to help you, to put off doing it. But I can’t take the mess anymore.” He looked both annoyed and stressed as he glanced over at the boxes stacked in their neat towers.

“You also came because you enjoy my angry company,” I reminded him, and he smiled and looked much less annoyed.

“Also that. I remember a lot of things about you, but I’d forgotten how we can talk. We started right back up like the time apart was nothing.” He nodded at me and I nodded back. It was easy to be with him, and it always had been. Up until the end, we’d been good friends.

“I can help you in the garage,” I suggested. “Like a quid pro quo for the sticks.”

“You already painted my living room,” he reminded me. “Wasn’t I already down a quid? How about if you help me with the garage, then I’ll make it even again. When I have the junk hauled off my dad’s old property, I’ll have them come here and do yours, too.”

“You mean, go into my house and clear it?” My voice rose. “No way!”

“Your backyard,” Danny corrected. “The place where you have a refrigerator, a lawn mower, and a lot of other non-functioning crap.”

“Oh. Well, that would actually be great,” I said.

“You’re not attached to any of it?”

I realized that he was holding still, kind of frozen, while he waited for my answer. “No, not at all,” I said and I watched him relax. “I didn’t deal with it before because I was busy.”

“With your job.”

“Yes,” I responded immediately, and I started to tell him about the latest developments in the Horner case as we walked across the street to his garage. He opened boxes and we looked at the contents, taking pictures of things to sell, making a big pile to donate, and loading his truck with trash that he could dispose of in the dumpsters at his job.

“Are you always so involved with these people? Your clients?” He held up another cast iron skillet. “This is the fifth one.”

“Holy Mary, five?” I watched him toss it with a big clang. “No, I’m usually not very involved with them at all. This Horner woman…she just seems so pathetic in how she’s coping. Really, she’s not coping, she’s only wishing for reality not to be real. But I feel sorry for her, too.”

“Is that what happened to you? Is that why you swore off dating?” He looked into another box and pushed it to the side. “This one is all donations.”

“I didn’t get cheated on,” I answered. “I caught one of Brenna’s boyfriends at it, though.” Deftly, I changed the subject to my sister’s unhappy relationship and we continued going through his stuff, with the various piles growing as we did. Since he’d asked about my history, I also asked about his with his former girlfriend from Maryland, Lisanne. I knew what I knew (meaning that I had already researched her side of things), but I was interested in his take on why they had broken up for good.

“She was serious about getting married,” he said. “I didn’t want to.”

“Did you lead her on? I mean, did you get her thinking that you wanted the same thing and then not come through in the end?” Because that had been her interpretation of their final split.

But Danny seemed surprised by my question. “No. No, I didn’t do that. I was aware of how she felt about commitment but she was always clear—let me put it this way, I thought she understood that I wasn’t dating her with marriage as my goal.”

“What was your goal, then? To use her and string her along indefinitely?”

“No!” He scowled at me. “Can’t people just date for fun?”

“Sure. That’s what JuJu does, because she’s interested in going out and she’s not thinking about things leading to more. On the other hand, Addie dated with the fixed idea that she wanted to find a husband.”

“You mean, Addie wanted to marry…” He pointed at his own chest.

“No, she wasn’t looking to pin you down when you were a senior in high school,” I said, rolling my eyes.

We stuck to sorting for a moment but then he did respond further. “I had never been in a relationship like when I was with Lisanne. I never stuck with just one person and I went out with a lot of different women. You’ll probably have a hard time believing that I had anyone interested in me, since you witnessed all my dating success as a teenager. Or should I say, the complete lack of success.”

“No, I don’t doubt it at all,” I said seriously. Because it seemed like women had gotten smarter after high school, when he’d been more of a dating pariah. Now, someone might see that not only was he very handsome, but he was also exactly the kind of guy on whom a person could depend, and she could have fun with him, too. Probably that realization had sprung from maturity, but he’d also been ignored in high school because the people there were mean.

“I was aware that Lisanne wanted to marry me,” Danny continued. “We broke up a few times because she got sick of how I never stepped up with a ring and a definite plan. I also always knew that I would have to come back to Detroit eventually, maybe to stay. She never wanted to leave Maryland and her family. I had managed to avoid my own family problems but I was sure that wouldn’t last forever. I didn’t expect things to turn out…I guess you really never expect someone to die.”

I shook my head, wishing that I could have been there to help him. I didn’t know what I would have done, but I would have tried.

“Lisanne and I would talk and talk about the future and decide we had different expectations, so we’d break up,” he said. “But after a while, she would want to get back together and she’d tell me there was no pressure anymore.”

“So, it’s her fault,” I interpreted.

“It was nobody’s fault.” He looked inside another box that he’d previously labeled “Historical stuff/ephemera” and shook his head. “I don’t know about any of this.”

“I’ll look at it piece by piece.” I took it from his arms and it turned out that ephemera was heavier than I expected. I almost dropped it and he took back the box—I decided that I would start working out a little more.

“Actually, yeah. It was my fault,” he said.

“No, my arms were already tired from the yard work,” I told him. “Maybe you could carry that to my house later, though.”

“I will, but I mean that it was my fault that Lisanne and I stayed together for so long. I was aware of what she wanted for the future and I should have been the one to say that it was over, period. I should have stopped getting back together with her.”

“I guess.”

He tilted his head as he studied me, the way he’d always done it when we’d been friends. “You’re changing your tune,” he noted. “I thought you were painting me as the asshole here. I wanted to be with her because I cared about her, by the way. I said that we were together for fun or whatever, but that wasn’t the only reason. She’s great, and I’m glad that now she has what she always wanted.”

He cared about her and sure, she was great, but he hadn’t used the word “love.” “I think we’re all responsible for our choices,” I said. “So, if you guys broke up but she came back saying, ‘No pressure! We don’t have to get married!’ then she’s also at fault for being unhappy later.”

“Still. I won’t do that again to anyone.”

“So, if Carrington wants the same thing?” I prodded.

“We’ve been talking about it.” He opened another box. “Blender parts,” he commented.

I had frozen with a stack of old magazines in my hands. “Wait, what? You’re talking about marriage? But you haven’t been together for very long, and she’s so young!”

“We’ve been dating for a few months so it makes sense that we’d talk about expectations. I wouldn’t act the same way again with another woman.”

What were his expectations with Carrington? He hadn’t wanted to marry his prior girlfriend, and I opened my mouth to ask if he wanted a lifetime commitment with this person, the one who played her music so loud that the woman with the cat walked out onto her porch every time the red BMW drove down the block.

“She’s twenty-five, like Juliet,’ he continued while I was marshaling those thoughts. “Both of us are at normal ages to think about settling down.”

First, I tried to consider JuJu, my little sister below Addie, getting married. It was inconceivable. Then I thought about Danny doing it and I felt almost the same way. Married to that girl with the stupid vanity plates and a friend group that clearly coordinated their outfits? It was all disgusting!

“Why would you marry her ?” I demanded. “Is it because she’s so pretty?” That was undoubtably true, after all. And she was young and well-dressed like Brenna, and my prior interactions with her had demonstrated that she was just as mean. She definitely had more money than Brenna, but a squirrel also had more money than my sister did. Her job did not pay well.

“Carrington is very pretty, but that’s not why I like her. She has her shit together. She has a good job, she works hard. Very hard. She’s serious about fitness and she can run for miles.”

“If hard work and running for miles impresses you, then you should marry a sled dog.”

“Sophie,” he said sternly, and I apologized. I actually was sorry.

“We have fun together,” Danny continued. “More fun than I would have with a dog, who wouldn’t be allowed into a lot of places.”

I cracked a smile although this was still upsetting. And then I thought about going out. “Wait! What time is it?”

“Uh…”

I was already looking at my phone. “Holy Mary! It’s after six!”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

I was scrolling quickly, looking for information from the Hotel Cadillac’s security team. “That guy, my client’s husband, was supposed to meet a prostitute at a hotel downtown fifteen minutes ago. I gave the wife that information and I thought maybe she would show up there and confront him. But the hotel isn’t reporting any disturbances.” I checked again. “Ok, he hired her for an hour, so there’s still time to step in. But why would she wait? You’d want to catch them in the act.”

“Would you?” He sounded disgusted.

“I mean, no! Of course you wouldn’t want to lay eyes on that scene. But if my husband was in a hotel with a woman, professional or not, you can bet that I’d be there with a baseball bat.”

“I don’t have any doubts.”

“But I think she’s just going to take it.” I shook my head, frustration winning out over any compassion I might have felt before. “Well, there you go. This is what I meant about being responsible for your own choices. If she comes back to me again and says, ‘Hey, can you look for more information? Because I’m not totally convinced,’ I’ll say no. This is dumb. She’s being willfully blind!”

“Why does it piss you off so much?”

I threw up my hands. “I don’t know!” But then I paused. “Yes, I do. I feel sorry for her and I feel very sorry for those kids, growing up with parents who are behaving so stupidly. I think we both know what that’s like.”

He nodded slowly, and I did back at him. “That’s why,” I continued, “you should be very, very careful about the person you choose to marry. You shouldn’t consider someone who’s not exactly right for you, like, the perfect person—or as close as you can get to your ideal.”

“Is that personal experience talking? Did you pick wrong and it fell to crap?”

My face burned. “No, I never got close to marriage and from what you just told me about Lisanne, neither did you. You should keep it that way and stay single until you have no doubts about the person, not a single question as to whether it’s right or not.”

He had been watching me and I could see him taking in what I’d said, every word. “So what happened to you, Soph?” he asked. “Why are you so turned off to the idea of being with someone? You still say the word ‘marriage’ like you’re cursing.”

“No, I don’t,” I said, and reversed it on him. “You didn’t want to marry Lisanne, so why did you suddenly get turned on to the idea? Or—”

I stopped because I had the sudden, unhappy thought that the reason he wanted to get married was not anything to do with the institution itself: it was because he loved Carrington so much.

“You know that her father is basically a modern-day slumlord,” I said, before he could answer my question. “Seriously, their company has rental properties all around Detroit in terrible disrepair. There have been a lot of lawsuits filed against them, and they’ve dragged them out for years. And that’s just in Michigan, but out of state, they also—”

This time I stopped talking because Danny cut me off. “Were you researching her family? You said that you looked her up off her license plate and that was weird enough. Now you’re digging up dirt on her dad?”

“It’s publicly available dirt for whoever wants to look, but it’s not just her father. He owns the company but she helps to direct it,” I clarified. “So whatever bad things they’re involved in, she’s a part of it.”

“Carrington is not a slumlord.”

“Think of people living in crumbling apartments overrun by rats. That’s one thing they’ve been sued over. They improperly refused to return security deposits in Arizona and fought tooth and nail about it against people below the poverty line. Slumlords,” I repeated. “That’s what she’s doing at the office every day.”

“No, it’s a big company and they do lots of things. Residential real estate is part of it, but it’s not what Carrington works on.”

“I’m not sure how much she actually works,” I put in. “Do you keep track of how often she travels with her friend group?” Because I had added it up, and she vacationed an enormous amount for someone with a real job—seemed like Daddy wasn’t enforcing the company rules about time off, which I’d also researched.

“Why do you know anything about her trips?” he asked me in return. “Leave her alone!”

“I’m not doing anything to her,” I retorted. “She’s self-reporting about what a slacker she is and everything about the company is right there for anyone to see, if he had his eyes open. Honestly, Danny, you’re setting yourself up to be just like my client.”

“Daniel.”

“What?” I asked.

“People call me Daniel now,” he told me. “Everyone does except for you. It’s Daniel, because I’m not the same stupid kid who rode the bus out of Detroit when I was eighteen. No matter how dumb you still think I am.”

“I don’t think you’re dumb,” I told him. “I’ve never thought that. I just don’t want you to get hurt.” That was the last thing I ever wanted, and it had been on my mind a lot. And I really, really didn’t want him to marry Carrington. “I’m sorry that I said your girlfriend is a slumlord. I should have said that they’re making piles of money by abusing their impoverished tenants.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot better,” he said. “Shit. What you should have said is that it’s none of your business.”

“It’s none of my business,” I echoed. “But you’re talking about rushing into a lifetime commitment…”

“I’m not rushing into anything. Stop worrying and stop spying on her and her family. If there’s something I want to know about them, I’ll ask her. I won’t have to sneak around on a computer in the dark. I can see the glow coming from the screen in your office when I go to sleep each night, no matter how late that is,” he explained. “You’re always working to ferret out the bad in people. That’s why you’re seeing it now in Carrington, but I wouldn’t be with her if she were so terrible.”

“Ok. Ok, I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’ll stop compiling her dossier.”

“Her dossier? Yes, stop that.” He shook his head but he did seem less angry at me. I still had the feeling that I was on thin ice.

“Tonight when I go home, I’ll look up how much money you can make off all this stuff,” I said, opening my phone to some of the pictures we’d taken. “Maybe your dad was right and there will be some value to a few things.”

“No. He wasn’t right, he was mentally ill.”

I nodded slowly. The way they’d lived had demonstrated that, and I’d also seen his dad acting in ways that weren’t ok. “I know. I’m sorry,” I said again.

Danny was looking at me, considering. “Did you ever look him up? How about my mother? Did the information about that restaurant help, the menu and the job application?”

I took a quick breath. “I haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve been really busy,” I explained.

“Busy with clients, or busy digging up dirt on Carrington?”

I didn’t want to start that up again, but I had to warn him one last time. “Danny—Daniel, I mean, please think carefully. Addie was all set to marry the worst, most awful man in the world, and nothing we said could convince her that he was a jerk. Don’t be the guy who won’t listen.”

He considered again as he looked at me. “That’s good advice for both of us.”

“I listen,” I bristled, forgetting that I didn’t want to argue. Maybe I’d been wrong in how I’d thought that we still got along just like no time had passed at all. A lot of years had gone by and both of us were different. For one thing, I didn’t have to pick him up and drive him to school tomorrow. I could walk back across the street to my house, close the door, and never talk to him again.

I could have done that, if I wanted to—but I didn’t move. I wanted us to make up and still be friends, just like we had been.

“Your phone is ringing.”

I looked at it, but it wasn’t the police asking me about my involvement in an assault or murder at the Hotel Cadillac, victim name Horner. “It’s my mom,” I announced and then groaned, “Oh, no.” Just like when my brother had called Nicola, this contact was an outlier, a sign of nothing good.

“Mom?” I held the phone away from my ear. “What the heck? Mom?”

“We’re home,” she said, very loudly. “Sophie? Can you hear me? We’re home!”

Her last words had been in the form of a screech. And the reason she had to be loud was because there was a baby screaming bloody murder in the background, screaming like something was desperately wrong.

“What’s the matter?” I asked immediately. “Is Esme ok?”

“We’re in Detroit!”

“Mom! Is the baby ok?”

“Yes,” my mom hollered. “Yes, she’s fine! Just a little fractious.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone that you would be back today? Why are you calling me, specifically?” She hadn’t been able to hear those questions but I yelled them again to her.

“We ended up being able to go early,” she said, which sounded suspiciously vague. “I have the worst story about the airport!”

Of course she did, because when something happened to her, it was automatically the biggest/worst/most dangerous thing in the world. Like, one time a cart had run over her foot in the grocery store, and I’d had to carry her to the car because she insisted that it had almost been cut off.

“We were robbed and then—”

I was sure that her robbery story was one hundred percent not accurate and it was also not something that interested me, especially at this moment. “Why are you calling?” I asked again, loudly. “Why are you calling me ?”

“I thought you’d want to meet Esme!”

Oddly enough, I did. “Well—”

“Come over,” she said, and hung up before I could do it myself.

“My mom, Patrick, and the baby are here,” I announced to Daniel. Daniel—I was going to keep thinking of him like that. I had listened to what he’d told me and I would show him. “They’re in Detroit but no one knew they were arriving today.” Addie was away with her boyfriend, and I had a feeling I’d be hearing soon that she had an emerald ring on her finger. Juliet was working this weekend, Nicola was on at the hospital…oh. That was why my mother called me, because the better options hadn’t been available. Grace must have gone into hiding and I bet that Brenna had ignored the summons, so who was left? Out of all us siblings, I placed myself at the bottom of her list of emergency contacts. I was probably below Liv, my brother’s ex-fiancée, but she was living up north now and wouldn’t step in, either.

“I heard her say that they were home,” he answered. “Your mom was yelling loud enough that she could have contacted you with a metal can with a string through it.”

Then he’d probably also heard her say that there was nothing wrong with the baby, except that level of crying hadn’t sounded right to me. “I think I need to go over there. I need to check on Esme,” I told him, and he nodded as if he understood that my mother and brother, two actual parents, would need the help of someone who wasn’t and would never be a parent herself.

“Maybe you should change,” he suggested. “Wash your hands. My dad’s crap is filthy as well as worthless.”

“I’ll start to figure that out tonight,” I offered, but he said not to worry about it.

“Go have fun with your niece,” he said. “Thanks for your help today.”

“Ok, you’re welcome.” I started to hurry across the street but stopped midway and turned back around. “I’m very sorry.”

He looked up from a box and wiped his arm across his forehead. “What are you sorry for?”

Sugar. There were a few things, but I settled on the latest. “I’m sorry I said that stuff about your girlfriend. I’m sure she must be something special if you love her enough to marry her.”

“We’re talking about the future, that’s all,” he corrected. “Send me pictures of the new baby. Take one of the two of you together.”

“Ok,” I said again. That meant I would need his number, something friends shared. He gave it to me and I entered it carefully. “Wish me luck.”

“I always have,” he told me, and I wished it for myself, as well. I didn’t have the skill with kids that Nicola did or the natural affinity of Addie. Also, I didn’t have a shower curtain, since it was in my yard. Washing away this dirt was going to be difficult.

But I was going to get to meet my niece, and again, oddly, I was very excited about that.