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Chapter THREE

"You can always come back home. Give me a day or two of warning and I'll get things cleaned up for you."

More like a century or two, but I smile. "Thanks, Henry. You know I love you."

"I'm lucky that way." He turns up the stereo and pulls into traffic, singing along to U2, his favorite band of all time.

For the first time since the crash I feel my body letting go. With Henry, I'm safe. He's the one true person left in my life and, while I won't ever live in his house, I'm glad that he's around.

My mom met Henry only a few months after she got back to the States with me. She left my real dad in New Zealand, said she just couldn't stand being so far from the world anymore and my dad wasn't going to move. I was six. By the time I was eight, Henry and my mom were married and happy.

Henry parks in the shade and leaves the windows a quarter of the way down for Ginger. He uses a cane to lever himself out of the truck, and we walk slowly through the doors and sit down. He looks pretty good today-his curly black hair clean, his whiskers shaved, a clean t-shirt and jeans. The wrinkles around his eyes that say he's in pain aren't there, and I think he must be having a good day. He always says he is, but today I think it's true.

That was the thing that made it hard to move out-I knew he needed me. Or somebody. I feel guilty about it sometimes, but it was just not possible to stay in that house. I used to have nightmares about drowning in junk and wake up gasping. In the middle of my senior year, I just couldn't take it anymore and Henry didn't protest my moving out. In fact, he helped me.

Now we see each other a lot, mostly for meals like this, or when he brings stuff over for my house. I go down to his house to check that he's not gone over the line too far, and to use the computer once in awhile.

Once we're settled at Cracker Barrel I excuse myself to wash my face and hands, because people are looking at me, then looking away. In the bathroom mirror I see that there's dust over my forehead and a smear of what might be blood on my neck, and little bits of debris in my braid. I bend over and splash water on my face.

As if it's happening all over again, I see the car coming in slow motion through the door, knocking things down...

I snap off the water, dry my face with paper towels and look myself in the eye. Dark blue irises, the eyelashes disappearing now that the mascara is gone. I think of Tyler looking at me so intently. What was he seeing? I straighten up, narrow my eyes a little. Oval face, maybe too long. Big mouth, way too big. I fake-smile and see the crooked eyetooth.

   The car crashes through the reflection in slow motion, coming through the door.

"Okay, no," I say to myself, pulling the elastic band out of my long braid. "We aren't doing this. Pull yourself together."

As I work my fingers through my hair, little pieces of stuff fall out of it. Taking a comb out of my back pocket, I start at the bottom, around my rear end, and comb it upward, a little at a time. I washed it this morning, and it's still a little damp, but the waves are pretty, making ribbons of the streaks of blonde and brown. It's really long, like my mom's, to the middle of my rear, and I leave it down, a magic cape of protection.

My mascara has smeared, and I wipe it away. There's a little bruise on my right cheekbone that surprises me-I don't remember anything smacking me.  

A woman comes in, herding what must be her granddaughter. The little girl looks at me. "Are you a princess?"

I smile at her. "Yes, actually. I'm Princess Jessica. Are you?"

She dimples. "No."

Her grandma winks at me, and I go out to join Henry, and pig out on biscuits and gravy. This meal might have to last me a while.

* * *

Henry drops me off at Billy's so I can pick up my car. The building has been cordoned off with police tape. In the bright light of the summer afternoon it looks sad, glass shattered and bits of wood hanging down, the parking lot empty. My car sits by itself in the back of the lot. I climb in and roll down the windows-by hand, since they're not electric. I'm glad for the fact that at least the struts had to be replaced last week rather than this week, even if it did wipe out my bank account. Otherwise, I'd be out of a job with a broken car.

Unfortunately, the gas needle is just this side of red. If I'm going to look for work today-and that is what has to happen-I need gas. I've saved some points from the grocery store and can get twenty cents off per gallon, so I pull up to the pump, trying to calculate how much I can get by with.

The trouble is not knowing when there will be any more cash in my pocket. If I have to, I can take the bus. Meanwhile I put in two gallons, enough for fifty miles of running around town, and tuck the remaining $37 back in my pocket.

Home doesn't look like much outside-it's a tiny mother-in-law house tucked behind a bigger house in a neighborhood that's gone industrial over the past couple of decades. An apartment block sits to the south, two houses and then a car lot to the north. I drive in from the alley and park. Electra, my neighbor to the front, isn't out in her garden right now, but I hear her radio playing the blues.

I unlock my front door and slip inside to a narrow series of rooms, living room in the middle, bedroom to the right, kitchen and tiny bathroom to the left. Every inch of it is covered in this old pine paneling that's rich and golden, and it looks like a cabin to me, like a place you would go on vacation by a lake, maybe.

It's cool and bright, sunlight falling through some antique lace curtains Henry found at a flea market. Plants everywhere, on shelves and windowsills and little tables. I don't have a ton of furniture-only the bed and dresser I brought with me, a kitchen table with two chairs, and a couch Henry also found. It's dark blue and very comfortable, and I covered the worn seat with a bright paisley tablecloth I found at a garage sale.

That's where I fall now, onto my couch in my own house, where everything is clean and orderly, and it all smells of plants breathing and lavender and my own soap.

My sanctuary.

I have to keep it. No matter what.