“I know,” he answered. “But I’m here and I promise that I won’t go away. I won’t, not ever. I promise.”
I snuck up the stairs to give them a moment alone, and also so that Lyra wouldn’t see that I was crying, too. I remembered that feeling, the one that she had at this moment. I remembered my mom promising the same things and how, gradually, I’d started to believe her.
I knew that Silas had to leave for work and I wasn’t sure how to help Lyra. She didn’t need me, the interloper woman who was only good at showing her how to swing a bat…and I probably shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have given her a deadly weapon when she was this angry, but I didn’t know that it hadbeen wrong. I did know who to call for advice about her now, though.
“Mom?” I said when she answered. “I have to tell you something.”
I heard her catch her breath. “Did you take him back?”
“No, it’s not about Dax.” In fact, since Silas had told me that he’d “taken care” of the issue, things had been very quiet, and Rashelle and Munir had reported that no one ever played the song anymore—the song that they knew wasn’t really about me, they had both clarified. I had been to the doctor and the first tests had shown me to be free of any diseases that my ex might have passed on, and I was hopeful about the next set of results, too. I realized that I hadn’t thought about him at all while we were out at the park, and that had felt good.
Now I had to reassure my mother that I really, really wasn’t getting back together with him. I also had some important news that I’d been keeping from her: my new living situation. I hadn’t wanted my parents to come visit me at my former apartment, for several reasons. They would have been appalled at the conditions on that street and they would have struggled with climbing the three flights without a working elevator, and I wanted to spare them from all of that. But I also hadn’t told them that I’d moved here, mostly because…
Because I knew it had been a bad decision. It was just stupid. And again, I heard my professor’s voice in my mind: who was to blame? I was quite clear about that, but my sweet mom was alot more forgiving when I poured out the whole story of my latest poor choice.
“That poor little girl. Of course you should help her, Cammie. She needs someone.” She also had doubts, though. “As far as living in their house…”
“It’s just temporary,” I said quickly, although the closest I’d gotten to going somewhere else was when I’d done a quick search of available apartments one day at lunch. “I’m trying to help but I don’t know how to deal with Lyra. She doesn’t want to listen. The only thing she’s learned from me so far is how to properly shampoo her hair and how to find a comfortable batting stance.”
“Well, that’s a good start! Once you’re friends, she’ll be all ears. I remember how you soaked up things like a sponge.” She described how I’d been when I’d first arrived at their house, and I remembered some of it but not all. I did recall piling furniture in front of my bedroom door and my dad installing a lock on it instead, so I’d feel safer. I didn’t remember crying before I went to the new school, but she told me that I’d bawled every day for at least a month.
“You got over that and then you had friends and loved it. You were the most popular girl in that place! And the smartest.”
“Mom…”I smiled.“Thank you.”
“The best advice I can give you is to have big ears and a small mouth. Listen but don’t say too much,” she explained. “Be a steady, dependable presence.”
That was what Silas was for his sister, and I nodded. I could do that, too.
“Has Lyra started school yet?” my mother asked.
“Next week.” The thought made my stomach roil. She was on thin ice at that place due to the issues she’d had the year prior, and if she acted like she had today?
I turned my head toward the thump on my door. “I have to go,” I said. “Thank you for listening to me. I always appreciate it.” She said that she loved me and I said it too, and then I told Silas to come in. It had to have been him; Lyra always invited herself to enter without knocking whereas he pounded like he was trying to bust through the wood.
“I’m leaving for work,” he told me. “Ly’s in her room.”
I looked anxiously across the hall. “Is she still crying?”
“No, and she’s not going to try to kill Boris, either.”
“I know that,” I retorted. “I’m sorry that I overreacted.”
“Nah, I don’t think that you did. If she had hit him, it would have been…” He let the sentence die and ground his big fist against his forehead. “Little punk told her that her parents left because they didn’t love her. He didn’t come up with that shit on his own,” he said angrily. “Mrs. Alford needs to mind her damn business. Now she’s going to spread this story around the street and stir up everybody against Lyra again. Shit.” He looked at me and with his next words, I discovered that our thoughts had traveled a similar path. “What if my sister hurts some kid atschool?” he asked. “I remember what happened to me. I don’t want her to be like that.”
He seemed totally lost, and I swallowed so that I wouldn’t cry again. “Go to work, and this is going to be ok. I’ll figure out Mrs. Alford.”
“How?”
“I can,” I said. “And tonight, we’ll talk more about Lyra. There are ways to fix all of this.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded and tried to project “assured confidence” with my expression. “Definitely.”
“I hope so,” he said, and then he did have to leave.
I was in the kitchen when Lyra joined me there, her eyes so swollen that the first thing I did was give her a cool, wet towel. “Hold it here,” I said, motioning to my own face. She sat at the table, small and miserable, and rested her head on it.
