Yours to Keep (7 page)

But he only gave an easy shrug and dug into the back pocket of his khakis, emerging with a well-worn brown leather wallet. He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Thirty-five,” she said.

He handed it to her. “I’m really awful at having cash on hand. I’ll try to remember, but I can guarantee you I’m going to forget from time to time.” He gave her a sheepish grin, and laugh lines formed at the corners of his eyes.

Her heart thudded in her chest. When you spent most of your life around dark-skinned, dark-eyed men, green eyes and pale-gold stubble could mess with your head.

The front doorbell rang, and Ethan looked startled.

“That’s probably the shuttle driver. I had him come a little later today because it was the first day and there’s usually stuff to talk about.” She laughed. “Not usually
quite
so much stuff.”

“I could have given you a ride. If I’d known you needed one.”

“The shuttle is a very green option.” That was the line she used with all her clients, because it was way simpler than telling them that she didn’t have a car. It had never felt like a lie before, but somehow it did with Ethan. As if she owed him a real explanation. That scared her. It meant that she already cared what he thought.

He watched the shuttle pull away. He felt fritzed-out on the aftereffects of six different kinds of adrenaline. He’d been so close to kissing her. He’d been able to smell her shampoo—strawberry, maybe?—and see that up close her skin was even clearer and softer looking than from afar. He’d been near enough to imagine the sensation of taking her lower lip gently between his teeth, of drawing her tongue into his mouth.

Then those onion goggles had saved him.

The moment had passed. After her giggle attack, he could see that she’d made a decision. Before, she’d been scared but receptive. After the goggles, something behind her eyes had locked down. And he’d recovered his senses.

He’d have to keep more physical distance between them. In close proximity to her, he obviously wasn’t a sane man.

He glanced at the partially chopped onion on the counter. He wished he could go back to chopping it instead of confronting Theo. Last Thursday night he’d docked Theo a month of allowance to punish him for the signature forging. Theo had taken the punishment calmly—in retrospect, too calmly. Now Ethan knew that he’d already been dreaming up the perfect parry.

There had to be some way to get Theo’s attention without guaranteeing retaliation.
Something strong. Something clever. Not like grounding him or taking away his TV privileges, neither of which he was in a position to enforce. Being gone all afternoon put him at a distinct disadvantage.

Then he knew.

Perfect.

He took the stairs two at a time.

He knocked, and Theo grunted something like assent.

The room was startlingly neat for a teenage boy—no clothes or books or papers on the floor. Theo’s books were neatly arranged on the shelves, spines outward. Only the unmade bed and still lowered blinds gave a hint that the owner was not perfectly vigilant about maintenance.

“Hi,” Ethan said cautiously to the lump on the bed.

Another grunt.

“Ana said she already made you apologize to the cop and promise him you’d never do it again. That was going to be the first part of your punishment.”

Theo stirred, and Ethan saw one eye.

“You know what you did was dangerous and wrong. I don’t have to tell you that. It’s bad enough that you put yourself in danger, but other people could have been hurt. If you’d fallen and someone had swerved—”

“I know,” Theo said, surprising Ethan. His voice was hoarse.

Theo’s admission emboldened Ethan. “What made you lie about Ana being your stepmother?”

Theo turned onto his side, facing away from Ethan. “I saw her there. And she looked nice. And the policeman said, ‘Who’s that sitting on your front steps reading? Is that your stepmom?,’ and I knew it was Ana for tutoring, but I dunno, I just said, ‘Yeah.’ I guess I thought maybe it would be better than having him call you. It was dumb.”

“She seems nice,” Ethan said. That was the understatement of the century, as far as he was concerned, but fifteen-year-old boys trafficked in understatement.

“She’s
really
nice. And smart! She came here in kindergarten and they made her go to school and she didn’t know
any
English.”

That was by far the most enthusiasm Theo had exhibited on any subject in the past six
months, and Ethan held still, afraid to move, afraid to speak, hoping to prolong the moment.

Theo only flopped back onto his belly and pulled the pillow over his head.

Ethan removed the pillow. “Your punishment.”

“I learned my lesson.” Muffled by the bedclothes.

“That’s good, but what you did—” For a moment, he saw the image again, of his son skating along the edge of Route 50, slipping, falling, and his voice clenched around the words. “I have to make sure you never try something like that again. So for the next two weeks, on the afternoons Ana’s not here—”

“Afternoons? More than one? I thought it was Mondays.”

“Mondays and Thursdays.”

Ethan could have sworn that he saw the corner of a smile on his son’s face. “On the afternoons she’s not here, you have to take the bus to my office and do your homework at my desk while I see patients.”

He waited for it. The frustration, the rage. Some sullen, sulky outburst.

Theo turned onto his back and looked straight at Ethan. “Won’t I be in your way?” No rage, only—if Ethan had to name it—something like eager curiosity.

Ethan’s chest constricted. “No,” he said, trying not to betray his emotion, because he knew it would scare Theo. “No. I’ll be glad to have you there with me. You’ll be good company.”

“Okay. That’s not a really bad punishment.”

A smile threatened, but Ethan kept it under wraps. “I could think of something worse.”

“NO! No. No. That’s good. That’s a good punishment. I mean, a bad one. One that’ll teach me a lesson.”

Yeah, sometimes you could see the toddler in the teenager. Ethan wanted to sit on the edge of the bed and touch his son’s hair. Or kneel on the floor and lay his cheek against the boy’s, the way he had when Theo was very small. Instead, he said, “We’ll figure out the closest bus stop. I’ll call the transportation office tomorrow.”

Theo lay looking at the ceiling. Then he said, “Dad?”

The name, so rare these days, twisted in Ethan’s gut. “Yeah?”

“I wasn’t trying to—you know, make fun about the helmet thing. I didn’t even think about the helmet. I was just …”

Ethan waited, all eager hope, each second an eternity.

“I don’t know, trying to—trying to do something
different.
”

Ethan hesitated, unwilling to break the moment but knowing that something real was called for. “Sure,” he said finally. “But next time, if you want to do something different,
ask
first. And I’ll tell you if it’s a really bad idea.”

“ ’Kay.”

“I’m going to go make dinner.”

“Do you—do you need help?”

Ethan kept his face carefully neutral. “Do you want to chop onions?”

“Do I have to wear those stupid goggles?”

He laughed, and even Theo’s mouth curved in the suggestion of a smile. “No.”

“Okay.” Theo stood up and followed his father down to the kitchen, while Ethan tried to feel glad for what he’d been given and not terrified of how tenuous it felt.

Chapter 6

Ana heard the yowl of an electric guitar as she walked up the front path of the Hansens’ house on Thursday afternoon. She rang the bell and waited, but no one came to the door. The guitar was cranked loud, catchy chords and clever, improvised riffs. She didn’t recognize the tune.

There was a maple tree in the yard that had begun to turn red and orange and yellow. She tried to memorize the way that tree looked against the blue fall sky, to store it up for later.

She rang again then tried the doorknob. It turned, and she let herself in. She went up the stairs with her bags, following the sound, and knocked loudly on the door where the music was coming from, which she assumed was Theo’s bedroom.

The guitar stopped abruptly. She heard him fumble with the instrument. The door opened. His face was flushed, his eyes slightly hooded. “Sorry.” He shook his head, as if trying to wake himself from a dream. “I get so into it, I lose track of time.”

“You’re really good,” she said in Spanish.

A little smile flitted across his face then vanished. “I’m okay,” he said in English.

She let him get away with it. There would be time enough for Spanish practice. “Was that an original you were playing?”

“Yeah.” That little smile again.

“I liked it. Do you ever play anywhere? Like in clubs?”

He shook his head. “I think I’m too young to play in clubs.”

There was a place that Ana and her family walked by on their way to the Laundromat that had a big sign in the window advertising a teen open mike on Thursday nights. She’d tell Ethan about it. Maybe he could take Theo sometime. She wondered what had happened between father and son after she’d left the other night, whether they’d fought, what punishment Ethan had meted out. Despite what Theo had put her through that afternoon, despite how dangerous his actions had been, she didn’t think it was hard punishment he needed.

Theo’s eyes found the shopping bag she was holding. “What’s in there?”

She hoisted it up, grinning. “Dinner.”

“What?”

She opened the bag to show him. Canned red beans, bell peppers, onions, tomato sauce, garlic, brown rice, a couple of bouillon cubes. She’d premixed the spices in a plastic ziplock.
“Estamos”
(she pointed to herself, then to him),
“cocinando”
(she mimed stirring a pot),
“habichuelas rojas.”
She held up the red beans and looked up to see his reaction.

His mouth hung open. “You’re kidding. We’re cooking?”

She grinned. “For the cooking chapter in your textbook. Do you think your dad will mind?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“So let’s go.” She led the way downstairs to the kitchen.
“En Español,”
she warned him, setting the bag down on the floor and unpacking it.
“Todo en Español.”

“Sí,”
he agreed.

She made him wash his hands and put him to work chopping peppers.
“Estás cortando los pimientos.”
He was obviously nervous with the big knife.
“Síi, es un cuchillo de cocina. Tambien necesitas esta tabla de cortar, ¿síi?”
She handed him the cutting board.

He began to awkwardly dismember the peppers, and she watched uneasily, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake. But he gained confidence quickly. She helped him pull out the cores, showing him how to tap the seeds off the flesh. He tossed the stems and cores in the garbage and said in English, “You tutor my friend Leah, too.”

“Leah Abrams?” Leah’s mom, Mrs. Abrams, was the nicest of the nice, always ready with a bag of hand-me-down designer clothes in good condition. Ana sneaked those bags into the apartment, divvying up the clothes between herself and her sister, hiding their existence from her brother so that he wouldn’t rant about “rich white people’s castoffs.”

Sometimes she thought that under different circumstances she and Rena Abrams might have been friends. They had the same taste in clothes and, if the piles of books Mrs. Abrams left lying around were any indication, in reading, too.

“Leah and her mom are kind people,” she said in Spanish.

“I’m going to ask Leah out,” he whispered, as if there were someone around who might hear.

“En Español,”
she reminded him.

“No, I’m going to ask her out in English,” he said, laughing. “To the movies. Do you
think she’ll say yes?”

“I’m sure she will.” He was a cute kid, when he wasn’t causing trouble. She hoped Leah would say yes to him, even though the thought of an open back channel between two of her tutoring households made her faintly ill.

She’d bet he hadn’t told his father about his plans. She wondered what, exactly, had opened the rift between Ethan and Theo, or whether it was the natural evolution of father and teenage son. Tensions in her household had grown between her brother and his nephews when Marco hit twelve or so, and Ricky wasn’t even his dad.

Theo chopped the peppers while she set the beans and broth on the stove and went to work on the onions, sans goggles. She’d finished almost all the other prep work by the time Theo put down the knife.

“Wash the knife and the cutting board,” she told him.

“You know, this is the coolest Spanish project ever. You should get a job teaching at the high school. You’d be so much better than the Spanish teachers they have there. They really suck. You’d be great at it.”

He was so earnest and so naïve that she wished she could tell him the truth: She couldn’t get a job there or anywhere else where a Social Security number was required.

“I like tutoring.” She did, especially at times like this. The broth and beans bubbled on the stove. The chopped veggies lay in neat heaps on the cutting board. As they worked, she’d pointed to appliances, kitchen implements, ingredients, naming and labeling, making him repeat them. He’d tossed the answers back at her, cheerful, compliant.

And she felt her own bubbling sense of anticipation for the moment Ethan would walk through the door.

Ethan could smell food cooking as soon as he came through the garage door into the basement. His first thought was that Theo had cooked to surprise him, and he ransacked his memory to see if there was an occasion he’d forgotten. It wasn’t Ethan’s birthday, or Theo’s, or Trish’s, or an anniversary of any kind. What was cooking? It smelled vaguely Mexican. Then he remembered that it was Ana’s second time tutoring Theo, and his heart leaped. Could she be cooking?

He came upstairs to find them sitting at the kitchen table just as they’d been the other
day. Latin music played quietly on the kitchen stereo. Theo was laughing. Laughing! Something lightened in Ethan’s chest.