When Joe Brewer came back to get me, Aunt Eleanor was fast asleep. He stood by my chair and held out his hand without saying a word. And I took it. He was the only reason I had gotten to stay in the room until Aunt Eleanor woke up.
Joe Brewer never let go of my hand, walking around the long halls of the hospital, through a bunch of swinging doors, up an escalator, through a glass tube, and into a parking garage where we got into his car. He only let go of my hand to drive. Driving he kept both hands on the wheel, but once he parked under a tall building, he walked around to my door, took my hand again, and guided me through two different elevators up to his house, which wasn’t a house at all, but something else—he called it a high-rise apartment. I realized I hadn’t been outside in the open air since we pulled up at the emergency room door with Aunt Eleanor. We had been under cover all the way from the hospital to Joe Brewer’s place. If you lived like that you’d never know if it was raining, or snowing, or hot or cold, or day or night even. You’d never need a winter coat or umbrella or any of that. You’d spend your whole life like the weather didn’t matter.
Upstairs, Joe Brewer opened his apartment door and signaled for me to go in before him. I did, but when I walked into the main room, I stopped cold. The entire wall was windows. And out those windows was a million sparkling lights: the river, the park, and more buildings stretched as far as I could see.
It made me dizzy. I thought I felt the building swaying. But after the day we had had, I was dead tired so I went into the bedroom he said was mine, crawled into bed, and went to sleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I thought of all the strange places where I had woken up since leaving home, which was no longer home. Paradise Ranch was as close to home as I had, but now I was in this fancy apartment in the sky.
But then Bunny wiggled against my back and I didn’t give a hoot where I was.
“Where’d you come from?” I purred.
Sister Joan had wafted in the door, saying, “Brought you some clothes, sweetie. And Frank sent Bunny for a visit. But I have to take him back when I go.”
I hugged Bunny so tightly that he oinked.
I jumped out of bed to dress. When I got out in the main room, Joe Brewer had already made me some eggs and told me to go sit on the balcony, where Bunny was curled around Sister Joan’s feet. I still thought the tall building was swaying, and eating out there on a platform hanging off the side wasn’t very appetizing. But I did what he said.
“How’d you sleep?” Joe Brewer asked as he sat down with his coffee.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “I was asleep the whole time.”
He laughed but I hadn’t made a joke.
Nobody else seemed to feel the building sway. I was getting right seasick. The only way I could eat was keeping my eyes locked on my plate. No looking at the city spread out below us.
I heard Mr. Brewer and Sister Joan talking about the law, court, and other people in trouble. He had to go to work, he said, and after I took my last bite of scrambled egg I asked him how many people like Mother he was helping.
“Dozens.” He shrugged, gazing out over the city like it was a pasture full of clients. “Too many,” he said. “And there are always more. We are seriously overloaded in the office.”
Mr. Joe Brewer must have seen the cloud pass over my face because he said, “Don’t worry. I am particularly interested in your mother’s case.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” I said.
He stood up and explained that he was on his way to meet with Mother. He needed to tell her about Sister Eleanor going to the hospital.
“Won’t that worry her?” I asked, thinking about my mother just giving up on me, asking Aunt Eleanor to keep me.
“Your mother is stronger than you think,” he said. “Besides, she is waiting to hear about bail. We can’t go down that path until Sister is better.”
I didn’t know they were working on bail. “Nobody told me that,” I said. “I could help,” I said.
“Can you?” he asked slowly. “You do a lot for your mother, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” I said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Not a thing, Ruby Clyde. Not one little thing. But some things are best left to adults.”
He didn’t know my adults. That is, the adults I had before Aunt Eleanor.
Still, I let out a long sigh, which showed I didn’t believe him. He put on his jacket and said, “You should know something, Ruby Clyde. I have never brought a client or a client’s family to my home. You and your mother and your aunt are very special to me. You are not going to be alone in this world.”
I blinked my eyes and nodded without looking at him. My eyes stung, but no tears were going to get out, not if I could help it.
Then he did the strangest thing. While he explained that Sister Joan would take me to the hospital, he took out a felt-tip pen and wrote his phone number on my arm, right there on the soft vulnerable part. “If you need anything during the day, anything at all, call me.”
I cradled my arm, looking at the place where he had marked me.
“Okay,” I said.