Tommy rose before the sun, Pearl’s body adding heat to the loft space. He crept to the ladder and paused at the top before descending. She was curled into an impossibly small bud, the quilt tucked around every inch of her except for her nose and eyes. Her breath came soft but deep and he knew she must not have slept well for days and he was proud that he could give her a warm safe place to mend.
Downstairs he let Fern and Frank outside into the just-turning-sapphire sky.
Before taking on his usual chores, he lit a lantern and sat on the porch in the chilly air to make a list—coal for Miss Violet, wood for the stove at Mama’s, cows, prayers for sale, get Mama into a cottage, watch for silent Yale. Tommy added keep Pearl safe to his list of things to do.
He tapped the paper thinking of all the things he lacked and also possessed. For the first time the sting of having almost nothing was lessened. Pearl. It had to be her arrival. He felt optimistic, motivated, generous. And this made him think of the family his father had stuck without paying what they needed for their children. Tommy resented his father reporting his name as someone to contact to help, but he was indignant about there being a family, children out there suffering because of his father.
He underlined the word cottage several times and stared into the distance, Frank the crow circling over the kitchen garden in smooth swooping loops. With Pearl returning the money he’d given her earlier, he knew what he had to do. That money was ill-gotten and though he still felt justified in stealing to spite the woman who was mocking Mama, he knew he couldn’t keep it all. Maybe not any of it.
He’d send a portion of it to the family his father had left in a lurch in San Diego. He’d send two dollars and request the full amount of money his father owed.
“Thanks, Tommy,” Pearl said from behind him, startling him. She sat beside him on the step, her shoulder against his arm, that tiny connection filling him. She wrapped the quilt tight, her hair trailing over her shoulders.
He leaned closer. “Slept all right?”
She nodded.
“Listen.” He folded his list and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Stay as long as you want. But Mama wouldn’t—”
“I know. She’s carrying a ton. Won’t add to that load.” She lifted her pinkie. “Promise. She’ll never hear a peep or see evidence of me here.”
Tommy looped his pinkie around hers. “She never comes back here. She won’t know.”
Pearl smiled.
They shook their fingers gently and just before she pulled hers from his he memorized how it felt, that exact bit of weathered skin against his.
“Sometimes that Professor Hayes who helps with the garden and is writing about it for his dissertation or some nonsense . . . every once in while I see him poke his head through the hedges keeping an eye on me or something. Stay out of his sight.”
Pearl nodded, then her brow furrowed. “Hear that?”
Tommy cocked his head and listened. “The wind?”
Pearl strained to hear whatever it was that had drawn her attention. This time Tommy heard it. A soft mewling.
Pearl followed the sound, and Tommy stole along the porch after her. Behind the shed they stopped to listen. The mewling came again, taking them to the boxwood that divided them from Miss Violet’s back property. Pearl bent down and dug into the bushy limbs. She pulled a teeny, delicate kitten out. She clutched it to her chest. “Oh, Tommy. Look at him. Look.” Her voice was thin and gentle.
“I see.” He ran his finger gently over its head. The kitten was bones with a large head it could barely hold up. Tommy’s heart seized at the thought this kitten wouldn’t last long in this shape, without a mother. Pearl clomped away, snuggling the cat against her chest. “He’ll be fine, Tommy. I can feel you doubting. Lots of stuff you know . . . This is what I know. Inside me.”
Tommy followed. “Pearl. It’s not going to—”
“He.”
“He what?”
“The kitten’s a he, not an it.”
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Look at it—him, I mean.”
“Light the fire, Tommy.”
She cradled the kitten and entered the shed, full of strength and a knowing he didn’t want to question. And so he did exactly what he was told.