The next day, when Aunt Marian walked through the front door of the Head’s House to spend Christmas week with the family of her younger sister, Sylvia knew she would tell her everything. Of course she would! Why did it take until the most independent person Sylvia knew was right there, in the foyer, winking at her over her mother’s shoulder while she and her mother hugged each other, to realize it? The family story was that as soon as she understood she had been named after a famous African American singer, Aunt M declared herself tone deaf. “So I can be me,” she had announced, still a little kid, “not some other person.” Aunt M was exactly the kind of person Sylvia could count on for absolution and advice.
Sometimes Sylvia thought she would model her life after her Aunt M’s; other times she doubted she could ever be as pugnacious and sure of herself as she would need to be in the profession Aunt M reveled in. Aunt M was a community organizer, a protégé of a protégé of Saul Alinsky. She loved to tell Saul Alinsky’s pancake story, almost as much as Sylvia loved to hear it.
“So Saul is having breakfast in a restaurant on a Sunday morning,” Aunt M would say, starting the story exactly this way every single time. “A husband, a wife, and three little kids who couldn’t have been more than a year apart come into the restaurant and take the table next to his. They’re all dressed up. It’s obvious they’re going to go to church after they have their breakfast, it’s a Norman Rockwell scene. Saul can just tell they’ve saved up to do this for weeks, because when they order their pancakes it’s obvious there’s nothing in the world they could enjoy more that morning than nice, hot pancakes with tons of maple syrup. The restaurant is crowded and the waitstaff are busy, but the family gets lucky and their breakfasts come almost right away: two big, grown-up stacks of pancakes for mom and dad, and three children-size for the kids. They pick up their forks, so happy that if they died right then it would be okay, but then they notice there’s no syrup. The dad tells a waitress, but she’s already speeding away. The dad senses Saul, who he doesn’t know from Adam, watching. He sends him a furtive look. What do I do? Saul rolls his eyes and points his chin at another waitress working a table not far away. The dad raises his hand. The waitress doesn’t see him—or pretends she doesn’t. He sends his wife a shamefaced look. She looks away. The youngest kid whines, ‘Where’s the syrup, Daddy? My pancakes are getting cold.’ The dad raises his hand again, waves it this time. No waitress responds. A minute or so later, another waitress goes right by their table. ‘Miss?’ he says, ‘miss?’ She ignores him, hurrying to take another party’s order.
“By now the pancakes really are getting cold. Saul gets up and goes over there. ‘You want some syrup, right?’ ‘Yes, we do. The pancakes are getting cold,’ the dad says. ‘And you’re paying good money for them, right?’ Saul asks. The dad nods, looks desperate, but it’s clear he appreciates Saul’s sympathy. ‘How bad do you want to get the syrup?’ Saul asks. ‘Very bad,’ the dad says. ‘You sure?’ ‘Yes, why wouldn’t I be?’ ‘All right,’ Saul says, addressing the whole family now. ‘You are gonna have your syrup in about ten seconds. Guaranteed.’ Then Saul goes back to his own table, but he doesn’t sit down at it. What he does instead is he gets up on the table. In fact, he’s standing on his own breakfast, his two big wing-tip cordovans right in the middle of his scrambled eggs, and he yells at the top of his voice, ‘HEY, BRING THIS FAMILY THEIR SYRUP RIGHT NOW! OR I’M GOING TO DO SOMETHING REALLY CRAZY!’ Just about every waitress in the place and the manager and one of the cooks comes running over with syrup and now they have at least a gallon, and Saul figures that poor daddy has learned his lesson about how to deal with power.
“But guess what?” Aunt M always paused here because that’s what Saul Alinsky did when he told the story. “The poor guy and his wife were so embarrassed they slinked out of the restaurant, and the kids had no choice so they followed their parents, and all those pancakes and all that syrup just sat there on the table—until a waitress came and took them away.” “YOU’VE BEEN WANTING to tell me something since I arrived, haven’t you, sweetie,” Aunt M said once she and Sylvia were alone.
“How did you know?”
“Oh my, how did I know! ’Cause it’s bursting out of your ears maybe? Flying out through the top of your head? You got something in you that’s going explode if you don’t let it out. Something you don’t want to tell your ma, which is why you are about to tell me. So I’m going to sit here on this sofa, and you’re going to sit down next to me”—patting the cushions next to her—“and tell me.”
“All right. Can I get you a drink first?” Now that Sylvia was about to tell, she was nervous. Fixing a bourbon on the rocks, Aunt M’s favorite drink, would put it off for another minute or two.
“No, I’ve quit. I haven’t quit swearing, and I still pleasure myself when I’m in the mood, and I continue to get about fifty new people, most of whom are white, to hate me every week. But drinking?” Aunt M shook her head. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“You’re so different from my mom!” Sylvia said. “She would never say things like that.”
“Wouldn’t do them either. But yeah, variety’s the spice of life. Now sit down. Let’s hear it.” Sylvia started to sit down on the sofa next to her aunt, but her aunt put up her hand. “As a matter of fact, let’s have you sit over there, facing me.” She pointed to an armchair only a few feet away. “That way I can see your face and know if you’re leaving stuff out.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Now go on.”
“ALL YOU WANTED was to get some ice cream.” Aunt M repeated when Sylvia had finished. “But you did say you were bored. That should tell you something.”
Sylvia was outraged. “That’s not why we’re doing this!”
“No, it isn’t. It’s why you went to get the ice cream. You didn’t have anything better to do. And guess what happened? You found something better to do. Mission accomplished. So what’s the big deal?”
“What’s the big deal? You don’t understand. We could get kicked out. And my mother would have to do the kicking out.”
Aunt M nodded. “Like I said. What’s the big deal?”
“And Christopher would starve, or feel so abandoned he’d maybe kill himself.”
“Ah, now, that is a big deal.” Aunt M had that look on her face that people get when they’ve been looking for something and finally found it. “So I’m going to tell you a story, hon. You ever been to Detroit?”
Sylvia shook her head. For the first time in her life, she didn’t want to hear Aunt M tell one of her stories.
“Never mind,” Aunt M said, making a dismissive gesture with her hands. “I don’t know why I asked. Because even if you had been there, it wouldn’t have been the part of Detroit I’m talking about.” She paused for a second and then went on. “Think of a great big field that used to be a nice neighborhood. Single-family homes with front porches. People sitting on them say hello to people walking by. And there are trees. But now there is only one street, Hobart Street, and its right in the middle of that great big field, and all the rest is a desert. Packs of dogs roaming around. Every street except Hobart Street bulldozed away for urban redevelopment. So what if the people living there didn’t want redevelopment? But the houses on Hobart Street are beautiful. Nice, comfy old Victorians, painted many colors in gleaming new paint. Picket fences and little front lawns. Rose gardens. All alone like that, the street looks like a movie set.
“And here’s why. When the crew came to shut off the gas to the houses on Hobart Street, a woman named Mildred—can’t remember her last name—got down in the hole with them with a lighted blow torch. A flamboyant gesture, don’t you think? In more ways than one? Here’s this very large, almost elderly Black woman sitting next to you with a lighted blow torch. Might just get your attention. And your sympathy too, especially since you are also Black. These guys from the gas company are not about to wrestle with her. They just leave. Maybe she won’t be there tomorrow. But of course she is there tomorrow—and so are some reporters.
“I was just starting out, but I got wind of this and I hooked Mildred up with a pal of mine who taught in a private school like yours in the suburbs, and the three of us came up with a plan: get some high school kids from the public school near Hobart Street and some kids from the private school, and assign them to write a plan for redevelopment of the area and see if they can get it approved by the municipality. In the meantime, fix up the houses so that they are no longer ‘eligible’ for redevelopment.
“So kids and parents, working on weekends and after school in the afternoons, with advice from plumbers and carpenters and electricians all over the place, completely reclaimed the houses on Hobart Street. Now, inside and out, it looked like that movie set. And those kids also submitted a redevelopment plan that mixed businesses with residences, the kind of place that works for families. Think about how much those kids learned about architecture, economics, the realities of welfare, the laws, the crafts—and in general how the world really works, like, for instance, one of the conditions required for the houses not to be eligible for the bulldozer was that the plumbing worked. So the city sent some goons in every once in a while to break the toilets in the middle of the night, and in the morning the kids would come in and install new toilets. Every kid in the project said they learned more in that experience than from all their school courses combined, and they were prouder for it too. They had a purpose in life.
“And here’s the point of my story,” Aunt Marian said. “I know you’ve been wondering. My teacher pal from the private school wanted other educators to know about the Hobart Street Project so they could learn from it. So he arranges for Mildred to come to a big important conference of private school educators, the National Association of Independent Schools, no less, and tell the audience, some four thousand people, about it. She agrees. It’s all set up. On the big day, my pal shows up, ready to introduce Mildred; the audience fills every seat. Reporters are present and TV people. But not Mildred. She doesn’t show up.
“You know why? There was an emergency in one of the families of the public school kids. She figured the people at the conference could get by without her, but the family at home could not.” Aunt M stopped talking. She looked like every storyteller who has just come to the end and is waiting for a reaction.
“So what happened?” Sylvia asked.
“Oh come on! You know what happened.”
“The teacher made the talk?”
“Yes, and a good one too. Probably better than the one Mildred would have made. He’s a teacher. He’s supposed to know how to be interesting. He made everyone forget that the prime mover wasn’t there.”
“So that’s your point? Elizabeth and I keep on taking food out to Christopher and so what if we get kicked out?”
“And your mom is put in a terrible situation, don’t forget that,” Aunt M added. “You could also not wait to get caught. Just tell everybody you were the ones who stole the stuff. Get up in your Morning Meeting and say, We did it because he was hungry and cold. Now what’s the school going to do? Why should you do this alone? Better yet, invite this Christopher of yours to dinner in the dining hall. Bang on a glass with your fork and get everybody’s attention. Then introduce him. Maybe he could say a few words. You never know. With an audience like that, he might be able to tell what happened to him over there that he couldn’t tell you. Why he’s hungry and cold and deranged and maybe is going to kill himself or somebody else. That’s what I’d tell you to do, honey, if I didn’t love you and your mother. But I do, so I won’t. People like Mildred have to do radical stuff. People like us can decide whether they will or not.”
Aunt M paused. And then, as if it had just occurred to her, she added, “Besides, I have a better idea. We’ll get him some help. It’s not about you and Elizabeth, you know. It’s about him. Let’s you and I go to the VA office tomorrow and see what they can do for him.”
IT WAS RAINING the next morning, snow everywhere turning to slush. The world was gray, but Aunt M’s voice, the hum of the tires, and the steady, monotonous back-and-forth of the windshield wipers made the inside of Aunt M’s rented car a cozy place. “He knows how to live in the woods so he must be a country boy,” Aunt M said. “So we’re going to the facility in Newington. It’s almost rural there, less scary for a guy like that than the place in New Haven.”
“That’s a great idea,” Sylvia said. “I never would have thought of that.”
“You would have if you’d been doing this kind of work as long as I have,” Aunt M said, launching into a story about an organization she had helped start for sheltering runaway children, how the smaller the shelters were, the easier it was to entice the children into them. “Over two stories high, we didn’t have a chance.”
Sylvia only half-listened. She was thinking about how normal her life would have been since September if after that very first day when Elizabeth dropped two dollars in Christopher’s hat and started everything, Aunt M had been there to intervene.
“Now here’s what we are going to do in the VA office,” Aunt M said. “They are going to say that Christopher can fill out a form, VA 10-10EZ, online or by the phone, and he’ll find out whether he’s eligible within five to seven days. And we’re going to explain that he can’t fill out the form online or by phone because he’s homeless and doesn’t have phone or a computer, so we’re going to bring him in in person and all we want now is someone to promise they’ll be on the lookout for us, someone who’ll be in his corner and go the extra mile. We’re just smoothing the way today, that’s all. And it will make us more convincing when we go out there and talk to him.”
“What if he refuses to leave his lean-to?”
“I’m pretty good at persuasion. But if he still refuses, we’ll think of something else. Whatever happens, you and Elizabeth will have to let him go. Something tells me that will be easier for her than for you.”
Sylvia felt a flash of emptiness at the thought of letting go of Christopher, but just then Aunt M turned off the main road onto a long driveway that advanced in sweeping circles, as if toward a palace, arriving at a large, exactly square, utterly utilitarian building best classified as American Ugly, its redbrick walls monotonous with no adornment. Aunt M parked the car.
“That’s it?” Sylvia said. “That building?”
Aunt M looked surprised. “What were you expecting, hon?”
“I don’t know. Something less depressing.”
Aunt M looked even more surprised. “Come on, let’s go in and see if we can rustle up some help for your homeless guy.”
Just past the entrance to the building, there was a security gate, like the ones in airports that you stand in with your arms up, but Aunt M and Sylvia didn’t have to go through it because it was off to one side. “So why have it then?” Sylvia said. Aunt M didn’t answer. They crossed the lobby toward a sign: INFORMATION. Three white elderly men wearing baseball caps sat along one wall on folding chairs, waiting for something. They watched Sylvia and her aunt get in line. Sylvia returned their gaze with a knowing look. It wasn’t the first time she’d been studied by strangers trying to figure out how a dark-skinned mom could have a lighter-skinned daughter. All three looked quickly away.
When it was Aunt M and Sylvia’s turn, the woman behind the desk—Black, handsome, middle aged, in a trim brown suit and a modest gold necklace—gave them a welcoming smile. But she also looked concerned, like somebody’s youngish grandmother. “I’m afraid you and your daughter have come to the wrong place,” she said. “She needs to go there”—then she handed Aunt M a brochure and pointed to a door on her left. “The recruiting stations for the Navy, the Army, and the Marines are all there.”
“Oh my dear, we didn’t come to sign up !” Aunt M said.
“You didn’t?”
“No.”
The woman smiled, obviously relieved. Here was one child who wasn’t going to get herself killed in a war some grown-up invented.
Sylvia was shocked. It had never occurred to her that anyone would take one look at her and assume she was “the kind of person” who would join the military.
“But thank you anyway,” Aunt M. said. “Actually, Sylvia here is my niece, not my daughter.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Her mother is a very busy woman. And Sylvia couldn’t find her driver’s license this morning. I thought, why take a chance, you know? A young person of color pulled over without a driver’s license—”
The woman glanced at Sylvia. It took her a second or two before she nodded, evidently convinced Sylvia was a person of color. Then, turning, smiling, to Aunt M again. “I understand. By the way, I’m Dorothy.”
“Good morning, Dorothy. I’m Marian, and this is—”
“Sylvia,” Dorothy finished. “And what may I do for you, young lady?”
Sylvia hesitated
“Sylvia?” Aunt M. said.
“I thought you were going to—”
Aunt M shook her head. “No. It’s your story. You tell.”
“Yes, tell,” Dorothy said.
Sylvia couldn’t think of anywhere else to start but the beginning. She said, “My friend and I met a homeless Iraq War vet.”
“Met?”
“Well, we gave him some money.”
“Oh, I see. Go on.”
“And then we brought him some food.”
“You brought him some food? And now you’re coming here?”
“Yes. We thought—”
“Where was he when you brought him food?”
“His lean-to in the woods.”
“Lean-to?”
“It’s kind of a shack, but made out of pine boughs.”
“Pine boughs! In the woods! Nearby?”
“No, actually, it’s a little bit away.”
“A mile? Two?”
“Three, I guess. Well, maybe four, actually.”
“And you brought him food?”
“Yes, and then we brought him some clothes.”
“You did!”
“Sylvia nodded. “It was getting cold.”
“Yes, that’s what happens in the winter. How many times was this Iraq War Vet of yours deployed?”
“Four.”
“Four,” Dorothy repeated. “And he’s not well? That’s why he’s living in a… what’d you call it?”
“Lean-to.”
“Oh yes, a lean-to. Made out of pine boughs. Does he have post-traumatic stress, you think?”
“I guess so. Maybe. I really don’t know.”
“You don’t know. And you’re here because….?”
“Because we”—nodding at Aunt M—“are going to go out there and persuade him to come see you.”
Dorothy sat very still, gazing up at Sylvia.
“That’s what we are going to do,” Sylvia said. “Bring him to you.”
“You bet you are, young lady! What’s his name?”
“Christopher. Triplett. Christopher Triplett, Sergeant US Marines.”
Dorothy bent her head down to write the name on a piece of paper. She looked up again and stared at Sylvia. “How long have you known Christopher?”
“What?”
“You gave him money. Then you brought food and clothes to him in his lean-to. How long has this been going on?”
“Since September.”
“September. Three months ago. Why’d you wait so long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should figure that out.” Dorothy paused. “How long has your aunt known?”
“Since yesterday.”
Dorothy nodded. “That’s what I thought.” She turned to Aunt M. “Thanks.”
“No, it’s the other way around,” Aunt M said. “Thank you.”
Dorothy shrugged. “I’m just doing my job. You really think you should go out there to his lean-to?”
“I’ve done scarier things,” Aunt M said.
“Sounds like Sylvia has too,” Dorothy said.
Aunt M smiled and raised her eyebrows.
“Well, then, I won’t try to tell you not to.” Dorothy stood, came around her desk, and shook Aunt M’s hand.
“You’re a good person,” Aunt M said.
“Sometimes,” Dorothy said. She turned to Sylvia. “I’ll do everything I can for your Christopher. You can count on that. You just bring him in.”
“Thanks,” Sylvia said. “And I’m sorry—”
Dorothy put up her hand. “Don’t.”
Aunt M put her hand on Sylvia’s elbow, tugging.
“So HOW COME you let her walk all over you?” Aunt M said as soon as they were in the car. “Why didn’t you defend yourself?”
“Let’s just go home. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Aunt M turned the ignition on and started to drive. The windshield wipers swung back and forth.
“Okay, I couldn’t think fast enough,” Sylvia admitted.
“That’s what I thought. But what would you tell her now you’ve had a few minutes?”
“That I didn’t know he was a war vet until a month ago.”
“You think you would have done differently if you’d known that from the beginning?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Sylvia admitted.
“So why did you do what you did?”
“Not just me. Elizabeth. And Auda too,” Sylvia said, trying not to sound defensive.
Aunt M glanced at Sylvia. “Dorothy was asking you.” She turned her gaze forward again. “And anyway, you didn’t even mention Elizabeth and Auda.”
“All right. It started because he needed help.”
“That’s why you dropped the money in his hat?”
“No, actually it wasn’t,” Sylvia said, remembering. “I didn’t want to hear Elizabeth make a sarcastic remark, so I turned around and went back and dropped the dollars in his hat.”
“Interesting. You didn’t do it for him at all.”
“Not at first, but after that I did.”
“Because he needed help?”
“Of course!”
“And what did you need?”
“To know what he thought about me, I guess. Who he thought I am.”
“He was curious?”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, that’s natural. Most people just walk right by people like him. What else?
“To be thanked, I guess. For him to be grateful.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
“Well, what was he if he wasn’t grateful?”
“Shamed. It was obvious.”
“So you made his condition worse? You shamed him by giving him what he asked for? It would have been better if you just turned away, like he didn’t exist?”
“No.”
“All right then. And you didn’t just do it so Christopher would be grateful. Maybe you like to be a hero. You like to take chances. Most anybody worth her salt does. But basically you did it to make yourself feel good. You wanted to be the person to help him. That person, not the one that turns her head away. And what’s wrong with that? Does Mother Teresa feel bad when she does what she does?”
“No, I guess not,” Sylvia murmured.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I guess not,” Sylvia repeated louder.
“Good. Now let’s stop at Macy’s and buy your mom and dad some Christmas presents.”
“I already did.”
“I know. So did I. But if we buy them some more, we won’t have to lie when they ask us what we did today.”
IN MACY’S KITCHEN department, it required all of about ten seconds for Sylvia to be clear that she didn’t want to buy Christmas presents for her parents. She wanted to buy something for Christopher. A fancy nonstick frying pan made in Italy, for instance. Or better yet, that coffeemaker over there that makes one cup at a time, espresso, latte, whatever, with a placard that says: Everyone deserves the freedom to choose.
Aunt M, who had been glancing contemptuously at an array of fancy knives for which her clients would not have room in their kitchens, let alone, she wished, the lack of good judgment to even want them in the first place, looked up and caught the stricken look on her niece’s face. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. She put her hand on Sylvia’s elbow for the second time that day and led her to the escalator. Moments later, outside on the sidewalk, she said, “Nobody has ever had too many books. Let’s check out that bookstore over there,” pointing across the street.
“My parents don’t have time to read.”
“Well, that’s a problem you can fix. All you have to do is give them some books and ask them every day, ‘Have you read any of them yet?’ and look disillusioned—not disappointed, disillusioned—when they confess they haven’t. After a while, they’ll find the time to read one just to keep your respect.”
“Do you read, Aunt M?”
“Are you kidding? I’m worse than them. You could include me in the program, if you want.”
“All right,” Sylvia said without conviction. But a moment later in the store, enveloped by walls of shelved books and their papery smell, she felt a pulse of calmness. After Macy’s pornography of excess, here was silence and retreat.
She and Aunt M spent much longer than they had planned perusing titles, picking books up, feeling their physical reality, their actual weight against their fingers, and finally walked out of the store laden with books.
On the way home in the car, Aunt M told a joke by Groucho Marks which actually made Sylvia laugh: Outside of a dog, a man’s best friend is a book. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.
HER MOM WAS still in her office working even though it was Christmas Eve, and her dad was out doing the last bits of his Christmas shopping. Sylvia and her aunt had expected to have to wait for so perfect a time to go to Christopher’s lean-to, where Sylvia would introduce her aunt to him and Aunt M would begin the process of gaining his trust. They set out right away.
They waded in the rain on snowshoes through deep melting snow. Fog rose upward. Buildings, trees, the tops of stone walls emerging from the snow were ghosts of themselves. The only sounds were the murmur of rain and their own breathing. Sylvia was not surprised that Aunt M kept up with her, stride for stride on snowshoes. Her aunt was a force of nature. Sylvia was surprised though when they had reached the trail beside the river not to smell the smoke from Christopher’s fire. They came around the bend and
Sylvia was surprised again. It was the same lean-to in the same place; he hadn’t built another further away from the trail after all, and its door was open, cast aside, green against the snow.
Inside the lean-to, they found a note on brown cardboard. It was placed on top of the down jacket, underneath which, neatly arrayed, were all the other things Sylvia and Elizabeth had stolen.
I don’t need the stuff you brought to me anymore. Please take it back. I have gone back to my family. I will seek help. Maybe it will work. If it does, I’ll go to college.
Christopher Triplett, Sergeant, US Marines
Once again, the first thing that entered Sylvia’s mind was: Where did he get the marker?
Aunt M said, “Well, hon, it looks like now you’re off the hook.”
Sylvia reached out and touched the lean-to. The roof was level with her shoulders. She smelled the piney smell. It would turn brown soon and then, in a year or two, there’d be nothing left but a pile of sticks on the ground to mark where Christopher had kept himself alive. “It’s all over now,” she said, relieved of her burden, empty without it, and happy for Christopher all at once.
“Not quite, hon. There’s one more thing to do.”
“I know. Come back here and get the stuff and put it back in the shed.”
“That’s right. Then it really will be over. We’re going to need a great big backpack.”
“Except for the grill,” Sylvia said, remembering. She pointed to the blackened grill over the firepit. “We didn’t steal that. It doesn’t belong to the school. We can leave it right where it is.”
It was late afternoon by now, beginning to get dark. By the time they were almost to where the woods ended at the athletic fields, it was so hard to see the trail that they lost it and had to go by Sylvia’s sense of direction, pushing through bushes and low branches. They came out onto the very northern edge of the athletic fields. “We almost missed!” Sylvia said. “Any further, we could have gotten lost.”
“Well, we would have come to the road eventually,” Aunt M said. “And anyway, you know what Dan Boone said when somebody asked him if he’d ever got lost: ‘No, but I’ve been awful damn bewildered for two or three weeks.’”
Sylvia giggled. No more worries that she and Elizabeth would be caught and kicked out. Elizabeth especially was going to be happy. MIT, here I come. She’d never say it. But she’d think it. They had done the right thing. And now it was Christopher’s family’s job to take care of him.
Aunt M and Sylvia went straight to the Christmas tree in the Little Room and put their books under it, adding to the gifts already there. A fire was burning in the fireplace. Bright and yellow after the darkness of the woods. The tree gave off its Christmas smell. Sylvia felt a surge of happiness.
Bob and Rachel were in the dining room, setting the table for Christmas Eve dinner.
“Where have you two been?” Bob asked.
“We were doing a little more Christmas shopping,” Aunt M said.
True enough, Sylvia thought. She escaped upstairs to e-mail Elizabeth and Auda.
She sat down on her bed and typed on her cell phone: C gone. 2 family, maybe college. Remember 2 delete. Don’t reply.
She put the phone down and headed down the hall to take a shower and put on festive clothes for Christmas Eve.
When she was back in her room, getting dressed, her phone signaled that an e-mail had just arrived. Even though she had said not to reply and it was two in the morning in Germany, she knew it was Auda who’d sent it.
Syl,
You disappointed? It would be selfish, I know, since he’s safer with his family than in a lean-to. Just the same, it was interesting, wasn’t it? Hard to let go? Anyway, make sure you put all the stuff back into the shed. No one will care who the robbers were then.
And why can’t I reply, since I’m going to delete? Miss you
A
P.S. How’d you find out? You went out there? You said you wouldn’t. Typical, reckless you. But who cares now ? You’re safe.
Sylvia read it twice. The emptiness she’d felt at the lean-to reading Christopher’s note came rushing back. She realized she had been expecting it. It did not push away her relief. It just sat beside it.
Auda
Sure, I’m disappointed. Yes, I feel empty. But relieved too, and I’m going to do my best to stay that way.
Syl
P.S. You didn’t have to tell me to put the stuff back. I’m not dumb.
Another e-mail came.
Syl,
I meant to tell you, but I forgot: just dump the stuff in front of the shed door. That way you only have to be there for a second. Because how do you know when the security guy will come around?
Sylvia didn’t reply. She put a check next to each of the messages and hit delete.