Page 31 of One Last Promise

And that made her what kind of person?

“Where are we?” Hazel lifted her head.

“Someplace safe.” She parked the truck, then turned it off and went to her car. Inside were Hazel’s backpack, her own backpack, and a few supplies she’d picked up over the month—toiletries, foodstuffs, a couple blankets and pillows.

Yeah, definitely homeless.

Hazel had gotten out, come around the car. “This is a really fancy house.”

“It is.” She handed Hazel her backpack and pillow. “How would you like to stay herefor a few . . . days?”

Days?

More like hours.

She sighed as she followed Hazel up the steps and knocked.

Nothing.

Axelhadtold her to go here. She opened the front door.

Quiet. Just the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

“Take your shoes off, honey.”

“It’s so big.”

Indeed, Moose’s home felt gargantuan, with the vaulted, beamed ceiling and the towering stone fireplace that rose in the great room. She’d noticed his gourmet kitchen before, with the eight-burner stove and the massive, ten-by-six-foot granite countertop, but only now took in the second story that overlooked the great room.

“Where should I put my stuff?” Hazel still held her backpack and pillow.

Tillie felt like she might be in that old movie, the one she’d watched with her sister at Christmastime, about a kid, alone in his house.

“Um, upstairs?” She looked into a room on the main floor—an office with a walnut desk and bookshelves—and then opened another door—the basement. So, “Yes, upstairs we go.”

Hazel scampered upstairs, dropping her pillow on the way, and Tillie scooped it up and heard Hazel shouting, “Mom! The bedrooms are huge!”

Of course they were. She found herself on a bridge between two sections. One led to double doors—she guessed that might be the master, so, nope, not that direction.

Hazel had run down the hallway to the other section. A bedroom at the front of the house, and one at the back. Only three bedrooms, but to her seven-year-old who’d only lived in their tiny house, their bedrooms the size of Moose’s guest closet, perhaps it did seem huge.

She found Hazel in the front bedroom,standing on a huge king-sized bed with a homey brown quilt, pure white sheets, and pillows the size of her car.

“Hazel, don’t jump on the bed.”

Hazel jumped off and ran into the bathroom. “Mom! You have to see this!”

Tillie dropped her blanket and backpack, along with Hazel’s pillow, on the bed and followed Hazel into the en suite.

Hazel stood in a whirlpool tub big enough for, well, Moose, or even her entire Marine unit.

And wow, she hadn’t thought about that life in years, so neatly putting it behind her, altering nearly everything about herself, at least on the outside.

On the inside, she’d needed the remnants of the marine she’d been to survive the last month. And if she were to go back there, the thought could make her smile, imagining St. Nick and Popeye trying to cram their bodies into the jacuzzi.

“Mom, look!” Hazel pointed up, and Tillie followed her gaze to a skylight. Only then did she realize that under her feet, the tile was warm.

Double sinks, and a shower with a bench, and perhaps this wasn’t such a terrible idea. In fact, maybe she could also find a laundry room.

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