Page 115 of The Fixer

Joy sat back, utterly stunned. Her pulse throbbed with an erratic rhythm, and her brain was doing its best to make sense of the letter. She had to be dreaming. None of this was real.

She read through it again, but the words didn’t change. So she picked up the next letter, hoping for a different outcome. Instead of bringing her comfort, though, it amplified the truth of the first one.

Her mother’s—Helene’s—letters explained so much and validated Joy’s sense of not belonging during her childhood. Yet the reality devastated her. Shredded her into tiny slivers of her former self. The world as she knew it had just shifted seismically, an earthquake registering ten on the Richter scale, and would never be the same. Suddenly, all of her had to get back to Chicago.

Chapter 33

Family Ties

Charlie stood in frontof a wall of hardware, staring at but not seeing the nuts and bolts and anchors. What had he come here looking for? Ever since he’d glimpsed the first lines of that letter, mists had moved across his mind, and he couldn’t see through them.

Add to that a disturbing discovery he’d made when he’d stopped by the Haven on his way to the hardware store, and he was reeling. He’d gone there to check on supplies, only to find that yesterday’s delivery was now short a load of drywall and four buckets of mud.

Between the unsettling find and whatever Joy was currently grappling with, he couldn’t concentrate. So he continued to stare at the wall, and despite knowing someone was robbing him, he shifted every ounce of his focus to Joy. He wanted to give her space, but now he second-guessed his decision to leave her alone. Foreboding crept along his neck, prickling his skin, raising the fine hairs.

He hadn’t recognized the addressee on the front of the envelopes, so he’d opened the first one thinking it was a curious find. It hadn’t taken but a few sentences for reality to sink in.

“Hey, Charlie,” one of store’s owners called. “You’re looking like you could use some help.”

“Nah, I’m good. I just remembered I’ve got what I need. Thanks, man.” Charlie jogged to his truck. He still couldn’t remember what had brought him here, but clarity of a different nature smacked him in the face.

If the blasts from Joy’s very difficult past were going to tear her apart, he wanted to be the one to pick up the pieces and put them back together.

Back at his house, he opened the front door and let himself in. He spotted the dogs playing in the backyard as he inched toward the guest bedroom. The door was cracked open, so he peeped in, startled to see Joy cramming clothes into her carry-on that lay open on the bed. Her back was to him, and he took a few seconds trying—and failing—to reconcile what he was seeing.

He gripped the edge of the door and eased inside the room. “Hey, princess. What’s going on?”

She wheeled, her eyes red and watery. “I have to go. And would you please stop calling me that?”

Alarm welled inside of him. “Okay. I … I’m sorry? Wait. Go where? Why? What happened?”

“To Chicago. I’m leaving.” She turned back to her haphazard packing. Her body seemed to vibrate.

He edged closer, afraid to touch her. “Is someone hurt? Estelle?”

“No, Charlie. No one’s hurt. I have to get home. I’ve been gone too long.”

Home. The word rocked him, though it shouldn’t have. Chicagowashome for her, and he’d been living in some kind of fairy tale that was evidently dissolving before his eyes. Was she dumping him? Because he’d called her “princess” one too many times?

“When are you leaving?”

“As soon as I’m packed.”

“For how long?”

“For good. It’s where I live.” Her voice was flat and reed-thin.

In a mindless fog, he went to the back door and let the dogs inside. Luna whimpered, and Sunny’s furry brows drew together, lending her a sad look nearly impossible for a Lab. He mixed sugar and water in a saucepan and set them to boil on the stove while he slotted the emotions churning in his gut.

Dragging three bracing breaths into his lungs, he returned to the guest room. Joy stood at the foot of the bed, her head and shoulders drooping. The suitcase and clothing were in the same chaotic disarray. She swiveled her head slowly and glanced at him through a curtain of hair.

He covered the few steps dividing them and pushed her silky strands behind her ears. Wordlessly, he searched her eyes. They were listless, as if her soul had flown off on vacation somewhere far away. A subtle shift, and he glimpsed loss and fear in their depths before she turned away. All of him fought down his rising panic. This was not the Joy he knew. Something was terribly wrong.

Swallowing around a lump in his throat, he slid behind her and wrapped her up in his arms. She sagged against him, her head lolling to one side, and she fiercely gripped his forearms as if trying to anchor herself to them.

They stood like that for long moments until he cupped her chin and turned her face upward to meet his gaze. “Why so sudden, and why now?” Her golden eyes turned glassy. “What set this off, Joy? I want to know. I want to help.”

“You can’t. No one can.” Casting her eyes down, she pulled in a shuddering breath and whispered, “I’m not their daughter.”

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