Page 20 of Hearts Like Hers

“Oh, I’m Eva. My brother’s Ren. We livethere.” She pointed behind her to the house. The screen door had been removedand sat propped up against the garage. A car sat in the driveway on cinderblocks. It hadn’t moved in months.

“Who lives with you?” Kate asked.

“My dad and my brother.”

“Anyone else?”

“Nope. Just me and two boys.” She said itlike it was a hefty burden.

Kate smiled at that one. “Well, that’s nice.I have a brother, too. Is your dad home?”

“Not right now. He had to leave when it wasstill dark this morning.”

So the kids had been alone all day withevening approaching. “Do you know where he went?”

Eva set to walking the seam of the sidewalkas if it were a tightrope. She flung her braid from her shoulder onto her back.“No.”

Kate nodded and kicked the rocks on thesidewalk next to Eva. “So, who is taking care of you?”

“Ren.”

She glanced around, but saw no sign of himeither and hoped, at the very least, he was a teenager. “Is he older than youare?”

“He’s nine. I’m six. He’s on the next streetat his friend William’s house, but they didn’t want a girl to come. I didn’twant to anyway.” She rolled her eyes, but Kate didn’t quite buy it. She’d beenleft behind.

“Well, of course not.”

Kate sighed, now aware of the fact that therewould be no birthday celebration after all. She took a seat on the curb, andfor the next two hours, she and Eva got to know each other while the sun set.She told Eva about being a firefighter and getting to ride on the truck. Evatold her about the sheets on her bed that had little hearts on them and how oneday she would have a brown pet rabbit with floppy ears named Woody.

“Can I braid your hair?” Eva asked. “It lookssoft.”

“Why not?” Kate said, and allowed Eva to movebehind her.

They passed the time until Eva’s fatherreturned home just as darkness descended, presumably from some sort of job,though he looked a little scruffy and unkempt. Even from a distance, his eyescut dull and bored. The man nodded once at Kate stoically but made no move inher direction to inquire about who she was or why she was sitting on the curbwith his lonely child.

“See you later!” Eva said to Kate, and ran toher father, who took her hand. The two headed inside the house together withoutexchanging so much as a word. Eva hadn’t seemed afraid of him, though, whichwas something Kate had been watching for. That was something, at the veryleast.

They became friends after that, she and Eva.Chatting on the sidewalk every few days or taking walks together whenever Katecame across the little girl all alone. It made Kate feel better whenever shespent time with Eva, to know that she was doing okay. She finally met Ren, too.A tussle of dark hair and green eyes. Less talkative, but every bit as sweetwith a dust of freckles across his face.

She’d asked some of her colleagues at thestation about the father, and when she came up with very little, she moved onto her friend Eddie, a beat cop at the police department.

“The house at the end of Claymore?” he’dasked. She nodded. “Jay Higgins. Yeah, he’s a bad dude, Carpenter. Steer clear.In and out of jail on possession charges, solicitation, small-time burglary,you name it. He can’t live clean.”

“What about his kids?”

“From what I heard they go back and forthfrom him to a loser buddy of his when he’s otherwise engaged.” Code forincarcerated. This wasn’t sounding good at all, but it’s what she’d suspected.

“Listen, Eddie. We need to get someone tocheck on the two kids. They’re left on their own way too much, and if he’sdealing out of that house, it’s not the place for them.”

He nodded. “Then let’s do it.”

They met and filed a report with a woman fromDHS, but then there hadn’t been time for an investigation before the lives ofthose kids changed forever.

Kate pushed herself up from the couch inVenice where she had been stretched out flat on her back. Her chest compressedtight and hard, the air in the room scarce. She was doing it again, allowingher mind to wander back in time and play the same “what if” game that alwaystrapped her in a haze of self-hatred. No more. She needed to get up and out ofthe apartment, distract herself, which had been the whole point of the trip.

Thank heavens for small miracles. Autumn wasbehind the counter at the Cat’s Pajamas when Kate pushed through the door. Hergaze settled on Autumn’s features as she chatted animatedly with a customer.Smiling, laughing, being Autumn in the middle of any normal day. No heaviness,no regret, just…Autumn. She exhaled and the world felt lighter.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Autumnsaid, as she watched Kate approach.

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