His Healing Touch novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Locked Out

Bradley has changed the locks and emptied the account, and Stewart finds her on the stoop at midnight; Freddie says one word.

The man's name was Stewart Acheson, and he drove with both hands tight on the wheel.

Freddie sat in the back seat with my scarf wound around his fist.

He had refused to let go of it at the curb.

His father had stopped arguing after the second try.

"I'm sorry," Stewart said. "He doesn't do this."

"It's fine," I said. "Where was his therapist?"

"Inside the clinic on the third floor. A fire drill went off and he bolted past her."

His jaw worked.

"She quit this morning, before the drill. This is the fourth one this year."

I looked back at Freddie.

He was rocking a little, one slow tilt at a time, with his eyes on the wet window.

His ear defenders hung around his neck.

"He's seven?" I asked.

"Seven in March."

"And he doesn't speak much."

"Barely ten words. I count them."

He said it flatly.

I didn't say I was sorry.

People who are sorry at you make a parent's whole face close.

I gave him my address instead, and he turned toward the brick building where I'd lived for six years.

The lobby light was off.

My key stuck in the lock and then wouldn't turn at all.

I tried it three times.

Then I noticed the shiny new deadbolt above the old one, bright as a coin.

My phone buzzed against my hip.

It was Bradley.

"Your things will be sent to storage. I've frozen the joint account for review. Take a few days to calm down and call me when you're ready to apologize."

I read it standing on the doorstep with rain running down my sleeves.

I tried my bank card at the corner ATM.

It said the account was restricted.

I had forty-one dollars in my wallet.

I had no mother to call, a sister in Tucson who hadn't answered in a year, and no friends in Boston.

Bradley had made sure of that, one polite dinner party at a time.

I sat down on the top step of the stoop and put my bag between my feet.

I didn't cry.

I was too tired to find where the tears were kept.

Headlights swung across the wet street and stopped.

The car I'd gotten out of ten minutes earlier was idling at the curb.

Stewart got out and stood at the bottom of the steps with the rain on his shoulders.

"I drove around the block," he said. "Freddie wouldn't stop looking back at the building."

"I'm fine."

"You're sitting in the rain with a grocery bag."

"It has a notebook in it," I said. "It's very important."

The corner of his mouth moved, almost.

"I don't even know your name," he said.

"Hallie Tennant. I never took my husband's, he liked how modern it made him look."

"Ms. Tennant. I have a guest room with a lock on the inside and a housekeeper who leaves at six."

"I don't know you."

"You pulled my son out from under a van. You know more about me than anyone has in two years."

I looked past him at the car.

Freddie's face was pressed to the back window, his breath fogging it in a small circle.

His fist was still wrapped in my scarf.

"One week," I said. "I'll pay rent when my account unfreezes."

"I don't want rent."

"I'll pay it anyway."

"Then I'll argue about it when you can afford to argue," he said.

He took the grocery bag from me and carried it down the steps like it weighed something.

The brownstone on Beacon Hill had four floors and a front door the color of dark cherries.

Inside, everything was quiet and clean and very expensive.

There were soft rugs and no sharp corners on the low furniture.

I noticed the cabinets had child locks, and the stairs had a gate, and the kitchen lights were on dimmers.

Somebody had spent two years learning exactly how to make this house safe for one boy.

The guest room was on the second floor, with a deep green bedspread and a lock on the inside of the door.

Stewart stood in the hall and did not come in.

"The bathroom has everything," he said. "Towels are in the cabinet."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. I'll want something in return."

My stomach tightened.

I had just spent an evening learning what men want in return.

"What?" I said.

"A name for the therapist who pulled that boy back from the edge. You were good out there, and you did it without thinking."

"I'm not a therapist," I said. "I was."

"Then I want to know why you stopped."

I opened my mouth, and a small sound came from behind him.

Freddie was standing in the hallway in his socks.

He had followed us up without a sound.

He looked at me, then at the open bedroom door, then at the bed.

He wasn't looking at his father at all.

"Stay," he said.

Stewart made a noise.

"That's twelve," he whispered.

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