Chapter 11: Sunday

The phone buzzed twice more against the nightstand, and then it stopped.

Crispin reached over me and turned it face down.

"Your father," I said.

"Yes."

"At five in the morning."

"He's up early on Fridays. He likes to call about the weekend handoff."

He pulled me back against his chest and spoke into my hair.

"I'll call him after you've had breakfast."

"Why does he call you and not me?"

"Because you'd hang up."

That was true, so I let it go.

I fell asleep with my cheek over his heartbeat.

I woke to sunshine and the smell of bacon, which meant Maureen was cooking on the second floor.

She had probably heard everything.

I came down in Crispin's sweatshirt with my hair in a knot.

She looked at the sweatshirt, then at me, then at the ceiling, and said grace over the bacon.

"Thank you, Lord, for the gift of fresh eggs and for young people who finally use their heads."

"Ma," Crispin said, at the doorway.

"I'm praying. Sit."

Hattie came on Friday at six, with her unicorn bag and a note from Mom with the weekend's pickup time on it.

She did not say a word about Mom.

She did say, around the fort, that Crispin's hair was sticking up on one side.

"Is it?" Crispin said, and smoothed it, and shot me a look that made me turn my face into a pillow.

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