Chapter 20: The Truck Outside

Yvaine's POV

Dot opened the studio door before I'd turned off the truck.

She had paint on her sleeves, her glasses pushed up into her gray-streaked hair, and a bag of frozen dumplings in one hand.

"I heard a motor," she said. "Nobody called first. Which means it's bad or it's good."

"Both," I said. "Dot, this is Finlay."

Finlay climbed down from the cab and held his pillowcase against his chest.

He looked at her arms, which were inked from wrist to shoulder in koi and roses and a very large crab.

"Are those real?" he asked.

"As real as it gets, kid."

"Does it hurt?"

"Only if you do it wrong."

"Can I touch the crab?"

Dot crouched so he could reach.

He put one finger on the crab and gravely nodded.

Then she looked up at me over his head, and her eyes were wet behind the round glasses.

"Upstairs," she said. "I made the bed in the back room. I didn't have a kid's bed, so I bought one. It's blue. Don't argue."

"I wasn't going to."

"You were about to say you'd pay me."

"I was."

"Then don't."

That night the apartment smelled of dumplings and wet dog.

The clinic crew had come up the stairs in a loud crowd with a casserole, a stuffed otter, and a bag of dog-shaped crackers.

My boss had brought a frame.

"For the first drawing," she said.

Finlay had never been handed a frame before, and he took it in both hands.