“Hey, thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
She went back to reading again, but then her gaze rose slowly and she looked right at him. Maybe because he seemed somehow familiar. Or maybe because of the way he looked at her.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners. The smile was uncertain. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“Uh . . . not really,” he replied. “But sort of.” His fingers were twitching. She leaned toward him and studied his face. Then her eyes opened wide, and the color drained from her cheeks.
“Um, hello,” Donny said. He felt like he might get sick all over the sidewalk.
“Are you . . . ?” she said. “You’re not . . . ?”
“You’re Jessica,” Donny said. He had to choke out the next words. “But your name used to be Maria.”
The book slipped from her fingers, and she sucked in a tiny gulp of air.
“I’m Donny.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again, then took a bigger breath and held it.
“I’m your Donny.”
For a second Donny thought she would tip over. She put a hand on the stroller to brace herself.
Donny walked to her bench and sat beside her. He left as much room between them as he could. They sat side by side for a moment, neither of them making a sound except for her quiet sniffs. “Oh, Donny,” she finally said. She reached for his arm and squeezed it. He slid closer and leaned toward her, and she put her arms around him. Her hair fell across his face. “My Donny. How are you? How have you been?”
Donny hesitated, trying to figure out what to say next. Did she even know that his father was dead? He didn’t think so. What exactly could he tell her about everything? “Oh, I’ve been all right.”
She let him go, reached for a pocket in the stroller, and pulled out a pack of tissues. She yanked three for herself and offered one to Donny. He took it—his eyes needed dabbing. Hers were full of tears, and she blotted them and blew her nose. “I figured this would happen eventually,” she said with a weak smile. The smile faded, and her forehead wrinkled. “Does this mean your father knows where I am?”
She doesn’t know anything, he thought. Again, he chose his words carefully. “No. You don’t have to worry about him.”
She gave him another long stare.
“I’m not with Dad anymore,” he said.
“You’re not?”
He shook his head. This was getting tricky. If she was going to take care of him, he wanted it to happen because she wanted to, not because she felt obligated. And not because he had nowhere else to go.
“So that’s my brother,” he said. He smiled into the stroller and saw a round face with eyes shut, and one limp arm across a stuffed dinosaur.
“Half brother,” she said.
“Right,” Donny answered.
“I’m sorry. This is . . . such a shock,” she said. Her gaze darted back to the street and across the river, as if she expected Donny’s father to show up at any second.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Donny told her. “I . . . I just wanted to meet you.”
Her voice quaked. “If you found me, he can find me.”
“No. He’s not going to find anyone,” Donny said. “He’s not around anymore.” He wanted to say Mom at the end, but it didn’t feel right. Not yet.
She fixed a long, blank look at him, and then she leaned back against the bench. “What? Oh my. Oh . . . I’ve been worried for so long.”
“You don’t have to worry now,” he said.
She let her head roll back, and blinked at the sky, and then the oddest laugh sputtered out. Her expression flattened again, and she looked at Donny. “But what about you? Will you be okay?”
Donny repeated the question inwardly. Will I be okay? The way she phrased that, and the things she didn’t say, implied so much. He wanted to let the words flood out of him. Will I be okay? Isn’t that up to you now? I don’t have a father. I had a place to stay, but I can’t go back. How could you think I’d be okay?
But he didn’t say any of it. Instead it was like a ventriloquist taking hold of his body. He heard himself say, “I’ll be all right.”
Her chin trembled and her eyes jittered as she stared at him. “Donny . . . I don’t know what you need from me. Or if you even need anything. Or . . . I don’t know what to say. My head is spinning right now.” She folded her hands in her lap and stared at them. “You . . . you have to understand. I left because your father scared me so much. And he would never have let me take you, and he would have found me somehow if I did; I just knew it. So I hid from him, far away, and I started all over.” She shivered and then looked at the little boy in the stroller. “I have this whole life now, Donny. I have a new son, and a husband who loves me. He doesn’t know anything about my past. I made up a story and didn’t say anything about another husband, or another son. It was a huge lie, but I had to do it that way. And now . . . if you came out of the blue . . . I . . . I don’t know what I would tell him. What would my husband think?”
Donny took another look at his sleeping brother and then looked away. “Yeah. No, that makes sense. I get it.”
She sniffed again and blotted tears. “Do you need help? Is there anything I can do for you?”
Donny stood up. Another thing he wasn’t brave or cruel enough to say popped into his head. Anything you can do for me? Besides saying, “Come with me and be my son,” you mean? No. That was the only thing I wanted. “I’m fine. Bye, Mom,” he said. The word Mom was like a bomb busting a dam, and she broke down into sobs. He walked away.
Still a chance, he mouthed, his back to her. If she called to him now, and they talked some more, maybe it would work out somehow. He could be part of a new family and have a normal life. He’d be a good son, and the best brother ever, and never cause any trouble, and study hard and do the dishes and walk the dog and go to college and make them proud.
But all he heard was her quiet weeping.
CHAPTER 37
Donny walked awkwardly, suddenly unsure of how to move his limbs like a normal person. His brain had gone offline. Sullen clouds blew in from the other side of the Rockies and blotted out the sunshine. Wind stirred the trees, and the air felt damp with rain.
With no idea of where to go next, he followed the path by the river, pausing now and then to look at the turbulent water.
Now what?
He had enough money to get a room at some motel. Did motels rent rooms to kids without asking questions? Even then, what was he supposed to do next? Call the police in New York and tell them, Hi, I’m that missing person? Maybe it was time to find out what this world did with kids who had no place else to go.
There was another bench up ahead by the side of the river. He could barely summon the energy to walk that far. He dropped his bag and slumped onto the seat as his body deflated.
A father and son walked his way along the path. The dog whimpered and changed directions, straining on the leash. They let the dog lead them away.
Birds burst out of a nearby tree, wings thumping. Donny felt the hairs on the back of his neck go electric. He sat up straight.
A shout came from across the river. “Hey! Hey, you little jerk!”
The sound couldn’t have hit Donny harder if it had been a thunderclap. It was simultaneously the most welcome and unnerving thing he’d ever heard. He stood up and turned to see Angela on the opposite bank. She wore an electric-blue tracksuit with yellow stripes down the sides, and bright orange sneakers. Her long black hair was in a ponytail.
She glared at him, her fists on her hips. A spidery feeling crawled from the hairs on his neck to the bottom of his spine. She wasn’t even directing her fear-beam at him. This was just her anger, leaking out like radiation. He was glad there was a moat of raging water between them.
His throat cinched up and his mouth quaked, but he managed to choke out a syllable. “Hi.”
“Don’t you ‘Hi’ me. Don’t you dare. I’m furious with you. I ca
me all this way and ran all over this stupid town looking for you, just to tell you how much you stink.” She punctuated her words with a stabbing finger.
He tried to say something, but his jaw flapped feebly. She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t even talk! Just shut your candy hole!”
She folded her arms and glared at him. Donny felt compelled to say something, anything, to break the tension. “You ran around to find me? Is that why you’re wearing that?”
“I couldn’t find a taxi, and I wasn’t going to run all over in heels and a dress,” she snapped. She looked at her outfit. “It’s pretty comfy though; I kind of like it.” When she looked at Donny again, her gaze was fiery once more. “Don’t try to distract me, you filthy pip-squeak. You know why I’m here?”
“Um,” said Donny. He looked left and right to see if anyone was nearby, but they were alone. The dog walkers were long gone, and the cloud of fear she was producing probably warded anyone else away. “You wanted to see how I was doing?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I wanted to exterminate you, is more like it. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. We had a deal, remember? When I saved your butt from that fire in Brooklyn? You agreed to come with me and be my helper. That was supposed to be a binding agreement. You don’t just walk away from something like that!”
“But . . . I asked, and you told me to get out of your sight. You renounced me.”
She lowered her head like a bull. “With good reason.” Another wave of furious energy washed over Donny. He took an awkward step back.
“We can’t have mortals wandering around who know too much about Sulfur. I should end your sorry life,” she said.
“Please don’t.” He took another hopeful look around to see if anyone was within shouting distance. Then he looked back toward Angela and gasped, because she hopped onto the railing and leaped high into the air and across the river. Before he could move, she landed in front of him and used both of her hands to clutch the front of his jacket. Donny squeaked.
“How could you just leave me like that?” she snapped. “And that stupid text you sent—it didn’t even make any sense! What did you mean, I didn’t feel the same? I was your friend.”
Donny shut his eyes and waited for the end. “That’s what I thought,” he whimpered. “Until I heard the truth.”
She lifted him high and spun around. He was suddenly over the side of the railing, his legs dangling. Donny cracked his eyes open and looked at the water that raged under his feet.
Her lips were pulled back, baring perfect teeth. “Heard the truth? The truth is, you left me after everything I did for you. How many times did I save your stupid life?”
Donny clenched his teeth. “I don’t even care,” he said. “I have no life anymore. I have no home. My dad is gone. My mother didn’t want me. You don’t really like me. You don’t even care if I live or die.”
She shook him back and forth. “I don’t what? What are you talking about?”
“I heard you talking about me to someone, in Sulfur. You said you didn’t have any feelings for me. That you faked being my friend. You said if I died it wouldn’t matter. I heard you, Angela. You didn’t know I was there, up there near the lookout, but I heard all of it. You said—”
He didn’t get the rest of the sentence out because she’d lifted him up again, but only to turn and drop him roughly on the grass. He landed on his rump and scrambled back to give himself some distance. When he looked up, she was leaning forward in an odd crouch, her hands on her knees. For a moment Donny thought she was going to puke. She seemed to convulse, and made a choking sound, and then a snorting sound, and then finally the first laugh shot out of her mouth like a cannonball: “Haw!”
She staggered sideways, dropped to her knees, and laughed like a lunatic until she could squeeze out some breathless words. “Ha! Ha-ha! You heard that? Oh my stars. Now I get it! Haw!” The laughter tumbled out, and it was a solid minute before she was able to talk again. She walked on her knees to where Donny sat. Then she plopped down beside him and shoved him on the shoulder with one hand.
Donny toppled over. “What?” he finally said, when he thought she could hear him over her own guffaws. “What do you get?”
Her words were punctuated by giggles. She put her hands over her mouth and talked through them. “You ding-dong! Do you even know who I was talking to?”
Donny was dizzy, unsure where this was going. “No. Some guy. Tall. Sort of handsome.”
“That was Ungo Cataracta, you dope! In his human form!”
“What? No, I know Ungo’s voice. It wasn’t him.”
“Yes, it was! He sounds completely different when he changes. Donny, I didn’t mean any of that! I was trying to get Ungo on the council, and I know how he dislikes mortals! You’re such a goose. I don’t want anyone on the council to think I care about you. What if my enemies knew? They might try to hurt me by hurting you. Jiminy Crickets, you heard that conversation? That’s why you were such a jerk?” She fell onto her back again, holding her stomach, and turned red with laughter.
Donny felt like helium had been pumped into his head. He had to double-check the facts and make sure it was real. “Seriously? That was really Ungo? That guy with the smoke coming out of the holes in his head? I didn’t even know he had a human form.”
She nodded, laughing too hard to answer.
“So when you talked about starting a fire . . . that wasn’t true either? You didn’t start the fire in Brooklyn?”
She snorted and stomped the grass with her heels. “That’s right, I forgot I said that, too! You thought I was some kind of arsonist? Haw!”
Donny stuck his hands in his hair, and a wide smile spread across his face as a wave of relief surged up from somewhere deep inside. He fell back onto the grass beside her and waited for her to stop laughing.
She propped herself on her elbows, tears streaming from her eyes. The tears turned to steam as they trickled down her face, and the wind swept it away. “Wait,” she said as the laughter finally ebbed. With a titanic effort, she flattened her smile into a sympathetic frown and made a halfhearted attempt to sound serious. “Did you say your mother didn’t want you?”
Donny sat up and shrugged, and plucked the grass by his feet. “Yeah. I mean, she didn’t come right out and say it. But she didn’t ask me to stay. She didn’t even ask for my phone number, for crying out loud. She’s got a new life now, and I would have messed all that up.”
Angela grinned wickedly and rubbed her hands together. “You want me to do something really awful to her?”
Donny glared at her and pointed a finger. “No. Seriously, do not do that.”
“Fine,” she said, and sniffed. “But you had it all wrong, Donny. You do have a home. You know what home is? Home is where you’re wanted.”
Donny put his face between his knees and took a deep breath. “ ‘Home is where you’re wanted.’ Did you just make that up?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Who knows? Hasn’t everything already been said or written by now?” She put an arm around his shoulders and tugged him closer.
Donny looked up as a voice called out from the distance. Finally another human being was in sight. A man in jeans and a polo shirt jogged toward them, short of breath. He called out while he was still several strides away. “Excuse me, miss! Can I talk to you for a second?”
“That guy,” Angela moaned. “I saw him a couple times when I was looking for you, and he kept shouting at me. I just ignored him, and he couldn’t keep up with me.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t have the foggiest.”
“Wait, how far did you run before you found me?”
“Not sure,” she said, “but it feels like I covered every square inch of this burg at least twice.”
The man slowed to a walk as he got to where they sat. He was out of breath and bent over, his hands on his knees. “Miss . . . what is your name?”
“Millicent Stroganoff,” Angela said. She ge
stured to Donny. “And this is my brother, Biff.”
The man’s jaw slid to one side. “Okaaay,” he said slowly. “Very funny. I get it. I’m interrupting. But I just wanted to know: Are you in high school or something?”
“Something,” she replied.
The man cocked his head at her. “Listen—it’s just that I saw you running. Everywhere. Really fast. It was amazing. I think you sprinted a marathon. And . . . well, I don’t know if you’re in college, or you plan to go to college, but I’m a track and field coach at the University of Colorado. And I’m pretty sure we could offer you an athletic scholarship.”
Angela gave him a fake gasp and an openmouthed smile. “Isn’t that nice!” She stage-whispered to Donny. “What is an ‘athletic scholarship’?”
The coach answered for him. “Don’t you know? It’s a free ride.”
Angela clapped her hands. “Now you’re talkin’! Can you drive us to Denver?”
CHAPTER 38
The track coach declined to drive them the seventy-five miles to Denver. Donny explained to Angela that you could call for a cab, and you didn’t just have to wait for one to drive by like in New York. When the cab arrived, they got inside just ahead of the rain that spattered the windshield. Angela read an address off her phone to the driver, and they sped out of town and onto the highway, the mountains shrinking behind them.
Donny reached forward and closed the opening in the plastic partition between them and the driver so they couldn’t be overheard. “How did you know where I was?” he asked Angela.
“Howard told me. I mean, he didn’t want to tell me, but I sort of made him.”
Donny rubbed his forehead. “Ugh. Tell me you didn’t.”
“Oh yes, I did,” Angela said. “I was in no mood for resistance. I might have overdone it a little.”
“Oh no,” Donny said. Howard was not a young man. At least he had a strong heart, apparently.
“So, are we okay now?” Angela said.
“Yes. Sure.”
“You don’t sound a hundred percent convinced.”
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