I shook my head.
Mrs. Duncan filled a kettle and placed it on the stove to heat up before she set down a plate of chocolate cookies in front of me and smoothed out my hair. It was such a tender gesture that it nearly undid me. Mrs. Duncan moved to a cabinet and brought out a box of tissues. She set that down next to the plate of cookies, and pulled out a chair next to me and held my hand, repeating over and over again that I’d be okay.
I appreciated her calm, grandmotherly demeanor more than I could say. By the time she set down the steaming cup of tea, I had wiped my eyes and gotten myself together. Ma and Donny still hadn’t come in, but I could see through Mrs. Duncan’s front window that the street was still lined with spectators and cars.
To distract myself, I cupped my hands around the mug and let the warmth seep into me.
Mrs. Duncan brewed herself a cup as well before settling across from me. “How’re you doing in school?” she asked.
The fact that she was making an effort not to ask me about what was happening next door wasn’t lost on me. I looked up at her forehead, and felt a wave of sadness. She’d be gone by the end of February. “I’m doing okay, I guess,” I told her, my voice hoarse. I cleared my throat and added, “I should make the honor roll again this semester.”
Mrs. Duncan beamed proudly at me. “I always knew you were such a bright child, Maddie, but the honor roll? That’s wonderful!”
I worked hard in school. I really wanted to go to Cornell, but Donny had flat out told me that there wasn’t enough money left in the trust to support four years at an Ivy League school. If I got in, I’d have to do it on what he could manage to give me from the trust, and scholarships and student loans and maybe even part-time work. “I’m trying to get into Cornell,” I told Mrs. Duncan.
She blinked in surprise. “You are? Oh my, Maddie! That was my alma mater!”
I sucked in a breath. I’d never pegged Mrs. Duncan for an Ivy Leaguer. In fact, I’d never pegged her for anything more than a sweet old lady. “You went to Cornell?”
“I sure did. Class of fifty-four. That’s where I met Mr. Duncan. He was an assistant professor and we weren’t supposed to date, but we did. We were married a week after I graduated.”
Mrs. Duncan’s eyes had a shiny faraway cast to them, and I could see how much she missed her husband. Then she focused on me again. “You would’ve liked Mr. Duncan,” she said. “He was a lovely man. And so smart! He was always downstairs in the basement, tinkering with some new invention.”
“He sounds nice,” I said, taking up one of the cookies.
“He was wonderful,” she told me. “I miss him terribly.”
At that moment there was a knock on the front door, and Donny entered. “Hey,” he said when he saw us at the kitchen table. “The feds left. You can go back home, Maddie.”
“Where’s Ma?” I asked.
“She’s inside. She’s had as bad a day as we have. The feds went down to her work to serve the search warrant, and then her boss came by with the stuff from her locker. He fired her.”
“Why?” I demanded. “He can’t do that, Donny! It’s not her fault the feds came to search our house!”
Donny shifted uncomfortably and eyed Mrs. Duncan. “Her manager didn’t fire her for that, Maddie. Your mom had something she shouldn’t have had in her locker. It wasn’t anything illegal, but it was against company policy.”
And then I knew what’d happened. Ma’s manager had found open liquor in her locker.
“Oh,” I said, and got up quickly. Mrs. Duncan stood, too. She reached out and took hold of my wrist and said, “Wait one moment, Maddie.” She then moved to the refrigerator and pulled out a large casserole dish. “I made this lasagna last night, and of course I made too much. Why don’t you take it for you and your mother to heat up tonight?”
I started to shake my head, feeling uncomfortable with the thought of accepting so much kindness, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Yes, yes,” she insisted, putting the heavy dish into my hands. “You eat it all up now, Maddie. You’re far too skinny for your own good!”
Donny wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Thank you, Mrs. Duncan,” he said. “We really appreciate it, and Maddie will return the dish in the next few days.”
I nodded, and Mrs. Duncan smiled and walked us to the door. Once we were outside and headed over to my house, he said, “Make sure you clean that really good before you give it back to her, okay?”
I nodded dully; my attention was now focused on the trash left behind by the FBI agents. There were small plastic evidence bags blowing around on our lawn, and a set of discarded black rubber gloves had been tossed onto the driveway. I looked around at the other houses and found the lawns empty of people. The curtains at the Hutchinson household caught my eye—they were pulled back, and I could see Cathy’s mom staring at us. The venom in her gaze sent a chill up my spine.
Shrugging deeper into my coat, I walked a little faster, until we’d rounded the corner to the back door. “Ma?” I called.
“She’s upstairs,” Donny told me, taking the casserole dish out of my hands and moving with it to the fridge. Opening the door, he stared at the inside for a sec before setting the big dish in it. The fridge was mostly empty, so I knew there’d be room.
“How can you live like this?” he asked me, once he’d shut the door.
“We buy only what we need,” I said defensively, only then noticing that much of the kitchen was in disarray. Cupboards had been opened and rummaged through, and the contents of several drawers had been emptied and refilled, but there was still a lot of clutter on the counters.