“We nearly lost you,” Mom said, and sniffed. “I can still see little Marla, busting into the cabin, looking like she was almost in shock, saying, ‘David! David! David’s gone!’ I’ll never forget it.” She caught a tear with her finger before it had a chance to run down her cheek.
“Someone for you,” Dad said, standing in the doorway, looking at me.
“Who?” I said.
“She didn’t say. Just asked for you. I invited her in, but she said she’d wait outside.” His eyebrows went up half an inch. “Nice looker.”
Mom brightened. “Who is she, David?”
“I have no idea,” I said, “but I’m not going to find out sitting here.”
There was no one on the porch when I went out the front door. She was standing at the foot of the steps. I couldn’t tell who it was right away, given the dim porch light, and the fact that she was looking out toward the street, arms crossed over her chest.
“Hello?”
She turned around. “Hey,” Samantha Worthington said.
“Hi,” I said. “You’re unarmed.”
She dug into the front pocket of her jeans. When her hand came back out, it was wrapped around something. I could guess what.
She came halfway up the steps, arm extended. “I believe this is yours. Or your kid’s. I don’t know. All I know is, it’s not Carl’s.”
I opened my palm to allow her to set the pocket watch on it. Our fingers brushed together lightly. Samantha retreated, ran her fingers through her hair to get it out of her eyes, and said, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Not just about the watch.”
“You mean the shotgun in my face.”
“Yeah,” Samantha said. “That.” She forced a smile. “You get some fresh shorts?”
“I did.”
“I was doing laundry, grabbed Carl’s jeans; they felt kind of heavy. Found the watch in his pocket.” She shook her head. “You’d figure, if he was going to lie to me, he’d do a better job of covering up after himself.”
“His future as a master criminal looks uncertain,” I said.
She pointed toward the street, where a small Hyundai sedan sat. “He’s in the car. I brought him to apologize to your boy.”
I opened the door a crack and called in, “Ethan! Out front!”
Almost instantly I heard stomping on the stairs, and then he emerged. “Yeah?”
Samantha looked at her car and made a waving-in gesture. The door opened and a black-haired boy Ethan’s age got out.
My son looked at Carl, then at me. I put the watch in his hand and said, “You can give this to Poppa in a minute.” He looked at it, stunned, like he’d won the lottery. “This is Carl’s mom, Ms. Worthington.”
“Hi,” she said as Carl approached. Once her son was standing next to her, she said to him, “You know what to say.”
“Sorry I took the watch,” he said, looking more at the ground than at Ethan. “That wasn’t right.”
“Sorry I punched you and stuff,” Ethan said.
Carl shrugged. “Okay.”
There was an uncomfortable three seconds of silence. Then Ethan asked, “Do you like trains?”
“What?”
“Do you like trains? My grandpa has some. In the basement. If you want to see them.”
Carl, his face blank, looked at his mother. “Uh, yeah, I guess,” she said. The boy came up the stairs and disappeared into the house with Ethan.
“The Middle East should be so easy,” I said, coming down the steps.
“Carl’s not a bad kid,” Samantha said defensively. “He’s just . . . like his father sometimes. I don’t like it when he gets like that. He can be a bit of a bully. But there’s a good kid in there, I swear. Some days it’s just a little harder to find.”
“Sure,” I said.
“And yet, he’s kind of my rock, you know? He’s there for me. We’re there for each other. I guess that’s why, when you said he had that watch, I just stood up for him.” She raised her hands a moment, a gesture of futility. “Now what do I do? I feel like an idiot standing here. The plan was, Carl says he’s sorry and we go. Now he’s in there with your kid.”
“You want a coffee or something?” I asked. “You’re welcome to come in.”
She looked at the house. “You got a nice place. Beats the shithole I’m living in.”
“Your place isn’t a shithole,” I said. “And besides, this is my parents’ house.”
“I thought, when Ethan said the trains were his grandfather’s, that maybe they’d been handed down to him or something.”
“No. My dad built a small layout in the basement for Ethan. At least, he says it was for Ethan.”
“When I looked up an address for Harwood, this was the only one that came up. So, that’s cool that you live with your folks? You and your wife and Ethan?”
“Just Ethan and me.”
“Oh,” she said. “Divorced?”
I shook my head. “My wife passed away a few years ago.”
She nodded quickly. “Oh, sorry, didn’t realize. So, well, whaddaya know. We’re both raising boys on our own.”