“Can you believe her?” I huff to Walter as I stomp down the front steps. “She’s so fake and judgmental. What does my father see in her?”
“Piper . . .” Walter speaks my name as an admonishment.
“Is it the pretty packaging? Because all that stuff comes with a price tag, you know. That kind of upkeep costs money.”
Walter holds open the gate for me. “And why am I getting lectured?”
“Because you’re a man, and you’re here.”
I clamp my teeth over my lower lip, working hard to keep it all inside—the screaming, the tears, the angry words. Not until we’ve rounded the corner of Astor Street do I feel I can finally speak without exploding.
“I know it isn’t fair to ask my father to be a bachelor forever, but that’s really what I wanted. I wanted him to keep missing my mother and keep pouring himself into his work. And with Jane, it feels—” I have to bite my trembling lower lip until the threat of tears has passed. Walter’s gaze is on me, I can feel it, but he remains quiet. “Jane makes me feel like I’ve lost Mother all over again. Even though I know she would have encouraged Father to remarry.”
“Maybe now isn’t the best time to visit the Barrows.” Walter’s voice is gentle. “Maybe instead we should see a movie. Get your mind off things.”
Get my mind off things? “That’s what you do when you did poorly on a test or a friend won’t talk to you. I’m not going to go see a movie when Lydia needs me.”
“You seeing a movie isn’t going to change the situation with Lydia.” His hand cups around my arm. “I know you feel guilty that you were the last to see her, but you don’t have to solve this.”
I yank my arm away from him and glare. “So if it was me, you would be content to just lounge around the house? Go to the cinema? Play ball with Jimmy and them? Because if it were you, I sure wouldn’t. I would be knocking on every door, Walter Thatcher, until the detectives knocked on my door and said you wouldn’t be coming home.”
What if that happens?
What if Lydia isn’t coming home?
It’s impossible to take a breath despite how I gasp for it, and the world tilts beneath me.
“Pippy, it’s going to be okay.” Walter crushes me against him. His heart pounds beneath my ear as I struggle for breath. “It’s going to be okay.”
But my brain won’t stop thundering, what if it isn’t?
Mrs. Barrow’s hand runs over her impossibly pregnant stomach in an absent way. “I can’t tell you how shocked I was when the police knocked on our door. Dr. LeVine had called the night before, of course, to ask after Lydia. But when I hung up with him, I had assumed it was all some sort of miscommunication.”
“I did too.” My words come out quiet even though I don’t intend for them to.
Mrs. Barrow dabs at her eyes with a hanky, and I’m endeared by how red and puffy they are. “Such a sweet girl. She was so wonderful to help me out when our nanny up and quit for that waitressing job. Our new nanny started this week, but Lydia and Cole had a special connection.” She lowers her volume. “We haven’t told him yet about what’s happened. He’s been in the strangest mood this week, and I don’t want to upset him further. He must sense it’s almost time for the baby to be born. They say children can tell these things.”
Walter shifts beside me, but if Mrs. Barrow senses his embarrassment, she doesn’t show it. Mrs. Barrow doesn’t look much older than me, which is a bit unnerving. Her high cheekbones and catlike eyes make me think of women I see in advertisements, and even with her round stomach, she’s somehow elegant.
“Lydia always speaks so warmly of Cole.” The dog—a yippy rat of a thing with sharp teeth—scratches at the door where he’s been shut away, and I raise my volume to drown it out. “I know she’ll be delighted to see him again. Where is he?”
When Mrs. Barrow regards me, her face is full of sympathy. “Oh, Miss Sail. I admire your hope. And perhaps I’ll borrow some of it, because I fear—” She cuts off her words with a bright smile directed beyond me. “Hello, Cole. Where’s Dottie?”
Cole stands in the doorway, a sullen expression on his face, and a toy car clutched in one hand. “Kitchen.” His gaze shifts to me. “You’re Lydia’s friend.”
He speaks in that little-kid way. Dottie is in the “titchen” and I’m Lydia’s “fwiend.”
“Hi, Cole. Yes, I am.” He keeps looking at me in that soul-seeing way children have about them. I try not to squirm. “How are you?”
He looks down at his sailor shirt and flicks at a button.
“Darling, don’t be rude. Miss Sail asked how you are.”
Cole keeps flicking. His blond curls are orderly, not at all like every other time I’ve seen him, where they’re windblown and streaked with dirt.