Jeff turned Avis to face him and looked her square in the eyes. He was ready to protest, to tell her no, absolutely not.
“I can’t lose you,” she said, her bottom lip catching a quiver. “I’ll leave everything behind and go with you, but what’s the point in that? What’s the point in living in tents and eating out of trash cans if we can have a house, a kitchen, a safe place for everyone to live? Are you going to make them go through that hardship? For what?”
“For you.”
His reply lit the ends of her nerves on fire. They hissed like Fourth of July sparklers, spit gold and silver flakes of flame across her fluttering heart. He’d sacrifice it all, put the ones he loved out on the street for her.
Because she was important.
Because he didn’t want to use her.
For once in her life, she truly mattered; perhaps—dare she even think it?—more than he had ever thought she would.
Jeff pulled her into a tight embrace, the kind of hug you give someone to say thanks but no thanks.
“I won’t allow it,” he insisted. “We would rather never see you again than thrust you back into the life you’ve just escaped.”
Over the past few weeks, she had told him everything. The neglect as a child. The way her parents bought her off every Christmas and birthday. How her mother had screamed at her while still on the phone with the emergency dispatcher. The way her father had looked at her with muted disgust as she lay in the hospital, both of her wrists bandaged up like giant Q-tips. But she had also told Jeff that she wasn’t sure whether it had been her imagination or whether her parents truly did hold some sort of contempt for her. She wanted to believe it was just her illness manifesting those delusions of hatred and ill will. But as soon as she suggested that maybe her parents weren’t as bad as she had made them out to be, Jeffrey struck the idea down.
It’s not you, it’s them.
He used words like manipulation and mind control and false love. He told her that they had brainwashed her into believing they were good despite her obvious knowledge that they were anything but. He brought up Stockholm syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, codependency. All his points were valid. Everything he said made sense.
“I forbid it,” he said. “The moment you start asking for money, they’re going to wonder what’s going on.”
Avis knew her father was impulsive. At times his anger seemed to have no bounds. He was the type to act first and consider the consequences later. There was no doubt in her mind that, if he did discover Jeff and the others living in the house he owned, it would end in a screaming match. She would storm off into the unknown and her father would bid her good riddance. And while Avis wasn’t fond of her dad, it wasn’t the way she wanted it to play out. She wanted him to fade into the shadows of her past rather than see him again for one more heaving, ugly fight.
“Then we’ll have a family meeting,” she said, determined. “We’ll explain the situation and we’ll all go into Pier Pointe and start picking up job applications. There are ten of us, so if only five of us score work, we’ll be fine, right? Even part-time work will pay for groceries.”
Jeff exhaled. His wary smile gave him away. He was keeping a secret. “We’re drifters,” he finally said. “At least that’s what we call ourselves, because ‘drifter’ sounds better than ‘vagrant.’ But at the end of the day, that’s what we are. We live off the land, off people’s generosity. But sometimes the land doesn’t provide what we need and sometimes generosity runs low. What we’re not, Avis, are blue collar workers. We don’t toil for money, and we don’t spend our lives scrambling toward our own unhappiness. It’s against everything we stand for. Money is the root of all evil.”
Avis couldn’t help but narrow her eyes. “So what does that mean?” she asked.
“It means that we do what we have to do to get by.”
“But what does that mean? You’ll at least have the courtesy of telling me that.”
“Some breaking and entering here and there. Nothing serious.”
Those two words made her body tingle with alarm. Theft? Jeff sensed her dismay. She watched the muscles in his jaw tense.
“Being part of the family means you do what needs to be done without compromising our beliefs,” he said. “Most of the time, we don’t even have to break in. You’d be surprised by how many people leave their doors or windows unlocked. We go in and take some food—nothing they’ll miss. That was the way we kept ourselves fed for years, and it looks like that’s what we’re going to have to do again.”
“Did you ever get caught?”
“We had a few close calls, but we never got busted. Even if the home owners would get back earlier than expected and call the cops, there wasn’t much to report. We never really stole anything. I mean, one time Noah and Kenzie decided to take someone’s car for a joy ride. I couldn’t blame them. It was a Porsche.” Avis gaped at him. “But they returned it ten minutes later, not a scratch on it. The owner reported the thing stolen, but by the time the cops showed up the car was back in the driveway, keys in the ignition, an extra few miles on the odometer.” He gave her a boyish grin, like it had been the most innocent thing in the world. “It’s partly why we move around so much. People notice a big group like us, especially if we’re out on the streets or living in tents.”