Will didn’t know that there was anything wrong about being comfortable, but he held his tongue on the subject, asking instead, “Where am I going to find another woman with your low standards?”
“Isn’t Amanda Wagner available?”
“Oh,” he groaned. “That’s just hurtful.”
“You deserve it, you illiterate shit.”
He laughed, and Betty stirred.
“God, that thing is ugly.” She patted Will’s leg. “Help me up.”
Will hooked his hand under her good arm to help her stand. “Where are you going?”
“To look through the want ads.” She indicated her broken wrist, her torn hands. “I’m not going to sit behind a desk for the next twenty years and even the city of Atlanta isn’t desperate enough to give me a gun.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’d be nice to find a job where I don’t have to dress like a whore unless I want to.”
“You don’t really need a job,” he offered.
She barked a surprised laugh. “You jackass. Do you really think I’m going to stay at home cooking and cleaning while you go to work?”
“Worse things could happen.”
“I doubt it.”
“Betty could use a mother.”
“She could use a plastic bag over her head.”
“I—”
Quickly, Angie stood on her toes and pressed her mouth to his neck. Her lips were soft against his skin. He could feel her warm breath, the soft tips of her fingers pressing into his shoulders.
She said, “I love you.”
He watched her walk down his driveway, the pink cast held out at her side. She turned around once to wave at him, then got into the car and pulled away.
She was almost proud of the cuts that riddled her face and hands. It was as if she had finally found a way to show on the outside what she’d been feeling on the inside all along. He had not asked her about what happened in that cellar, had not wanted to look too closely at the angle of Michael’s wounds or count the number of times the man had been stabbed. Will had just wanted to hold her, to lift her up in his arms and carry her up the stairs and keep her safe for as long as he could.
And for at least a couple of hours, she had let him.
Will wasn’t sure how long he stood there looking into the empty street. The Boss was singing “Leah” and Betty was snoring against his chest when a tan Chevy Nova pulled into his neighbor’s driveway.
Betty woke up when the car door slammed.
Will walked across his yard toward the woman, who was hammering a wooden stake into the ground with the heel of her shoe.
He asked, “Can I help you?”
She startled, putting her hand to her throat. “God, you scared me to death.”
“I’m Will Trent.” He indicated his house. “I live next door.”
She was looking at the dog, her lip curled in distaste. “I thought Mother said that thing was dead.”
“Betty?”
“Yes, Betty. We moved her to a home.”
Will felt his brow furrow. “I’m sorry?”
“Betty, my mother.” The woman was impatient; she clearly didn’t want to be here and she sure as hell didn’t want to explain herself to Will. “She’s living in a home now. We’re selling the house.”
“But,” Will tried, “I heard her…” He looked down at the dog. “At night sometimes,” he began. “She—your mother—would yell at someone she called Betty.”
“She was yelling at herself, Mr. Trent. Did you never notice that my mother is nutty as a fruitcake?”
He thought about the midnight yelling, the way she would sometimes spontaneously burst into show tunes while watering the plastic plants on her front porch. These things had not struck Will as particularly odd, especially considering the eccentricities of the neighborhood. It was hard to stick out on a street that had six hippies living in a one-bedroom, rainbow-colored house; an abandoned Weiner Mobile up on blocks in front of a Mennonite church; and a six-foot-four functional illiterate who walked a toy dog on a hot pink leash.
The woman had a staple gun, which she used to attach what looked like a homemade For Sale By Owner sign to the wooden stake. “There,” she said. “That should do it.” She turned back to Will. “Somebody will come by in a day or so to clear out the house.”
“Oh.”
She slid her shoe back on, then threw the stapler into her car.
“Wait,” Will said.
She got in her car anyway, rolling down the window as she cranked the engine. “What is it?”
“The dog,” he said, holding up Betty—if, indeed, that was her real name. “What should I do with her?”
“I don’t care,” she answered, her lip curling up again as she looked at the dog. “Mother couldn’t stand the little rat.”
“She told me to brush it,” he said, as if this would alter her memory.
“She probably said to flush it.”
“But—”
The woman turned shrill. “Oh, for the love of God, just take her to the pound!”
She glanced over her shoulder then backed straight out of the driveway, nearly running over a passing jogger. Both men watched as the car careened into the street, sideswiping Will’s trashcan.
The jogger smiled at Will, asking, “Bad day?”
“Yeah.” Will wasn’t as polite as he should have been, but he had bigger issues to deal with at the moment.
He looked down at Betty. She leaned her head against his chest, her bug eyes half-closed in ecstasy, tongue lolled to the side, as she stared back up at him. If she had been a cat, she would have purred.
“Crap,” he muttered, heading back toward his house.
He remembered what the woman had said, could still hear her screeching voice ringing in his ears. Inside, he put Betty down and she skittered across the floor, jumped on the couch and settled in on her usual cushion.
Will closed the front door with a heavy sigh. A man who has grown up in an orphanage cannot take a dog to the pound.
Even if it is a Chihuahua.