Sorry about that,” Chelsea says, grabbing a block that was kicked across the floor during the skirmish and handing it to the toddler. Next she walks back to the stove, dumping a heap of chopped greens from a colander into the boiling pot. Her movements are effortlessly graceful, and I wonder if she’s a dancer. “You started to tell me about Rory?”
“Right. He—”
But of course I don’t get to tell her. That would be too easy.
Instead I’m cut off by the appearance of a young boy walking through the kitchen door—a boy with Rory’s face. He’s slightly thinner, a little taller, with round, wire-rimmed Harry Potter glasses perched on his nose.
I can’t keep the horror out of my tone. “There’s two of him?”
Chelsea grins. “If that’s your way of asking if Rory has a twin, then the answer is yes.”
“I see you’ve met my brother,” the boy says, apparently used to this reaction. “Don’t judge me just because we share the same DNA. You’ve heard the term ‘evil genius’?”
“Yeah.”
“Rory’s the evil. I’m the genius.”
“How many kids live in this house exactly?” I ask the aunt.
It’s starting to feel like they’re cockroaches—see one, and you can bet there’s fifty more crawling around inside the walls. I shiver at the thought.
“Six.”
Six? I’m guessing Robert McQuaid didn’t have many hobbies.
The boy retrieves a black skateboard from the corner and tells his aunt, “I’m going to Walter’s next door.”
“Okay. Make sure you put your helmet on, Raymond.”
The kid groans. “It makes me look like a dork.”
“And when you’re in a coma after fracturing your skull on the pavement, you think you’ll look . . . cool?”
Rory’s smartassness is obviously genetic.
“No,” Raymond whines. “It’s just . . .” He turns to me. “You’re a guy—you understand what I mean. Explain it to her.”
“Yes”—Chelsea crosses her arms—“explain to me how having a penis excuses you from the laws of gravity.”
“Oh my god!” Raymond hisses, his ears and cheeks blooming fire-engine red. “Don’t say that.”
“What?” She looks from him to me. “What’d I say?”
I shrug because I have no fucking clue.
“Penis?” she guesses.
And Raymond does a fabulous impression of a tomato. “Oh my god! You’re so humiliating!” He grabs his skateboard and flees.
“Helmet, Raymond!” Chelsea calls. “Or that skateboard will be roasting in the fireplace tonight!”
She looks at me with a sigh and a smile. “It’s the little joys that get me through the day.”
And I have the urge to laugh. Chelsea’s not only hot, she’s . . . entertaining, too.
She moves back to the stove and starts to lift the heavy gargantuan pot, and I quickly step closer and take it from her hands. “I got it.”
“Thank you.” She directs me to a ceramic bowl on the counter and I carefully pour the hot broth, with its white chunks and strips of green, into the bowl. Then we stand just inches apart, those crystal-blue beauties fixed on me.
“So . . . how did you meet my nephew, Mr. Becker?”
I give it to her straight, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “He stole my wallet, Chelsea. Right on the street. Bumped into me, slipped his hand in my pocket, and then took off.”
Her eyes slide closed and her shoulders hunch. “Oh.” After a moment, she rubs her forehead, then lifts her chin and looks up at me. “I am so, so sorry.”
I wave my hand. “It’s okay.”
Her voice goes soft, with a ring of sorrow. “He’s taken it really hard. I mean, they all have, of course, but Rory is just so . . .”
“Angry,” I say, finishing for her.
She nods. “Yeah. Angry.” Her voice drops, a trace of hurt seeping in. “Especially at me. It’s like . . . he resents me. Because I’m here and they’re not.”
“How old are you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Twenty-six.”
“Do you have any help? Your parents? Friends?”
Rosaleen walks back into the kitchen as her aunt shakes her head. “My parents passed away a few years ago. All my friends are back in California. I was in grad school there . . . before . . .”
Her voice trails off, eyes on her niece as she grabs a stack of plates from the counter.
“When I first moved in, I called an agency for a part-time nanny, but—”
“But she was a bitch,” Rosaleen interjects.
“Hey!” Chelsea’s head turns sharply. “Don’t talk like that.”
“That’s what Riley said.”
“Well, don’t you say it.”
As soon as the girl walks out to set the table, Chelsea turns to me. “She was a bitch. I wouldn’t leave Cousin It with her, never mind the kids.”
“What about social services?”
She shakes her head. “Our social worker is nice, she tries to help, but there’s all this administrative stuff. Required checklists and meetings, surprise inspections and interviews, sometimes it feels like they’re just waiting for me to mess up. Like they don’t think I can do it.”
“Can you?” I ask softly.
And those gorgeous eyes burn with determination. “I have to. They’re all I have left.”
“You mean, you’re all they have left,” I correct her.
Her shoulder lifts and there’s an exquisite sadness in her smile. “That, too.”
I rub the back of my neck. “You should get the kid in therapy, Chelsea.”
Normally I wouldn’t suggest such a thing, but Brent’s kind of made a believer out of me. Particularly when it comes to childhood traumas. He swears that if he’d had to deal with the loss of his leg without therapy, he would’ve ended up a miserable, raging alcoholic.
“I know.” She adjusts the fuck-me glasses. “It’s on the list. As soon as I get a minute to research it, I’ll find a good therapist for all of them.”
“The list?” I ask.
She points to the refrigerator, where a magnet holds a handwritten list of about a thousand items. “My sister-in-law, Rachel, was the ultimate multitasker. And she had a list for everything. So I started one too. Those are all the things I have to do, as soon as possible.”
A to-do list that never gets smaller—that may be my new definition of hell.
“Okay.” I did what I came for. Now he’s her problem—they’re all her problem. Not mine. “Well, I should get going.”
Her head tilts and a delicate wisp of hair falls across her cheek. “Thank you so much for bringing him home. For not pressing charges. I . . . would you like to stay for dinner? I feel like it’s the least I could do.”
I glance at the bowl. “What are you having?”
“Miso soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Sounds like something they serve in prison to cut down on costs.
“No thanks. I have some work to finish up . . . and I’m more of a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.”
Chelsea walks with me out of the kitchen toward the front door. “Well, thank you again, Mr. Becker.”
We pause, facing each other on the shiny black-and-white-tiled foyer floor. And I feel four sets of eyes on the landing above us—watching, listening, burning holes in the back of my head.
But—screw it—why not?
I slip a business card from my wallet. “Here’s my card.” Chelsea takes it, looking down at the raised black print, stroking her fingertip against one corner. “If you have a free night, want to grab some dinner, a drink or . . . something . . .”
The oldest girl—the one who hates her family—lets out a short snort of disbelief. “Did you just ask her out on a date?”
I keep my eyes on Chelsea’s face. “Yeah—I did.”
And her cheeks turn the loveliest shade of pink.
Then it’s blond Shirley Temple’s turn. “But you’re so old!”
I tear my eyes from Chelsea’s blush to blast the kid with a grumpy brow.
“I’m thirty.”
The grumpy brow fails to intimidate.
“Thirty!” Her hands go to her hips. “Do you have grandchildren?”
A laugh bubbles in my chest but doesn’t make it past my lips. This kid’s a piece of work.
“Thirty is not old enough to have grandchildren, Rosaleen,” Chelsea explains. Her attention swings back to me and her voice drops lower. “I doubt I’ll have a free night any time soon, but . . . it’s nice to be asked.”
“Right.” I nod. “Good night, Chelsea.” A fleeting look at the four peering faces has me adding, “And . . . good luck.”
She’s definitely going to need it.
