A ray of sunlight snuck through the side of the curtain and pierced Casey’s eye. She groaned, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t work. She opened her eyes all the way and saw the clock. She sat up. “Ten-thirty!”
She lay back down, her head swimming. The smell of something delicious hovered in the air around her. Bread? Sausage? She couldn’t quite tell. Her stomach rumbled.
“Okay, okay.”
She pushed down the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed, giving a huge yawn. Rubbing her face, she walked over to the window and flung open the curtain. A sunny day. No clouds. Just the blue sky against the changing leaves.
Letting the curtains fall back, she examined the room. She was alone. For the moment. She turned back around and hooked the curtains onto the side knobs, allowing the sunlight to fill the room. She did the same with the window on the opposite wall. See if Death could compete with that.
She’d always loved Saturday mornings. Nowhere to go. No pressing agenda. She and Reuben had spent most Saturdays sleeping in, waking to a morning of cozy lovemaking, and cooking up a batch of pancakes afterward, which they’d more often than not eaten on their porch, in the shade of the old maple tree. That changed with Omar, of course. Then it became a game of whose turn it was to get up before dawn with their overeager morning person. That trait couldn’t possibly have been genetic.
Knowing it was a mistake, Casey went to the wardrobe and pulled out her backpack. Unzipping the inside pocket, she reached in and pulled out the meager contents. The little cap was as soft as a newborn, striped with skinny pink and blue lines against the white background. Tiny, like Omar’s head the day they’d brought him home from the hospital. She held it to her cheek. It didn’t smell like baby shampoo anymore. Now it smelled like musty camping gear and damp canvas.
The ring hadn’t changed. Hooked onto a chain, the gold of the symbol—Reuben’s promise to love her forever—shone in the morning light, on top of the penny-sized sun. Casey held the chain and its charms in her palm and closed her fingers, squeezing, the metal edges biting into her skin.
She shivered and placed the treasures back in the pocket. Out of sight.
She closed the wardrobe and stood with her head against the wooden door. It took so much work to breathe. To stand. To think about what was next.
What happened next was her morning workout, a shower, and a quick clean-up of the room, including making the bed. Once those chores were done, there was really nothing else to keep her upstairs.
“Well, if it isn’t the sleepyhead!” Rosemary sat at the kitchen table in a bathrobe of royal blue. Fuzzy yellow slippers stuck out from beneath the housecoat, and her hair, now combed, looked less like a circus act than it had during the night, and more like the hairdo of an eccentric middle-aged woman. Half-glasses perched on her nose, she held the morning paper in front of her.
“Hungry, dear?” Lillian stood at the stove, bacon sizzling in the skillet.
“Actually, yes.”
“Good.” She set a plate in front of Casey and proceeded to load it with toast, eggs, and meat, followed by a large glass of orange juice.
Casey took a drink. “Is Eric still sleeping?”
“Oh, heavens no.” Lillian laughed. “He’s long gone. Left a note saying he was off somewhere or other foraging for food. Not that we wouldn’t have fed him.”
“Did he call Ellen’s daughter?”
Rosemary didn’t look up from the newspaper. “Yes. The key isn’t hers.”
Not the news they’d been hoping for.
Casey took a bite of egg and chewed while she considered what Lillian had said. “Eric’s foraging for Home Sweet Home? I thought he was planning on serving pizza again tonight.”
“I don’t know, hon,” Lillian said, pouring a cup of coffee. “He didn’t say.”
“Well, I guess I’ll find out tonight at supper.” She froze, a forkful of eggs halfway to her mouth.
“What?” Lillian stood beside her, coffee pot halted mid-pour.
“Home Sweet Home. There are lockers there. For the staff. Lockers that have actual locks.”
Rosemary inhaled sharply. “They would fit the key?”
“They might. Ellen worked there with Eric, right?”
“She did.” Lillian sat on the third chair, then bounced up again. “I’ll call Eric.”
She talked with him briefly, then hung up. “He’s on his way.”
“To Home Sweet Home?”
“Yes.”
Casey looked at her full plate.
“You eat that, honey, and then one of us can take you over.”
Casey did eat it, but refused a ride. Instead, she grabbed the Schwinn and rode. Eric’s car was already parked behind Home Sweet Home, and the back door was open. Casey left her bike leaning against the wall and went in.
“Eric?”
There was no reply, so she walked through the kitchen to the locker room. Eric stood staring at the lockers. Only one sported a lock. He didn’t turn when she came in.
Casey stepped up beside him. “You going to open it?”
“I was waiting for you. Mom called to say you were coming, and I thought…it would be easier with you here.”
Casey shuddered. She had been alone when she had found Reuben’s stash. She’d been going through the garage, looking for the Pegasus car manual, several months after the accident. She hadn’t thought it had been in the car. If it had been, it had been turned into so much ash. So she checked the cupboards in the garage. She hadn’t found the manual. But she’d found other things. Car parts, of course. Tools. Nails and screws. Old paint. Ratty tennis balls.
And Reuben’s hiding place. An innocuous five-gallon bucket.
The first thing she’d seen had been the letters. Shaking, she’d pulled them out, only to find they held her handwriting. She’d gazed at them with disbelief. Every letter—every note—she’d ever written to him. Rubber-banded in a thick stack. Following those were the souvenirs. Ticket stubs, concert programs, take-out menus. And photos. Some photos she’d never seen. Of her, mostly. Photos she hadn’t even known he’d taken. Snapshots of her with Omar. Cooking. Mowing the lawn. Even sleeping.
And one from before she’d even met him.
She’d gone cold.
A photo of her, sitting outside her dojang. She still wore her Dobak, so it must have been between sessions. She sat on the little patch of grass, her legs underneath her in the butterfly position, her face tilted toward the sun. She’d known right away the photo was from before they’d met, because he’d given her a necklace on their first date, the day following the church social where he’d approached her, saying she was meant to be with him. She’d felt the same, and had put on the necklace with the sun charm the moment he’d given it to her, taking it off only in the shower.
She wasn’t wearing it in the photo.
Digging deeper into the bucket she’d found other surprises. Photos of an aging couple, their brown skin wrinkled, mouths missing teeth. Other people, all with Reuben’s skin and black hair, but their surroundings of dirt, sun, and adobe huts.
Letters, all in Spanish. From Mexico.
Casey had closed the bucket then. Had stumbled back into the house, where Ricky had grabbed her and led her to the couch. Had finally cried the tears that had so far been evasive.
Reuben’s family was dead. He’d told her so. No parents. No siblings. She was his only family. And then Omar. It was just the three of them—
“I’m a little afraid of what’s in there,” Eric said.
Casey swallowed.
“You’re not going anywhere, right?” His voice shook.
She hesitated to answer.
“I mean, right this minute.”
“No. No, I’m not going anywhere now.”
“Okay.” He stepped forward, withdrawing the key from his pocket. “Here goes nothing.” He slid the key into the lock, and turned it. The lock popped open. He stood looking at it, his hand on the bottom half, not turning it away. His shoulders went up. Then down. He glanced over his shoulder at Casey. She tried to look encouraging.
“I wish he’d just open it.”
Casey shrieked, and jumped away from Death.
“What?” Eric jerked away from the locker. “What is it?”
Casey turned away, her hands on her hips, trying to catch her breath. “Nothing. It’s fine. I thought…I saw a rat.”
“A rat? In here?” Eric turned in a circle, hands up and out, as if a rat was going to jump out at him.
“I was wrong,” Casey said. “There’s no rat. It was, just a…just a shadow. A trick of the light.”
“Oh. Well.” He put a hand over his heart. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry.”
He shook his head and turned back to the locker. Casey glared at Death, who’d adopted an innocent look and munched on some dark chocolate M&Ms from a king-sized bag.
Eric squared his shoulders, wrenched the lock from the locker, and flung open the door. They stared.
Casey stepped closer. “What are they?”
“I don’t know.” Death peered over her shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Eric said. “Parts for something.”
Two little pieces, one white plastic tube-like part with a small metal tab on its flat end, and the other, also of white plastic, that looked like an oversized and flattened nail.
“Something from the plant?” Casey asked.
“I would think so.”
They stared at them some more, until Eric picked them up and pulled them out. He walked with them out to the kitchen and set them on the counter. He turned them this way and that, but nothing made it clear what exactly they were.
“Are there serial numbers?”
He shrugged. “Don’t see one. That wouldn’t help me, anyway. I don’t see these things enough to be able to identify them.”
“Your computer?”
“It would have a list, but like I said, there’s no number.”
Death had found an empty spot on the counter, and was shaking out the last pieces of the candy. Casey looked over and made a subtle gesture at the plastic pieces, but Death shrugged, obviously unaccustomed to—or uninterested in—appliance parts.
“So how do we find out?” Eric asked. “I can’t exactly march into HomeMaker and ask around. Ellen hid them here for a reason.”
Casey scooped an empty pasta box out of the trash. “Put them in here.”
“And we’ll take them to HomeMaker?”
“Nope. We’re taking them down the street to our own private mechanic.”