Arthur looked down at the file, his face showing nothing.
“The insurance company is still reviewing the fire report,” he said.
He did not offer any details about how long that review would take.
The rain started just before five, a sudden downpour that turned the gravel driveway into a grey river.
I sat on the wooden floor of Vicky’s bedroom, my back resting against the frame of her twin bed.
The room was dark, lit only by the pale streetlamp outside the window.
Vicky lay on her side, her face buried in the blue plush dog.
“Luke?” she whispered.
“I am here,” I said, rubbing the burn scar on my wrist.
“Is Aunt Clara going to take me to the brick house?”
A sudden crack of thunder shook the thin walls of the duplex, making the windowpane rattle in its wooden frame.
“No,” I said. “We will manage, Vicky, I promise you we will.”
But the sound of the rain lashing against the thin windowpane of Vicky’s bedroom was the only answer that came.
The gravel in our driveway had not dried yet when Aunt Clara’s Buick LeSabre pulled up at nine o’clock. Its cracked windshield had a silver line of moisture sealed along the edge, catching the grey morning light.
She carried a heavy cardboard box of secondhand clothes, holding it high against her chest so it did not touch her long wool coat.
“I brought some things for Vicky,” she said, stepping past me into the kitchen without waiting to be invited. “Some of these belonged to my girls when they were small, my darling girl.”
She set the box on our kitchen table, right next to the loaf of sandwich bread I had left out.
Vicky did not look up from her corner of the living room. She was sitting on the faded rug, her small blue plush dog tucked securely under her arm, her eyes fixed on the empty television screen.
Clara watched her for a moment, her fingers adjusting the heavy gold watch on her left wrist.
“It is very damp in here, Luke,” she said, her voice dropping into that sweet, heavy tone she used whenever she wanted me to agree with her. “A young girl should not be breathing this air. It smells like old basement.”
“We will manage,” I said, rubbing the pink burn scar on my left wrist.
“You always say that,” she said, walking to the counter and sliding her finger along the laminate as if checking for dust. “But managing is not the same as giving her a real home on Crestwood Lane. She needs a mother, Luke, not a nineteen-year-old boy who is barely keeping his own head above water.”
She adjusted her wool coat, her gold watch catching the yellow bulb of our stove hood.
“I have to open the boutique by ten,” she said, gathering her black leather purse from the chair. “But I will be back to check on you both later.”
