Chapter 25
Suspicions
They arrived at the New Day Rehabilitation Center a little before noon. “This place is nice,” Parker said as he held the lobby door.
Scout carefully signed them in at the front desk and handed Parker a visitor’s pass. “Yes. It’s a shame Pearl doesn’t see it for what it’s worth.”
He pinned the visitor’s badge on the lapel of his tweed jacket and offered a sad smile. His hand gently coasted over the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “She will . . . eventually. It takes time.”
Scout led them down the long corridor. Doors were decorated with bunnies and cutouts of colorful flowers. She envied the childlike decorations because they reminded her of what a grade school might look like, although she had never attended school.
Pearl’s door was open, and they found her sitting in a chair by the window in her room. “Momma?”
She turned. Her complexion was so much more alive than it had been in the years past. “Scout.” Pearl smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her face was a bit fuller. She no longer looked the eighty pounds she had been when they admitted her.
Parker stepped in behind her. “Hi, Pearl.”
At this, her mother’s eyes lit. “Parker! My, my, you looking good. What brings you here?”
“I came with Scout.”
Pearl looked back to her. “Where’s that other man?”
“Lucian isn’t here.”
“Good. I don’t much like him. He bosses me and I don’t like to be bossed.”
Scout shot Parker a quelling look when he snickered. “How are you feeling, Momma?”
“Old. I wanna go home.”
Scout sat on the clinical-looking bed dressed in bleached linens. She should probably see about getting her mother some colorful blankets. “I’m working on it. I’ve moved into a new place.”
“I don’t see what there is to work on. I gots a home. Never needed no invitation to go home before.”
“Momma, you can’t go back to the mill. We’re going to get a new home, as soon as I save enough money. You’ll have your own room and we’ll make it our own like we never had before.”
Pearl crossed her arms over her narrow chest and made a rude noise. It was nice seeing her dressed in put-together clothing that fit her body and matched. “I don’t need no fancy home. I got my own stuff. Or I used to until that bossy man stole it all.”
“Lucian didn’t steal your stuff, Momma. Whatever was salvageable is here.”
She shook her head and mumbled, “There ain’t shit here that belongs to me.”
Parker sat beside her. Scout picked up a brochure resting on the bed tray. There was a picture of flowers and writing on it. “What’s this?”
Pearl shrugged unknowingly. Parker took the pamphlet.
“It’s an activity schedule. Pearl, do you do these things? They have art classes and pottery. That sounds like fun.”
“What am I gonna do with art classes, Parker? I don’t want to hang out with those people. The nurses all talk to me like I’m four.”
He put the pamphlet down. He might as well throw it away. Pearl would rather stew in her room than socialize with people she thought were better than her. She would never ask someone to read it to her, and Pearl could only read street signs with pictures.
“How are you feeling, Momma?”
Her mother’s gaze drilled into hers. “Achy. Hungry.”
“Did you eat?”
“They’ll be bringing me lunch soon. Made me go see a dentist. I got teeth pulled and thems is sending me out to get some new teeth.”
Scout knew immediately this was not a perk offered by the center, but something Lucian had arranged. Dental work cost a fortune. She had gone to the dentist for the first time that winter and had a cavity filled. Pearl’s teeth—the few she had left—were in bad shape from doing so many drugs.
“You’ll look beautiful with a new smile, Momma.”
“What’s I got to smile for, Scout? Use your head.”
Parker looked uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “Scout got a new job, Pearl. She’s working at Clemons Market now.”
“That man finally stop paying you?”
Scout’s cheeks flushed. Anger surfaced hot and tense under her skin. “He wasn’t paying me. I just worked for his company for a time.”
She laughed coldly. “You giving him some and he buying you stuff . . . it’s all the same.”
She couldn’t bear to look at Parker. Her eyes prickled. How was she supposed to convince herself that she’d been more that Lucian’s glorified whore if her own mother didn’t believe her?
“Lucian and I broke up.”
“He find someone else?”
Scout’s jaw trembled. “Maybe,” she rasped.
The weight of Parker’s hand on her arm was a comforting presence. He squeezed and she met his gaze. She found sympathy swirling in his green eyes. “He’ll never find anyone as good as you,” he softly whispered, surprising her. She smiled back, sadly.
“Now that you ain’t with that rich man no more I suppose I’ll be leaving here.”
Scout turned back to her mother. “No, Momma. You can stay as long as you’d like.”
“I’d like to have left yesterday.”
Again, she bit her tongue, not wanting Pearl to know the choice to stay or go was hers. She quickly changed the subject. “I’m living with Parker for a while.”
Pearl smiled at that. “You two finally saw some sense.”
He lowered his head and Scout saw color chase up his neck. “No, Momma, it’s not like that. Parker and I are just friends.”
“So says you. Parker looks like he might disagree.”
“Momma!”
“It’s okay, Scout,” Parker quickly said.
Her gaze jerked to his. Her expression tightened as she gave him a pointed look, waiting for him to correct Pearl’s assumption. When he didn’t, she frowned.
Scout stared at him, a world of questions swirling through her mind, Lucian’s accusations about Parker’s feelings front and center. No. They were friends.
“Parker . . .” She shook her head.
He smiled softly and squeezed her hand. The motion carried more affection than she was comfortable with. All of his casual touches over the past few days seemed to have accumulated into a heap of confusion she kept sweeping to the back of her mind.
She withdrew her hand and stood, moving to the window so she could look anywhere but at him. Pearl said something and she vaguely heard Parker’s voice as he replied. Scout frowned as she stared through the glass. They were friends. Only friends.
They stayed with Pearl for about an hour. Scout’s head was a mess with questions. He couldn’t like her like that. Their history was too long, too comfortable, and intimacy only spoiled simple affection. And she loved Lucian.
Although Lucian left her. She needed to stop thinking about him in terms of still being a part of her life. She was better off going back to her old way of thinking, when she didn’t love anybody. But no matter how she tried to turn off her emotions for Lucian, she couldn’t.
As they took a cab back to the apartment, she thought about last night. Had she really called him? She dug through her bag in search for her phone. It was so painfully telling that he hadn’t called her back.
“What are you looking for?” Parker asked from beside her.
“My phone.”
His expression blanked and he turned away as she pulled it out. Her finger ran over the screen, but nothing happened. “That’s weird.” She tried to turn it on again. When it didn’t work, she grew frustrated. It had been on the charger all night.
She hit the main power button and held it, but nothing happened. “What the fuck?”
Parker faced her. “Not working?”
“No. I can’t even get it to turn on.”
“Those phones are temperamental. Maybe you need to get a new one.”
She continued to hit the button, but nothing happened. She opened the back of the phone and slid out the battery and popped it back in. Nothing. “Damn it!”
She tossed it angrily back in her bag. Great. A horrible thought crossed her mind. What if Lucian tried to reach her and couldn’t? Not that he would call her, but if he wanted to for some reason . . . The phone was under his name. She couldn’t get another one on the same account. It was stupid, but not having that phone felt like her last lifeline to him was severed. She wasn’t ready for that yet.
“Can we stop at a phone store?”
Parker glanced at her. His lips parted and he hesitated. “Why don’t you just wait a few days and see if it fixes itself? Maybe the charger wasn’t working.”
Maybe, but she’d feel better if someone who knew what they were doing checked it. “I’d rather just take it to a professional. It shouldn’t cost anything for someone to just look.”
His expression was placid as he nodded. Parker directed the driver to a phone store near their place. When they arrived, there was a young guy named Brett at the counter, who looked at the phone. He removed the back and frowned. “This phone’s gotten wet.”
“What? That’s impossible. I never keep it anywhere near water.”
He flipped open the back panel. “See this patch—how it’s red? That tells us if it’s been near water. That’s really red. It looks like this phone’s been submerged in water.”
“I didn’t get my phone wet,” she gritted. It had to be something else.
The clerk shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do. Once a phone’s been soaked like this, it’s junk.”
“But how can that be?”
“Sorry. If you give me your account number I can see what kind of plan you had. If it was insured I can get you a replacement so there isn’t an interruption in service.”
She didn’t know the account number. Frustration choked her. She felt completely cut off from Lucian.
With a shaky hand, she took the phone. “That’s okay. I’ll just take it anyway. Maybe it will start working again if it dries out.”
“Oh, it won’t work again. It’s dry. The damage is done.”
She knew that, she just couldn’t seem to accept it. Taking the phone, she dropped it into her bag. Her eyes prickled with tears.
“Do you want to get a new phone? Set up a new number?” Parker asked. He wouldn’t understand. Having a phone wasn’t the point. She wanted this phone, in case Lucian needed her.
Fuck! She didn’t even know his cell phone number. Everything was gone.
She shook her head. Her eyes frantically blinked. “That’s okay. Let’s just go home.”
Parker kept glancing at her as they walked home. “I’m sorry about your phone.”
She shrugged. “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”
They walked in silence back to the apartment, neither of them feeling much like talking.