“What other signs does Ellie understand?” Caden asks me from the front seat on our way to collect my things.
I look between Caden and Kyle, wondering how I ever got so lucky—how Ellie got so lucky—to have two accepting men in her life. Grant would never be happy with her. He’d insist she get the implant. He probably wouldn’t even bother to learn sign language. He would no doubt make her feel like less of a person.
“I know for sure that she understands milk, eat, more, all done, and no. I’m working on sleep, dog, cat and mom. But mom is hard since I’m referring to myself.”
Kyle glances back at me. “Maybe we can help with that, what’s the sign for mom?”
With my fingers spread open, I tap my thumb to my chin and show him. Then I watch him sign it back to me and my heart melts.
“When do you think she’ll start signing back?” Caden asks.
I shrug. “Who knows? She’s six-and-a-half months old and I’ve been signing to her since I found out she couldn’t hear. I know they say it’s pointless to sign to a baby younger than four months old, but it just felt wrong speaking to her knowing she couldn’t hear me. Even if I was only doing it for me, at least I felt like I was communicating with her on her terms.”
“Do you know a lot of signs?” Kyle asks, turning his head to speak to me.
“Yes, I pretty much know all of them,” I say and sign at the same time.
Kyle turns around in his seat. “You know all of them?” he asks.
“I’ve been practicing for six months, Kyle. Sometimes four or five hours a day. There isn’t much else to do in the country, you know. It’s not like I’m proficient at it or anything. I’m still kind of slow, but I’m improving every day.”
“In case you haven’t figured it out by now, my sister is pretty much a genius,” Caden says, with a proud smile. “Maybe now you’ll get to use those awesome brains of yours, Lexi. You know, get a real job like you always wanted?”
“Maybe,” I say, gazing out the window, knowing it’s anything but true. I can’t get any sort of meaningful job. Not if I want to remain anonymous.
After riding in Caden’s truck for more than an hour, we come up on the train station where I left my car.
“What should I do about my car?” I ask them. “I parked it there and took the train into the city.”
“You have a car?” Caden asks. “How?”
“It’s not a nice car,” I tell them. “I bought it for five hundred dollars off a nice old man who owns the corner grocery. Turn here,” I say, seeing my street.
“I’ve got GPS, Lexi,” Caden reminds me.
Of course he does. I sometimes forget about GPS, what with my twenty-one-year-old car that doesn’t even have working air conditioning.
Kyle looks back at me. “How did you buy a car without identification?”
“I gave him cash and explained I didn’t have enough left to pay for the tag, so he let me keep his tag that he had recently renewed. I guess I just figured I’d deal with it later.”
“What if you’d gotten pulled over or been in an accident?” Kyle asks.
“I only drove it when necessary. To Ellie’s doctor. To a big box store once every few months. We pretty much walked everywhere when the weather allowed. And we stayed at home if it didn’t.”
“We’ll take care of the car,” Caden says.
A few minutes later, Caden pulls into the driveway of my cozy little cottage. It needs a paint job. One of the shutters is falling off its hinge. And the yard is in terrible disarray. But it’s been home for over six months.
“How can you afford this, Lex?” Kyle asks, getting out of the truck.
“Do you remember how I told you I’d be okay, that I still had something to sell?”
He nods.
Then Caden says, “Your engagement ring.”
“Yes.”
“I always wondered if it was real,” he says.
“It was. And he never let me forget it.”
Caden shakes his head in disgust. “I should have paid more attention. I was so stupid. So focused on playing baseball that I let him . . .”
“You didn’t let him do anything, Caden,” I say, pulling Ellie from her car seat. “If anyone is at fault here, it’s me. I knew what he was doing to me was wrong. Yet I stayed. I have no one to blame but myself.”
Kyle kicks a rock across my yard. “I’d say there’s no one to blame but that bastard who calls himself a man.”
“Hey there, Miss Elizabeth,” Mrs. Peabody says, coming over from the main house next door. “Who are these fine-looking gentlemen you’ve brought with you today?”
Kyle holds his hand out in greeting. ‘I’m—”
“Joe,” I say, interrupting his introduction. “These are my brothers, Joe and John. And this is Mrs. Peabody. She rents me her guest house.”
Mrs. Peabody giggles. “Joe, John, and Elizabeth Smith. Your parents sure were simple folk, huh?”
“That they were,” Kyle says. “At least they didn’t name us after adult film entertainers.”
I cover my laugh and elbow him in the ribs.
Mrs. Peabody laughs at the joke she doesn’t understand.
“Well, Mrs. Peabody, we’ve convinced our sister to move back to Ne—”
“Nevada,” I say, glaring at Caden. “I’m moving back home to Las Vegas.”
I’ve had over a year to perfect my ability to lie to people on the spot. It comes naturally to me now. But Kyle and Caden—they don’t have a clue how harmful revealing even small, seemingly inconsequential details could be. Regular people might overlook that kind of stuff. Cops don’t. Grant wouldn’t.
“Oh, how delightful,” Mrs. Peabody says. “It will be nice for you and little Ellie to live close to family. But, oh, how I will miss this adorable face.” She pinches Ellie’s cheeks.
“Yes. I’m looking forward to it,” I say, looking at Kyle.
“Mrs. Peabody, how much does Elizabeth owe you for the rest of her lease?” Caden asks.
“Oh, I couldn’t ask her to pay six month’s rent. No, no. She is such a good girl. Always keeping to herself, but bringing me pies or cookies every Sunday.”
“How much is your rent, Elizabeth?” Kyle asks.
“Four hundred,” I say.
Caden gets out his wallet and pulls out a bunch of hundreds. He leans over to Kyle. “I’m a little shy, can you spot me?”
They pool their money and hand Mrs. Peabody a wad of bills that makes her eyes bug out.
“Like Elizabeth, we keep to ourselves,” Kyle says. “We like our privacy and we hope you’ll respect that if anyone ever comes around asking questions.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Peabody says, practically drooling over the stack of hundreds in her hand.
“It won’t take long to get our stuff,” I tell her. “I’ll leave the key on the counter when we’re done.”
Mrs. Peabody leans down to kiss Ellie and then she pulls me in for a hug. “You are the best tenant I’ve ever had. I will miss you.”
“We’ll miss you, too, Mrs. Peabody. Thank you.”
She walks back to her house, shaking her head at the wad of money in her hand. I imagine her walking to her kitchen and putting it in a coffee tin in her cupboard.
“I don’t have much,” I tell them. “The house came furnished. It’s just our clothes and Ellie’s crib and a few other things.”
Caden pulls the boxes he brought out of the bed of his truck and we walk up the porch steps.
“I’ll pay you back, Kyle. How much did you give her?”
“You don’t have to do that, Elizabeth.” He curses under his breath. “Lexi.”
“I do. I still have some money left from selling the ring.”
“You do?” he asks, looking surprised.
“It was a nice ring,” I say.
He studies me. “Where did you sell it?”
“At a place down the street from the hospital.”
He nods. “That must be why Grant came looking for you there. After he found out where you sold the ring, he probably cased the entire neighborhood surrounding the pawn shop. Maybe he’d been circulating pictures of you or your ring to pawn shops since you went missing, hoping to track you down.”
“I knew he probably would. It’s why I left the city after I sold it. I knew he never believed I was abducted. He knew I ran away from him. But he couldn’t tell anyone that. They’d ask too many questions.”
Ellie starts to fuss. “Milk?” I sign.
That makes her happy, so I tell the guys what they can box up before I excuse myself to my bedroom to feed her.
I look around the room that has been my home for the past six months. It was quiet here. It was safe. But it was lonely.
I look down at Ellie. Everything I’ve done is to protect her. Am I risking too much going back? He knows I’m there now. He’s probably watching Caden. Maybe he even followed us and knows we’re here.
What kind of mother puts her own child at risk for love?
I stare at the door and think of who is on the other side.
Maybe the kind of mother who wants her child to see what real men are. What real love is.
And maybe, just maybe, some risks are worth taking.