Free Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott

and for once we didn't leave right away. We stayed and she checked the
papers every day. It took a week and an overzealous housekeeper looking for
something to do before anyone noticed the silver was gone. It got a paragraph
in the paper and nothing more, didn't even make it onto the front page. Silver
gone, burglary suspected, insurance claim filed. End of story.
    "Silver," Mom told me, said the word like it was magic,
and ever since it's ruled her. Ruled us. It's easy enough to find if you know
where to look, and
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    it's not high-profile enough to attract a lot of public attention.
And anything that isn't high-profile is always easier to fence.
    Because of silver I can pry the molding off a window without
making a sound. I know how to test for plate even though I don't usually need
to. I can drive a car, climb into a house, deal with growling dogs. I know
exactly how much your average nineteenth-century tea service weighs--in troy ounces,
even--and how many pieces it has.
    For silver I learned to read, write, work numbers. For silver I
learned the names of every plantation from Virginia to Florida. I can tell you
which ones we've visited, which ones we want to, which ones we never will. I
can tell you how to find someone's house no matter where it is. I can tell you
what to do if there is silver inside.
    The story of my life can be told in silver: in chocolate mills,
serving spoons, and services for twelve. The story of my life has nothing to do
with me. The story of my life is things. Things that aren't mine, that won't
ever be mine. It's all I've ever known.
    I wish it wasn't.
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    I can't stay here. I want to, want to eat hamburgers and talk
about the beach. I want to help Allison plan ways to see Brad again. I want to
be just like everyone else, but I can't because I'm not. I won't ever be.
    I walk back to the house. Allison catches up to me as I'm heading
for the door.
    "Are you sneaking out?" She laughs. "I promise,
despite the production with the grill--you really should have seen it--dinner
will be edible. Daddy's just allowed to light it. Our cook wouldn't actually
let him cook anything."
    "I'm not feeling very well." I feel bad for her, for how
she's standing there so trusting, so ... so secure in what she knows, so sure
of what she sees. I envy her. I wish I could feel that way, have that kind of
life.
    "Oh no," Allison says. "Do you need anything? Do
you want me to drive you home? Let me just grab my keys and -- "
    I shake my head. "Tell everyone I said good-bye, okay?"
My voice is so level, so polite.
    "Okay," Allison says, puzzled-sounding. She calls out,
"Bye, Sydney!" as I'm heading down the driveway. I don't turn around.
It's not me she's calling. It's
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    just a name, a name belonging to someone she thinks she knows.
Someone who doesn't really exist.
    Mom isn't back when I get home. I cry in the shower anyway, habit.
Mom doesn't like it when I cry. When I was a kid she'd look at me, bewildered
and then impatient if I didn't stop. Older, and she'd ask me why I was crying,
listen to me sob out an explanation, and then say, "But baby, what does
crying do? What does it change?"
    "I cried over your father," she told me two days after
I'd woken up from having sex with Roger and heard him and Mom out in the hall.
I hadn't spoken to her since I'd said "Stop," and when I looked over
at her she'd looked nervous. Unsure.
    I'd always known I was a planet orbiting her bright star and that
I was lucky she wanted me with her, that she'd kept me by her side. I'd always
thought of her in terms of how much I loved her. I'd always been afraid that
maybe she didn't love me.
    But she did. She does. I saw that then. And so I said,
"Really?"
    "Yeah," she said. "I really ... I loved him. He was
my world and then he was gone and--" Her voice
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    cracked a little and she cleared her throat. "But you know
what? No one is everything, baby. Promise me you'll remember that. I don't
want--" She reached out, ran a hand down my