Free Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott Page A

hair. "I don't want that
for you, you understand me? I want you to always remember what you can believe
in, remember that it's what--"
    "What you can hold in your hands," I said, and watched
her nod. When she did, I realized I hadn't cried over Roger. I realized I
wasn't going to. I realized Mom had done what she did because she thought she
was protecting me. She'd seen what I felt for Roger and saw what I couldn't,
saw him for the jerk he was and tried as best she could, in the ways she knew
how, to let me see it too and make sure I ended up in one piece. She didn't
want me to be where she'd been, in the place where you cried and meant it.
    What she'd done was awful, but she hadn't done it to hurt me. I'd
hurt myself and she'd let me see that I could, showed me that I always had to
be careful. And I have been since then. I have been careful, so careful. Too
careful, I know Mom thinks, but she's wrong.
    I haven't been careful enough because I stand in
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    the shower and cry for what I've never had and never will. A real
home. Things I can truly call my own and keep forever. Friends. I am in the
place where you cry and mean it.
    It sucks.
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    13
    Mom gets back late, very late, and she isn't alone. I hear
footsteps crossing through the house with hers.
    "I don't usually do this," Mom says, a giddy note in her
voice that, if I didn't know better, I would think is real. She starts to say
something else but then coughs. I wish she'd just go to the doctor already.
I'll get her some cough syrup tomorrow. Maybe that will help.
    Whoever she's with mumbles something in reply, voice low and
drunken-sounding, "... sure your roommate isn't home?"
    Roommate? Must be someone recently divorced and gun-shy about
being with someone who has kids, even one who is eighteen. I'll have to
remember, if he's still around in the morning, to call Mom--damn,
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    what's her name again? Miranda, that's it. Miranda.
    "No, no, she isn't," Mom says. "It's just you and
me, Harold."
    Harold. Of course. He mumbles something else and Mom laughs the
way she does when someone says something she's heard a million times before but
is acting like it's the first time.
    "I can't thank you enough for everything you've done for
me," she says. "You're...perfect. You're so perfect."
    I roll my eyes. How could anyone fall for that?
    Harold does, apparently, because he laughs, pleased-sounding, and
then there are other noises. I pull my pillow over my head.
    When I get up the next morning Mom is downstairs fiddling with the
coffeemaker and Harold is gone.
    "Hey, Miranda," I say anyway. "I just wanted to let
you know my half of the rent is going to be real late this month. That's not a
problem, right?"
    "Funny," she says, and grins at me. "His third
divorce was finalized a month ago. You would not believe what I had to do to
get that man to take me to dinner."
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    "I can imagine," I say, and launch into an imitation of
her voice last night. '"You're...perfect. You're so perfect.'"
    "I know, I know. But people hear and see what they want to,
baby. You know that. And did you hear him afterward? I had to--"
    "Mom, please. I heard more than enough last night."
    She rolls her eyes and then makes a face at the coffeemaker.
"Baby, I can't get this to work. Will you fix me a cup of coffee?
Please?"
    I nod.
    "I got us a house," she says, grinning. "We can
move in this afternoon. And then," she says, getting up and coming over to
me, sliding one arm around my shoulders, "things will finally start to
happen."
    I finish putting water in the coffeemaker and turn it on.
    "Isn't that good?" she says, squeezing my arm gently,
and I look at her. She's watching me intently. I force a smile.
    "It's great. You want me to make you some toast or
something?"
    ***
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    We're settled into the new house by midafternoon. It's past the
public beach and the small houses that dot it, lies at the end of a dirt road
by an inlet.
    I love the house. From the moment we see it, I love it. It's small
and