Free Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott Page B

low to the ground, brown wood and stone surrounded by rocks and trees. It's
two stories and only five rooms, a living room and kitchen/dining room on the
first floor, two bedrooms and a bath on the second. It's nothing special, but
you can tell people live here. Mom doesn't like that at all, grimaces over the knickknacks
the owners have left behind, framed pictures of boats and dogs and yellowing
images that must be deceased relatives. She says the furniture, just about all
of which is made of the same dark wood as the house, is "a disaster."
    "Who thinks something like this"--she points at a chair,
rough-hewn and angled to look out a bank of windows in the living
room--"needs a pillow covered with tiny blue flowers? I'm afraid to even
look in the bedrooms."
    "At least you got a good deal on it," I say, and she
sighs, drops her bag on the floor.
    "At least it won't be for very long. Just looking around this
place makes me want a stiff drink. In
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    fact, I'm going to go get one. You want to come?"
    I shake my head. When she's gone I pick up one of the pictures and
pretend I know it, invent a world where I look out a window and know the view
is something I can see for as long as I want, for forever if I choose.
    I wake up really early the next morning because Mom's coughing yet
again. She sounds terrible. I go check on her, see if she's awake, but of
course she's still asleep. I figure I'll go ahead and get up, make her coffee.
It turns out we're out of coffee and pretty much everything else, so I get
dressed and head into West Hill.
    In the grocery store I grab food for me and coffee for Mom, then
head over to the aisle lined with cold remedies. I know she won't go see a
doctor. In fact, I'm not sure Mom has ever been. I don't remember any visits.
    I've only ever been twice--once when I got poison ivy so bad my
eyes swelled shut (the woods in parts of Connecticut are a bitch) and once to
have my arm stitched up after that stupid poodle bit it. We had to drive a
hundred miles before Mom felt it was
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    safe enough to stop, and I'd lost so much blood that all I
remember is waking up and seeing a nice even row of stitches wrapping across my
wrist and part way up my arm. The scar was hideously obvious for years, a deep
bruised red, but it's faded now, a pale line racing across my skin.
    I didn't think it would be difficult to buy cough syrup, but then
I didn't realize there were about forty different kinds. Cough suppressant.
Cough expectorant. Six-hour, eight-hour, all-day.
    "Hortense, you sick?"
    I look over, see Greg standing there dressed in jeans and a
T-shirt, his cop shirt open over it. His last name is apparently Tollver. I'm
happy to see him. Not a good sign.
    "Stop calling me that."
    "What else am I supposed to call you?"
    I ignore him and pick up another bottle. Bubble-gum flavored? I
can just imagine what Mom would say to that. I put it back down.
    "Seriously, Hortense, are you sick?"
    I gesture at his "outfit" and pick up another bottle.
"They let you go to work dressed like that?"
    "No, they let me leave work dressed like this,
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    Hortense. Trust me, you don't want that kind."
    When I look over at him again he's grinning, and I can tell he's
totally aware of how much I hate the stupid name he's given me. I look at the
bottle I'm holding. It's "zany grape!" flavored and is actually for
children. I put it in my cart. "Shows how much you know."
    "Hortense," he says, and I can actually hear my teeth
grinding together, "while you seem like a zany grape kind of girl, I doubt
even you want a bottle that's leaking." He reaches over and takes it out
of the cart. Purple goo is everywhere.
    "Damn."
    "How about this, Hortense?" He holds up a bottle of
ordinary enough looking cough syrup. "It's even on sale this week,
Hortense."
    That's it. I can't stand that stupid name. "Danielle," I
say, and yank the bottle out of his hand. "And it isn't on sale, you
jackass. The one next to it is."
    "Really?" he says, and looks closer