I could tell by the look he shot me he had been giving this a great deal of thought. I was amazed that even at nine he had a firm grasp of what was going on.
“I think that ship has sailed,” I said, trying to make a joke of it.
“Nah, I saw the way he looked at you. He loves you.”
“Very funny, we hardly knew each other. How would you know about that anyway?”
“Did you love him?”
I debated avoiding his question before I finally answered it honestly. “I think it was too early for love, but I liked him more than anyone else I’ve ever known.”
“Even me?” Kevin asked seriously.
“No, bud, I could never like anyone more than you,” I answered, reassuring him.
“More than Mom?” he persisted.
“Yeah, more than Mom. Come on, stop stalling and read,” I said before the conversation went any deeper. It was one thing for me to feel nothing for Lucinda, but I didn’t want to influence Kevin in that way. It was up to him how he wanted to feel.
Taking my hint, Kevin began to read. I was amazed at how much his fluency had increased since our move here and only
had to help him occasionally with the harder words.
“Mom’s like Harry’s aunt and uncle,” Kevin said as we took a break to munch on some sandwiches he had made for our dinner.
“Nah, at least she doesn’t make us sleep in a broom closet.”
“Yeah, but she does treat us badly,” he said after swallowing a bite of his sandwich.
“That’s true. Hmm, maybe our letters to Hogwarts will arrive any day now,” I teased.
“That would rock,” Kevin said before going into a whole tirade about how cool it would be to live in the castle and be able to eat good food all the time.
We read through the night and Kevin was my hero as he made sure to shake me awake each time my eyes drifted closed. Lucinda strolled in sometime after midnight, but neither Kevin nor I made a move to leave my room. By six a.m. I finally felt it was safe for me to fall asleep, so Kevin and I fell into an exhausted slumber and slept through the entire day. We both woke at dinnertime, and I made us both something easy since my head was still pounding like a drum. Once our bellies were full, we both headed back to bed and slept through the rest of the night.
Sunday morning Lucinda was awake when I stumbled out to the living room to get myself something to drink. I saw her take in my appearance, pausing at my head which had dried blood caked throughout the strands of hair where the wound had bled while I slept. She didn’t acknowledge me other than her stare, and I followed suit. I was used to the silent treatment. If Lucinda lashed out at me because she was mad at someone else, she was usually remorseful the next day. If she lashed out at me because I had defied her, she would spend several days afterwards giving me the silent treatment until I apologized.
I headed to the bathroom to clean up with my drink in hand. My reflection in the mirror told the whole story. With dried blood throughout my hair and down my neck, I looked like I had stepped out of some horror movie. Reaching in to start the shower, I gasped when I saw rust colored water inside the tub.
“MOM!” I yelled, forgetting she was giving me the silent treatment. “MOM!”
“What?” she said, obviously aggravated I had interrupted her vow of silence.
“There’s something wrong with the shower,” I said, pointing at the inch high smelly water that sat in the tub.
Without saying anything, she twisted the knob at the sink, but nothing came out.
“Did we not pay the water bill?” I asked confused.
“No, the pipes are frozen.”
“Get out, seriously?” I asked.
“Yeah, it happened when we lived in Colorado when you were a baby.”
“What do we do? Do you need to call the landlord?”
“Um, no,” she said, heading out of the bathroom.