Rosa had put the bank money on the bed.
Not to tempt them. It lay beside a pair of clean pants, her folded shirt, a bag of underwear and the ugly hospital sling's instruction sheet. Twenty-seven thousand dollars had joined the little pile of things she had to decide what to do with before she went anywhere.
Kit stopped inside the room.
“You want help?”
Rosa looked at her. “I want another arm.”
Kit put her own bag on a chair and came over. She began with the pants, folding them smaller, then held up the shirt.
“This too?”
“Not that. It's the one I'm wearing.”
“Okay.”
They packed without speaking for a little while. Leah stood near the sink with a cloth around her right hand. Rosa had put the fridge on a folded towel to stop it rattling. The old storage chair sat beside it, the broken back propped against the wall. The room looked more like hers than it had yesterday. Leah wondered how many times she had done that: arranged what she had in a place she was paying to leave.
“He told me to drive for him again,” Kit said.
“That a surprise?”
“Not until he said it.”
Rosa sat on the bed. “You don't have to tell me you're sorry now. I'll be here if you still mean it tomorrow.”
Kit lowered the shirt. “All right.”
Leah took her cue from that and stayed quiet. There were things Kit had to do that had nothing to do with getting back into her mother's car.
Rosa opened a soft overnight bag with her good hand. Kit helped her slide the clothes in. The money stayed on the bed.
“I'm stopping,” Rosa said. “I'm taking that to my lawyer. Called him this morning.”
Leah looked at her.
“The twenty-seven?”
“Yes. The twenty-seven. Not your daughter's thirty. Not Walt's whole bright idea. Mine. What I've got.”
Kit's hand went to the bag she had left on the chair.
“He going to see you today?” Leah asked.
“He said he'd arrange it. I can wait. I've been doing that a while.”
Leah nodded. Rosa wasn't asking her what to say or promising it would make anything go away. She was deciding what came next. It looked exhausting.
Kit counted the bank money at Rosa's request and put it in a plain envelope. Rosa kept her good hand on the opening until Kit had stepped back.
Rosa moved the envelope. Beneath it lay a page covered in her own tight writing. Leah recognized her name before Rosa turned it over.
“That's for him?” she asked.
“For my lawyer. Yes.”
“You've written it all down.”
“What I did. Where I was. Who was there.”
Kit stopped folding the shirt.
Rosa looked at Leah. “That includes you.”
Leah's hurt hand moved against her stomach. She pressed it there until the pain gave her another thing to think about.
“You have to tell him,” she said.
“I don't have to tell you first. I'm doing that because you took me to a hospital and then stayed.”
“All right.”
“It doesn't buy you out of the other thing.”
“I didn't think—”
Rosa waited. Leah let the sentence go.
Kit picked up the shirt again. She folded it once and put it where Rosa had indicated. The sounds outside went on: a hose running near the pool, the creak of a room door, somebody trying to shut a car trunk over too much luggage.
“You're saying I drove the bank,” Leah said.
“You drove the bank.”
“I know. I'm asking what you wrote.”
“I wrote that you drove the bank. I wrote what I carried. I wrote about the guard last night. I've spent enough years hearing half a thing because the other half might make somebody uncomfortable.”
Leah sat on the chair by the door. Its plastic seat bowed under her. Kit looked toward her and then down at the money in her own bag.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Kit asked Rosa.
“No.”
“To get there, I mean.”
“He's arranging a ride. Somebody who isn't in this room.”
Rosa looked at Leah's hand.
“Is he what happened to that?”
“Yes,” Leah said.
“What did you take?”
“His keys.”
Rosa shut her eyes. Kit put the folded shirt down too hard.
“She'd already told him no,” Leah said. “Kit. Before I did it.”
Rosa opened her eyes. “Good.”
That was all. She did not call the injury what Leah deserved or ask for the details of Walt's hand. She shifted on the bed until her shoulder hurt, and Kit helped her bring a pillow around behind it.
“He said you could stay with the bank money,” Kit told her. “While we left.”
“He's always liked knowing where other people's troubles are.”
“He thought I'd let him.”
Rosa looked at her. “You went.”
Kit's mouth opened. Then she nodded.
“I did.”
Leah watched her daughter take the answer. She wanted to put a hand over it, make Rosa remember the hurt too. She kept both hands in her lap.
Rosa reached for the page. It had fallen between two folds of the coverlet. Kit picked it up without reading it and gave it to her. Rosa folded it into the envelope with the twenty-seven thousand.
“What happens after?” Leah asked.
“I don't know.”
“Has he said—”
“He's said he'll advise me when he knows what I have to tell him. That's why I'm writing it down. There isn't a promise hidden in there.”
She patted the envelope once, not tenderly. Then she set it beside the bag of clothes.
Leah wanted the sheet back in sight. Her name had been on something Rosa would put into somebody else's hands. She couldn't remember whether Rosa had spelled Mercer with one loop or two in the middle. Her mind wanted a small error it could work on.
“What did you need that money for?” she asked.
Rosa looked at the refrigerator. Its door had opened a fraction again. A line of light showed above the folded towel.
“A place.”
Leah got up. Kit was nearer and closed it first.
“Not a palace,” Rosa said. “A door I could paint without asking.”
Kit kept her hand on the fridge. The room hummed around her.
“I'm sorry,” she said.
“I heard you.”
Kit nodded. She took the sling instruction sheet and asked Rosa where it belonged. Rosa pointed to a side pocket of the overnight bag. Kit put it there, zipped the pocket and tested it once.
“Walt's buying the boat today,” she said.
“I know.”
“He still has the two hundred and ten.”
Rosa looked at Leah. “And you still want it.”
“Out of his hands,” Leah said.
“Then call them. There's a phone on the table.”
Leah looked at it. Rosa could call too. In an hour she might be with counsel, explaining the page, explaining Leah. The day was going on whether Leah found a way to take charge of it or not.
“I don't want him leaving with it,” Leah said.
Rosa nodded. “Then say that.”
Kit drew the strap of her bag up her shoulder. “I want him to know he doesn't get to keep me with it.”
“He doesn't,” Rosa said. “You can go out that door now.”
Kit looked toward number nine, through the wall as if she could see the room she'd rented. Her clothes were there. The soap she'd bought, the towel she'd spread over the chair. She could fetch them and leave. Thirty thousand dollars went with her unless she chose to put it down.
“I know,” she said.
Rosa looked away first. She was too tired to make them choose differently by saying another sentence.
“He's going to the East Basin,” Kit said. “The service ramp. He told me all about the place.”
“The East Basin's busy Sundays,” Rosa said. “Public walk along the outer fence. People go there to look at boats they can't afford. Don't imagine it's an empty place because he's got a private appointment.”
Leah nodded.
“I worked a food trailer there two summers,” Rosa said. “They've got a repair shed by the service ramp. The road into the apron's narrow, and people leave vehicles wherever they stop thinking. That's what I know. Not who works there now, not who's got a key, not where you can hide.”
“I'm not asking for somewhere to hide.”
“Good. I'm running out.”
Rosa looked around her room. They stayed quiet.
Leah got up. “Can I take you somewhere before we go?”
“No.”
“You need food?”
“I've got food.”
“Water—”
“Leah.”
She stopped.
Rosa pointed to her shoes. “If you want a job, put those where I can get them on. Then leave.”
Leah moved the shoes with her left hand. Rosa kept the envelope beside her on the bed, separate from the packed clothes. Kit put a bottle of water on the table and went outside.
Outside, the sun had reached the plastic chairs. Kit sat on one for a moment, her bag on her lap. Leah stood beside her. Number nine's door was still shut. Kit looked at it, then took out the key and went in.
“You need anything?” Leah asked.
“A clean shirt.”
She came back with a small grocery bag of clothes and toiletries. The peach cream was gone. Leah remembered the flattened tube under Walt's tire and was glad Kit did not ask for it.
“What about the room?” Kit said.
“We can tell them you're leaving.”
Kit took the key to the office herself. Leah waited by the truck. A little boy in orange shorts came out with the man who had taught him to float. Today he had a towel around his shoulders and was complaining about breakfast. The man said the waffles were only for guests, and they were guests, but that didn't mean they were the only guests. The boy considered this disappointing interpretation of a perfectly clear rule.
Kit came back. She watched them for a second and smiled.
“He makes a good case.”
“You used to steal cereal boxes,” Leah said.
“Those little ones? I was saving them.”
“For what?”
“I had a shop.”
Leah looked at her.
Kit shrugged. “In my room. I sold them back to you. You didn't notice because you were always looking for a receipt.”
Leah laughed despite herself. Kit smiled, then the smile went away as she looked at the truck.
“We're really doing this.”
“We can stop.”
Kit nodded. She did not mistake it for a suggestion.
They climbed in. Kit started the engine. Leah settled the grocery bag by her feet, keeping the hurt hand in her lap.
“If I go toward him,” Kit said, “don't decide I'm doing it wrong because it scares you.”
Leah looked toward Rosa's closed door.
“I'll try,” she said.
“I asked. That's all.”
Kit drove them away. Leah held her hand in her lap, the clean cloth loosened where it pressed the swelling.