Home to Harmony

She stared at him, clearly wondering what he meant.

Afraid she’d pry—the woman seemed to have no boundaries—he put the last item, a fax machine, on top and pushed the cart toward Harmony House. “Where to now?”

“Toward the back of the house. Through the courtyard.”

They walked together, with Christine placing a steadying hand on the stack. “I hate that David’s room is so far from mine. Of course, you’re next door, so can I count on you to make sure he keeps curfew?”

He stopped moving and blinked at her.

“Joking. I’m joking, Marcus. Jeez.” She laughed, then her smile went rueful. “I just wish I could get in his head and make him make better choices.”

“How does David feel he’s doing?” The question was an automatic one, something he’d have said to a client.

“Fine, of course. Everyone else has the problem, not him. When he’s disrespectful at school, it’s the teacher’s fault. When he loses his temper, someone else made him. Smoking pot is no big deal, so that’s my problem, not his.”

She shifted to block the cart from moving and faced him. “I can’t get through to him. I feel so helpless, you know?”

“I do.” Marcus had been as close as Nathan would permit him to be, but he’d never forgive himself for not doing more, for not intervening somehow, no matter what Elizabeth wanted, no matter what his own training and intellect told him was possible.

Christine resumed walking. “I can’t believe I dumped all that on you.” She shook her head and her dark hair shivered over her shoulders. “You’re easy to talk to.”

“I don’t mind.” Not as much as he’d expect to. Christine was so direct, so in-your-face. Elizabeth had been intense, but quietly so. Angry, Elizabeth smoldered. Christine would no doubt burst into flames. The idea made him smile.

“Probably all that listening training, huh?” She stopped to scratch her calf. He noticed insect bites on both her legs and her arms. He could mention the salve he had upstairs, but then she’d know he’d been staring at her body. He sighed.

“What I really need is a shower,” she said, shaking her top as if to fan herself. “How’s the water pressure these days?”

“Acceptable. Not strong, but steady.”

“In the old days it was a hopeless trickle. Which made it no picnic trying to wash off the smell of goats. This way.” She turned them toward the rear entrance to the courtyard.

“I can imagine. So you grew up here?”

“I was seven when we came and when I left ten years later, I was all Scarlett O’Hara about it— ‘As God is my witness, I’ll never go smelly again!’”

Marcus smiled. She joked about things that he could tell clearly troubled her. “And you haven’t been back since?”

“No. It’s been eighteen years. That sounds bad, I know, but Aurora and I have a rocky history.” The cart stalled in the grass of the courtyard. Chickens squawked their objection to the interruption. He used force to get it moving again.

“My whole goal is to help her without getting into heavy battle.” She bit her lip, clearly worried. “I’ll be walking on eggshells—free-range eggshells.”

He smiled at her quip. “She clearly needs your help, so maybe if you focus on what you’re here to do…”

“‘Busy hands are happy hands’?” She grinned. “Is that your professional advice?”

“It works.” He paused. “Frankly, a psychology practice built around folk wisdom is as sound as any other.”

“So, ‘a stitch in time saves nine…people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones…an apple a day keeps the doctor away’? Like that?”

“All valid, depending on the issue.”

“Interesting, Doctor B.” She tapped her lips. “Got one for David? ‘Straighten up and fly right’ maybe?”

“Too directive perhaps.”

“Also very military-schoolish. Then how about a parenting one for me?”

“Hmm. Maybe ‘a watched pot never boils.’”

“Nice try. Patience is not one of my virtues.”

“Something to work on then.”

“You shrinks, always with the assignments.” She sighed. “So how much do I owe you for the session?”

“No charge. Consider it part of the bell service at Harmony House.” He held the door for her to step into the hallway. He realized he was enjoying talking with her. Other than lunches in town with Carlos, he didn’t have many lighthearted social contacts, so this was…pleasant. And she smelled like spring.

STEPPING INTO THE COOL hallway of the owners’ quarters, Christine’s smile felt easy for the first time since she’d arrived. Joking around with Marcus had been fun. He’d been taken aback at first. She came on strong, she knew, loud and chatty and nosy, while Marcus was quiet and self-contained, a still pool happy to remain ripple free. He’d joked back, though.

The wooden floor creaked in a familiar way as they walked past the tiny kitchen, Aurora’s bedroom—its door closed—the bathroom, the spare room, then Christine’s old room.

“This is it,” she said, turning the cracked ceramic knob, her heart doing a peculiar hip-hop. The room would be different, of course, after eighteen years. Countless residents had stayed here, she’d bet. But when she stepped inside, she saw it was exactly the same as when she’d left it.

“Oh, my God. Nothing’s changed.”

“It’s very…pink,” Marcus said, pulling the cart inside.

“Bogie painted it for me. It was my princess room, like what I figured Susan Parsons would have. She was the most popular girl at school.”

“Susan from Parsons Foods? She’s married to the mayor, I believe.”

“She was queen back then, so of course she’d marry the mayor.” She ruled the girls who mocked Christine and the other commune kids.

Christine ran her hand over the pink polyester bedspread with the ruffles she’d sewn herself. “I made this, you know.” She touched the sagging canopy netting attached to four broom handles. It looked ridiculous, as did the papier-m?chе French Proven?al frame around the bureau mirror and the pink fur-padded stool she’d made. “This was my haven. Aurora called me Rapunzel and made fun of me for expecting a prince to save me.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

“Not really, but that didn’t matter to Aurora. Fairy tales were sexist—the girls passive chattel to be bought or rescued.”

“Pretty heavy rhetoric for a seven-year-old to absorb.”

“All I wanted was our cute apartment, my little Catholic school with the neat plaid uniforms and the strict nuns.” Everything squared-off, peaceful, predictable.

“What brought you here?”

“Bogie talked Aurora into it. They’d been friends years before and ran into each other and he got her all fired up.”

“But you not so much?”