Соавторы: Katrina Onstad
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
On the street, Sandra Pereira, whom James now knew to be Chuckles’s wife, was standing at the center of a circle of adults. Chuckles handed her the photo. They glanced back at James, fear bouncing back and forth between them. They looked focused, ready, as if they had been practicing for this. Sandra returned to James on the porch and drilled him: What was Finn wearing? How tall? How heavy? Where did he like to go?
James pressed a button on his camera, and they watched Finn on the small screen, jumping and yelling in his panda suit, bouncing in the leaves. Chuckles appeared and watched, too. Sandra put a hand on James’s shoulder and squeezed.
James turned off the camera and went through Sandra’s questions, one by one. He knew every answer.
The buzzer was broken. Ana knocked loudly. No one came to the door. She stood on the porch, glancing at the stained seats from the car, wondered if there was a key hidden inside one of the tears. Then she tried the handle of the door, and with a turn, it opened.
The shoes remained in their jumble. Today the hallway smelled of vinegar. She moved up the staircase, hand on the loose rail. She could hear the explosions, the sound of gunfire and battle. She knocked.
“Come in!” a voice called. Ana opened the door. Charlie’s roommate was on the couch, console in hand, thumbs flying. Charlie sat next to him, attached by a cord to his own plastic box. He glanced at her once, blankly, then again with recognition. Startled, he dropped the box.
“Ana!” He stood.
“No! Chuck! Keep going!” shouted Russell, grabbing for Charlie’s box, trying to work two of them, one in each hand.
“What are you doing here? I mean, it’s fine, it’s great—”
“I wanted to give you something,” said Ana.
“NOOOO!” Russell shouted. “NOOOO!” His forehead was slick with sweat.
“Okay, this is—the kitchen’s a mess—” said Charlie.
“Should we go to your room?” He opened his eyes wide, nodded. Ana followed him down a corridor.
“Sit down,” he said. The bed, tidily made, filled almost the entire room, so Ana sat on the edge of it. A white curtain covered the window. Charlie grabbed a wadded T-shirt and tossed it into the old armoire.
“You don’t have much stuff,” said Ana.
“Really? I always feel like I have too much.”
He stood in front of her and then sat down. They were shoulder to shoulder, as if sitting on a bus. Ana reached into her purse and pulled out a brown paper bag.
“Here,” she said. Charlie removed a black notebook. He flipped through its empty lined pages.
“Thank you. I’m not sure—what made you—”
“I saw it. I don’t think you should get a BlackBerry. I think this is better.”
Charlie laughed. “A one-woman campaign against technology.”
“It’s also a bribe,” said Ana. “I might be going away for a little while. I’m not sure. I want you to take care of my mother. Will you do that for me? Will you just keep an eye on her until I get back?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m always looking out for her, Ana. Even if you didn’t ask me, I would.” He tried to catch her eye, but she was gazing at the curtain. “Where are you going?”
Ana saw upon the white canvas of the curtain faint lines like rivers, crossing and cutting.
“I don’t know,” she said. She could feel Charlie’s arm near hers, the fraction of space between them. She could imagine her hands on his neck, the roughness of his jaw. She could feel it without doing it, even the aftershocks, the mess. And then she thought: No, it’s not true: In fact, you don’t know how this will turn out. She had always tried so hard to anticipate every step before it landed, but now she didn’t even know who would be in her home, or where that home would be. And that thought set her freight-free.
Ana stood.
“Thank you,” she said, turning for the door.
“Ana, wait—” But she was gone, through the battle and the electronic bloodshed, past the man on the couch who was wailing now as if he were injured.
Outside, she moved fast through the trick-or-treaters. The sounds of fireworks had begun, explosions in the distance, some nearby, but untraceable, popping from alleys and behind cars. The sky, far away, was streaked hot red.
James knew Finn’s height, his weight, the color of his socks. He repeated these things.
Ana turned onto their block. She watched a man and woman walking quickly, knocking on one door and the next, like urgent trick-or-treaters without a child. Then she saw the crowd on the sidewalk in front of the house, James in the center. She sped up and then slowed down. Should she rush toward this dark thing in front of her? Yes, she decided. Finally, yes, and she broke into a jog.
Ana was next to James. He looked at her blurrily.
“You’re the mother?” asked Sandra.
“What?” asked Ana.
“Yes. Basically,” interrupted James. “Finn is—I can’t find him.”
Ana blinked, took in this information. “When—”
“About forty-five minutes ago. I don’t know. An hour. They’re looking.”
“Who? Who are these people?” asked Ana.
“Neighbors, I guess,” said James.
Ana went inside the living room and saw a man in construction overalls on the phone. Chuckles looked even browner against the white furniture. He held out a hand. “Mario Pereira,” he said. His hand was gentle in Ana’s. “Pleased to meet you. My buddy’s a cop. They’re on their way.”
“Cop,” Ana repeated, letting the blunt magnitude of the word settle. “When are they coming? Did you look everywhere?” But Mario had turned, was speaking into the Bluetooth, passing on the color of Finn’s boots.
James followed Ana as she moved through the house, bending to peer below tables, into cupboards.
“He’s probably hiding in the basement,” she said, trying to coax the words out normally.
“People are looking,” said James. He corrected himself: “We have looked.”
Outside the kitchen, the porch lights flooded the yard. Ana and James saw it as if for the first time. The workers had finished. The limestone pieces fit together like the jagged countries on a map. The knee-high grasses around the perimeter swayed.
But there were two people in the backyard, strangers, a young couple in their twenties.
Ana opened the French doors.
The girl, wearing a loosely knit hat topped by a large pink flower, rushed to Ana, grabbed her hand.
“We’ll find him, don’t worry,” she said. “I’m Erica. That’s David. We rent the apartment next door.”
“Yes,” said Ana. “I’ve seen you. Thank you.” David was shaking James’s hand. James was looking over his shoulder, eyes on the tall grasses swaying.
“We looked in every inch of this yard,” said Erica quietly. “Several times.”
James walked around them, off the limestone and into the garden.
“Dude, he’s not here,” said David. The bored, rock star voice struck James as untrustworthy and he kept moving, pushing apart the grasses, squatting in the shadows. Nothing.
He sprung up and left the two of them, rushing inside. All the doors were open in the house, front, back. A chill had entered the house.
“I’m Sandra Pereira, Mario’s wife.” She extended a hand, and Ana thought quickly: I have shaken too many hands today—but the hand landed, instead, on Ana’s shoulder. The woman’s voice was grave: “The police are here.”
The police were a young man and woman, almost as young as the couple in the backyard. They looked awkward in the white club chairs opposite Ana and James. The woman sat right on the edge, her ponytail swaying.
“When did you last see your son?” asked the male officer.
“He’s not our son. We’re his guardians. His father died.” James was growing angry at this question, the complication in it.
“You adopted him?”
“No, not yet,” said James. Ana absorbed the last word of the sentence. Everything had been decided somehow, when she wasn’t looking.
“His mother’s in the hospital. You can call his social worker if you want,” said Ana.
James blinked at her.
“It doesn’t really matter right now. The main thing is, we need to find him,” he said.
Ana was scrolling through her cell phone for the number of Ann Silvan.
“Here’s the social worker’s number.” She handed the phone to the woman cop.
“Ana …” said James. Her trust in authority made James’s stomach churn. In the look on his face, pained and nauseated, Ana saw suddenly what he was afraid of, saw holes that they might slip inside, court rooms, a boy removed. But had she not recognized this possibility when she handed over the number? Perhaps she had. Perhaps she was orchestrating a quick, swift conclusion. Was she now this kind of person? But no, she told herself, I just want to do it aboveboard. I just want to be honest.
And James next to her could feel her cycling through these thoughts, could see her abiding every formality, filling in every blank, and he loathed her, he loathed her. She was risking everything.
They sat there as the police officers spoke, and both Ana and James silently arrived at the exact same thought, bristling with shame: I am not sure what I am capable of anymore.
James said the things he had said several times in the past hour, perfecting his description of Finn. Each time he said it out loud—the panda suit, the black boots, the yellow-and-gray-striped T-shirt underneath—the horror grew a little more pronounced. Finn became smaller, farther away from him. The outside became darker.
“What do you do in cases like this?” asked Ana. “How will you find him?”
“We’ll engage all resources, ma’am,” said the woman cop. The woman cop spoke to Ana, and the man to James.
“What does that mean?”
“We’ll need to interview you both,” said the male cop.
“Now?” asked James. “I need to look. I need to be out there.”
In concert, the cops’ faces had narrowed from sympathetic to something distant, aloof. This shift began around the time James had mentioned the fact that they weren’t Finn’s parents. Ana saw them through the eyes of the police. She saw the house, white and empty (the housekeeper had come; it was so damned tidy), the childless couple within it, tourists to parenting. What had they done to deserve this boy? What did they know of little boys? She thought of Marcus, young and at the hands of his father, the scar below his lip. She thought of unknown little boys lured to drainpipes by bearded men. She saw James at the bottom of the ladder of images just because he was a man with a beard sitting next to his barren wife.
“Do we need to get a lawyer?” she asked. “I’m a lawyer. I can make a call.”
James turned to her. “What? That seems a little premature.”
“We’re not arresting you,” said the female cop. “We just need some information.”
“I think we should get a lawyer,” said Ana. “I’ll call Elspeth. No—I’ll call Rick.”
“What are you talking about? Ana, my God.” He turned to the officers, both of whom had assumed a studied blankness. “We’re happy to talk to you. We’re doing it right now.”
Ana said nothing.
“If it’s all right, I’ll talk to you in the kitchen,” said the male police officer, standing. James followed him.
“Can we shut the door?” The officer looked around for a door.
“Open concept,” said James. He led him to the breakfast nook by the garden, where two people continued to search behind plants that had been searched behind already.
The officer took out a small notebook, clicked his pen. James began to sweat, rivulets from his Adam’s apple down to his chest hair.
The officer asked him the time, the outfit, the names of friends. James moved through each question dully, feeling the water seeping through his shirt, approaching his sweater. His beard began to itch from the sweat.
“So he’s your nephew?” said the cop.
“No. He’s the son of a friend who died. His mother’s in the hospital.” The cop nodded, wrote in his blue scratch.
“And is everything okay with him here? Any fights or anything out of the ordinary this morning?” The bluntness of the question surprised James. He expected it to be gently bracketed: I’m sorry to ask you this, but …
“Yes. I mean, as okay as it can be. His father died. He’s living with strangers.…” The cop paused, began to write.
“Don’t write that down. We’re not strangers. You know what I mean. We’re not family. We’re not his real family. But we love him like he’s our real family. Please don’t write the word ‘strangers’—I—” James was exploding with the need to get out of the kitchen, on to the streets. He could find him, he was certain. Finn would want to be found by James. He would rise like a gas from the cracks in the sidewalks, pull himself up from the gutters where he was hiding, and make himself solid and seen for James. “Please let me go look for him.”
The woman cop grinned at Ana, like a girlfriend happy the husbands have left the kitchen.
Ana found the constant shifts in the woman’s demeanor ridiculous, something studied on television. She craned her neck and saw James facing the cop across the nook table far away. They could be two guys waiting for the coffee to drip, except for the cop’s bowed head as he wrote.
“When did you last see Finn?” asked the cop, still smiling.
“This morning. No, last night. I was gone before he got up.”
“So your husband got him up?”
“Yes.”
“He fed him, dressed him, took him to school?”
“He doesn’t go to school. He goes to daycare three days a week. James took him.”
“We’ll need to get the number of the daycare.” The cop clicked her pen, flipped open a rubbery notepad like a small medical chart. She wrote something, shielding the paper from Ana. “So Mr. Ridgemore took him to daycare. Does he do that most days?”
“I told you. Three days a week.”
“I mean, he’s the one who gets him up?”
“I have to be at work very early. James works from home.”
“What does he do again?” She asked this in a false voice, the “again” a silly little effort at intimacy.
“He’s a writer.”
“Lucky you. Husband does all the hard stuff, huh?” She smiled. Ana wanted to snap off her teeth, one by one.
“Did he call you today? Tell you anything about the boy?”
“Like what?”
“Did they have a fight? Anything unusual?”
“No. I don’t think I heard from him today.” The cop raised her eyebrow.
“Really? I got two kids, eight and ten, boy and a girl. If their dad’s with them, I’m calling every ten minutes: How are they? What’d you screw up? What’d I miss?” She was grinning. “They go to my mom’s after school. We never had to put them in daycare. We’re lucky like that.”
Ana said nothing, attempting to dissect this line of questioning, wondering if it was a strategy of some kind, or if the strain of contempt was how mothers were expected to talk to one another.
The cop held her gaze steady. After a moment of silence, she said: “Is there anything you want to say that you can’t tell me in front of your husband?”
Ana’s disdain for this cop and her simple view of the world rose up in her throat: The beautiful house must have the dungeon in the basement. The beautiful wife must barely survive the monstrous husband.
“There’s nothing I can’t say in front of him.”
The woman cop looked at Ana expectantly. Ana was meant to crucify him now, and she could have. She thought of the e-mail, and the secret visits to Sarah’s room. But she said: “James is a good father to this boy.”
The cop nodded. She didn’t write anything in her notebook.
“You should write that down: He’s a father to that boy. He would never neglect him. He would never hurt him. This is a freak occurrence, something that must happen every Halloween. Children try to get candy, they try to make their way without their parents, right? That’s what kids do.”
“Absolutely, Mrs. Laframboise. Is there someone we can call to corroborate your being at work today?”
Ana found Elspeth’s number on her cell phone and handed it to the cop.
“Now please,” said Ana. “Can you stop talking and find him?”
Voices echoed up and down the street: “Finn! Finn! Finn!” People whom James had never seen before were crouched next to cars, banging on doorways.
James saw Chuckles’s shadow looming, black on black night. He went to him.
“We’ve checked every house on that side of the street where people are home,” Chuckles said. “We need to finish this side, then cross over.”
They were in front of the brothel house. The windows were dark, almost invisible. An empty cat food tin, congealed, lay on the patchy grass by James’s foot.
“I think this house is a brothel,” said James. “I think there’s sex trafficking going on in there.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Chuckles.
James shook his head. He sounded insane. He always sounded insane around this guy. “Ah, fuck! I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m talking about.” He went to the door and banged hard. No answer. He banged again. Chuckles stood behind him, saying nothing.
“Come on!” James kicked at the door, and his swollen foot shot heat up his leg. “Fuck! Motherfucker!” He jumped up and down on his good foot, grabbing at his damaged toes.
Chuckles stepped in front of James and rang a doorbell.
“I didn’t see the bell,” said James.
The door flew open. A warm yellow light flooded the stoop, and churning music escaped, accordions and guitars and incomprehensible foreign moaning. A young woman with thin brown hair stood in front of them wearing sweatpants with the word “Juicy” crawling up one thigh.
“Yes?” she said.
Chuckles was forceful: “We’re looking for a kid. A kid’s missing. He’s almost three, blond. Have you seen him?”
She peered behind the men, at the police car down the street.
“You are missing a boy? Lots of kids come to the door tonight but I don’t have candy. I don’t know. My English not so good. I sorry. You are police?” she said.
“No. He’s my son,” said James, not tripping on the word. “We’re just trying to find him. You’re not going to get in trouble.”
“No trouble. I have papers. I am legal. You want to come in?”
James nodded. He moved inside and stood in the living room while Chuckles wandered through the rest of house. If the girl objected, she said nothing about Chuckles’s explorations.
The living room contained nothing but an old couch, pink and faded. Books and notebooks lay scattered across the floor, English language textbooks, books with titles in unidentifiable, swirling script. On the fireplace sat a row of empty wine bottles enclosed in candle wax. The thin curtains were nailed to the windows, above the molding.
“You live alone?” asked James, scanning for nooks and crannies and Finn inside them.
“No. We are three girls, all from Georgia. We come as nannies but it doesn’t work out for us. Now we are students. I am legal. My friends are not here.” She looked at him, squinted. “You live on street also, yes? I see you. You want one drink?”
“No, thank you,” said James. After months of speculating, this reality seemed worse somehow: There was no one to be liberated here, no Russian pimps, no gangsters. Just girls. Pretty girls. Students who didn’t mind a little squalor and couldn’t take their garbage out on the right days. Girls he would have tried to fuck two decades ago.
“Sit, please,” but James could not. He stood in the middle of the room, smelling something pungent, the music loud enough to block his thoughts.
“What do you do?” she asked.
“Do?”
“For job.”
James looked at her. “I’m unemployed,” he said.
She nodded. “Is very difficult time. Economy.”
Chuckles appeared.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“You, sir, you want drink?” Chuckles glanced at James.
“No thanks, lady.”
James reached into his pocket and held up the photo of Finn, Sarah, and Marcus. The girl took it in her hands and held it close to her face.
“He is very beautiful, yes.” She passed it back. “Wait here.” She disappeared through a door. James avoided looking at Chuckles, knowing the relationship couldn’t sustain too much extra meaning.
The girl reemerged, swiping her hair from her face. She held out a photo: a young girl, the hostess, only a few years ago. She sat on her knees between two boys, each on the edge of adulthood, wispy facial hair and acne. Above them stood her parents, tall and unsmiling. A Christmas tree covered in tinsel took up the background. The father’s downward smile matched his mustache. The mother had one arm on the girl’s shoulder, the other dangling uselessly at her side. They all wore cheap-looking sweaters. The photo was glossy, with fingerprints on the edges.
“This is my family,” said the girl. “My brother was hurt. You know about the war?”
James stared at that arm, that hanging arm.
“Of course,” he said. “What happened?”
“Oh, is grenade, you know. He is different now, but he is fine. It is a miracle.”
Chuckles cleared his throat.
“Is sad, yes. But my parents are still in Georgia. This is good news. And I think they will come here, and stay on this street. You can meet them.”
James imagined this, all the Georgians in his white living room, Ana passing flutes of prosecco to spill on their polyester sweaters.
“I hope I do meet them,” said James. “Thank you.” Chuckles could sense that James was unable to move now; he put a hand firmly on the center of his back, guiding him to the door.
To the girl, Chuckles said: “He’s at number ninety-four. Come by if you hear anything, please.”
She nodded, pushing her hair behind her ears.
“Yes, I will,” she said at the door. “Yes, we are neighbors. So I will look for the boy.”
The girl stood in the doorway with her arms wrapped around her torso, watching the men, one supported by the other.
They completed the street, door to door, ahead of the police, their pleas generating alarmed faces and offers of help. Neighbors put on their coats and followed them. Mothers stood on porches and watched them walk away, teary, grasping their children’s hands.
James crossed the street and continued south, banging on doors, while Chuckles stayed a few steps behind him, working his cell phone.
Finally, it was too late for trick-or-treaters, and the children vanished from the streets. Pumpkins were extinguished. At the top of James and Ana’s block, a police officer ran a piece of yellow tape between two stop signs. No cars were permitted to drive on the road, and people gathered under the streetlights, organizing into groups to descend onto the streets beyond. A few of the adults were in costume. One middle-aged man was trailing mummy bandages. Ana, staring through the picture window, her arms wrapped tight around her body, recognized the mother of that new baby. She was dressed as Pippi Long-stocking. The woman walked from car to car, peering in windows, the wire in the wig of red braids holding them in the air like smiles.
It had been nearly three hours.
James’s foot was throbbing, his stomach churning with hunger. He was far from home, so far that he couldn’t imagine Finn could have made it through the traffic alive. But he had no thought of stopping. Finn was somewhere, and he would find him.
Suddenly, Chuckles cried out. James turned. Chuckles was close behind, running, holding up his phone. His face was alight.
“Get home!” he yelled.
James broke into a run on his beaten toes. He tried to push aside the thought of the worst ending, ignoring the distant wail of an ambulance. It could not go that way, back to the morgue, back to the drawers in the bottom of a city hospital.
Then Sandra was coming toward him, jogging past the skinny Victorian houses, deking between the hovering people.
“You didn’t answer your cell phone!” she called.
“I didn’t hear it—” said James, and then he saw her face: joy. “We found him! We found him! Come home!”
He limped and dragged as fast as he could until he reached his house, the picture window framing a crowd of strangers. In the center, Ana. And Finn, his head buried in her shoulder, the panda hood slack around his neck.
James pushed through the wall of people.
“He was in Mario’s van, can you believe it? He fell asleep in there,” called Sandra to his back.
“Oh my God, I left it open. Jesus Christ …” said Chuckles somewhere in the din of voices. But James couldn’t answer. He looked at Ana, and he could not identify the expression on her face.
“Finny,” said James, moving his own body around both Ana’s and Finn’s, collecting their bodies in his arms. Somehow, in the crush of limbs, Finn shifted and came apart from Ana, attaching himself at James’s neck. James took in his scent, the warmth of him, and the two stood separately, breathlessly.
“Don’t ever do that again,” whispered James. “You scared us so much. You scared us to death.”
“Okay,” said Finn.
When James lifted his head from the boy, Ana had already moved across the room and stood talking to the police officer.
The crowd began to thin. The young couple from next door waved as they left.
“I can’t thank you—” said James, and Sandra shushed him, taking her husband’s hand. Their son, the boy in the Spider-Man costume, grabbed the final handful of candy from the blue glass bowl.
The bath was hot with lavender sweetness. James used Ana’s special bubble bath. He rubbed the washcloth over Finn’s shoulders. The boy did not feel fragile to him. This is new, thought James; he had always worried he would break him.
Ana sat on the toilet behind them, holding a white towel. James glanced at her and thought, Ah, there’s the broken body. Her thinness shocked him.
He returned to Finn and began his patter: “What’s the boat do? Does the boat go pshew?” James picked up a yogurt container, flew it through the sky.
Finn squealed. “No! That’s airplane! Boat stays in water!”
“Ah, like this?” said James, driving the yogurt container along the side of the tub. “Vroom, vroom.”
“Noooo!” Finn was laughing now, his shoulders sprinkled with soapsuds. “That’s car!”
“Oh, I see,” said James. “This is a boat. Delicious!” He pretended to eat the yogurt container. Finn could barely control himself, laughter pealed out of him. James glanced at Ana. She wasn’t smiling.
“Finn show you,” said Finn. He dropped the container on the water’s surface. It floated. “See?”
The phone rang. Ana handed the towel to James and left the bathroom.
James finished the routine: the small toothbrush, the Pull-Up, the flannel pajamas covered in monkeys.
He sat on the bed and read to Finn a book about a mole looking for love. He laid the boy down, moved his hands along the sides of the body as if encasing him in a tomb. Then he leaned in, nose to nose.
“You can’t go anywhere without me, or without Ana,” said James. “Do you know that now? I was so worried.”
Finn wriggled his arms out of the quilt and reached for James’s face.
“Okay,” he said.
“What were you doing anyway? Why did you leave?”
A look moved across Finn’s face, inquisitive and pained. James braced himself. “I look for Mommy,” whispered Finn.
James’s throat constricted. He put his hands on the boy’s face. He kissed one eyelid, then the other. “Yeah? You thought she was outside?” he asked. Finn nodded.
“I go home now?” he asked.
James took his hands from Finn’s cheeks, pulled at his beard.
“I don’t know, Finny. Your mommy’s really sick. You might have to stay here with us for a long time. Would that be okay?”
Finn searched James’s face. He didn’t reply.
“We would love to have you. We would be—honored to have you live with us,” said James. His voice dropped to a whisper. “We could have this extraordinary life. We can do anything. I think it’s possible.” He stroked his arm.
“I go home,” said Finn.
James pulled the boy from the mattress, engulfed him. He assumed Finn was crying, but when he placed him back on the bed, he saw that he was wrong; only James had been crying.
With his head on the pillow, Finn’s eyelids fell, and he was asleep.
Ana was sitting in the kitchen nook, surrounded by dark windows. Her hands were clasped in front of her on the empty table.
James filled a glass with red wine.
“Want one?”
Ana shook her head.
He stood at a distance, leaning against the island in the middle of the room.
“Who called?”
“Ann. The police called her,” said Ana. “She’s coming by in an hour.”
James stared at her. “Did she say anything? Does she think it’s unsafe here for Finn?”
“I don’t know. She said it was procedure.”
“Procedure.” James paused, sipped his wine. “Fucking bureaucrats.”
Ana could not look at him. She could feel him standing there with Finn on his side. Their allegiance was suffocating. It had filled the house, crowded her out.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” said Ana. She felt strange as she spoke, dry.
James put down his wine.
“What do you mean?”
Ana looked out the window.
“I don’t want to be a mother,” she said blandly. James breathed. He saw her suddenly as something barely held together, like a stack of sticks that happened to be piled up on the chair. She was a liar. There was a lie in their house. Anger welled up in him.
“Why did we spend two years with your legs in the goddamned stirrups then, huh? Why did we spend thirty thousand dollars? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“We didn’t spend it. I spent it. It was my money,” said Ana. “You wanted me that way.”
James stared at her. “You don’t get to say that.”
