Once Pined. Blake Pierce

looked absolutely lovely to Riley.

      All the while, Ms. Lewis cheerfully asked Jilly lots of questions about where she’d gone to school before, and about her interests. But Jilly said almost nothing in reply to Ms. Lewis’s questions and asked none of her own. Her curiosity seemed to perk up a little when she got a look at the art room. But as soon as they moved on, she became quiet and withdrawn all over again.

      Riley wondered what might be going on in the girl’s head. She knew that her recent grades had been poor, but they had been surprisingly good in earlier years. But the truth was, Riley knew almost nothing about Jilly’s past school experience.

      Maybe she even hated school.

      This new one must be daunting, where Jilly knew absolutely nobody. And of course, it wasn’t going to be easy to get caught up in her studies, with only a couple of weeks left before end of the term.

      At the end of the tour, Riley managed to coax Jilly into thanking Ms. Lewis for showing her around. They agreed that Jilly would start classes tomorrow. Then Riley and Jilly walked out into the bite of the cold January air. A thin layer of yesterday’s snow lay all around the parking lot.

      “So what do you think of your new school?” Riley asked.

      “It’s OK,” Jilly said.

      Riley couldn’t tell if Jilly was being sullen or was simply dazed by all the changes she was facing. As they approached the car, she noticed that Jilly was shivering deeply and her teeth were chattering. She was wearing a heavy jacket of April’s, but the cold was really bothering her.

      They got into the car, and Riley switched on the ignition and the heater. Even as the car got warmer, Jilly was still shivering.

      Riley kept the car parked. It was time to find out what was bothering this child in her care.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is there something about school that upsets you?”

      “It’s not the school,” Jilly said, her voice shaking now. “It’s the cold.”

      “I guess it doesn’t get cold in Phoenix,” Riley said. “This must be strange to you.”

      Jilly’s eyes filled up with tears.

      “It does get cold sometimes,” she said. “Especially at night.”

      “Please tell me what’s wrong,” Riley said.

      Tears started to pour down Jilly’s cheeks. She spoke in a small, choked voice.

      “The cold makes me remember …”

      Jilly fell silent. Riley waited patiently for her to gone.

      “My dad always blamed me for everything,” Jilly said. “He blamed me for my mom going away, and my brother too, and he even blamed me because he kept getting fired from whatever jobs he could get. Anything that was wrong was always my fault.”

      Jilly was sobbing quietly now.

      “Go on,” Riley said.

      “One night he told me he wanted me gone,” Jilly said. “He said I was a dead weight, that I was keeping him down, and he’d had enough of me and he was through with me. He kicked me out of the house. He locked the doors and I couldn’t get back in.”

      Jilly gulped hard at the memory.

      “I’ve never felt so cold in my life,” she said. “Not even now, in this weather. I found a big drainpipe in a ditch, and it was big enough for me to crawl into, so that was where I spent that night. It was so scary. Sometimes people were walking around near me, but I didn’t want them to find me. They didn’t sound like anybody who would help me.”

      Riley closed her eyes, picturing the girl hiding in the dark drainpipe. She whispered, “And what happened then?”

      Jilly continued, “I just scrunched down and stayed there all night. I didn’t really sleep. The next morning I went back home and knocked on the door and called for Dad and begged him to let me in. He ignored me, like I wasn’t even there. That’s when I went to the truck stop. It was warm there, and there was food. Some of the women were nice to me and I figured I’d do whatever I had to do to stay there. And that night is when you found me.”

      Jilly had grown calmer as she’d told her story. She seemed relieved to let it out. But now Riley was crying. She could hardly believe what this poor girl had gone through. She put her arm around Jilly and hugged her tight.

      “Never again,” Riley said through her sobs. “Jilly, I promise you, you’ll never feel like that ever again.”

      It was a huge promise, and Riley was feeling small, weak, and fragile herself right now. She hoped that she could keep it.

      CHAPTER THREE

      The woman kept thinking about poor Cody Woods. She was sure that he was dead by now. She’d find out for sure from the morning newspaper.

      As much as she was enjoying her hot tea and granola, waiting for the news was making her grumpy.

      When is that paper going to get here? she wondered, looking at the kitchen clock.

      The delivery seemed to be getting later and later these days. Of course, she wouldn’t have this trouble with a digital subscription. But she didn’t like to read the news on her computer. She liked to settle down in a comfortable chair and enjoy the old-fashioned feel of a newspaper in her hands. She even liked the way the newsprint sometimes stuck to her fingers.

      But the paper was already a quarter of an hour late. If things got much worse, she’d have to call in and complain. She hated to do that. It always left a bad taste in her mouth.

      Anyway, the newspaper was really the only way she had of finding out about Cody. She couldn’t very well call the Signet Rehabilitation Center to ask about him. That would cause too much suspicion. Besides, as far as the staff there was concerned, she was already in Mexico with her husband, with no plans ever to return.

      Or rather, Hallie Stillians was in Mexico. It felt a bit sad that she’d never get to be Hallie Stillians ever again. She’d gotten rather attached to that particular alias. It had been sweet of the staff at Signet Rehab to surprise her with a cake on her last day there.

      She smiled as she remembered. The cake had been colorfully decorated with sombreros and a message:

      Buen Viaje, Hallie and Rupert!

      Rupert had been the name of her imaginary husband. She was going to miss talking so fondly about him.

      She finished her granola and kept sipping her delicious homemade tea, made from an old family recipe – a different recipe from the one she’d shared with Cody, and of course minus the special ingredients she’d added for him.

      She idly began to sing …

      Far from home,

      So far from home —

      This little baby’s far from home.

      You pine away

      From day to day

      Too sad to laugh, too sad to play.

      How Cody had loved that song! So had all the other patients. And many more patients in the future were sure to love it just as much. That thought warmed her heart.

      Just then she heard a thump at the front door. She hurried to open it and look outside. Lying on the cold stoop was the morning newspaper. Trembling with excitement, she picked up the paper, rushed back to the kitchen, and opened it to the death notices.

      Sure enough, there it was:

      SEATTLE – Cody Woods , 49, of Seattle …

      She stopped for a moment right there. That was odd. She could have sworn that he’d told her he was fifty. Then she read the rest …

      … at the South Hills Hospital, Seattle, Wash.; Sutton-Brinks Funeral Home and Cremation Services, Seattle.

      That was all. It was terse, even for a simple death notice.

      She