Where the Stars Still Shine Read Online Free Page B

“He’s littler than me. He’s not even two.”
    “Don’t take Joe personally,” Greg says. “His people motor doesn’t warm up as fast as Tucker’s, but once it does, he’s Velcro Boy.”
    “Velcro Boy!” Tucker exclaims in a superhero voice, and races circles around us, arms extended as if he’s flying. Phoebe catches him up in her arms and gently scolds him—not really scolding at all—that he needs to turn down his volume.
    I miss my mom.
    Greg notices my distress. “So, who wants to show Callie her new room?”
    “Me, me, me!” Tucker’s T-shirt rides up as he worms his way out of his mother’s grasp. “Pick me, Daddy.”
    Without waiting for an answer, he catches my hand as if I’m not a complete stranger and pulls me along the side of the house to the backyard. Against the rear fence is an old-fashioned silver Airstream trailer, the kind you hitch to a car to go camping. Tucker races ahead to open the door, then doubles back to me.
    “You get to sleep in here.” He says it with reverence, as if this trailer is the holy grail of sleep spaces.
    Inside, it resembles a mini-apartment with a sink, stove, and refrigerator; a dining table; a built-in couch;a bathroom with a shower; and even a tiny bedroom. The bed is covered by a purple cotton spread embroidered with flowers and tiny bits of mirror, and decorated with a cluster of throw pillows. Nestled among the pillows is a patchwork owl that gives me the same déjà vu sensation I had at the sheriff’s office.
    “It’s nothing fancy,” Greg says, entering the trailer. “The stove doesn’t work, and I still need to hook up the propane for hot water and heat, but we only have two bedrooms and … I guess I thought you might want a place of your own.”
    I pick up the owl. Some of the patches are worn so thin you can almost see through them to the stuffing inside.
    “You used to carry him everywhere,” he says. “You called him—”
    “Toot.” It’s just a tiny flash of a memory, but I remember making sure he was with me every night before I went to sleep. “I thought that’s what owls said.”
    I can see the bitter blurred in the sweet of Greg’s smile. All these years I’ve had very few memories, while he—he’s had nothing but.
    “Owls say ‘hoot,’ silly.” Tucker cracks up, as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, and Phoebe suggests they go in the house to check on dinner. He protests, but she scoops him up and carries him off, leaving Gregand me—and a silent Joe, who regards me with owl-size eyes from the safety of his father’s arms—in the trailer.
    “So, um—there will be some rules,” Greg says. “Not sure what yet, because—well, when you left you were a tiny girl who slept with an owl and called me Daddy. But I’m sure they’ll be the typical things. Boys, curfews, and”—he gestures toward a laptop sitting on the small dining table—“stuff about porn.”
    I nod, dizzy at the idea of having my own computer. I’ve only ever used the computers at public libraries, usually in moments stolen between card-holding patrons. Most librarians were nice about it, but a few would chase me off, questioning why I wasn’t in school. Whenever that happened, I’d hide in the most secluded corner I could find and read. Once in a while, I’d take home a book without checking it out. And if I couldn’t return it to its home library, I’d return it to the next library.
    “This is only meant to be your bedroom, Callie,” Greg says. “The rest of the house is yours, too. Don’t feel as if you have to stay out here all the time, okay?”
    I nod again, overwhelmed by suddenly having so much when I’ve gone for so long with so little. Overwhelmed at how my life has been turned upside down.
    “We’ll probably eat around six,” he says, as he carriesJoe out the screen door. He pauses on the step. “You could come join us now, if—”
    “I might sleep.”
    His smile falters a little, as if he expects me