COULD YOU FALL in love with a voice? Finn shut his eyes and listened from the little room, lying in the little bed, covered in a little pink spread, surrounded by life-size pictures of Bonnie Rae Shelby wearing skimpy outfits and long, blonde curls, making love to a microphone. Katy was requesting one song after another, and Bonnie Rae was giving the sweet ten-year-old a private concert . . . in her pajamas. Talk about Make-A-Wish.
You would think he would stare at those pictures while he listened to her sing. But Finn didn’t stare at the images. He didn’t need to. The real thing was a room away. So he had turned off the lights, climbed into bed, and now lay with his eyes closed, just listening.
He heard giggles—childish and adult—and he wondered how Bonnie was still going strong at ten o’clock at night. He was exhausted, and she hadn’t had any more sleep than he had in the last twenty-four hours. And she still hadn’t showered or had a minute to herself. He wondered if this time with Katy was good for her, healing maybe. It was the only reason he hadn’t insisted they leave. He’d wanted to get on the road. He’d needed to press his foot to the gas and leave Portsmouth behind, to get back on track.
What had happened to his road trip, the road trip he’d been so eager to make that he hadn’t even waited until morning to leave home as originally planned? He hadn’t been able to sleep that last night in Boston, the night he’d found Bonnie on the bridge. He’d gone to bed and lain there for an hour and then thought, “Why wait?” So he’d folded up his bedding—the only thing left in his basement apartment—and pulled on his clothes. Then he’d headed out. His mom worked the swing shift at the hospital, so she would be getting home about midnight too. He planned to catch her right as she got home, say goodbye, and be on his way. That was the plan. That was Saturday. And that plan, and every other one since then, had been shot to hell.
Now it was Tuesday. Only three nights later. And he was in a strange house, in a child’s bed, in southern Ohio.
He almost laughed then, so damn bewildered and incredulous that laughing was all he really could do. He rubbed his face, too tired to give in to the urge to howl, and just sighed instead, noting wearily that Bonnie Rae had closed her concert and was saying goodnight to Katy, promising she’d be back after she showered, telling the little girl to try to go to sleep.
Bonnie Rae had called Katy Minnie. It had happened only once, but he’d seen the stricken look on Bonnie’s face before she’d corrected herself and patted Katy’s cheek. It was the same look she’d worn when she’d been watching them in the convenience store, before she’d befriended them.
The bathroom was right next to Katy’s bedroom. He saw the light pool in the hallway as Bonnie entered, and then watched it narrow to a long thin line as she closed the door, and the light seeped out beneath. The shower came on next, the sound soothing the way rushing water always was. Someone had told him in prison that God’s voice sounded like rushing water. That’s why babies love to be shushed. That’s why the sound lulls people to sleep. He wondered how anyone would know what God’s voice sounded like. Especially someone convicted of homicide.
He felt himself drifting off when he heard Bonnie crying. He was pretty sure that this time it had nothing to do with short hair and a resemblance to her homely brother, Hank. She cried like she’d been holding it in all day. Maybe she had. Maybe spending time with Katy had been a very bad idea. He sat up immediately, wondering if they should go, if he needed to get her out of here.
Then he swore, loud and foul, pulled at his hair, and lay back down. It wasn’t his job to save her! He couldn’t save her! Hadn’t he told her, just today, not to try and save him? It was all bullshit. And it was her fault they were here in the first place! He pulled the pillow over his head so he couldn’t hear her. There. That was better. God’s voice didn’t sound like rushing water, it sounded like silence.
Finn commanded himself to sleep, keeping the pillow smashed into his face. But the light curled around the edges of the pillow when Bonnie left the bathroom, and the hallway went black when she flipped it off. He moved the pillow off his face and bunched it under his head, telling himself he still wasn’t listening. And he wasn’t listening, he was straining. With every muscle, he was straining to hear.
“Finn? Are you awake?” He could hear her feeling along the walls, trying to make her way to the bed where he lay. When she reached it, she sat gingerly on the end.
“Yeah,” he admitted quietly. She sat for a minute, not saying anything, and he didn’t demand a reason for her presence.
“Do you still miss Fisher?” she finally whispered.
He could say no. Maybe she needed to be reassured that the pain would go away eventually.
“Yeah,” he said. So much for reassurance. “I still talk to him sometimes. Fish and I were identical too. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I imagine it’s him. I talk to my reflection. Stupid. But yeah.”
“I can’t stand looking at myself for that reason. All I see is her.”
“You should look. Let yourself look. If it makes you feel better, let yourself pretend.”
He heard her sniffle in the dark.
“It’s better than seeing Hank. Right?” he was trying to make her laugh, but he didn’t know if it worked. It was too dark and she was too still.
“Do you ever feel like you’ve forgotten something, only to realize it’s not something, it’s someone . . . it’s Fisher? I feel like that all the time. Like I’ve overlooked something important—and I’ll check to make sure I haven’t left my phone, or my keys, or my purse. Then I realize it’s Minnie. I’ve lost Minnie.”