Look Again - Lisa Scottoline [19]
“Scratchy.”
Ellen smiled. “It’s my sweater. Now, tell me how you are. Does your throat hurt?”
“A little.”
Ellen wasn’t overly worried, she hadn’t smelled strep on his breath. You didn’t have to be a good mother to smell strep. Even a drunk could smell strep. “How about your head? Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
“Tummy?”
“A little.”
Ellen hugged him. “Did you have fun with Connie today?”
“Tell me a story, Mommy.”
“Okay. An old or a new one?”
“An old one.”
Ellen knew the one he wanted to hear. She would tell it and try not to think about the photos in her bedroom. “Once upon a time there was a little boy who was very, very sick. He was in a hospital, all by himself. And one day, a mommy went to the hospital and saw him.”
“What did she say?” Will asked, though he knew. This wasn’t a bedtime story, it was a bedtime prayer.
“She said, ‘My goodness, this is the cutest little boy I have ever seen. I’m a mommy who needs a baby, and he’s a baby who needs a mommy. I wish that little boy could be mine.’ ”
“Oreo Figaro’s biting my foot.”
“Oreo Figaro, no, stop it.” Ellen gave the cat a nudge, and he went after her foot instead. “Now he’s got me. Ouch.”
“He’s sharing, Mommy.”
Ellen laughed. “That’s right.” She moved her foot away, and the cat gave up. “Anyway, back to the story. So the mommy asked the nurse, and she said, ‘Yes, you can take that little boy home if you really, really love him a lot.’ So the mommy said to the nurse, ‘Well, that’s funny, I just happen to love this baby a whole lot.’ ”
“Tell it right, Mommy.”
Ellen got back on track. She’d been distracted, thinking about Timothy Braverman. “So the mommy said to the nurse, ‘I really love this baby a whole lot and I want to take him home,’ and they said okay, and the mommy adopted the little boy, and they lived happily ever after.” Ellen hugged him close. “And I do. I love you very much.”
“I love you, too.”
“That makes it perfect. And oh, yeah, they got a cat.”
“Oreo Figaro’s head is on my foot.”
“He’s telling you he loves you. Also that he’s sorry about before.”
“He’s a good cat.”
“A very good cat,” Ellen said, giving Will another squeeze. He fell silent, and in time she could feel his skin cool and his limbs relax.
She remained in the dark bedroom, listening to the occasional hiss of the radiator and looking at a ceiling covered with phosphorescent stars that glowed WILL. Her gaze fell to shelves full of toys and games, and a window with the white plastic shade pulled down. On the walls, cartoon elephants lumbered along in a line, knockoff Babars holding onto each other’s tails and balancing one-legged on bandbox stands. She had put the wallpaper up herself, with the radio blasting hip-hop. It was the child’s room she’d always dreamed of, ready just in time to bring Will home from the hospital.
Her gaze returned to the WILL constellation, and she tried to count her blessings, but failed. Until that damn white card had come in the mail, she’d been happier than she’d imagined she ever could be. She hugged Will gently, but her thoughts wandered back down the hall. Then she got another idea, one that wouldn’t wait.
She eased Will from her chest and shifted out of bed, clumsily because of the stupid guardrail. She got up, covered him with his thermal blanket, and padded out of the room on fleece socks.
Oreo Figaro raised his head and watched her sneak off.
Chapter Fifteen
Ellen went into her home office, flicked on the overhead light, and sat down at her fake-wood workstation, a floor sample from Staples that held an old Gateway computer and monitor. The room was tiny enough that the Realtor had called it a “sewing room,” and it barely accommodated the workstation, an underused stationary bicycle, and mismatched file cabinets containing household files, research, appliance manuals, and old clippings Ellen kept in case she had to get a new job.
I’ll have to cut one more by the end of the month.
Ellen sat down, opened her email, and wrote Courtney an email telling