I keep my face calm. “You don’t have to explain them.”
“I bumped into the dresser.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
Her eyes flash. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe that sometimes bodies hit furniture when men make rooms unsafe.”
She looks away.
That is enough for tonight.
I gather her dirty clothes and fold them over the chair. She starts to protest, then stops herself. Good. Let one small thing be done for her. Let it not cost.
August rolls onto his back, mouth open, one hand searching. Amelia immediately lies beside him, and he settles the moment his fingers find her sleeve.
There is the whole world for him.
One sleeve.
One mother.
One locked door.
The clubhouse may be safer than the road, but it’s still a building full of men, old cells, locked places, and ghosts that know how to echo. A five-year-old doesn’t need to learn the shape of sleep in an old jail if there is any other choice.
I pull the blanket over them both.
Amelia looks startled by the gesture.
I smile faintly. “I’m Southern enough to fuss even when I’m trying not to.”
Her eyes soften.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“You’re welcome.”
I turn the lamp down low but don’t shut it off. Women who are running don’t always sleep well in the dark.
At the door, I pause. “I’ll be downstairs. Derby is in the hall. If he annoys you, tell him to get me.”
Derby says, “Still hearing things.”
I open the door and find him leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, face set in irritation as if the hallway has personally offended him.
“I thought you weren’t listening.”
“I ain’t. Y’all are loud.”
“We are whispering.”
“Loudly.”