“Oh, honey, don’t cry.” Aimee strokes Noa’s hair.
“I know I’m not supposed to do it, but I kept doing it, anyway.” She lifts her chin. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I like this?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you. You struggle with something calledimpulse control.Do you know what that is?” The conversation reminds her of the unread evaluation in her inbox. Just one more thing to get to. “It’s when you want to do something so, so bad. Like eat all the cookies at once. Or maybe draw on the wall with lipstick because it would look cool.”
“I’d never do that.”
“But you might want to. And impulse control is talking back to that little voice in your head and saying,Well,hold on a minute. I know you really want to do this, but let’s stop and think for a second if it’s such a good idea.”
“I have that voice, but I don’t listen to it.”
“That’s right, and we’re going to work on paying more attention to that voice. So, the next time you see something pretty or lovely, you’ll be able to have the feeling of wanting to take it, but then when that voice kicks in, you’ll listen.”
“Is that how grown-ups are? They listen to the voice?”
Aimee smiles. “Sometimes. Some grown-ups are better at it than other grown-ups.” Aimee looks at her watch and curses herself. This wasn’t a smart time to bring this up. She’s off her game with Scott missing. She should have waited until after school. Now they have five minutes until the bus comes.
“Honey.” Aimee crouches down to Noa’s level. “It’s okay. I am not mad. We’re going to talk about this when you get home from school.”
“You’re not mad at me?” Noa peers up at her.
“Nope, I’m not mad.” Aimee smiles and pushes a tear-soaked clump of hair out of her daughter’s eyes. “Now go get your backpack. We don’t want to miss the bus.”
She calls up to the twins, and they come bounding down past their sister and into the kitchen to grab their backpacks. Aimee corrals the kids and gets them outside. There’s not a cloud in the bright-blue sky after the overnight rain. It’s another perfect September day and the neighborhood is brimming with life. People heading to the cut-through to reach the metro, walking their dogs, kids rushing to the bus stop. It’s isolating to Aimee to see how little impact the tragedies on this cul-de-sac have on their neighbors’ lives, which go on as before while she struggles to keep things running smoothly and Gwen falls apart next door.
“What are you going to do with it?” Noa asks as she walks briskly beside her.
“I’ll put it in an envelope and drop it off at the house. And maybe you can write a note, how about that?”
Noa nods. “Okay, but you said Cathy was gone.”
It takes Aimee a minute to remember the story Detective Salazar spun that morning to explain why he was asking so many questions about Cathy. “Yes, but she’ll be back,” Aimee says as they arrive at the bus stop.
“Who is taking care of the kittens while she’s gone?”
“Oh, another lady, a nice lady.”
“I was thinking last night how if Cathy didn’t come back then the kittens wouldn’t have a new home. Mommy, the other things, you should put them in the envelope, too.” Noa says that last part so fast that Aimee almost doesn’t catch it.
“You mean the things in the box?”
“We should give them back to Cathy.” She looks up at Aimee with her big brown eyes. “Do you think she’ll be mad at me?”
“No, of course not. I think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“It’s all right, honey. See how much better it feels to tell the whole truth? Now, let’s get you on the bus.”
Noa runs onto the bus, but a moment later she’s bounding down the stairs and running back to Aimee.
“Mommy, I remembered one of the things in the box isn’t from Cathy’s house. One of the things is from Cathy’s car.”
“Which thing?”
“It’s a card with a fox on it. Now I told the whole truth. Bye, Mom!” She runs back up the steps of the bus and the folding doors hiss closed.
Noa waves from the window as the bus pulls away. It’s only once the bus has turned the corner that the significance of what her daughter said hits her.Cathy’s car. Cathy drove Noa home in her Subaru. Anything Noa took from the car would belong to her, and not to Jean Brewster. Aimee breaks into a run, nervous energy propelling her back to the house. Inside she rushes upstairs to her bedroom and grabs the shoebox, dumping everything on the bed.