than what it did? James McGregor, SFPD, and a telephone number. She wished she had pockets.
For one thing, having pockets would mean she had pants.
“Thank you.”
Then Ben shepherded her away, across the dewy grass, up his stairs—the mirror image of the ones on Ruth’s town house—and hustled her to the kitchen, where she could smell coffee brewing.
The kitchen was toasty warm, but she kept on the overcoat, realizing that the shivering wasn’t entirely a result of temperature. He scraped out a chair at the breakfast nook, then began to bustle about, pouring coffee and scrambling eggs with a quiet calm as she recounted what had happened.
When the facts had been exchanged, and the immediate questions answered, he seemed to realize she needed to stop talking. He kept bustling, while she sat, staring out at the brightening emerald of the grass and the gorgeous tulips he grew with his magical green thumbs.
She liked the small sounds of him working. The clink of a spoon against a cup, the quick swish of water dampening a dishcloth, the squeak of his tennis shoes.
The simple sounds of another human being. Suddenly she realized how completely alone she’d been the past two months.
Finally, the internal shivering ceased. With a small sigh of relief, she shrugged off his coat. Glancing at the clock over the stove, she realized it was almost seven.
She must have been here an hour or more. She should go home and let him get on with his day.
“Thank you, Ben,” she began, standing. “I should go ho—” All of a sudden she felt tears pushing at her throat, behind her eyes, and she sat back down, frowning hard at her cup. “I—I should...”
“You should move,” Ben said matter-of-factly. He had his cup in one hand and a dish towel in the other, drying the china in methodical circular motions, as if he were polishing silver.
“Move?” She glanced up, wondering if she’d misheard. “Move out of the town house?”
He nodded.
“Just because of what happened this morning?”
“No. Not just that. You should move because you shouldn’t be living there in the first place. For Ruth, maybe it was right. She liked quiet. For you...”
He shook his head slowly, but with utter conviction. “I always knew it was wrong of her to keep you there. Like a prison. You’re too young. You’re too alive.”
“That’s not fair,” she interjected quickly. Criticism of Ruth always made her uncomfortable. Where would she have been if Ruth hadn’t agreed to take her in? “Ruth knew I needed—a safe harbor.”
“At first, yes.” Ben sighed, and his gaze shifted to the bay window overlooking the gardens. His deep-set blue eyes softened, as if he could see them as they’d been fifteen years ago, an old man and a little girl, with twin easels set up, twin paint palettes smudged with blue and red and yellow, each trying to capture the beauty of the flowers.
“At first, you did need a quiet home. Like a hospital. You were a broken little thing.”
He transferred his troubled gaze to her. Then he cleared his throat and turned to the sink.
Ben knew about the tragedy that had exiled Penny from Bell River, of course. Everyone knew, but Ruth hadn’t allowed anyone to speak of it to Penny. She thought it would be too traumatic. Having a mother die tragically was bad enough for any child. But having your mother killed by your father...and your father hauled away to prison...
And then being ripped from the only home you’d ever known, split from your sisters and asked to live in another state, with a woman you barely knew...
Traumatic was an understatement. But, though Ruth had meant well, never being allowed to talk about what had happened—that might have been the hardest of all. Never to be given the chance to sort her emotions into words, to put the events into some larger perspective. Never to let them lose power through familiarity.
Sometimes Penny thought it was a miracle she hadn’t suffered a psychotic break.
“Sweet pea, I’m sorry. But I need to say this.” Ben still held the cup and dishrag, and was still rubbing the surface in circles, as if it were a worry stone.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s okay, Ben. Whatever it is.”
“Good.” He put down the cup and rag, then cleared his throat. “Ruth did mean well. I know that. You needed to heal, and at first it was probably better to heal quietly, in private. But you’ve been ready to move on for a long time.”
“How could I? Ruth was so sick, and—”
“I know. It was loyal of you to stay, to take care of her when she needed you. But she doesn’t need you anymore, honey. It’s time to move on.”
At first Penny didn’t answer. She recognized a disturbing truth in his words. That truth made her so uncomfortable she wanted to run away. But she respected him too much to brush him off. They’d been friends a long time. He was as close to a father as she’d ever had.
“I know,” she admitted finally. “But moving on...it’s not that easy, Ben.”
“Of course it is!” With a grin, he stomped to the refrigerator and yanked down the piece of paper that always hung there, attached by a magnet shaped like Betty Boop. “Just do it! Walk out the door! Grab your bucket list and start checking things off!”
She laughed. “I don’t have a bucket list.”
“You don’t?” Ben looked shocked. He stared at his own. “Not even in your head? In your heart of hearts? You don’t have a list of things you want to do before you die?”
She shook her head.
“Why? You think bucket lists are just for geezers like me?”
“Of course not. I’ve never had any reason to—”
“Well, you do now. You can’t hide forever, Pea. For better or worse, you aren’t like the nun in Ruth’s parlor. You were never meant for that.”
Ruth’s parlor overflowed with lace doilies and antimacassars, Edwardian furniture and Meissen shepherdesses. Ruth had covered every inch of wall space with framed, elaborate cross-stitch samplers offering snippets of poetry, advice and warnings—so many it was hard to tell where one maxim ended and the next one began.
Penny had loved them all, but her favorite had been a picture of a woman putting on a white veil. When Penny moved in, at eleven, she’d assumed the woman was getting married, but Ruth had explained that the poem was really about a woman preparing to become a nun.
The line of poetry beneath the veil read, “And I have asked to be where no storms come.” Penny had adored the quote—especially the way it began with and, as if it picked up the story in the middle. As if the woman had already explained the troubles that had driven her to seek safety in a convent.
“My father murdered my mother,” Penny always imagined the poem might have begun. “And so I have asked to be
