“I do. It was a gift from one of the correctional officers when I was released. It’s an old one, but...it works.”
“So you’ll friend me? You know how to do that?”
She sipped more coffee. The caffeine was making her jittery on an empty stomach, but it helped to have something to do with her hands. “I took some computer classes when I was... I took some classes.”
“Oh.”
“What are your plans now that you’re home?” Riley asked. “Are you looking for a job or...?”
“Not quite yet,” she replied. “I have to finish cleaning out the trailer where I’m living before I do anything else.” She almost expounded on how bad it was, how unsanitary. Her mother’s hoarding was worse than ever. But she caught herself. If her primary goal was to provide a room for Jacob that Riley would deem safe—in case her son ever agreed to stay with her for a night or two—it wouldn’t be wise to regale his father with the gritty details. When she’d first begun cleaning it up, the trailer hadn’t been fit for pigs. Although it was a lot better now, it would be spotless by the time she was done.
“Where will you apply after that?”
“Anywhere there’s an opening.” Riley had also pointed out how difficult it would be for her to make a living in Whiskey Creek, a town of only two thousand. The school had allowed her to graduate in spite of the fact that she’d missed the last three weeks of her senior year, but a high school diploma wouldn’t do much to offset her criminal record. She hadn’t mentioned the business she’d started while she was still incarcerated. She had no idea if it would succeed. But she’d established a small income making leather bracelets for men and boys. The woman who’d given her the laptop, Cara Brentwell, had been putting the bracelets up on Etsy.com and eBay for the past three years. That was where, most recently, she’d gotten the bulk of the money she’d been sending to Jacob. She and Cara had split the profits but, as a free woman, she no longer needed Cara’s help.
“I, um, have a small gift for you,” she told Jacob. “Don’t get excited, it’s nothing big. You don’t even have to wear it if you don’t like it. I just wanted to see if...you know, maybe you’d think it was cool.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out the leather pouch she’d put the bracelet in instead of wrapping it. Somehow that seemed more masculine than paper and bow.
“Thanks,” he said as he accepted it.
She didn’t say that she’d made it. She didn’t want to give him or anyone else any reason not to like it. “If you’d rather open it later,” she began, but he had his hand inside and took it out before she could finish.
“What is it?” Riley asked.
“A bracelet,” Jacob piped up, and the pleasant tone of his voice was slightly reassuring. He didn’t sound as if he hated it.
“So you’ve seen them before?” she said, trying to gauge whether he was just trying to salvage her feelings.
“Yeah, but none quite like this.” He turned it over in his man-size hands. Fortunately, the braided leather she’d embellished with a piece of petrified wood that was carved in the shape of a bird—a play on her name that she wasn’t sure he’d understand—fastened with a tie so it couldn’t be too small. “It’s awesome. Where’d you get it?”
The waitress arrived with their food, and Phoenix pretended she hadn’t heard the question. Jacob became so distracted putting on the bracelet, and then eating, that he didn’t pursue an answer.
From there the conversation became a bit stilted. Phoenix asked about his grades, expressed pride that he was doing so well and encouraged him to continue. Then she asked if he had a girlfriend. He said he didn’t, that he was interested in a few different girls, but mostly just as friends, and then the conversation lagged again. It would’ve been more natural to talk to Riley, too, but Phoenix was careful not to direct a single question to him. She didn’t want him to worry that she might still have feelings for him. Sometimes their brief relationship played out in her mind, usually late at night. Those memories were some of the best she had. But she told herself they continued to matter simply because she hadn’t shared the same kind of intimacy with any other person. She’d been barely eighteen when she went to prison and, although she’d been approached by various male guards over the years, which some of her fellow inmates resented, she’d never even kissed anyone besides Riley. One guard sent her a few letters after he quit his job at the prison, but she never responded. He lived in the Bay Area, and she’d planned to return to Whiskey Creek; she’d realized all along that she’d have a very brief period to get to know her son before he reached adulthood. She didn’t want to waste time on a man, especially considering how fickle and unreliable they could be, judging by the speed with which Riley had fallen in and out of love with her.
Even without being addressed, Riley added a comment here and there to support what Jacob said. Whenever that happened, Phoenix would turn a polite smile on him to acknowledge his remark. But she kept her attention on her son, which worked fine—until the check came. Then she had to engage Riley because he tried to pluck it off the corner of the table.
Thankfully, she managed to grab it before he could. She wouldn’t allow him to buy her a meal, to buy her anything. This was a matter of pride, what little pride she could salvage, anyway. She’d extended the invitation; she’d pay the tab. Anything else might make him believe she was out to get something from him when, other than his blessing for her to see Jacob, she definitely wasn’t.
“I don’t mind,” he said, as if he wasn’t sure whether to insist while she counted out her money.
Even with the tip, she had enough—thank God. “It’s my treat, but I appreciate the offer,” she said firmly.
Leaving the money on the table, she slid out of the booth.
“Breakfast was good,” Jacob said.
A jolt of hope and happiness shot through her that he seemed to have enjoyed himself. The path ahead of them would not be smooth, but she’d survived her first breakfast with Jacob and didn’t feel she was about to fall apart. It probably helped that she’d had a lot of practice with disappointment. She hoped the next encounter would be easier, and the next even easier and so forth. She had to start somewhere.
“It was my pleasure,” she told him.
Although she tried to lag behind, they waited for her to precede them. She didn’t own a car, which meant she’d be walking five miles to the barren spot of land her mother had inherited from her own parents. Lizzie had two old trailers on that property—the one she’d filled so full of junk she could no longer live in it, which was now Phoenix’s home, and the one she occupied herself, with her five dogs, two hamsters and a parrot.
Once they got outside, she stepped out of the way so they could move past her and into the parking lot. “Thank you for meeting me.”
Riley squinted against the bright spring sunshine and gazed around, as if he expected someone to be there to pick her up. “How are you getting home?”
She didn’t answer that question directly for fear he’d take it as a hint that she wanted a ride. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ve got it covered.”
“You’ve got what covered?”
“Aren’t
