Chapter 5 - The Child Who Listened With Her Hands
Fay did not sleep that night.
The doctor Rafferty summoned had wrapped her knees, given her an anti-inflammatory, and advised rest as though rest were something poor women could purchase by the hour.
Mrs. Odette drove her home herself.
At 2:43 in the morning, Fay climbed the narrow stairs to her apartment and found Mrs. Landry asleep in the armchair, Josie curled under a blanket on the couch with the blue paper boat clutched in 1 hand.
Fay's body nearly broke with tenderness.
She paid Mrs. Landry from the envelope of tips Mrs. Odette had pressed into her hand, adding extra because guilt had to go somewhere.
Then she sat on the floor beside Josie and let herself cry silently.
Not loudly.
Never loudly enough to wake her daughter.
By morning, the Cain Estate felt like something from another life.
Fay made oatmeal. She checked Josie's hearing-aid battery. She helped her daughter trace letters on a page.
At 10:12, someone knocked.
Fay looked through the peephole and saw Silvano.
Not in a suit this time.
He wore a dark coat and held both hands visible, as though approaching a frightened animal.
Fay opened the door only as far as the chain allowed.
"Mr. Cain sent you."
"Yes."
"I don't want trouble."
"He assumed you would say that."
Silvano handed her a cream envelope.
She did not take it.
"If that's money, no."
"It is an apology."
"Apologies don't come in envelopes."
"This one does."
Behind Fay, Josie appeared in the doorway of the tiny kitchen. She watched Silvano's mouth, then looked to her mother for translation.
Fay signed slowly: Friend of man from work.
Josie frowned and signed back: Is he scary?
Silvano's expression changed.
He knew enough to understand the shape of the question, if not the exact words.
Fay's cheeks warmed.
"She asks honest questions."
"Good," Silvano said. "People should."
He crouched until he was closer to Josie's height and signed clumsily but clearly, Hello.
Josie's face lit with surprise.
Fay stared.
"Where did you learn?"
"My sister's boy is deaf."
The sentence softened something against Fay's will.
She removed the chain.
Silvano entered only after she stepped back.
The apartment was small enough that his presence seemed to fill half of it. Yet he did not inspect the peeling paint, the thrift-store table, the stack of medical bills beside the sugar tin.
His eyes landed on none of the things Fay feared he would judge.
He placed the envelope on the table.
"Mr. Cain asked me to say he is sorry for what happened in his house. He does not expect forgiveness because he did not earn it by stopping it sooner."
Fay looked down at the envelope.
"Why is he really sending you?"
Silvano paused.
"He wants to know whether you were ever at Saint Bartholomew's Monastery."
The room tilted.
Fay put 1 hand on the chair.
"Why?"
"Because he remembers a girl who made paper boats."
Josie lifted her blue boat as if summoned.
Fay turned away, but not before Silvano saw her face.
Saint Bartholomew's.
She had not heard the name in years.
Her mother had worked laundry there after Hurricane Katrina took their first apartment. Fay was 6, maybe 7, small enough to hide behind baskets, old enough to notice lonely children.
There had been a boy.
Dark hair.
Fever-bright eyes.
Too proud to admit he was afraid.
Fay had sat beside him because no one else had.
"He was Rafe," she whispered.
Silvano said nothing.
Fay closed her eyes.
"I thought he died."
Silvano's voice softened.
"No."
Fay laughed once, unsteadily.
"No. He became Rafferty Cain."
There were many impossible things in the world.
Apparently that was one of them.
Silvano touched the envelope with 2 fingers.
"He also asked me to say the contents are not charity. It is the unpaid cost of what his house allowed."
Fay opened it with shaking hands.
Inside was a check for an amount large enough to make her sit down.
Also a note.
Not typed.
Written.
Miss Delacroix,
My house failed you. That debt is mine. If this offends your dignity, use it for your daughter's future and consider it a fine imposed on me by the girl who once taught a boy how not to be afraid of the dark.
Rafferty Cain
Fay read it twice.
Then she folded it carefully.
"Tell him thank you."
Silvano nodded.
"And tell him," she added, "I still don't belong to him."
May you like
For the first time, Silvano smiled.
"He assumed you would say that too."
