“I understand. And I don’t want to make trouble for you, Peter, make things more difficult. It sounds like your life with her hasn’t been particularly happy. Or easy.”

He scoffed. “That’s putting it mildly. You have no idea what that woman has put me through over the years. She’s a crazy, selfish bitch, and I don’t want her anywhere near you, Tessa. You’ve been through enough trauma of your own, especially these last few months, and the last thing you need is to be exposed to someone as evil as my mother. She’d make Michelle’s mother seem like a saint in comparison.”

Tessa resisted the urge to pry further, sensing that Peter found the subject of his mother both distasteful and disturbing, so she didn’t ask any additional questions. He went inside the garage, emerging a few minutes later with a large piece of cardboard, a box cutter, and a roll of duct tape. Between the two of them they were able to tape up the broken window securely enough that the cool evening air didn’t make the interior of the car too cold.

And even though she was still resigned to sleeping in her car for the foreseeable future, Tessa couldn’t help feeling safer and more secure than she had in a long time. It was enough, at least for now, to know that she had a friend she could count on – something that she had rarely been able to do for the better part of her young life.

Chapter Five

Six Weeks Later

She had learned over the years not to get too attached to any one thing or person or place, whether that might have been a favorite doll that got left behind during a hastily organized move, or a teacher who had been kind to her, or the house that belonged to the man her mother had been involved with for a few months. It had been pointless, really, to form such attachments, or become comfortable with their current situation, because everything could and did change overnight on a regular basis.

But this time around Tessa didn’t have to worry about Gillian suddenly hearing the voices in her head – her “spirit guides” as she’d been wont to call them – telling her to move to Santa Fe where she would be sure to find new inspiration for her writing. Or that they would have to sneak out in the middle of the night to escape a boyfriend who had become a little too demanding for Gillian’s liking. This time Tessa was the one in control of her fate and her future, at least as long as her case worker at Child Protective Services didn’t discover that she was more or less living in her car.

With Peter’s help, however, she didn’t feel nearly as alone or desperate as she had since leaving her foster home with the Wallace’s. The two of them had put in long hours of work to clean out the bathroom of the in-law unit, work that had involved getting rid of dozens of boxes of junk that had contained everything from dusty books to moldy magazines to rusty kitchen utensils. Once the bathroom had been emptied of boxes, the real work had begun with scrubbing and sanitizing every surface, cleaning away several years of mildew and debris. But at least the plumbing worked – if one didn’t count the pathetically low water pressure in the shower, and the fact that the water temperature was lukewarm at best, tepid at worst.

Tessa never complained, though. It was more than enough for her to have a place to shower and clean up, and where she could store her toiletries and a few of her things without having to cart them around in her trunk all the time. Peter’s confidence that his mother would never even notice Tessa’s presence had thus far been well founded, and over the past few weeks he’d even begun to invite her inside the main house when Mrs. Lockwood was at work. They often did their laundry together at the same time, saving Tessa the time and expense of going to the laundromat.

The amount of junk stored in the in-law unit should have prepared her for what was contained inside the main house, but Tessa hadn’t been able to stop from staring in disbelief at the condition of the place. Used as she was to living in rather spartan quarters with just the bare necessities most of the time, she was unable to comprehend how someone could live in such a state – with boxes and bins and bags stacked from floor to ceiling and on every available surface or piece of furniture. Peter had created a narrow pathway that led down the hallway to his bedroom and bathroom, both of which were neat and tidy with no trace of the clutter that existed elsewhere in the house.

She’d begun to spend most evenings with him in his room, doing homework or watching TV or eating a late dinner. Mrs. Lockwood worked the swing shift at her job – four p.m. to midnight – and was never around when Tessa hung out with Peter. On weekends, she indulged her other compulsion – drinking – and would spend those evenings making the rounds of the bars with her friends. According to Peter, his mother was what he termed a “functioning alcoholic” – usually able to hold down a job and manage her daily chores. But on weekends in particular she would drink – a lot – and was either stinking drunk or nursing a bad hangover most of the time, and Peter would go out of his way to avoid her.

Tessa sensed that there was more – a whole lot more – about Peter’s relationship with his mother that he hadn’t divulged. He truly seemed to hate her, to hold some sort of bitter grudge against her, and spoke often about how he couldn’t wait to move out on his own. He had turned eighteen in the middle of May – less than two weeks before Tessa’s own seventeenth birthday – and was due to graduate from high school within the next few days. But when she’d quizzed him about why he wasn’t planning to leave right after that, he’d only muttered something about needing to save a little more money before he could manage that. Tessa hadn’t pressed for more details, but guessed that there was a story behind that, too.

Over the past few weeks, she’d gradually grown closer to Peter, confiding things in him that she’d never told anyone else before – about her mother and how hard their life had been; about her difficulties in school and how she felt stupid most of the time; and about those times when she had to fight off her own bouts of depression and worry that she was going to become like her mother.

Peter had sympathized with the hardships she’d endured growing up; had assured her time and time again that she was actually very bright, and had helped her with homework; had shared the research he’d done to show that while bipolar disorder could be hereditary, there were other factors to be considered as well and that Tessa wasn’t necessarily at risk.