Page 41 of Torch Songs

He heard all over again Tad’s concern for his sister, his worry that she wasn’t doing well in her current place, his hope that she could move to room with him.

“Let’s get you to him,” he said. “We’ll get you to him, we’ll move you into his apartment?”

“And we can get a cat,” she said, like she was holding on to that. “We can get a cat, and maybe a big dog, the kind that likes cats. And I can get a job—something small. Volunteering at a library, or…. God, I’m a junkie, but I do love working with kids. Nobody’ll want me with their kids, but I swear I wouldn’t use—”

“Darlin’,” Guthrie soothed, realizing thatthiswas what April had needed all morning, and the one person who could have given it to her was the one they were both freaking out over. “You need to focus on the cat. Focus on pizza on Fridays and movies and trips to the park. Focus on listening to music and listening to your brother talk about his day. Keep these things in mind.Theseare the things you’ll want after we get him back safe. Your brother, he’s as solid as they come. Once we get this sorted, you know he’ll be there for you, right?”

“What about you?” she whispered.

“I love cats,” he said. “I could visit, be there maybe for some pizza Fridays, take some of those weekend jaunts. I’m not jealous about family. You were there first, right?”

She nodded, and while her tears seemed to fall more freely, she also seemed to be calmer. “We could get two cats,” she said. “One for you, one for me.”

Guthrie smiled as he took the turn that would lead to his apartment. “What about your brother?”

And suddenly she was sharp as a tack, neither freaked out nor helpless. “Oh honey, any fool can see you’re like me. We’ll be his damned cats. He can feed us and pet us and give us a place to sleep, and we’ll let him know he’s the best thing in our lives.”

Suddenlyhewas the one with his eyes burning, and he had to take a deep, deep breath to keep from losing it now. Traffic on the 380 had been heinous. He estimated six hours at the minimum to get to Colton, if you counted pit stops and gas. Frankly, he didn’t see April being able to sit in the truck for the whole four- or five-hour trip, so he needed to count pit stops and gas.

“Well, sadly,” Guthrie said, pulling into his spot, “I have no cat. But I do have some bottles of water, some blankets and sleeping bags, and a knapsack so I can throw in a change of clothes. You want to come in and hit the head?”

She followed him into his apartment, pausing to look at the drum kit, which was set up, as well as his laptop, ready to record or transmit so he and the band could jam together. She saw the bookshelf with the Michael Connelly, the John Grisham, the James Patterson, and his copies ofRolling StoneandEntertainment Weekly.

“Can I grab some books and zines?” she asked. “I brought my yarn, but sometimes your hands get tired and you need to fuzz out.”

“Knock yourself out,” Guthrie told her. “Grab at least three.”

“Three?” She looked at him curiously.

“One for me, one for your brother, one for you. Then we can switch off when we’re done.”

She didn’t laugh, and she pickedfivebooks, so he figured she must be a fast reader.

He ran around and grabbed stuff. His sleeping bags, extra heavy-duty blankets, and, thinking mostly about April, a pillow so she could lean her head against it while he was driving. She watched him with incurious eyes, and he nodded to her to start picking stuff up.

“There’s a lockbox in the back we can stow most of it in,” he said. “Including my baby.”

And with that, he picked up his smallest, oldest acoustic guitar in a battered black case. The leather was so worn it was flaking in places, and the edges were starting to crack, but the instrument inside held a tune in the worst situations—including playing by the sea or in the wind. It wasn’t his best, and he usually performed with the electric, but the acoustic was… well, it was his crocheting, and like April, he needed something to give him comfort.

He had no idea what was waiting for them. He needed his fucking guitar. He’d been planning to order groceries sometime that day, so his cupboard was mostly bare, but he did manage abox of crackers and some chips and, oh hey, a couple of bottled sodas, which he threw into his lunch cooler.

“We’ll get more at the gas station on the way out of town,” he told her.

“You believe in being prepared,” she muttered, taking the cooler and loading up on the other stuff.

“Yeah, well, we got caught out enough as a kid that I learned if I didn’t want to go hungry, I had to pack my own damned granola bars.”

In fact, this entire situation was enough to send his brain swimming back to his childhood, his dad and Uncle Jock wrapped in their jackets in the truck bed while Guthrie curled up across the bench seat, his stomach growling because they’d gotten a gig and needed to drive halfway across the state at the drop of a hat. And God forbid, Elmore Butch Woodson remember anything besides his licks. His son would have to suck it up and eat when they found a microwaved burrito or something because Guthrie’s father had no use for foresight or planning.

“Our mom,” she said, pausing, as though this memory was slow to surface, “she… she would put breakfast bars in our pockets on our way out the door. If we didn’t like the taste, she’d putPop-Tartsin our pockets, even though she thought they were a… what’d she call ’em? A ‘nutritional abomination.’”

Guthrie smiled as he loaded everything in his arms, not forgetting the guitar. “I like that. I’ll have to remember that.”

“She was the best,” April said bitterly.

“Tad misses her too,” Guthrie said, nodding at her. “Let’s go, hon. We’re burning daylight.”

She paused at the doorway and glanced around, gnawing her lip. “You work hard,” she said, “at making a home.”

---