Page 58 of The Tattered Gloves
“I can’t find my mom,” he said, still huddled in a ball. His arms clutched his bare knees, and one foot was on top of the other, in an obvious attempt to keep warm.
Someone let this kid out of the house like that? It was the dead of winter, and he was dressed like he was headed out to the beach. He must be freezing.
“Do you want my jacket?” I asked, pulling my arms out of the sleeves and holding it out to him.
He stood finally, and I got a decent look at him. Not nearly as young as I’d originally suspected but still several years below me.
“What does she look like — your mom?” I asked as he took my jacket and wrapped it around his body. It engulfed him, even more than it did me. The chill in the air hit me instantly as my eyes scanned the small room for a blanket.
“Um, I don’t know. I can’t remember. But she was pretty. She was pretty like you.”
My search for a blanket ended as my head whipped around toward the boy in the corner.
His eyes.
His emerald-green eyes.
“What is your name?”
“Don’t you know, Mittens? Don’t you know?”
The door to my mother’s room opened suddenly, and the familiar sound of heavy boots moved down the hallway.
The same boots that—
“You’ve got to go!” I cried, as I turned to face the horror to come.
And then everything went black.
I awoke to the sound of Addy’s voice as she sat next to me on the bed.
My heart was pounding so hard, I thought it might beat right out of my chest. The light I’d left on in the room was still on, and the first thing I noticed was the concern written all over her face.
“I thought we’d beaten these nightmares,” she said.
“Me, too,” I admitted.
It had been weeks since I had one, and usually, they were all the same.
Just a dramatic retelling of that night.
The night before my mom had announced to me that I was too old to live in the house rather than comfort me.
The night before the gloves had become my life.
But this dream had been different.
Because of Sam.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, careful to make sure there was a sizable distance between where she was sitting on the bed and where my body lay.
If there was one thing Addy was good at, it was respecting my need for space. She never asked what had happened between my mother and me to have me end up here. Maybe my mom had told her. Maybe she’d guessed.
Maybe it didn’t matter.
But, no matter the reason, she maintained her distance.
Even though I could see that, sometimes, all she wanted to do was scoop me up in her arms and tell me everything would be all right.
