“Where…?” I swallowed, tried again. “Where do you shower?”
“Friendship Park, at the clubhouse.”
“That’s for members only.”
“I sneak in. You don’t want to hear this, Vi.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
Tears were streaming now.
He’s so brave.
I didn’t know what I meant by that, but it felt true. Brave that he lived this way, never complaining, never stealing. Doing odd jobs to help his mom out.
“It’s not because of drugs, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Miller said, darkly. “My dad left and took all the money.”
“You said he died.”
“Because I wish he were dead. But he left and we were evicted from our apartment in Los Banos. My mom thought we’d get a fresh start here. Lots of jobs. But it’s too expensive and the car fucking broke down, so we can’t leave. But she got a job at a café, and at night…”
He shook his head, his blue eyes glittering in the dark. I waited, my breath held.
“Sometimes does stuff with men for money. How’s that? Heard enough yet? Want to know what it’s like to wash your hair in a Costco bathroom? Or listen to your mom come back to this fucking car, smelling like strange men and smiling at you with smeared lipstick, telling you everything’s going to be okay?”
I sucked in a shaking breath. “Where is she now?”
“Where do you think?”
“Will she be back tonight?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes they let her stay over at the motel to shower and stuff. If they do, she stays and sleeps
in a real bed. I don’t blame her. Then she’ll go right to her job at the café in the morning.”
I wiped my nose. “Leave her a note and get your stuff.”
“Where am I going?”
“With me, Miller. You’re coming with me.”
He looked too tired, too damn defeated to argue. He put the cooler away and grabbed his ratty old backpack.
“You have laundry?”
He nodded.
“Get it.”
I waited a respectful distance away while he reemerged from the back of the station wagon with a trash bag, half-full. We walked in silence back to my house, Miller leading, since he knew the way best. Instead of going around the back, up the trellis, I took us through the side door to the garage and led us straight into the laundry room.
“Your parents?”
“If they see us, I’ll say you got grass stains working on the garden. You’re here because your mom’s working late, and you got locked out of your…house.” My throat tightened. “You have to spend the night.”
Miller nodded listlessly.
I opened the lid, and he poured his clothes—and a few items of his mom’s—into the huge washer. Then I took him by the hand and led him through the house, upstairs to my bedroom, stopping at the linen closet on the way. I grabbed a towel, and inside my room, pointed him toward the bathroom.