Arthur reached into his coat and placed a card on the bedside table.
“My number.”
Grace gave a tired laugh.
“You think I lost the previous four?”
“You still have them?”
She looked annoyed at herself for revealing that.
Arthur’s face softened.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I still have them.”
That confused me almost as much as everything else.
If Grace wanted nothing to do with Arthur, why had she kept his cards?
Arthur left soon afterward.
But before he did, he bent toward Annie and me.
“The garden remains unfinished.”
I thought he was joking.
“Do you still want us to work?”
“When your sister is well and only if she agrees.”
“For food?”
His mouth twitched.
“We’ll negotiate.”
Grace kept us home from school the next day.
Not because she wanted to.
Helen insisted.
Grace returned to our apartment that afternoon and spent most of the day asleep.
