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Just after Christmas, Josiah left Chris and Buck in charge and set off for Missouri with just Ezra buckled into the front passenger seat beside him. Although worried about what lay ahead, he was secretly relieved to be leaving the rubble of food and giftwrap behind.
They headed east out of Denver on a full tank. In front of them lay the snowy remains of Colorado, which would become the wintery breadth of Kansas. Beyond that was Missouri - home of the Vandalia Women’s Correctional Facility, and temporary residence of Maude Standish.
Their overnight stop was outside Salina, Kansas, gray under thin, melting snow.
A red on blue Motel-6 sign directed them downtown but Josiah wasn’t likely to choose that, not after Texas.
They’d carried on past along I-70.
“Nathan did say you should have called ahead.” Ezra, who’d chattered a good deal of the first three hours and not at all during the last three, yawned. “Or I’d’ve done it for you online.”
“Couldn’t afford your choice,” Josiah said, humorous. He squinted as the next sign loomed up. “Budget King?”
“Oh please.”
Josiah gave it another few minutes. “”Kay then, what does Sir think of Super 8?”
A grumpy huff. “Long as they have wi-fi.”
They did, and a pool. Best of all, it was right on the interstate and they could see the 24-hour IHOP from the car-lot. Full of omelette and ice cream, Ezra became less tetchy. He inspected their motel room as if carrying out a security sweep, brushed his teeth, climbed into bed declaring he wasn’t tired because it was way too early, and promptly fell asleep over the book he’d pulled out of his rucksack. Josiah glanced across from his own bed where he was lying fully dressed with the TV remote in his hand.
“’Night, Ezra,” he said with a grin.
Getting up to find his coat he went to stand outside the door. Time to call home.
“All good,” Buck assured him down the line, breezy as only Buck could be. “Chris hasn’t spoken to Ella Gaines far as I know. He spent all day texting Sarah Connolly instead. He was in a such a dang good mood he cooked dinner and everybody’s still alive.”
“Well I’m glad to hear it,” Josiah said. And he was, in too many ways to count. “What else, you OK?”
“I’m good. Been recommended for some extra shifts at work, so reckon I won’t take the rest of the week off like I planned. That fine by you?”
“Sure. There’s no substitute for it you know.”
“Huh?”
“Hard work.”
“Right, I’ll make sure to have it tattooed over my worn out body.” Buck chuckled, pleased with the imagery for some reason. “OK, next up we have Nate on his way home from... heck, racketball or I don’t know what. Do you know what? Anyhow, he’s on his way home. The kids have had a good day and now they’re on the Playstation.”
“Well that’s fine, so long as-”
“Yeah yeah yeah, I know, it’s their bed-time, don’t let Vin get over-tired, make sure he takes his vitamins, and don’t forget a happy-ending story for J.D.”
Josiah grinned to himself. “Can I say goodnight?”
Wisely he held his cell away from his ear as Buck bellowed out the younger boys’ names. After a second he heard Vin and J.D. yelling goodnight to him in silly voices and then convulsing in giggles. Really, Josiah told himself, he was happy they were content enough not to need to hear him. J.D. especially, who, despite his current hilarity, was still permanently on the edges of a grief he didn’t understand.
“Like I said.” Buck was faintly apologetic. “They’re on the Playstation. How are you guys?”
“Oh, in the middle of Kansas.”
“Ouch.”
“We’ll do another six hours in the morning, aiming for visitation 2 o’clock sharp.”
There was a thoughtful pause. Sightings of mothers were something akin to the Holy Grail in this family. The boys’ curiosity about Maude Standish had been febrile at times over the last few weeks, stoked by Ezra’s calculated vagueness.
“How’s the kid holding up?”
“Happy as a clam one minute, worried skinny the next.”
Buck tutted. “He’ll be fine. Take it easy on the road. And let us know when it’s mission accomplished.”
“Copy that. I’ll talk to you tomorrow evening, Buck. Kiss the little guys for me, say hi to Chris and Nathan from us, and see you all Wednesday.”
“We’ll be here. Miss you guys.”
Josiah pocketed his cell and stood leaning on the balustrade looking across the car-lot. There’d been cloud cover all day but now it had cleared. There were stars speckling the sky. He took a breath of the unfamiliar air, couldn’t help wondering how tomorrow would turn out, what Maude Standish would be like and how Ezra would be. Already there was a faint feeling of jealousy rumbling around his system that for the life of him he couldn’t help. Josiah rubbed his belly, feeling the blue cheese and bacon sirloin sticking just under his ribs. Luckily, Nathan had reminded him to pack the max strength Zantac.
*
Despite what he’d declared the night before, Ezra couldn’t manage the double-dipped French toast for breakfast in the morning. Or anything much at all.
“We’ll stop on the way,” Josiah said. They’d both slept well, which wasn’t always the case with Ezra when he was anxious. The depressingly regular night terrors weren’t likely to go away for a while according to Tom the child psychologist. Josiah had been prepared for them, especially after passing the Motel-6 sign yesterday and observing Ezra’s obsessive examination of the door lock and what might be under the bed. All had been quiet, however.
“I recognize this,” Ezra said when they were a couple of miles away.
“Good news.”
Ezra looked at his wristwatch. “We need to hurry.”
“We’re not late.”
“No, but we need to hurry.”
“We’ll get there.”
Having felt quite sanguine first thing this morning, Josiah could feel himself being infected with the boy’s tension.
“There it is,” Ezra said abruptly when a long line of fence and dull buildings appeared across a vista of scrubby, patchwork fields.
Josiah felt a spike of nerves, but then he told himself that prisons weren’t supposed to look welcoming.
In the Visitors Waiting Lobby far from feeling welcomed he felt as if he was arriving for an appointment at the Dentist. All it lacked was the faint buzzing sound of a drill in the distance, although there were other strange, echoing sounds that were a good substitute. They’d parked up, followed the signs, Ezra trailing one minute, leading the next.
The room they finally pitched up in was plain and institutional. A few Christmas decorations still hung from the ceiling but they were bordering on the dismal. Underfoot was a brown synthetic carpet. In the center of the room were low tables containing well-thumbed magazines, and ranged in rows around them were banks of waiting-room chairs. One wall contained a sliding glass opening like a receptionist’s window, into which they’d deposited their identification documents. There was even a slight smell of disinfectant. Josiah’s teeth began to ache after a while and he hoped it was just psychosomatic.
“They’ll call us up when the I.D.s check out, do a search before they let us go any further,” Ezra said, offhand and knowledgeable. He was suspiciously hyperactive. His deck of cards wasn’t permitted in the visiting area so he’d left it in the car but now didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.
“Take it easy, son,” Josiah said after watching him fiddle and flick, and Ezra, for the first time Josiah could remember, looked annoyed at the ‘son’.
There were a load of other children in the lobby, many younger than Ezra, some excited and others badly behaved. A certain reserved camaraderie existed amongst the adults, Josiah thought. Some clearly knew one another, others were uncertain, maybe newbies like him.
“Last visit I came with Mr. Finlay,” Ezra said after having apparently thought about this for a while.
Josiah refrained from asking if this was before or after Ezra had exploded the man’s slippers on his front lawn. Nevertheless he found he didn’t like the mention of Finlay, who was on his mental list of creeps who’d done little but add to his kids’ pain. It was a long list.
“And how does your ma feel about all these different characters turning up to visit with her son?”
Ezra’s eyes cut to him, wary. “She knows it has to be like that.” He leaned down, fussed with his shoelaces, sat straight again. “I can always tell what she thinks of people, only she’s way too clever to say any of it out loud.”
“Huh,” Josiah said.
The wait for final permission dragged on. Josiah wondered if it was some kind of test. He had some knowledge of institutions after all, and decided it was probably a logistical nightmare, getting all the right prisoners in the right place and in the correct conditions. A little like assigning students to courses, or homeless children to foster families. He pondered if the prison officers hated visiting days or if it took the pressure off them. Uneasy at the delay he found himself acting like Ezra, pulling at his collar, straightening his tie. For some reason, although half inclined not to even give Mrs. Standish the time of day, he’d felt compelled to dress smart for meeting her.
“I guess you’ve never been in a penitentiary before.” Ezra flicked the pages of the topmost magazine again. “You look like a lawyer.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Mother always says she appreciates a man who knows his way around a good suit.” Ezra lounged in the uncomfortable chair. He kicked rhythmically at the underside of the nearest low table
The glass window slid open with a snap. There was a moment of silence and then a disembodied voice began to reel off a list of prisoner names. Ezra was instantly alert. He popped on to his feet and grabbed Josiah by the hand. Grabbing hands was not something that Ezra normally did.
“OK, OK, I’m coming.” Josiah found himself being hauled across the room to join a rapidly-forming line at a closed door. There was a crackle of new tension in the air, a peculiar mix of excitement and fear. Once in the line Ezra let go Josiah’s hand, muscled his way in front of him. After a while, squished by the push coming from the back of the line, he let Josiah place supporting hands on his shoulders. Then there was an open door, a corridor giving off a different smell, a hint of mass-cooked food. At the next heavily barred gate were armed prisoner officers, one male and one female, carrying out body searches. Then their hands were stamped and they were being shown into the Visiting Room proper.
They were not going to be private. Maude Standish was obliged to see visitors in a shared, non-contact setting because of a previous attempt to smuggle in contraband.
“Probably bootleg perfume,” Ezra had informed him with a smirk. “There’s a load of weird stuff that’s good currency in here.” For some reason the removal of privacy for the visit didn’t seem to overly bother him. And evidently neither did the economy of the black market.
“There she is,” Ezra said as soon as they were in the room.
Josiah followed the boy’s gaze, eyes roving over the rows of tables, the prisoners in their pale olive prison garb on one side, pairs of chairs on the other. It was unnatural, made his heart thump with heavy dread. A ten year-old kid shouldn’t have to see his mother in here, in a place like this. There was a domineering clock on the wall, guards at each end of the room, faces impassive, stance deceptively relaxed. But guards, nonetheless. Armed, charmless, radiating lack of empathy.
“Go on then,” Josiah said and touched a gentle hand to his head. He let Ezra lead the way, threading through the tables and people to the far side, nearest the large, frosted windows. Josiah felt a strong dislike of not being able to see outside. Even though there were no bars he felt more smothered here than he had previously.
“Darlin’!” a ringing voice exclaimed, which gave him a shock the southern twang was so familiar. “And who is this?”
Josiah’s hands began to sweat.
“Mother,” Ezra said, anxious. “We wrote you!”
“Of course you did. It’s your university teacher. Oh I’m just teasing you, darlin’. Mr. Sanchez, so nice to meet you.” Light-gray eyes swept over him head to toe, pretty and piercing. To his embarrassment he felt his face heat up. He wondered, foolishly, if his suit was good enough. “I’m sorry we can’t shake hands. And darlin’... darlin’ boy... I’d hug the stuffing out of you, you know I would!”
The rising excitement of the voices around them seemed to reach a peak. There was scraping of chairs, some embarrassed laughter, a sense that the guards were alert for any proscribed contact.
“Mother,” Ezra said, and Josiah felt his stomach tighten. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the boy sounded as if he was about to cry. He had pressed up against the table as if trying to walk through it, arms half lifting, stiff and uncertain, and then dropping again.
“Oh, darlin’, I know.” His mother hurried past the moment. “It’s a nuisance. But you must just imagine me kissin’ you. Sit down now like a good boy and don’t get upset, that’ll just waste our visit. Sit, go on. And Mr. Sanchez, do sit.”
Josiah sank on to the hard chair. He felt one couldn’t do much more than obey Maude Standish. Somehow he’d expected her to be subdued.
On the contrary, Maude Standish was confident and apparently at ease. Her appearance was neat and upright, just like Ezra, but she was much fairer than her son. Her hair was tied back from her face, golden-pale, a patina of old tint hiding any grays. Well, damn. She was outstandingly good-looking, this negligent, absent mother Josiah wanted to loathe. And somehow that admission came with an unwelcome canter of his heart. A bloom of natural color heated her face, perhaps from the warmth of the room. Somehow he knew it was a face that in the outside world habitually wore make-up, perfectly applied. In here she was embellished with nothing more than a touch of salve to the lips. Even so, she seemed a good ten years younger than he knew she was. Maude Standish had been thirty-six when she’d had Ezra, her first and only child, and she didn’t look a day older than that now. Even in the regulation prison garb, she seemed far too classy and fine to be here. What a remarkable woman. Josiah had the peculiar feeling that the wind had just been sucked right out of his sails.
He dropped his eyes, waiting until she began to address Ezra before he studied her again.
“How are you, sweet boy?” Josiah was far from an expert in feminine behavior but he reckoned Maude Standish, apparently with all her attention on Ezra, knew full well how much she was being admired. “How’s your bad shoulder? You’re pale, but Lord how you’ve grown, I hardly know you! Tell your mother what’s been going on and what a lovely Christmas you had in Colorado and how well you’re doing at school. Come on now, you can’t let the cat get your tongue in here – there isn’t time!”
Ezra, whose body-language was all wrong, took a deep breath but then said nothing. Josiah knew that, for the moment, he was overcome. The thrill of Christmas had worn thin for him in the anticipation of a far greater excitement. And now the great moment was here...
“His shoulder is coming along,” Josiah answered in his place. “And the wrist injury too. We keep a careful eye on him.” His voice sounded strange to his own ears.
Her eyes flicked to him, and then back to Ezra. “And has there been anymore of that unpleasant stealing business?” For a second she sounded properly severe, and then her voice bubbled with laughter.
“It’s all been cleared up,” Josiah said stiffly. “And Ezra’s grades are good. He’s a clever boy.”
“Well of course he is!” She looked at Josiah again and immediately he felt a ridiculous blush rise on his cheeks. “But thank you for reassuring me.” She inclined her head, gracious as a queen. “From emails I know he’s happy with you for the moment, Mr. Sanchez. Settling down. When they told me he’d be one of six foster boys I must admit I was concerned. I thought a gang like that was entirely the wrong situation for a sensitive child like him. But Ezra doesn’t seem to want to run away from y’all. Which is a first.”
Josiah couldn’t quite get past ‘for the moment’. He wanted to challenge it, but knew he shouldn’t. This visit was for Ezra. And he nudged him with his knee.
“Tell your mother about the history project. And the swim team.”
“I did,” Ezra mumbled. “I tell her everything when I write.”
“Well there must be something new.” Maude leaned a little over the table toward him. Her eyes were searching. “Are you still playing cards? Are there any of these boys who can play?”
“Chris taught me chess.”
“Chess! My word.” Her brow furrowed, as if for a second she didn’t quite recognize him. “Well, that’s very impressive. Don’t forget your other skills though, darlin’.” She looked back to Josiah. “When he was a little boy, well younger than he is, he... well, he wanted to be a magician, perform sleights of hand, produce a rabbit out of a hat. I can tell you, some of the tricks he learned would make your hair curl!”
“Ezra is very... dextrous.”
Maude looked between them. She didn’t seem to know quite whom she should be addressing, and Josiah wondered about a tactical withdrawal. Only the boy never could decide if he was desperate to see his mother or desperate not to. Josiah had plumped for the former, but he was under no illusions about the confusion. Perhaps he should stay.
“I like chess,” Ezra said then. “It makes you use your brain. You have to work out what your opponent’s trying to do and outsmart him.”
“And does Chris let you win?” She was teasing again, something that ten year-olds didn’t always take kindly to.
Sure enough, Ezra looked affronted, but not for the reasons Josiah expected. “Chris isn’t like that! He plays hard as he can, always plays to win.”
“Can you beat him?”
“We’re about fifty-fifty.”
“I see.”
“It’s not a game of chance!”
One of Maude’s pretty, sculpted brows rose in an arch of skepticism. “Darlin’.” She was gently admonishing. “Everything is a game of chance.”
Despite the slight reproof, there was still a humor in her eyes that made Josiah’s belly flutter. Ezra responded at once. He flashed her a smile, a beam that lit his face and etched out his dimples.
“Lord, child,” she said, softening, truly, for the first time. “How I’ve missed that.”
They stared at one another in a kind of wonderment. As if they were remembering. Connecting. For a moment there was just the two of them in their own hermetically-sealed bubble - mother and baby, the eternal, indestructible, unit. Josiah felt of less use than a spare part and there was an awful sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It was Maude who chose to burst the bubble.
“Now, darlin’,” she said, eyes flicking momentarily, almost triumphantly, to Josiah again as if she knew what he was thinking. “Would you be a doll and go fetch your mother a cup of water? You know which way you have to walk, don’t you. Be polite to the lady, now.”
Evidently not quite sure whether he was pleased to be of service, or suspicious as to her motives, Ezra slid from his chair. Josiah watched him strike out a confident path to the prison guard at the back of the room, and then looked back at her.
“Mr. Sanchez.” Maude was brisk, but honey-sweet. She was looking boldly into his eyes, direct and forthright. The hair prickled at the back of his neck, in a not unpleasant manner. He had the impression that this was a woman for whom a man would bleed if asked. “Now we have a few moments alone, I would like to take the opportunity to thank you most sincerely for your kind guardianship of my boy. My boy is very precious to me.”
Josiah felt an urge to say that Ezra was very precious to him, too, but he sat on it. “Of course,” was all he did say.
“But I think it only fair to let you know that once I am released, he will be coming home to live with me.”
Josiah’s dismayed response caught in his throat. “Well it’s..” he stumbled. “Well I can understand why you’d feel like that. Only there’s...”
“Well yes. The small matter of the authorities.” A faintly scornful note entered her voice. “As usual there will be the Social Services, and the courts, and the parole officers, and the lawyers, to satisfy.”
“And there’s Ezra,” Josiah said quietly. “There’s Ezra to satisfy.”
“I’m sure you don’t mean to imply that he wouldn’t want to live with me.” She remained steadily looking at him while his own gaze was caught by Ezra’s careful return across the room carrying a cone-shaped cup. When Ezra arrived at the table, Maude dragged her eyes back to him.
“I had one too,” he said to her, handing over the cup once he’d gotten the nod from the guard. “It’s icy cold.”
“Thank you, darlin’. That’s just what I was hoping for.”
Maude raised the cup to her lips, smiled. “Good health, gentlemen,” she said and knocked it back as if it was a shot. Josiah suddenly felt his own throat was dry as a bone. There was a steady trickle of children making their way to the water cooler, having become bored with awkward conversation. Maude crumpled the cup, pushed it over the table. “I think perhaps Mr. Sanchez might like a drink too, darlin’. It’s dry as the desert in here.”
Ezra looked between them. “No,” he said. “I know you’re sending me over there so’s you can talk about me.”
“Ezra,” Maude reproved. “The whole world does not revolve around you.”
“Don’t see why I can’t listen. Came here to visit, not run errands.” A stubborn set came to the boy’s lips and he remained standing where he was.
For some unworthy reason Josiah felt quite relieved to see the return of argumentative Ezra at this particular point.
He gave the prisoner a pleasant smile. If Maude Standish was so keen to be a parent again she could start right now.
Maude affected nonchalance. “Dreadful boy,” she said on a small, un-amused, laugh. She regarded her son, apparently confused by him, and then switched her attention back to Josiah, spreading her hands as if to say, ‘well I don’t know, what now?’
“Ezra,” Josiah said quietly. “You’re right, but you know how grown-ups are with their secret talks. It won’t take but a moment. This is the last one, we promise.”
The acknowledgement that he was something other than willfully naughty made Ezra relax, just as Josiah had hoped. He gave his mother a rather furtive glance and then headed back towards the water cooler.
“I’m not sure,” Josiah said, mildly as he could, “that this is quite the appropriate place to discuss Ezra’s future.” He really didn’t intend to sound snarky. But neither did he want Maude Standish thinking she could do as she pleased.
“Well frankly, it seems preferable to some money-grubbing lawyer’s office, wouldn’t you agree?” Maude seemed determined not to be flustered. It was a steely determination, too, although overlaid with a graciousness he found irresistible.
“I suppose so,” he said, not supposing so at all.
“You’re uncomfortable, Mr. Sanchez. Let’s leave it at this then, shall we? As they all agreed at that meeting in Denver, Ezra will be with you until the summer recess. Until another one of their interminable reviews. But in the meantime I will be working night and day to prove myself to these busy-bodying people, and I should tell you that when I set my mind to such things, I don’t tend to fail.”
She was throwing down the gauntlet and Josiah’s heart began to thump. The idea of going head to head with this beautiful, difficult woman rattled the heck out of him. For, if she could ‘prove herself’ as she said, he wouldn’t have any justification to fight her now, would he? It would be wrong to even try, surely. He couldn’t see this child torn apart by such a contest, he just couldn’t. But, to his own consternation neither could he bear the idea of hurting... her. Lord only knows what Chris would make of such weakness. He’d sent Josiah off with the gruff command to watch Ezra’s back come what may.
Ezra returned quicker this time, gave them both a keen look as he handed over the cup. He sat down meaningfully in his chair to indicate he wasn’t going anywhere else.
Josiah drank the water, getting himself together. “Thanks for that,” he said when he was done. “And now I think I’m going to go wait for you in the lobby, Ezra.” He nudged the boy with an elbow, aiming for a supportive smile although he felt far from upbeat. “Give you and your ma the chance to talk about me instead.”
Ezra laughed at that. He would do.
Maude inclined her head again. “You’re very kind, Mr. Sanchez.” She gave a smile just for him, bright enough to dazzle. “In fact, you are a true gentleman. I can’t thank you enough for bringing my boy to me.”
Josiah stood up carefully. He didn’t want to make any sudden moves in here. “My pleasure, ma’am.” In truth, he hadn’t expected it to be.
“Perhaps we’ll meet again,” she said, nice as pie. For all the world it was as if she’d said ‘see you in court,’ and Josiah already felt the sting of a double-edged sword.
One of the guards let him out the door. He looked back as he passed through it, could see Ezra leaning as far over the table as was permitted, chattering nineteen to the dozen. Almost manic. Maude was looking at him... how? Josiah hoped he was seeing indulgence and not impatience.
The first to leave, he was escorted back to the Visitors Waiting Area to collect his identification documents. He sat down again, feeling light-headed, as if the dentist had given him gas.
‘Mission accomplished,’ he texted to Buck. ‘Will call from motel.’
Twenty minutes later the door opened and a noisy line of people filed back into the room. Ezra was one of the last to emerge, and his cheeks were wet. Josiah’s chest hurt.
They didn’t say anything as they had their hand stamps checked and were let out into the late afternoon gloom. Josiah felt a wave of relief, as if he’d escaped incarceration himself.
“You all right to drive for a while?” he asked as they buckled up, but Ezra just shrugged which suggested he was on the edge of tears. “Need the bathroom?” Josiah pursued, trying to judge how the boy was faring, but all he got was a tight shake of the head.
They joined the line of cars heading out of the visitors car lot, turned west at the junction.
It was a couple of hours before Ezra found his voice. Josiah had let him be, although he could feel waves of disturbed emotion coming off the child and was rather afraid that parting from his mother again had been almost worse than not coming at all.
“Mother will try,” Ezra eventually said out of nowhere. He'd sat slumped in the passenger seat as they drove steadily into the dark, tossing his box of cards listlessly from one hand to another. “She’ll be on her best behavior.”
“Well that’s good,” Josiah responded rather lamely.
“Her best behavior is... well she’ll probably fool some people. Maybe lots of people, because she’ll be awesome.”
“I can see how she would be.” Josiah glanced at the box, distracted. The awesomeness of Maude Standish was actually something he wanted to push out of his mind.
There was another heavy silence. “Thing is,” Ezra went on, dropping the box into his lap. His voice was rather small. “I think if I lived with her again I might worry.”
Josiah swallowed. He couldn’t stand the idea of it, but after today it somehow seemed a damned sight more likely. “What would you worry about, son?”
“That she wouldn’t have changed.” Ezra nibbled a thumb nail. “That things would work out really bad all over again but this time I might not be able to say.”
“You’re ten!” Josiah said, with a snap that wasn’t intended for Ezra although it made the boy jump. Gripping the wheel hard, Josiah tried to dial it down. “I’m sorry to yell, but damn - you shouldn’t have to worry about being your own advocate.” He sighed. “Listen. You know, don’t you, that however things work out, everyone will be trying their best for you.”
“Right.” Ezra stared in silence out of his steamy window, flattened by the platitude. After a while he scrubbed a fist across the glass. “But it can’t ever work out perfect though, can it? With everyone happy?”
Josiah thought for the longest time. Not about the answer, for he knew that well enough. The thing was how to frame it. Ezra wanted cast-iron promises, of course he did, and doubtless Maude would give them to him.
“No,” he said in the end. “Probably not.”
Ezra blew out a breath. “That’s what I thought.”
“Well you don’t need to worry yet, son. No point in that. We’ve got six months, and remember, we’re pretty awesome, too.” Josiah searched for a diversion. Unhappy endings seemed far too heavy to contemplate while driving in the dark. “Tell you what, let’s stop off in some proper town tonight, find a nice place to stay, a good restaurant, something to look at in the morning that isn’t a freeway or a parking lot. What do you say?”
“Let’s not.”
Josiah was brought up short. “Come again?”
“Let’s just drive. Drive all the way home like we did from Texas.”
“Are you serious? Why would you want to stay up all night getting grouchy and stiff when you could have mountains of fries and watch grown-up TV in bed with snacks?”
“I want to be in Denver, in our house. I miss it.” There was such an unexpected, naked longing in Ezra’s voice that Josiah’s heart skittered.
And then he thought, Oh dear Lord in Heaven preserve me, a ten hour night drive...
Even so, without hesitation he indicated his cellphone in the well under the dashboard with one finger. “You want to call Chris then?”
He gave a quick sideways glance, just long enough to see that Ezra’s green eyes were wide, almost like he didn’t believe it.
“Really, even without your glasses and all?”
“Really.”
Josiah took his concentration off the road again, and was blown away by the smile of sheer glee. Then he looked back at the highway, a rush of energy in his system. After a moment he heard Ezra say, “Hey, it’s me.” Then there was a snort as if Chris had said something both funny and rude.
“Yeah,” Ezra said, fingers walking against the window. “Yep, it was OK, it was all fine I guess, but never mind that.” He stretched his legs, sat up straighter in the seat. “Just tell J.D. to put back all the things he's borrowed without asking, and then tell Vin to take all his stuff off my bed before he goes to sleep, because guess what? We’re coming home.”
Josiah could hear Chris's laugh coming at them all the way from Denver.
-ends-