I answered Doug's call in the kitchen so Bentley wouldn't have to listen, though the apartment was small enough that privacy depended mostly on people pretending not to hear.
“What?” I said.
“You hung up on me.”
“I was busy finding out why a ten-year-old has been borrowing my bathroom every morning.”
Doug went silent.
I looked through the doorway. Bentley sat beside Ray's bookshelf with Charlotte's Web open across his knees. Maddie slept under the old patchwork quilt.
“Mom?”
“The children have been alone since last Monday.”
“What do you mean alone?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“Where's Amber?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Wait. The kids are inside?”
The surprise in his voice turned my anger cold.
“You shut off their water without checking.”
“I sent notices.”
“Notices don't drink from faucets.”
“Ma, I didn't know she had left them.”
“She didn't exactly leave for vacation.”
“What happened?”
“An ambulance took her away.”
“Did Bentley tell you that?”
“Yes.”
Doug sighed.
“Kids misunderstand things.”
“This child has been carrying water from my bathroom in his school backpack.”
No answer.
“He stands at the bus stop every morning so the neighborhood thinks he went to school. Then he comes home and watches his three-year-old sister.”
Still nothing.
“And you were worried about a utility bill.”
“That isn't fair.”
“Neither is turning a tap and finding air when you're three.”
He lowered his voice. “What do you want me to do?”
“Turn the water back on.”
“I can't do it personally. I'll call the city.”
“Today.”
“I'll try.”
“No. You'll do it.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then Doug said, “You shouldn't be inside that unit.”
I almost laughed.
“That's what you're worried about?”
“There are liability issues.”
“There are children.”
“And there are legal rules.”
“Your father managed to understand both.”
That struck where I meant it to.
“Don't use Dad against me.”
“I don't have to. You know what he believed.”
Doug's voice sharpened. “Dad also knew tenants could take advantage.”
“He knew something else too.”
“What?”
“That rent never stopped people from being people.”
The words left me more quietly than I expected.
Doug didn't respond.
Finally he said, “Don't do anything until I get there.”
“I already made lunch.”
“I mean don't call anyone. Don't move them. Don't get involved.”
I looked toward Bentley.
Too late.
“I'll speak to you later.”
I ended the call.
Bentley had turned another page but wasn't reading.
“Is he angry?”
“He'll recover.”
“Is he turning the water back on?”
“He'd better.”
That got the smallest flicker of amusement.
I spent the afternoon making calls.
The first hospital in Muncie had no patient information it could give me. The second transferred me to records. Records transferred me to an operator. The operator asked whether I was family.
“No.”
“Legal guardian?”
“No.”
“Then I'm sorry.”
The third hospital couldn't locate anyone under Amber Collins but warned that patients could be listed privately.
The fourth refused to confirm whether she had ever been admitted.
Each time I hung up, Bentley's face became a little more closed.
“You see?” he said after the fifth call.
“See what?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Someone knows.”
“What if she isn't in a hospital anymore?”
I didn't answer quickly enough.
His eyes found mine.
“You think she's dead.”
“No.”
“You do.”
“I think we don't know where she is.”
“Same thing.”
“No, Bentley. It isn't.”
He looked away.
Maddie woke shortly before six.
For several seconds she lay quietly under the quilt, blinking at an unfamiliar ceiling. Then memory returned.
“Mama?”
Bentley was beside her before I could stand.
“She'll come back.”
Maddie's face folded.
“Want Mama.”
“I know.”
He lifted her and settled her against his shoulder with the ease of somebody who had done it many times.
“Remember what she tells you?”
Maddie sniffed.
“Mama comes home.”
“Right.”
The confidence in his voice was flawless.
His face wasn't.
I turned toward the sink because he deserved not to be watched.
That evening I offered the guest room.
Bentley refused.
“What if Mom comes back tonight?”
“I can put a note on your door.”
“She might think something happened.”
“Something did happen.”
His eyes narrowed.
I corrected myself. “I mean she might worry. I understand.”
In the end we compromised.
I carried blankets, two pillows and Ray's old space heater next door. The furnace still worked, but the bedrooms had become cold because Bentley had been lowering the thermostat to save money. I turned it up immediately.
“You don't have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
I filled jugs of water from my kitchen and lined them along their counter.
“You've already helped enough.”
“That's for me to decide.”
I threw away the spoiled milk. Bentley protested.
“Mom bought that.”
“It's bad.”
“She hates wasting stuff.”
“She'd hate you getting sick more.”
He went quiet.
I washed dishes while he gave Maddie a sponge bath using warmed water from a basin. He had improvised a routine that both impressed and horrified me.
When I opened the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink, one door nearly detached in my hand.
Bentley caught it before it hit the floor.
“You have to lift it first.”
“How long has it been like this?”
“A while.”
I pictured Doug sitting at his computer sending overdue notices while the cabinet sagged off its hinges.
Another item for later.
By eight, Maddie was asleep on the couch with Bunny beneath her chin. Bentley sat on the floor beside her, still wearing the expression of a night watchman.
“You should sleep.”
“I'm not tired.”
“You're ten. You're always tired.”
He almost smiled.
Then someone pounded on my front door.
Bentley shot upright.
Not three polite taps.
Four hard blows.
His face changed completely.
“Stay here,” I said.
“Who is it?”
“I don't know.”
I crossed my apartment and looked through the glass.
Doug stood on the porch wearing his work jacket. A thick folder was tucked beneath one arm.
I stepped outside and closed the door behind me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you I was coming.”
“And I told you to restore the water.”
“I called it in.”
“Good.”
He held up the folder.
Something about that motion made my stomach turn.
“What is that?”
“The eviction filing.”
I stared at him.
“You came here tonight carrying eviction papers?”
“It was already in process.”
“Cancel it.”
“Ma—”
“Cancel it.”
“We can't pretend the rent doesn't exist.”
“There is a three-year-old asleep ten feet away.”
“If Amber abandoned the unit—”
My palm hit the old porch rail hard enough to sting.
“She left in an ambulance.”
Doug stopped speaking.
The street was quiet. Somewhere two blocks away, a dog barked.
“You don't get to call that abandonment.”
“I didn't mean—”
“You did.”
His face flushed.
“I am trying to protect the property.”
“From what? Hungry children?”
“From liability. From unpaid bills. From becoming responsible for every crisis a tenant has.”
“Responsibility arrived before the paperwork, Doug.”
He looked toward the left-side windows.
The curtains were drawn.
“You're too emotionally involved.”
“That boy has been pretending to catch the school bus every morning.”
Doug turned back.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“He hasn't been going to school?”
“He walks to the corner, waits for the bus and lets everyone think he got on. Then he comes back.”
“Why?”
“So nobody asks who is staying with Maddie.”
Doug's face slowly drained.
“He's been home with her?”
“For nine days.”
“I thought—”
“Yes. You thought.”
He rubbed both hands across his face.
“I didn't know.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
His shoulders sank.
“What does Maddie need?”
The question didn't erase anything, but it was the first decent one he'd asked.
“Food. Diapers. Her mother.”
“And Bentley?”
“Permission to be ten again.”
Doug looked at the folder.
“I can delay the filing.”
“Cancel it.”
“I'll deal with it tomorrow.”
“No. Deal with it tonight.”
He didn't argue again.
Before leaving, he handed me the folder.
“The hearing date is next Thursday if the cancellation doesn't process in time.”
I took it.
“Then make sure it processes.”
Doug walked down the porch steps more slowly than he had climbed them.
At his truck he stopped and glanced back toward Amber's dark windows.
“Ma?”
“Yes?”
“If you'd known sooner…”
“I didn't.”
He nodded once.
Neither of us needed to finish the thought.
After he left, I returned next door.
Bentley was standing where I'd left him.
“Was he mad?”
“He came to discuss paperwork.”
“About us?”
“Yes.”
“Are we getting kicked out?”
“No.”
The certainty in my voice surprised me.
His eyes searched my face.
“Really?”
“Not while I have anything to say about it.”
He sat down.
For the first time all day, some of the tension left his shoulders.
I waited until both children were asleep before returning to my side of the duplex.
It was 9:17 when the landline rang.
Nobody used that number except telemarketers, medical offices and people old enough to remember when phones had cords.
I nearly ignored it.
Then I remembered the yellow sticky note inside Amber's kitchen cabinet.
I grabbed the receiver.
“Hello?”
There was breathing on the other end.
Weak, uneven breathing.
Then a woman's voice.
“Miss Arlene?”
My knees nearly gave way.
“Amber?”
A strangled sound came through the line.
“Are they there?”
I gripped the edge of the counter.
“Bentley and Maddie?”
She began crying.
Not loudly. She sounded too weak for that.
“Please tell me they're still there.”
“They're safe. They're next door.”
Amber released a shaking breath that seemed to empty everything inside her.
“Thank God.”
“Where are you?”
She didn't answer.
“Amber, Bentley thinks you might be dead.”
A quiet sob.
“I tried. I couldn't call. I couldn't even—”
“Where are you?”
“In Indianapolis.”
“A hospital?”
“Yes.”
Relief came first.
Then anger.
Then confusion.
“Why Indianapolis? The ambulance picked you up here.”
“I'll explain.”
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
The answer chilled me.
I looked toward the window overlooking the shared porch.
“Bentley told me you collapsed in the bathroom.”
Another pause.
“He thinks I collapsed.”
My fingers tightened around the receiver.
“What does that mean?”
Amber's voice dropped until I almost couldn't hear it.
“Someone came to the apartment that morning.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
When she spoke again, terror had replaced exhaustion.
“My ex-husband.”
I looked instinctively toward the dark street.
The black Ford flashed through my mind.
“Amber…”
“Listen carefully.”
Her breathing caught.
“He knows where I was living.”
The kitchen suddenly felt exposed, every window too large.
“Does he know about the children?”
“He knows about Bentley.”
“And Maddie?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why not?”
“I never told him about her.”
There were questions stacked behind questions, but Amber rushed on.
“He cannot find them.”
“Why?”
She started crying again.
“Because he wasn't supposed to know I survived.”
I stopped breathing.
Across the wall, a floorboard creaked as Bentley shifted in his sleep.
And for the first time since his morning knocks began, I understood that running out of water might have been the least dangerous thing happening next door.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Amber’s Warning Changed Everything, and Before Dawn the Black Ford Returned to the Street With Someone Watching Bentley’s Window
For Nine Mornings Bentley Knocked at 7:10, and Every Polite Request Made the Silence Next Door Feel Stranger
Part 4 of 15
