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Audrey thought Willow’s face softened a bit as she asked the question. For a brief moment, she wondered if that was sympathy in the girl’s expression. Or maybe even empathy.
Willow had never cried out in her sleep, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have bad dreams. She’d spent years in foster care, but before that her home life had given her enough fodder for nightmares for the rest of her life.
“Yeah. It doesn’t happen as often as it used to, but likely it’ll never stop completely.” The only people who could fully understand were Merrill and Ava.
After that night, they’d all tried to get their friendship back on track, but everything had changed. Ava and Merrill could never understand her connection with Clinton. He made them uncomfortable. But her need to balance her karma, she’d never found a better way to put it, won out, as far as she was concerned.
She’d inadvertently been part of something truly harmful, so she felt she needed to make amends.
But no matter how much she did, no matter how many ways she tried to leave a positive mark on the world, it never felt like enough.
“Yeah, well, sorry about the nightmare,” Willow said. “But really, you gotta keep it down in the morning.” And with that, she stalked off down the hall. A moment later she looked back at Audrey. “I’ve got to go and mow today.”
Audrey couldn’t help but feel encouraged that Willow remembered on her own. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Yeah. I texted him back last night and reminded him I was coming so he could batten down the hatches ’cause his burglar was coming over.”
Batten down the hatches? That was an odd phrase for a young girl to use. It was strange, like so many other things about Willow.
Her newest foster daughter turned into her room, slamming the door behind her.
Sooner or later, Audrey would figure Willow out. But not today.
Today, she needed to get to the office.
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER, the kids were at Maggie May’s and Audrey sat across from Abe Lebowitz in his office. Not the main office where he met clients, but his private space, which was cluttered with models, books and a chair that would look more at home in a junkyard than an office.
Mr. Lebowitz said he needed clutter in order to think and be inspired. If that was so, he must be the most inspired man in history, Audrey thought.
And she loved it.
“...so that’s yes,” he said.
“Yes?” Audrey repeated, halfway between a question and a squeal. “Yes? We’ve got the project?”
Abe Lebowitz smiled, the lines of his face crinkling. Audrey knew they came from a lifetime of laughter.
“They approved the project and it’s ours,” he assured her. “And while the firm was awarded the project, I want you to know that I realize why. You pushed for this. You did the work. This project wouldn’t have been on my radar without you.”
“I think we can really raise awareness, Mr. Lebowitz. The Lake Erie region is such a unique environment and we need to protect it. We have TREC on the peninsula, and LEAF on the west side. The Greenhouse in the center of the city will give our inner-city students a chance...”
Mr. Lebowitz held up his hand.
Audrey stopped short. “Sorry,” she said ruefully.
He smiled again. “That enthusiasm is why I hired you. Don’t ever lose it.”
And then it was straight back to business as he outlined her responsibilities. “...and you’ll be coordinating with Marcia James, who works for the mayor, and Ms. Wilkins, who’s with the school district. They love your designs, but as you know a big part of this project is working with the school district and trying to incorporate some of the kids’ suggestions into the project. This is going to be a long-term commitment on your part. This summer is your golden time. We know we have the project, but the real work won’t start until school begins in September. You’re going to need to coordinate with the school district and the contractors and still manage your work here.”
“I can do it. So much of the project can involve my own kids. I don’t think it’s going to take away from family time.” It would require a lot of juggling, but Audrey would make it work. Somehow she always made it work. “Thank you so much for the opportunity, Mr. Lebowitz.”
He took her hand in his and patted it. “You’re an asset, Audrey. Back when I started the firm, I didn’t worry about sustainability. Frankly, it wasn’t something I thought about much at all until I hired you. Now, I incorporate so many of your ideas into projects. Your passion is contagious.”
“Willow says I’m trying to save the world one compost pile at a time whenever I make her take the kitchen scraps out, but really, I’m trying to save it one house at a time. One geothermal heating unit at a time. One thermal mass wall at a time.” She laughed, not because anything she said was funny but because she was happy and excited. She’d worked so hard on the Greenhouse.
Willow had scoffed at the idea of all the time the project would take. All the work without any financial return. She’d said it didn’t make sense. But Audrey knew that the returns would be so much more lasting than money.
“Your kids are on board with this?” Mr. Lebowitz asked.
She nodded. “They’re behind me. To be honest, Clinton and Bea will be almost as excited as I am.”
“And your new girl? Willow?” Mr. Lebowitz asked.
“She’ll come around. I caught her throwing a banana peel in the compost bucket on her own the other day. And she did go see that Mr. Williams about mowing his lawn. Those are positive steps. She’s heading over to his house this afternoon for the first time.”
She didn’t say it out loud, but she couldn’t help but remember Willow’s concern that morning about her nightmare. “Yes, she’ll come around,” Audrey said with certainty.
“I’m glad. Maybe I could take the kids out on a field trip of sorts this summer? I haven’t been to Fallingwater in so long. That’s a shame, since it’s only three hours away.”
Audrey had gone to the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house as a student, but hadn’t been back since. Mr. Lebowitz was right; that was a shame. “I’ve never taken the kids there. I’m sure Bea and Clinton would enjoy it.”
“And do you think we can talk Willow into coming with us?” he asked.
“We can try.” That was her mantra with Willow. I can try.
Mr. Lebowitz nodded. “Maybe I’ll ask Maggie May, too,” he said a little too nonchalantly.
His suggestion caught Audrey unaware, but she didn’t tease or prod him.
She did, however, decide to try to find reasons to throw the two of them together this summer.
Wouldn’t it be nice if two of her favorite people in the world got together?
Maggie had said she was dating someone, but it couldn’t be serious yet. Audrey wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of it before. Mr. Lebowitz and Maggie.
She almost laughed at herself. Playing Cupid wasn’t in her nature.
“I’m sure Maggie would love a day out.” But what if Maggie had already fallen for the new man? “I mean, I think there’s a chance she’s been going out with someone recently.”
“I’m not afraid of a little competition,” he said. “I like a challenge.”
“I just wouldn’t want to see you get hurt,” she said.
“Audrey, honey, you know you’re more than an employee to me, right?”
She nodded.
“Then I want to be clear this is your friend speaking, not your boss. Because a boss shouldn’t get too involved in an employee’s life. But a friend should.”
“Okay.” She had no idea where he was going with this.
“If I went out with Maggie and got my heart broken, that would not be your fault. It would be mine. Maybe hers. Not yours. When you interned here, I thought you were the most responsible twenty-something I’d ever met. I thought it was a strength, and that sense of responsibility is one of the reasons I hired you. And as a boss, it is a strength. But as a friend, I think there’s a chance it’s conversely one of your greatest weaknesses. You can’t be responsible for everyone’s pain.”
“I just didn’t want to see you...”
“Everyone gets hurt, honey,” he said firmly. “And if you never get hurt, then you’re never risking yourself. And playing it safe isn’t really living.”
“Okay.”
He sighed. “I’ve offended you now.”
“No. Really.” She forced a smile. “Nothing could bother me today. I plan to walk on air. Mr. Lebowitz, thank you again.”
“You did this on your own, Audrey.”
“No, I didn’t. I did this with your help and with the kids’ support.” And she knew that she’d also done it because of that night so long ago. A night that threw her onto a new and unplanned path.
Maybe Mr. Lebowitz was right. Maybe she did take responsibility for things outside her control. Maybe she needed to risk herself more.
Maybe.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_65d86ea3-6c87-5e4d-8c63-a515e284fb80)
SAWYER OCCASIONALLY WORKED on Saturdays, and routinely pulled longer than eight-hour days, which meant he generally had some comp time available. He liked that his position gave him a little flexibility with his hours.
Frankly, he just liked his job.
When he was younger, he’d dreamed about being a firefighter, not a banker. He imagined there were a lot of jobs that children never dreamed of doing. Sometimes he wondered how anyone landed where they did.
For him, it started in college. He’d taken some business classes and then he’d interned at a bank. When his internship was over, he’d gotten a job at the bank and one day he’d realized that he’d found his niche.
He liked the certainty of numbers.
He liked working with people.
He’d juggled his hours this week so he could be home early this afternoon. He was in his upstairs office now, but no matter how many times he tried to focus on the computer, he kept looking out the window, watching Willow Jones mow his lawn.
The girl might be a thief, but she was a meticulous worker. Each swipe of the lawn mower was parallel to the last. One neat row after another.
She stopped every couple passes to empty the bag into a garbage can.
When she was done mowing, she walked along the planting beds, pulling weeds and putting those in the bins, as well.
He glanced at his watch. She’d been at it almost two hours without stopping for much more than a sip from her water bottle—a stainless-steel bottle she must have filled from a tap at home.
It had to be beyond tepid at this point.
He wasn’t sure why he was concerned, but he found himself going downstairs to the fridge for a cold bottle of water. Then he stopped. He didn’t know much about this girl, other than she was on probation for breaking into his house and that she lived with a hippie woman who probably frowned on store-bought water. That would explain why the kid had a stainless-steel water bottle.
He grabbed a glass instead, filled it with ice and tap water and then headed to the backyard.
“Thought you might want something cold,” he said by way of greeting.
Willow looked at him a moment, then nodded. “Thanks. I should have stuck my water bottle in a cooler.”
“I wasn’t sure if your hippie chick allowed things like ice,” he teased.
He saw immediately that his joke fell flat.
Willow shot him a penetrating glare. “Listen, the other kids and I can call her that and joke about it all we want. Well, the other kids wouldn’t tease her because they’re so used to her they don’t see anything odd anymore. But you don’t know her. You don’t have the right.”
Sawyer wasn’t used to being called on the carpet by anyone, especially not a sixteen-year-old thief. But he simply acknowledged her comment and nodded. “Sorry.”
Her annoyed expression softened slightly. “Yeah, me, too. You probably just picked up on it from me. I wasn’t fair to her then, or you now. So I guess I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Sawyer liked to think he was a quick character study. That he could assess people in short order, but he was stymied by Willow Jones.
A thief—for sure. But also someone who admitted when she’d made a mistake. And a hard worker. And someone who wasn’t afraid to call an adult out when they were in the wrong.
“You sure you want to do this the whole summer? Even with the pool eating into it, I’ve got a lot of yard.”
Sawyer had fallen in love with the house the first time he’d walked through it with his real estate agent. He loved the hardwood floors and the open concept downstairs, but he’d almost turned it down because the yard was so big, and he thought a pool in Erie was really a waste of money and space. There were maybe three months out of the year that you could use it unless you heated it.
“I consider what you did today enough to balance your karma,” he added, and immediately hoped that he hadn’t put his foot in his mouth with the comment.
Willow shook her head, then took a long drink before saying, “No, Audrey’s right. She normally is. Don’t tell her I said that,” she added. “But I’ve thought about it and I do owe you.”
“I got all my stuff back.”
He’d been working the day Willow and her friends had broken into the house. He’d taken his car into the shop and their shuttle service had dropped him off at home. He assumed that was why the kids thought he wasn’t there.
He’d heard voices and a commotion downstairs, realized what was happening and called 9-1-1. Then he’d simply waited upstairs in his office for the cops to come.
A couple of his buddies had ribbed him about not playing Rambo, and if he’d known the thief was a teenage girl, he might have considered it. But there was nothing in his house he was willing to risk his life over. He’d just thrown the lock on the office door and waited.
Because he lived in Harborcreek, just outside of Erie proper, the state police were the responding officers. There was a barracks nearby and they were on the scene in five minutes.
They’d caught Willow red-handed.
She denied that she’d had accomplices, but Sawyer knew what he’d heard. And he really doubted that she was able to move his flat-screen TV on her own.
The cops had found that the trunk of his 1966 Pontiac GTO red convertible in the garage was loaded with other valuables. The fact that the miscreants had been planning to steal his car had made him the angriest. It was originally his father’s car and had languished in the barn out back until Sawyer fixed it up when he was sixteen. He’d worked for two summers to pay to rebuild it.
Willow hadn’t ever given the cops the names of the other thieves. She insisted that she’d been the only one.
When Sawyer said he’d heard conversations downstairs, she’d retorted, “I talk to myself. Most days, it’s the best conversation I’m likely to get.”
