“Do you still have copies of her books? I’d be interested in taking a look at them sometime.”

Tessa shook her head. “We may have had a copy of one or two of them, but they would have been destroyed in the fire along with everything else. We moved around a lot over the years, and always left stuff behind when we did. All in all, I really didn’t lose all that much in the fire since there wasn’t a lot to begin with. Except,” she added morosely, “for my mother.”

“Yeah.” Peter gave her hand a comforting little squeeze. “It sucks to be all alone in the world, doesn’t it? I know exactly how that feels. I mean, my mom is still alive, of course, but she’s never been there for me, never took care of me the way she should have. There are things – well, no family horror stories tonight. Let’s just say that I’ve been looking out for myself for a long time now so I understand what you’re going through.”

“Your father isn’t around, either?”

Peter made a horrible face. “No. But that’s a good thing. A very good thing. He ditched us when I was around six years old, and I was happy to see him go. He was an abusive bastard, drank too much, shoved my mom around, didn’t hesitate to give me a slap or a spanking when something irritated him.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tessa told him sorrowfully. “It sounds like both of us had less than ideal childhoods, though at least my mom never once hit me or even yelled at me. She was a good person, just not a very good mother.”

Peter paid the dinner check with cash, and then grabbed a paper napkin from the dispenser. “Do you have a pen handy?”

She nodded and fished one out from her backpack, regarding him curiously as he began to write on the napkin.

“Here.” Peter handed her both the pen and the napkin. “Those are driving directions to my house. Try to follow along behind me when we leave in a minute, but in case we get separated it shouldn’t be too hard for you to find the place. I wrote my cell number there, too.”

Tessa raised a puzzled gaze to his. “I don’t understand. Why am I following you to your house?”

“You’ll see,” he told her mysteriously. “I’ve got an idea for you. It’s not the greatest, but anything has to be better than what you’re doing now. We’ll talk more after we arrive. You ready to go?”

“I, um, need to use the ladies room first,” she acknowledged reluctantly. “It might take me a few extra minutes since – well, I need to wash up for the night.”

She could tell by the expression on Peter’s face that this particular dilemma had likely not occurred to him until now – that sleeping in one’s car meant you didn’t always have ready access to a bathroom when you needed one. Tessa had become quite adept over the past couple of months at washing her face, brushing her teeth, and changing clothes in the backseat of her Toyota.

During the short drive to the house where Peter lived with his mother, Tessa couldn’t help but wonder what the idea he was getting ready to propose to her might be. She shivered as the wind whistled through her broken window, and realized they still had to tape up the gaping hole until she could get it fixed. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too costly, as she really was trying to save up every penny she could pinch. Though, if Peter was in fact correct, she now had another whole year in which to save up for a security deposit and first month’s rent.

The very thought of living this way for thirteen more months was more than Tessa could bear at the moment, and she refused to dwell on the matter. For quite some time now – and especially since she’d left the Wallace home in February – she had focused solely on living one day at a time, getting through from one day to the next, and doing the best she could to cope with a situation that would have sent most people spiraling into despair. There were times, however, when she broke down in tears or felt immensely sorry for herself, or, worse, had to fight off an overwhelming wave of depression. Those were the worst times – when she anxiously fretted that she was going to become like Gillian; that she, too, might succumb to the darkness one day, or have to battle mental illness all of her life. She’d begun more and more to watch herself for those types of signs, and to fret each time she felt a bout of depression threaten to come on.

Tessa was puzzled when Peter drove right past the house that bore the address he’d given her, continuing on until the end of the block where he made a right turn. At the end of a much shorter block, he turned right again into what looked like a narrow alley of some sort, and then pulled into a mostly hidden driveway located at the back of a house. She followed along obediently, parking next to him as he got out of his car.

“Is this part of your house or something?” she asked. The partially lit driveway was cracked and uneven, with straggly weeds growing up in between the cracks.

“It’s an in-law unit attached to the main house,” explained Peter. “Except that it hasn’t been rented out to anyone in more than five years. There was a bunch of water damage caused by a leaky roof, and it shorted out the electrical circuits. My mother couldn’t be bothered to get it fixed up, so now she just stores a bunch of her junk inside.”

Tessa had briefly felt a surge of hopefulness surge up when Peter had mentioned the in-law unit, but her heart sunk just as rapidly when she realized the place was likely uninhabitable. “I’m not sure I understand why you had me follow you here,” she told him uncertainly.

Peter sighed, running a hand through his shaggy hair. “I told you it wasn’t an ideal situation, and probably isn’t a whole lot better than what you’ve already been doing. But, well, I thought at least that you could park your car here every night. That way you don’t have to keep moving around so much, and definitely don’t have to worry about a neighbor or cop bothering you. As you can see, this driveway is pretty much hidden from sight. Hardly anyone even knows it exists and no one would notice your car back here.”

“Oh.” Tessa tried hard not to betray the disappointment she felt, having harbored a momentary hope that Peter was actually going to invite her to stay at his house, and forced herself to paste on a smile. “You’re – you’re right, of course. That would be a relief not to have to move around so much, and to have a regular place to park. Your mother won’t mind?”