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only knew where he was. Christine refused to find him. She claimed he would disappoint David, hurt him, that he had a terrible temper, that he was a flake and a jerk.
    David didn’t believe that. His dad would relate to him. He would know that smoking a little dope was no big deal. David wasn’t a druggie, he wasn’t “using” like his mother claimed. Like he was on meth or heroin.
    He’d done mushrooms a couple times, Ecstasy once and a kid at a party had some Vicodin, but that was just recreation. And he didn’t do booze. Too harsh. He didn’t need drugs.
    All he needed was Brigitte. His mother hated her because she was older, because she had ideas of her own. So unfair. Thinking that sent the red flood into his head and he wanted to break something—a wall, a door, a window.
    It scared him when he got this angry. His mother said that was how his father was. Even if it was true, he probably had good ways to handle it he could teach David.
    Brigitte could always talk him down. Brigitte was his steady center. Brigitte was his life. He had to get to her.
    So much burned inside him. He wrote stuff—poetry, mostly, like Brigitte, but also song lyrics. He should practice guitar. Once he got better he could compose. Except it took so long to get better. So, so long… And he’d be here so, so long….
    He remembered Christine asking Marcus if he would jam with David, like David was a needy geek. He loved his mom, but she wanted to stroke his hair and read him bedtime stories like he was still five and scared of the dark.
    He couldn’t take her anymore. And he hated being mean to her. She’d be sad when he left with Brigitte, but she should get it. She’d left home when she was a teenager, too.
    Knock, knock. “Can we talk?” Christine again. He put on his headphones for her own good. If he opened the door he’d just hurt her again.





CHAPTER THREE
    T HE NEXT MORNING, when Christine opened her eyes and saw gauze over her bed, she shot bolt upright. Where am I?
    Then her mosquito bites kicked in, itching madly, and it all came back to her. She flopped back onto the creaky, saggy mattress of her childhood bed.
    Her cheek itched with a new bite. So did both elbows. Damn. Mosquito repellant and calamine lotion were going on her grocery list, no matter what David thought.
    “We said breakfast, not lunch,” Aurora grumbled when Christine met her in the kitchen for their visit to the clay works barn.
    “It’s only seven-thirty, Aurora,” she said on a sigh.
    “Well, let’s go then,” Aurora huffed.
    Christine grabbed a slice of fruit bread and joined her mother, who was walking so slowly it seemed painful. Worry tightened Christine’s chest. Twice, she reached to support her, but gave up, knowing her mother would slap her hand away.
    The barn that housed Harmony House Clay Works was cool and dim and smelled of moist earth. Sunlight slanting in from windows lit wide swaths of thick dust in the air. A crew of four young men shifted items from potter’s wheels to shelves that already held drying pots, bowls and bells.
    “Hey there.” A woman in a red-paisley do-rag left the clay she was kneading, wiped her hands on her overalls and came close. “You must be Crystal,” she said, holding out a callused hand. “I’m Lucy. Pleased to meecha.”
    “Happy to meet you, too.”
    “Lucy runs the show when I’m not here,” Aurora said. “She’ll tell you what she needs you to do. Lucy?”
    “Mostly you’ll handle the orders. Also make sure I got crew and clay. Help us load and carry when we’re in a bind and such. I’ll show you the books.”
    Lucy led Aurora and Christine to a makeshift table at the rear of the barn—plywood resting on sawhorses with beat-up bar stools for chairs. On top were a ledger, a small invoice pad, an index-card box and a clay-grimy calculator. Not much of an office, Christine thought with dismay.
    “Is the income steady?” She flipped through the handwritten ledger.
    “About