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her mother’s kitchen, her son’s home.
     
    “Call me Jericho,” he said.
     
    She cleared her throat. “Fine. Do you have any—”
     
    “I washed dishes in the Army.”
     
    Margred set her bus tray on the counter. “You were in the Army?”
     
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    He nodded.
     
    “Iraq? My husband was in Iraq.”
     
    “Yes, ma’am.”
     
    Regina bit back a groan. Of course he would say that. He’d probably say anything to get a job. Or a handout.
     
    “We’re not hiring,” Antonia said.
     
    Margred frowned. “But—”
     
    Jericho picked up his pack. “Okay.”
     
    That was it. No resentment. No expectations. His flat acceptance got under Regina’s skin, made them kin somehow.
     
    She scowled. Nobody should live that devoid of hope. “You want to wait a minute, I’ll make you a sandwich,” she said.
     
    He turned his head, and she did her best to meet that haunted, eerie gaze without a shudder.
     
    “Thanks,” he said at last. “Mind if I wash up first?”
     
    “Be my guest.”
     
    “He trashes the restroom, you clean it up,” Antonia said when the door had closed behind him.
     
    “I can clean,” Margred said before Regina could bite back.
     
    Antonia sniffed. “We can’t feed everybody who walks in off the street, you know.”
     
    Regina was irritated enough to shove aside her own misgivings.
    “Then maybe we’re in the wrong business,” she said and stomped into the kitchen to make the man a sandwich.
     
    She glanced up the apartment stairs as she passed. Nick had already visited the kitchen to eat his lunch and punch holes in the pizza dough.
    But she could call him down for a snack, shoo him outside to play.
     
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    Summers were tough on them both. School was out while the restaurant stayed open longer hours. Nick had more free time, and Regina had less.
     
    This summer for some reason had been worse. Maybe because Nick was old enough now to chafe at his mother’s restrictions. Regina rubbed the headache brewing between her eyebrows. She ought to be able to sympathize with that.
     
    “Nick,” she called.
     
    He was silent. Sulking? She’d been short with him this morning.
     
    Distracted, Regina thought guiltily, trying hard not to remember Saturday night, Dylan’s hands on her hips as he moved slickly, thickly inside her.
     
    No sex on the beach was as important as her son.
     
    “Nicky?”
     
    The restaurant cat, Hercules, meowed plaintively from the top of the stairs.
     
    No answer.
     
    Worry trickled through her. On World’s End, everybody knew everybody’s business. Every neighbor kept an eye on every child.
    Children here still walked to the store alone, still played on the beach unsupervised.
     
    But she’d told Nick and told him not to leave the restaurant without telling her. There were dangers on the island, too, tides and fog and gravel pits, teenagers in cars, strangers with haunted eyes . . .
     
    Regina shook her head. She was not letting herself get spooked because some homeless guy had wandered into the restaurant looking for work and a sandwich.
     
    Knowing she was overreacting, however, didn’t keep her palms from sweating, didn’t stop her heart from hammering in her chest. When you were a single mom, there was nobody to share the worry or the blame, and so the worry doubled and every danger assumed terrifying proportions. Anything could threaten this tiny person who had been
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    entrusted to you, your baby, your son, the best and most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to you, and it would all be your fault because you hadn’t been taking care, you hadn’t wanted him in the first place.
     
    Regina forced herself to release her grip on the stair railing. Okay, definitely overreacting now.
     
    She opened the unlocked door to their apartment, Hercules darting between her ankles into the empty living room.
     
    “Nick?” She cocked her head, listening for the sound of the television, the gurgle of water from the bathroom.
     
    But he