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Christianson—”
    â€œI know who she is,” interrupted Tommy.
    Valentina bit down hard on her temper. “That’s right, you do. Anyway, she says your house is a mess, a big mess.”
    â€œHow does she know? Say, she been in there?” His expression hardened.
    â€œProbably, probably. Or she’s been talking to the people who have.”
    â€œWho all’s been in there? They got no right! I keep my doors locked, how’d they get in?”
    â€œWell, how were they supposed to get you out of there? Climb in a window?”
    â€œOh. Yeah. Well . . . Anyway, so what? They don’t have to live in it. And it ain’t that big a mess. An’ there’s good stuff in there, valuable stuff!”
    â€œReally?” Valentina tried to turn a grimace into a smile. “That’s your opinion. Hers is different. And her opinion is what counts; she’s your social worker, your connection with the law, the person who’s supposed to be in charge of you. She says the house ain’t fit for human habitation, and that means they won’t let you move back in there until it gets cleaned up to meet their standards.”
    â€œWhy’d she decide that? I thought she liked me. I thought she was on my side!”
    â€œShe may or may not like you, but she’s on nobody’s side but the county’s, you ought to know that. None of those folks are your friends. You’re a job to her, not a friend, nor hardly even a real person. Her job is to make you behave, and you let that house get into a real state, she says, an’ that it’s got to be fixed. There’s a law against filling up a house with junk.” This was the hard part of Tommy’s problems. Of all the problems in the world she most emphatically did not want, an entanglement with the law was number one.
    â€œWell, how’m I gonna fix it when I’m laid up like I am?”
    Valentina leaned closer and smiled. “They’re gonna let me fix it for you.”
    Tommy fell silent for a few seconds, staring back into her eyes. “I can’t figure if that’s good or bad.”
    â€œWhy, it’s good, Tommy, it’s real good! I’m family, right? I’ll make sure not to harm you or your things.” Val smiled as sweetly as she could. “Like they say, A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”
    And Tommy bought it, if grudgingly. “Well . . . Okay.”
    â€œGood, that’s a good cousin. Now you can just relax and get yourself healed. I’ll go take a look at it and see what has to be done.”
    â€œYou come back here real soon—like once a day—you hear me? Tell me ever single thing you’re doing out there. Don’t throw nothin’—
nothin’
—away without askin’ me first. I’m real serious about that.”
    â€œI hear you. And I promise, I’ll come over here to the hospital and tell you everything I’m doing. Okay?”
    Val wasn’t quite superstitious enough to cross her fingers behind her back. But she thought about it, hard.

Chapter Seven

    V ALENTINA sat behind the wheel of her shabby little car, thinking. Tommy’s house was in far, far worse condition than she’d anticipated, even after the description Ms. Christianson had given her.
    Most noticeable, of course, was the junk. Every single room in the two-bedroom house, including the bathroom and the basement, was overloaded with stuff. None of the furniture in the living and dining room was even visible, much less usable, under the burden of things. Of stuff. Most of it, at first look, was without value—broken, rusty, torn, parts missing, you name it; it seemed as if every item had some problem or another.
    But there were other problems that were not so obvious. There was a smell of mold, the kind that infests a house when there is water leaking inside the walls or under the floors. And there was