The Great Escape

Chapter Nineteen

THE KITCHEN TABLE MOCKED HER as it squatted in its customary spot on the cracked vinyl floor. It looked like a fat green warthog with a broken leg. Lucy slapped at the counter with a dishrag. “Just once, do you think you could make coffee without getting the grounds everywhere?”

Panda turned from the kitchen window where he’d been scanning the backyard for armed robbers, escaped murderers, or even a rabid skunk, anything that would satisfy his craving for action. “Just once, do you think you could make the coffee instead of me?” he retorted.

“I’m trying to eat,” Temple said from the table. “Would you both shut up?”

Lucy turned on her. “And you… Would it kill you to have a box of Cheerios around, or is that too much temptation for Her Majesty?”

Temple licked her yogurt spoon. “Panda, get rid of her.”

“My pleasure.”

“Don’t bother. I’m leaving.” Lucy flounced across the kitchen. “I’m going someplace where I’m appreciated.” She tried to produce a decent burp but failed.

“I hear there’s a new kindergarten in town,” Panda called after her.

“You should know.” Lucy slammed the back door on them both and headed for the cottage. The only bright spot in that encounter was how good it felt to act infantile.

Something had shifted between them, and not just because Panda hadn’t been waiting for her in bed last night when she’d come out of the shower. She’d started feeling a resentment toward him that had no place in a summer fling. Temple knew more about him than she did, and Lucy didn’t like that. She wanted his confidences. His trust. Maybe it should be enough to know he’d take a bullet for her, but not when she knew he’d do the same for Temple, or anyone else he felt responsible for.

Bree was opening up the farm stand when Lucy got there a few minutes later. As Bree set out the Carousel Honey sign, Lucy inspected the new note cards. They showed an old-fashioned straw skep, the forerunner of the modern hive, sitting under a blossoming cherry tree abuzz with fanciful bees. “These are great, Bree. Your best yet.”

“Do you think so?” Bree repositioned a small metal table under the shady oak. She painted there between customers.

“Definitely. They’re going to sell like crazy.”

“I hope so. Labor Day’s only a month away, and then…” She made a vague, helpless gesture.

Lucy wished Bree would let her cover the initial printing costs of mass-producing some of the note cards. But even though Lucy had presented it as a business proposal, Bree was too proud to accept. On the positive side, Bree had found a new sales outlet through Pastor Sanders, the minister at Heart of Charity Missionary Church and owner of the local gift shop. He’d just started carrying some of her products.

“How did your nautical excursion with Mike go yesterday?” Bree said, too casually.

“Great. I had fun.”

“Then Mike must have fallen overboard.”

Lucy pretended not to notice the edge in Bree’s comments. “Nope.”

“Too bad.” Bree snatched up a bag of tiny sampling spoons and poured them into a basket she set next to a dish of the individually wrapped chocolate-dipped honey caramels Lucy had finally perfected.

Lucy spoke carefully. “I like him.”

“That’s because you haven’t been around him long.” She wrenched the lid off a fresh container of comb honey she set out for customers to sample. “I’ve known him since he was younger than Toby.”

“Yes, he said he wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular.”

“You have no idea.”

“I sort of do. He told me what he did to you.”

She went still. “He told you?”

Lucy nodded. “He’s an interesting person. Unusual. As open about his mistakes as he is about his accomplishments.”

“Yes, I’m sure he loved telling you how important he is.”

“Not really.”

Bree finished arranging the honeycomb and spoons, along with some stick pretzels for dipping into a cocoa-flavored honey she’d started putting out as an experiment. “I don’t like Toby spending so much time with him.”

“Mike cares about Toby.”

“Yes, they have a real love fest going on,” she said bitterly.

Lucy cocked her head. “Are you jealous?”

“Of course I’m jealous.” She swatted a fly swooping too close to the honeycomb. “Mike doesn’t have to nag him into taking a shower or going to bed at a reasonable time. Mike only does the fun stuff, and I’m the wicked witch.” She stopped, her expression troubled. “I know I’m right about Mike. People don’t change that much. But…” Another of those helpless gestures. “I don’t know… Things are getting confusing. I’m not even sure why.”

Lucy had a few ideas about that, but she kept them to herself.

BREE LOCKED UP THE FARM stand for the night. The frames in the hives were heavy with honey. Earlier today, she’d cleaned Myra’s old hand-cranked extruder, and at dawn tomorrow, she’d start this year’s harvest. The work would be backbreaking, but that didn’t bother her as much as the implications of harvesting honey for next summer. She’d accepted the fact that she had to stay on the island, but she was far from sure she had enough money saved to survive the winter until she could sell this new crop.

She gazed around at what she’d created-her little fairy castle farm stand with its carousel ribbon trim and Easter egg Adirondack chairs. It shocked her how happy this world she’d created made her. She liked watching her customers settle into the painted chairs and enjoy samples of her honey. She enjoyed seeing them testing her lotions, sniffing her soaps, and pondering her candles. If only she could live in a perpetual summer, with no threat of winter, no obsessing over money, no worries about Toby. She sighed, gazed at what she could see of the sunset through the trees, and headed for the house.

The first thing she noticed as she stepped inside was that the kitchen smelled delicious, like real food. “Toby?”

He wore his favorite jeans and T-shirt along with a baseball cap and a pair of red oven mitts with the batting coming out of one thumb. He took a casserole dish from the oven and set it on the stove next to a pair of wrinkled baked potatoes. “I made dinner,” he said.

“By yourself? I didn’t know you could cook.”

“Gram taught me some stuff.” Steam rose from the casserole as he pulled off the aluminum foil. “I wanted Mike to come eat with us, but he had business.”

“He has a lot to do,” she managed, without sarcasm. “What did you fix?”

“Cowboy casserole, noodles, and baked potatoes. Plus we have the bread Lucy made today.”

Not exactly carb light, but she wasn’t going to criticize. She washed her hands, avoiding the pan of cold, soggy noodles in the sink, then took two plates from the cupboard. She pushed aside a copy of Black Soldiers in the Civil War to set them on the table. “It smells delicious.”

The cowboy casserole turned out to be a concoction of ground beef, onion, pinto beans, and, judging from the empty can on the counter, tomato soup. Six months ago, she’d never have eaten anything like this, but despite some undercooked onions and overbrowned ground beef, she had seconds. “A great meal, Chef,” she said when she finally put down her fork. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was. Anytime you feel like cooking, you go right ahead.”

Toby liked having his work appreciated. “Maybe. How come you don’t cook?”

Exactly when was she supposed to add that to her schedule? But the truth was, she’d never liked to cook. “I’m not much of a food person.”

“That’s why you’re so skinny.”

She gazed around at the kitchen with its dated pickled oak cabinets and yellowing vinyl floor. How odd to feel more comfortable in this shabby cottage than she’d ever felt in the luxurious house her cheating husband had bought. As for the money she’d once spent so freely… Not a penny of it was as precious as what she was earning for herself with her own hard work and imagination.

“Your mother liked to cook, too,” she said.

“Really?” Toby stopped eating, fork poised in midair. His eagerness made her feel petty for not talking to him about Star. Just as Mike had asked her to.

“Gram never told me that,” he said.

“Sure. She was always trying out new recipes-not just cookies and brownies, but things like soups and sauces. Sometimes she’d try to get me to help, but mainly I just ate what she made.”

He cocked his head, thinking that over. “Like you’re eating what I made.”

“Exactly.” She searched her mind. “She wasn’t crazy about bees either, but she loved cats and dogs.”

“That’s like me, too. What else about her?”

She stole the man I loved. Or was that merely what Bree wanted to believe because it was easier to think bad of Star than to admit that David had never really loved her?

She made a play out of pleating her napkin. “She liked to play cards. Gin rummy.” Star cheated, but Toby had heard enough negatives about his mother. “She loved Janet Jackson and Nirvana. All we did one summer was dance to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ She stunk at softball-none of us wanted her on our team, but we always let her because she made us laugh. She liked to climb, and when we were younger, she’d hide from me in that big old tree in the front yard.”

“My tree,” he said with so much wonder that her heart ached.

She told him what she should have understood from the beginning. “Your mom wasn’t perfect. Sometimes she didn’t take life as seriously as she should, but I can tell you this. She never intended to leave you. She always meant to come back.”

Toby dipped his head so she wouldn’t see his eyes filling with tears. She reached out to touch him, then thought better of it. “Let’s go to Dogs ’N’ Malts for dessert.”

His head came up. “Could we?”

“Why not?” She was so stuffed she could barely move, but just once, she wanted to be the fun person in Toby’s life.

They climbed into her car, and she drove to town. Toby ordered a super-size concoction of ice cream, M &M’s, sprinkles, peanuts, and chocolate sauce. She ordered their smallest vanilla cone. As luck would have it, Mike showed up not long after they’d sat at one of the picnic tables. “Hey, Toby. Sabrina.”

Sabrina?

Toby jumped up from the bench. “Sit with us, Mike!”

Mike glanced toward Bree. She wasn’t going to be the bad guy, and she nodded. “Sure. Come and join us.”

A few minutes later Mike returned with a small chocolate sundae and settled next to Toby, which put him directly across from her. Her heart twisted as Toby shot her a pleading look, imploring her not to ruin this. Mike avoided looking at her altogether.

Her cone was beginning to drip, but she couldn’t take another lick. She didn’t like feeling as if there was something wrong with her because she refused to join the Mike Moody fan club. Even Lucy liked him. But how could Bree forget the past? Except wasn’t that beginning to happen? Each day it grew more difficult to reconcile the adult Mike Moody with the boy she remembered.

A young couple-the husband carrying a baby in a Snugli-stopped to talk to him, followed by an older man hauling an oxygen tank. Everybody was glad to see Mike. Everybody wanted to say hello. Toby waited patiently, as if he’d been through this before. Finally they were alone. “Toby, this sundae is so good I think I’ll have another.” Mike dug in his pocket and handed over a five-dollar bill. “Mind getting one for me?”

As Toby went off, Bree noticed that Mike had barely touched his first sundae. He finally looked at her. “I was coming out to see you tomorrow.”

“I thought you were done with me.” She managed not to sound too petulant.

“This is about Toby.” He pushed aside his ice cream. “The Bayner boys aren’t coming back to live on the island.”

It took her a moment to place the name. “The twins who are Toby’s best friends?”

“His only real friends. Their parents are splitting up, and his mother is staying in Ohio with them. Toby doesn’t know about it yet, and this is going to hit him hard.”

“Great. One more problem I have no idea how to solve,” she said.

He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I might be able to help out.”

Of course he could. Mike could fix everything, something she should have thought harder about before she’d dismissed him.

He balled the napkin. “I never liked how Myra kept him so isolated, but she was odd that way, and she refused to talk about it. Toby’s with other kids at school, but she wouldn’t let him invite them to the cottage or go to their houses. The only reason the twins were friends was because they lived close enough to walk. She overprotected him.”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” It was odd asking Mike for advice, but he didn’t seem to find it strange.

“I coach a soccer team,” he said. “It’ll be a good place for him to start making new friends. Let Toby join.”

She’d already become a beekeeper. Why not add soccer mom to her résumé? “All right.”

He seemed surprised that she’d agreed so quickly. “I’m sure you have some questions. I’m not the only coach. There’s another-”

“It’s fine. I trust you.”

“You do?”

She pretended to examine a ragged fingernail. “You’ve been a good friend to Toby.”

“Here you are.” Toby popped up at Mike’s side with the sundae. Mike surreptitiously moved the first one under his napkin and took up the plastic spoon to start on the second. Toby asked him about fishing rods, and they were soon immersed in conversation.

Long after she should have been asleep that night, Bree was still sitting on the back step, staring out into the darkness, thinking about Mike and the upcoming winter. Her honey was selling better than she could have hoped, and the bee Christmas ornaments were a surprise hit. Pastor Sanders was displaying her products in his gift shop without charging her a percentage. He said he’d take his commission in honey and give it away to any of his parishioners who needed their spirits lifted.

She was saving every penny she could, but she was spending it, too. And not just for more jars. After days of agonizing, she’d placed a big order for some very expensive hand-blown glass globe ornaments that she intended to paint with island scenes and-cross her fingers-sell for three times what she paid for them. But with only a month left before Labor Day, when her customers would disappear, the purchase was a huge risk.

She still had a dribble of cash coming in from the consignment shop at home where she’d left most of her clothes. With luck, that money, combined with steady sales at the farm stand for the rest of the month and a big profit from the hand-painted ornaments she’d just received, might carry her through the winter. If Toby didn’t keep growing out of his clothes, and the old furnace kept running, and the leaky roof didn’t get worse, and her car didn’t need brakes, and…

Winters are long, and people here only have one another to depend on.

It had been easier dismissing Mike’s words in June than it was now, with fall creeping closer each day. If the worst happened, she had nowhere to turn. She needed Mike.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that ignoring him was a luxury she could no longer afford. She had to change direction. She had to convince him that she no longer hated his guts. Even if it killed her.

Toby’s sleepy voice drifted through the screen door. “What’re you doing out here?”

“I-couldn’t sleep.”

“Did you have a bad dream?”

“No. What about you? Why are you up?”

“I don’t know. Just woke up.” He yawned and came out to sit next to her. His shoulder brushed her arm. The sleepy, sweaty boy smell of him reminded her of summer nights with her brothers when they’d sneak into one another’s rooms and tell ghost stories.

He spoke through another yawn. “Thanks for the ice cream tonight.”

She cleared the lump in her throat. “You’re welcome.”

“A lot of kids are scared of the dark, but not me,” he announced.

She wasn’t either. She had too many real things to be afraid of.

He leaned over to examine a scab on his ankle. “Could we maybe invite Mike over for dinner soon?”

She began to bristle, then realized he’d handed her the perfect method to begin mending her relationship with Mike. One way or the other, she had to make him believe she’d put the past behind her.

“Sure we can.” She briefly wondered when she’d become so cold-blooded, but standing on principle now seemed to be a luxury only the wealthy could afford. “I think it’s time we both got some sleep.” She rose from the step.

“I guess.” He got up. “Do you think he’d like cowboy casserole?”

“Definitely.”

They went inside, and as Toby headed for his bedroom, she called out to him the same way she did every night, “Good night, Toby.”

This time he answered her back. “G’night, Bree.”

AUGUST SETTLED IN FOR GOOD, bringing more sunny, humid days along with the occasional fierce thunderstorm. Most nights, Lucy and Panda met on the boat or in her room, but an unsettling intensity had replaced their playful kinkiness. There were no more strip searches, no more licorice whips. And during the day they bickered.

“Did you use yesterday’s grounds to make this coffee?” Panda said as he splashed the contents of his newly poured cup down the sink.

“You bitch if I make the coffee. You bitch if I don’t,” Lucy retorted.

“Because you refuse to follow directions.”

Temple gave a long-suffering sigh from her perch on top of the kitchen step stool where she was eating half a thinly sliced apple. She’d slicked her hair into its customary long ponytail, a style that put her almond-shaped eyes and increasingly sharp cheekbones on full display. She’d been on the island a little over six weeks. The fleshy cushion beneath her chin had disappeared, and her long, toned legs testified to her hard work. But instead of being happy, she’d grown tenser, more short-tempered, sadder.

“Your directions,” Lucy said to him.

“Which work a hell of a lot better than whatever it is you’re doing,” he retorted.

“In your opinion.”

“Children!” Temple exclaimed. “Do not make me spank.”

“Let me,” Panda drawled.

Lucy curled her lip at him and left the kitchen to take the kayak out. She resented the tension between them. She wanted the fun back. Without fun, what was the point of this affair?

She was glad when the water got so choppy she had to focus all her attention on paddling.

TEMPLE APPEARED FOR DINNER THAT night in a clean version of the workout clothes she wore all day. Her body was muscular perfection. Her black racer-back top exposed arms with every tendon defined, and her matching Spandex shorts rode low enough to showcase a hollowed-out, muscle-rippled abdomen. She and Panda together were a matched set-both of them overexercised, restless, and surly.

Lucy muttered something about two nutcases on human growth hormones. Temple glanced at Lucy’s waist and made a reference to an aimless loser with middle-aged spread. Panda growled at them both to shut up so he could eat tonight’s crap in peace.

Unlike Panda, Lucy had no complaints about the underseasoned frozen beef stew-thanks to the sweet potato fries and giant sugar cookie she’d downed in town. Temple began a halfhearted lecture about the link between childhood illnesses and adult immunity, and when she asked Panda if he’d ever had chicken pox. Lucy couldn’t resist butting in. “Privacy intrusion. Panda doesn’t talk about his past.”

“And that galls you,” Panda retorted. “You won’t be satisfied until you know everybody’s business.”

But he wasn’t everybody. He was her lover.

“He’s right, Lucy,” Temple said. “You do like to poke around in other people’s heads.”

Panda flipped sides by pointing a fork at his employer. “Somebody needs to poke around in yours. The longer you’re here, the bitchier you get.”

“That’s a lie,” Temple retorted. “I’ve always been bitchy.”

“Not this bitchy,” Lucy said. “You’ve lost twenty pounds, and-”

“Twenty-four,” Temple said defiantly. “No thanks to either of you. Do you have any idea how depressing it is listening to you snarl at each other?”

“Our snarling doesn’t have anything to do with your problem,” Lucy said. “You have a textbook case of body dysmorphia.”

“Ewww…,” Temple scoffed. “Big words.”

Lucy shoved away her plate. “You look fantastic everywhere except inside your head.”

“In your opinion.” Temple made a dismissive gesture toward her own body. “You can spin it any way you want, but I’m still fat!”

“When will you not be fat?” Lucy cried. “What ridiculous number has to flash on the scale you carry around in your head to finally make you feel okay?”

Temple licked her fingers. “I can’t believe Miss Porky is lecturing me about weight.”

Panda didn’t like that. “She’s not porky.”

Lucy ignored him. “Your body is beautiful, Temple. There’s not an inch of you that jiggles.”

“Unlike your hips,” Temple shot back, but without any real sting.

Lucy gazed at her untouched plate with disgust. “My hips will be just fine as soon as I can eat like a normal person again.”

Temple turned to Panda. “She’s some kind of alien. How can she gain twenty pounds and not have it make her crazy?”

“I haven’t gained twenty pounds,” Lucy retorted. “Ten max.” But sweet potato fries and sugar cookies weren’t her real enemy. Her enemy was the guilt she felt over the pages she hadn’t written, the family she was virtually ignoring, and the panic she experienced whenever she thought about leaving Charity Island.

Panda pushed back from the table. “If you’ll both excuse me, I’m going outside to shoot myself.”

“Do it near the water,” Lucy said, “so we don’t have to clean up after you.”

She and Temple finished their sad excuse for dinner in glum silence. Temple stared out the window, and Lucy picked at the kitchen table’s vomitous green paint.

LATE THE NEXT AFTERNOON, AS Lucy pulled some weeds by the porch and contemplated a trip to a bar in town so she could work on her reverse bucket list, she heard a car pull into the driveway. It didn’t sound like one of their regular delivery vans. She set aside her trowel and went around the house to investigate.

A woman with short, bright red hair and a stocky figure stepped out of a silver Subaru. She wore a loose-fitting white top, serviceable tan capris that would have looked better on someone with longer legs, and athletic sandals. A chunk of turquoise hung from a leather cord around her neck, and silver rings flashed on her fingers. Lucy nodded in greeting and waited for the woman to identify herself. Before that could happen, the front door opened and Mr. Bodyguard stepped out.

The woman turned away from Lucy to face him. “Patrick Shade?”

He stopped at the top of the steps. “Can I help you?” he said, without answering her question.

She came around to the front of her car. “I’m looking for a friend.”

He nodded toward Lucy. “Unless you’re looking for one of us, you have the wrong house.”

“She’s here. I know she is.”

Their visitor’s stocky build reminded Lucy that Temple had enemies. What if this woman were a disgruntled former client? Or a Fat Island television viewer turned stalker?

Panda kept himself firmly planted between the visitor and the door.

“It took me weeks to find her,” the woman said stubbornly. “I’m not going away.”

He moved slowly down the steps. “This is private property.”

He hadn’t raised his voice, but that didn’t make him any less intimidating. She backed against the car, more desperate than threatening. “I have to see her.”

“You need to go now.”

“Just tell her I’m here. Please. Tell her Max is here.”

Max? Lucy stared. This was Max?

But Panda didn’t seem surprised by the woman’s revelation. Was he wearing his professional poker face or had he known all along that the person Temple pined for was a woman?

Of course he’d known. Someone as thorough as Panda wouldn’t let a detail like that escape him.

The woman turned toward the house and shouted, “Temple! Temple, it’s Max! Don’t do this. Come out and talk to me!”

Her pain was so visceral Lucy felt it in her own heart. Surely Temple would hear her and come out. But no sound came from the house, no movement. The door stayed shut. Lucy couldn’t stand it. She cut around the side and entered through the back.

She found Temple upstairs in her bedroom standing off to the side of the front window where she could watch the driveway without being spotted. “Why did she have to come here?” She sounded both fierce and broken. “I hate her.”

Everything Lucy hadn’t understood was now clear. “No, you don’t. You love her.”

A lock of Temple’s hair came out of her clip as she spun around, every muscle of her overexercised body taut. “What do you know about anything?”

“I know this has been tearing you apart all summer.”

“It’ll get better. It’s simply a matter of time.”

“Why did you break up?”

Temple’s nostrils flared. “Don’t be naïve. Do you think I want the world to know that I-I fell in love with another woman?”

“You’ll hardly be the first celebrity trainer to come out of the closet. I doubt it’ll ruin your career.”

“It’ll ruin me.”

“How? I don’t understand.”

“This is not what I want to be.”

“A lesbian?”

Temple flinched.

Lucy threw up her hands. “Jeez, Temple, welcome to the twenty-first century. People fall in love.”

“Easy for you to say. You fell in love with a man.”

For a moment Lucy actually thought she was talking about Panda, but then she realized Temple must mean Ted. “We don’t always choose whom we fall in love with. Lots of women are lesbians.”

Her lip curled, even as her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “I’m not lots of women. I’m Temple Renshaw.”

“And that puts you a cut above ordinary humans?”

“I don’t settle for second best. It’s not how I’m made.”

“Do you really think Max is second best?”

“Max is wonderful,” she said fiercely. “The best person I’ve ever known.”

“Then what?”

Temple remained stubbornly silent, but Lucy wouldn’t let her get away with that. “Go ahead and say it.”

“I don’t have to. Political correctness doesn’t change the reality. Homosexuality is a defect. A flaw.”

“Got it. You’re too perfect to be gay.”

“I’m not talking to you about this any longer.”

Lucy was filled with pity. The standards Temple had set for herself were impossible for anyone to meet. No wonder she was miserable.

Tires crunched in the gravel. Temple closed her eyes and leaned back against the curtain. Lucy looked out the window. “Congratulations. The best person you’ve ever known just drove away.”

PANDA WAS SAWING AT A dead tree and spoiling for a fight when Lucy came out to talk to him. “I suppose you think I should have told you about Max, too?” he said.

“Yes, but I also understand client confidentiality. I know-”

A loud crash came from the house. He threw down the saw and raced inside. Lucy ran after him. As she reached the front hallway, she heard thuds coming from overhead, then something slamming against the floor. She followed him up the steps.

Temple stood in the middle of the gym, eyes wild, hair undone, the destruction of her prison-kingdom all around her. An overturned weight bench, scattered floor-mats, a hole in the wall. Temple snatched up a ten-pound weight and was about to hurl it through the window when Panda grabbed her.

It was a battle of the gods. Hercules versus Xena Warrior Princess. But as strong as she was, he was far stronger, and it didn’t take long for him to pinion her against his chest.

All the fight went out of her. When he finally released her, she collapsed at his feet. He shot Lucy a silent appeal for help, and she did the only thing she could think of.

Her bread was hidden in the den where Panda could get to it. She’d baked it just that afternoon at the cottage. She carried it to the kitchen where she unwrapped it, cut off the chewy heel, and drizzled it with honey from the jar she’d hidden in the cupboard.

Temple was slumped against the wall, her head resting against the arms she’d folded over her bent knees. Lucy knelt next to her and offered it. “Eat this.”

Temple’s teary red eyes reflected only betrayal. “Why are you sabotaging me?” she said hoarsely.

“This isn’t sabotage.” Lucy struggled to find the words. “It’s-it’s life.”

Temple ate it. Not gulping it down but savoring each small bite. While Panda leaned against the doorjamb and watched, Lucy sat cross-legged at Temple’s side and tried to think what to say. In the end, she said nothing.

“That was good,” Temple said in a small voice. “Can I have another?”

Lucy thought for a moment. “No, but I’m making dinner tonight.”

Temple’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I can’t do this any longer.”

“I know.”

Temple buried her face in her hands. “It’s all going to come crashing down. Everything I’ve worked for.”

“Not unless you want it to,” Lucy said. “You’ve fixed your body. All you need to do now is fix your head.” She rose and faced Panda. “I’ll be back in an hour. Unlock the pantry.”