Then she reached up and grabbed the sleeve of my leather jacket with both hands. Grip like she was drowning.
She looked up at me and said, “Mister, will you please be my dad? Just until they find somebody. I promise I won’t be any trouble. I can’t run so I can’t get lost. And I already know how to be quiet when grown-ups are sad.”
I’ve been shot at twice in my life. Once in Kuwait in ’91, once outside a bar in Reno in 2003. Neither time did my chest feel the way it did in that gas station parking lot.
“Sweetheart,” I said, and my voice came out rougher than I meant it to. “What’s your name?”
“Ellie.”
“Ellie, where’s the lady watching you?”
She let go of my sleeve just enough to point. The woman on the phone had turned her back to us. She was pacing behind the van, one hand on her forehead, saying something about a bed shortage and how the Riverton house was full and could they please call the emergency line again.
“Her name’s Miss Karen,” Ellie said. “She’s nice. She cried in the car when we passed my old house.”
I crouched down so my eyes were level with hers. My knees complained. I ignored them.
“How old are you, Ellie?”
