Page 153 of Shatter

"Your mother?" His voice drops. "Breck, you found Signe?"

"No." I close my eyes. "Not her. Not yet."

I take a breath.

"I found my girl." My voice breaks on it. "The one I told you about. The one from the parking lot. I found her, Walt, and I'm keeping her. If she'll let me."

He doesn't say anything for a long time.

When he does, his voice is so soft I have to press the phone against my ear to hear it.

"The first one out of the burning house." He clears his throat. "Took you long enough. Bring her up for Thanksgiving. Tell her I'll make scrapple."

"She'll make you a pie." I laugh, wet and cracked. "She's a baker. You'll never want store-bought again."

"Then she's already family." Walt's voice goes gruff. "Now go on back to your party. And call me Sunday."

She's waiting in my room when I come back.

Sitting on the edge of the bed in jeans and still in one of my old T-shirts, her short blonde hair tucked behind her ears.

She has her own clothes now, but when it’s days like this, she always wants to wear one of my shirts.

The second I walk through the door, her eyes go straight to the cut.

She stands up slowly.

She crosses the room and runs her fingertips across the leather, over the stitching and around to the back where the colors sit.

"Look at you." Her voice is soft.

Words won't come.

I reach behind me, to the dresser, and pick up what I left there this morning, folded, wrapped in brown paper.

I hold it out to her.

She looks at it, then at me.

Her hands don't come up to take it.

"You don't have to." My voice is steady, but my hands aren't. "I mean it, Anni. Say no, and I'll burn it in the fire pit tonight. I'll never ask again. I swear to Gods I won't."

She looks at the package for a long moment.

Then she takes it from me and unfolds the paper.

It's a vest, small, soft black leather, cut to fit her.

On the back, in curving white letters, the words I asked Tindra to stitch three weeks ago.

Property of Hakon.

She holds it up and looks at it in the lamplight.

I watch her face.

I'm braced for it to go white, like it did the last time, for her hands to start shaking and her eyes to go far away.