Chapter 3: Six Reasons

"Mom, Max says if we don't pay the rent by Friday, we're going to live in a box."

"A big box," Max said. "With a door."

Noah, the oldest by four minutes, held up a pink paper like it was evidenced in court. "It says Final Notice, Mom. In red. That's the worst color."

I took the paper from his hand. I already knew what it said. I've read it six times.

Six faces looked up at me from the kitchen table. Three boys with the same messy dark hair. Three girls with the same stubborn chin. They were five years old, almost six, and all of them had the same eyes. I try not to look at those eyes too long. They are his.

"It's grown-up stuff," I said, in my bright voice. "I'll fix it."

"Mr. Finch is selling the bakery," Leo said. He didn't look up from his book. Leo reads like a tired professor. "I heard him tell Dot. That means you lose your job."

"Leo."

"Sorry. I wasn't trying to listen. The numbers were just loud."

Zoe jumped onto her chair. "I'll sell my robot! He's worth a hundred dollars!"

"He's worth two dollars," Mia said, still drawing. "You made him out of the toaster."

"The toaster was already broken!"

"And she took apart the smoke alarm again," Max added. "But she put it back."

"Mostly," Zoe said.

"I have eleven dollars," Lily said. She tipped a pickle jar of coins onto the table. "Everybody puts in a little, and nobody has to be scared."

Lily keeps the peace in this house. She is five.

My eyes burned. My babies had started a rent fund in a pickle jar.

"Put it away, sweetheart. That's your ice cream money. Mom will take care of it."

"You always say that," Noah said. He didn't say it meanly. He said it tired, like a small old man.

I couldn't answer, because it was true. I'd said it a hundred times, and somehow I'd always made it work. Two jobs. Secondhand shoes. Dot's soup. But this time the numbers didn't add up, and I'd stared at them for a week.

Dot came in from the porch with her coat still on, holding my phone out like it was hot. "Tessa again. Third time this week. She says it's a real job, Amy. Not a maybe."

Tessa Moore was my college roommate. She worked in HR at Hale Group, the biggest company in NorthHill. For a year she'd been sending me job listings, and for a year I'd been deleting them.

NorthHill. Where Callan lived. Where I used to live.

Tessa had told me once, by accident, that Callan had married Brielle and now threw parties in the house I used to clean. I'd hung up on her. I told myself I hadn't thought about their faces in years. That was a lie. I thought about them every week.

I followed Dot onto the porch and shut the door. "I can't go back, Dot. I wrote it on a piece of paper six years ago. Do not go back."

"You wrote that when you were scared and alone and six babies deep," she said. "Now you've got six reasons to go and nothing left here. The pay is double what Finch gives you. Health insurance for all six. When did anything good last land in your lap?"

"What if he sees me?"

"One man in a city of millions." She patted my hand. "And you're not the girl in that red dress anymore."

I had told Dot about the red dress. I had never told her about the rest.

When I came back in, Mia was waiting. She held up her drawing. There was me, Dot, all six kids, Zoe's robot, and the cat. At the edge of the page stood one more tall figure, drawn in plain gray pencil. No color at all.

"That's Dad," she said. "I don't know what he looks like, so I didn't color him. Is that okay?"

My throat closed. "Why gray, baby?"

"Because I'm saving the good colors," she said. "In case he's nice."

"He lives far away," I said carefully. "And he doesn't know about you."

Noah frowned. "Then he's the one missing out."

"When he shows up, he owes us six birthdays," Zoe said.

I laughed, because I had to. Then I pulled all six of them into one big hug, and for a minute nobody asked me anything.

I called Tessa that night and said yes.

Three weeks later, we drove into NorthHill in Dot's old van. Max had his nose pressed to the window. Noah counted the tall buildings out loud. Leo held the map upside down and read it anyway. I counted the buildings too, quietly, and each one made my stomach tighter.

I looked different now. Shorter hair, glasses, a face with six years of no sleep on it. Dot called it my witness protection look. She wasn't far off.

We found a two-bedroom apartment on the cheap east side. The kids took both bedrooms, with bunk beds stacked wall to wall. Dot took the couch and said she liked it. I slept on an air mattress next to her. She was lying about the couch, and I loved her for it.

That night I lay in the dark and listened to six kids breathe. I made a list in my head, the way I always do when I'm scared.

Rule one: keep the job. Rule two: keep them hidden. Rule three: stay far away from anyone named Whitmore.

On Monday, the Hale Group tower stood at the top of the city like it owned the sky. Tessa met me in the lobby and pulled me aside before I could sign in.

"Rules," she whispered. "Don't be late. Don't ask about the CEO's past. Nobody even knows where he went to school."

"Why not?"

"Because he hates cameras, hates reporters, and hates small talk. There isn't one photo of him on our website. Just his name. And he meets every new hire in person on day one. Ten minutes. I've seen grown men cry."

"Wonderful."

She squeezed my hand. "You'll be fine. You're smarter than half this building. Eighty-eighth floor. Try not to look him in the eye."

She pushed me into the elevator. It was so fast my ears popped. On the eighty-eighth floor, the carpet was thick and the air was quiet. A young man at the desk stood up when he saw me. Warm eyes, sharp suit, a smile that came easy.

"Amy Rowan? I'm Julian Park, Mr. Hale's assistant."

Julian.

My hand went cold. Fourteen missed calls. A dark screen. A man in a black shirt turning his phone face down.

Don't be silly, I told myself. Half the men in NorthHill must be named Julian.

"Everything okay?" he asked. "You've gone pale. Don't worry, it's not you. He has that effect on everyone."

"I'm fine."

He studied me a second longer than he needed to. "He's ready for you. Fair warning, he doesn't smile."

He opened the double doors.

The office was huge, all glass and quiet. A man stood at the far window with his back to me, hands in his pockets, the whole city below him. Charcoal suit. Broad shoulders. Perfectly still.

"Miss Rowan."

I knew that voice.

My feet stopped on their own. I knew it the way you know a song from the first note. Low. Steady. If you change your mind, at any point, you tell me.

Six years, and I still knew that voice in the dark.

Behind me, Julian shut the doors.

The man at the window turned around.