"I don't. I don't want to. It's hot there. It's a hundred and ten. Mom said. And there's scorpions. And it's—it's too far."
"It's your mom, Rome."
"I know it's my mom." Romy's voice was rising, cracking. "I know. But she left. She left and you're here and Cass is here and Mr. Dorrance is here, and if I go, I won't be able to call the Story Line, because it's long distance, and then I won't—I won't—" She burst into tears, enormous ones, the kind that come up out of a child all at once like a summer storm, and she turned and put her face against Cass's arm and sobbed. "Can't you come? Can she come too, Daddy? Can she come with us? Can she just come?"
Hobie looked at Cass across the table with an expression she would remember for a long time. It was helpless, and it was apologetic, and under both of those it was something else, something he was clearly trying very hard not to let show, and failing.
Cass put her arm around the little girl in the yellow raincoat and held her, and let her cry, and looked at the electrical tape on the red vinyl, and thought about her second rule. She was not anybody's mother.
"Romy," she said, when the worst of it was over. "Romy, honey, look at me. Look. Here, on my good side."
Romy lifted her blotched, swollen face.
"You're going to go," Cass said. "You're going to go to Tucson, and you're going to swim in that pool, and you're going to let your mom read you stories, because she's your mom and she wants to, and that's a good thing, that's a lucky thing, you hear me? Not everybody's mom wants to."
"But the Story Line—"
"I'll tape them," Cass said. "I'll tape every single one. Six weeks. Six stories. Mrs. Sunderman will help me. And when you come back, you can listen to them all in a row, like a movie marathon. And you can leave me one long message at the end about all of them."
Romy sniffed hugely. "Promise?"
"Cheaper," said Cass.
There was a long, wet pause.
"Than the answers," Romy said, in a very small voice, and then, against every expectation, laughed.