Page 38 of Off the Mark
They exchanged a sly glance before crowding me in a joint hug, patting my cheeks as they said goodbye.
“Well, you’ve got our vote and you can take thatstraightto that board of yours,” Midge huffed. “Dinner’s on us tonight. And for the love of god,sleep,will ya?”
“Yes, ma’am, and yes, ma’am,” I promised, stepping back onto the sidewalk and waving them off.
I watched them drive away with a tightness in my throat I had to swallow three times to loosen. My parents died in a car accident when I was four, and I learned that the most important people in your life can get taken from you for no reason and without warning.
I’d also learned—later, when I was older and understood how much had been done—that without our neighbors on 10th Street, without Midge and Maria specifically, no one would have been there to help my grandmother and I make it through.
And I still hadn’t shaken the night my grandmother had pulled out the pictures of my parents on their honeymoon. The grief was there, waiting for me on days like this—long days. Stressful days. Weeks when I wasn’t sleeping well.
Though my current insomnia was part work stress keeping me up and part Charlie Maddox, who I was now in a fake relationship with until the end of August.
If I could stopobsessingover what it felt like to touch her for the very first time in that bar, sleep might come a little easier for me.
“Hey,” Dean said, ambling up the sidewalk, “was that my parents just now?”
I grinned. “Mornin’, big guy. Yeah, you just missed ’em. I came in this morning to a bunch of boxes of donated breakfast food from who knows where. But I thought of the Lavender Center and gave them a call.”
He raked a hand through his dark hair. “I love a mystery donation and they need it bad over there. But what are you doing loading food donations anyway? Someone inside could have done it.”
“Yeah, I know,” I admitted. “I needed a reason to remember why the hell I was here at seven this morning, answering emails. And Midge and Maria always cheer me up.”
Dean cocked his head. “Are you sleeping?”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. “Every member of the Knox-Morelli family is riding my ass about my sleeping habits right now.”
He squeezed my shoulder as we headed back inside. “We meddle because we care.”
In the hallway, he stopped at the large window that faced the playground and waved to his niece, Juliet. We’d added a mural last year—a giant, wall-sized painting of a community garden—with the wordsEvery Day is Your Chance to Make this City Better.
It was something our fifth-grade teacher used to say, a quote that had guided both Dean and me, in different ways, back to this very spot.
“How’d your meeting go last night?” I asked, pushing open Elaine’s office door.
He sank into the closest chair with a hint of a smile. “It went great. Eddie and I have been talking to Edna’s cousin’s former hairdresser, who lives next to Mifflin Square. She and her husband are both eighty-five, live independently, with a big ole fridge sitting empty. Eddie and I mostly worked on building trust.”
“Any family?” I leaned on the edge of the desk.
Dean frowned. “A ton that live right nearby. They’re helping as much as they can, but it’s the city. They’re struggling too.”
“Yep,” I said, swallowing a sigh.
We didn’t need to say more than that. In a place this broke, with neighbors you shared a wall with sitting around without food in their goddamn fridge, we all knew that no one was coming to save us. It was why I returned here after having my dreams demolished on the pitcher’s mound.
South Philly needed a place where the people who lived there could take care of each other.
And if I didn’t find the money needed to save the program Dean ran, what were all the folks with empty fridges going to do?
I leaned over to peek at my scribbled to-do list. “On the good news front, the free lunch summer program for kids is still running great, we got the new laptops set up in the lab…” I glanced up. Grinned. “The kitchen sink is officially leak-free, my friend.”
His mouth hitched up. “Halle-freaking-lujah.”
Tabitha burst through the door with her usual giant smile, hands full of white paper bags. “If you think that’s good news, I come bearing fresh donuts from my dad’s diner.”
I snatched a bag from her hand. “Now how did your dad know I needed this?”
“He heard you haven’t been sleeping great.” She wrinkled her nose. “He wanted me to tell you he thinks you work too hard.”
