“Love them.” She answered playfully, knowing what his reaction would be.
He made his BUZZER sound.
“Will you take cab ride number twenty-nine because it’s a prime number?”
“No, I will because you asked.” He smiled at her briefly.
The man in the vest pointed them toward the cab at the front of the line. Skylar moved toward it, opening the door for Eddie to get in, only to discover that he had moved to the cab behind it. “He wants us to ride in this one, Eddie.”
“I don’t want to ride in that one.” He pointed to the cab behind it in line. “I want to ride in this one.”
“Do you mind telling me why?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
Skylar waited for an explanation as the man in the vest told her they needed to get a move on or lose their turn. It took her another moment to realize she needed to ask Eddie, “Why?”
He pointed to the license plate of the first cab. “All the numbers are even.”
“What’s wrong with even numbers?”
“Other than the number two, even numbers cannot be primes. Twenty-nine is a prime number. It is odd.”
Two of the cabbies farther back in line started to HONK impatiently. Eddie covered his ears in pain. “Tell them to stop honking their horns. It hurts my ears.”
Skylar pleaded, “They will stop honking if you get in the cab. Eddie, please.” To her surprise, he climbed in the door she was holding open for him. Skylar joined him in the back of the cab, which smelled like stale, cheap beer.
Eddie cringed. “This cab smells like that place for guys with no place better to go, except there are no peanut shells on the floor.”
The driver was apologetic, saying that somebody had spilled beer on the floor earlier that night, and he hadn’t had time to clean it up.
Skylar asked Eddie, “Would you like to go directly to your old house, or would you rather get something to eat first?”
Eddie answered without hesitation. “I would like to go directly to my old house. I have only been hungry for a few hours, but I have been waiting to hear my mother’s voice my whole life.”
Skylar gave the driver the address, and he headed for it. She kept a close eye on Eddie, who wouldn’t stop fidgeting. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up too much.”
“How will I know if my hopes are up too much?”
“You need to consider all the possibilities.”
“What are all the possibilities?”
“Well, for example, one possibility is that your father no longer lives there.”
Eddie nodded. “I understand that my father may no longer live there. But the echoes of when he and my mother did live there will still be there.”
“If someone else now lives there, they may not be comfortable allowing us inside, particularly at one in the morning.”
“Why wouldn’t they be comfortable?”
“Would you be comfortable letting a perfect stranger snoop around your room at Harmony House?”
“We are not going to snoop around my old house, Skylar.”
“I know that. But whoever may live there now might not. And we can’t explain exactly what we’re going to do there, either, so as far as any new resident might be concerned, we’ll be snooping around.”
“Why can’t we explain exactly what we are doing there?”
“This is another thing you’re just going to have to trust me on.” She smiled ever so slightly.
Eddie briefly thought about the growing list of things Skylar had asked him to trust her on. “Yes, I understand that if someone else now lives there, they may not be comfortable allowing us inside.”
Skylar nodded reassuringly. “But don’t worry. If that’s the case, I’m sure I can find a way to convince them.”
Eddie smiled and nodded, because he knew the statement was true. “I’m sure you can convince them, too. Look how many things you have convinced me to do that no one has ever been able to convince me of before.”
She nodded. “That’s because you trust me.”
“How do you know I trust you?”
“Through your actions.”
“My actions communicate that I trust you?”
She nodded. “Actions speak louder than words.”
Eddie stared out the window. “No they don’t.”
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“I don’t like figures of speech.”
“This one is actually a good one,” Skylar assured him. “If someone tells you they care about you, they might mean it, but they also might not. But if someone shows you through their actions, then you know they mean it.”
Eddie noticed the cabdriver was nodding in agreement, so he nodded, as well. “I will continue showing you through my actions that I trust you.”
She looked him in the eyes. “I’m glad, Eddie. That makes me feel good.”
He looked away. “Why does it make you feel good?”
“Because I want you to trust me.”
“Do you trust me?” he asked with all sincerity.
“Eddie, I trust you one hundred percent.”
“That makes me feel good, too.” He said it with the exact same intonation she had used.
For the first time since she’d known Eddie Parks, Skylar couldn’t be sure of whether he was merely regurgitating what he had just heard or actually meant it. So she asked, “Why does it make you feel good?”
“Because I want you to trust me.” The slightest hint of a smile crept across his face.
The cab headed north on Broad Street, passing the main campus of Temple University before heading west on Susquehanna Avenue. The driver pulled to the curb in the 300 block and announced that they had reached their destination. The meter read: $17.30. Skylar paid him with a twenty, and got out of the cab, along with Eddie.
He stared at the door to 317, but did not move toward it. “Eddie, what’s wrong?”
He just stood there, pointing toward the home’s entrance. “That’s the wrong door.”
“Are you sure it’s the right address?”
“It’s the right address: 317 West Susquehanna Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19122. But it is definitely not the right door.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“The door is the wrong shape and wrong color. It should be brown and splotchy, not black, and it should be curved on top.”
“Maybe it was just painted.”
“No, it was not just painted. Nothing is the same. The whole building is wrong. It’s not the same at all.”
Skylar only now noticed how new the redbrick structure looked. In fact, the entire block looked new. Like it had all been recently rebuilt and gentrified, much like developers were intending to do with Butler McHenry’s mother’s neighborhood. Dread filled her voice. “Eddie, do you remember if the building used to be made out of brick?”
“It was not made out of brick. It was made out of wood. Yellow-painted wood. Some of it had termites, and those parts were more gray than yellow.”
Skylar moved to him carefully. “Eddie, do you know that when they build new buildings, they often tear down old ones first?”
“Yes, I do know.”
She waited for him to connect the dots. He didn’t. “I think that’s why the building looks different now.”
Eddie looked like he’d had the wind knocked out of him. “You think they tore down my house?” She nodded. Eddie was devastated. “If they tore down my house, the echoes will be too dispersed. If the echoes are too dispersed, I won’t be able to reconstruct enough of the original sound waves to hear my mother’s voice!” SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!
Skylar quickly grabbed his hands and held them tight as he flailed against her. “You will hear her, Eddie. I don’t know how, but I promise you will hear your mother sing.”
His face turned red as he fought against her with all his might. It took considerably longer than usual for him to calm down. Skylar did not release him until she was certain all the fight had left him.
And that was when all hell broke loose.