So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Three: Johnny, Spring, 1971

Nine-year-old Giovanni DiTomaso, Johnny to his English classmates, had no words to describe what he was looking at when his mom sent him to find his dad, who was supposed to be doing yardwork at Mrs. Anderson's house, and he found him emerging from her bedroom instead, buttoning up his work shirt.

Dad didn't see him yet because he was looking back into the bedroom and saying something, so Johnny hid back inside the kitchen, feeling like he'd dodged a bullet for some reason, and decided to announce his presence.

"Dad!" he shouted. "Ma needs you!"

When Dad stepped into the kitchen, he was fully buttoned, but his hair was still a little tousled. That seemed wrong. Dad was always well-groomed, his hair brushed and his moustache waxed to sharp points.

"Giovanni," he said sternly, smoothing his hair down. "You don't just walk inside Signora's house. You gotta knock on the front door."

"Sorry, Dad. I looked for you in the garden, but you weren't there."

Dad flinched but recovered quickly. "I help Signora with something."

That had the air of plausibility, since Dad helped Mrs. Anderson with everything around the house, but mostly in the garden. Still, it was so vague that Johnny didn't know if he believed it, and he didn't know if Dad should have been helping Mrs. Anderson with something in her bedroom; Johnny and his little brother Giuseppe, who went by Joe here in Canada, were forbidden from entering Mom and Dad's bedroom without their invitation, so he didn't think Dad should have been in Mrs. Anderson's bedroom without hers. The fact that Dad had said nothing about the bedroom made what he'd said even more suspicious. And if Mrs. Anderson had invited him into her bedroom? That seemed even more wrong, though he couldn't explain why.

He knew, though, that to voice his suspicion would only make Dad angry at him, so he decided not to say anything, sticking only to the purpose of his visit here.

"Ma needs you," he said.

"Okay." Dad looked one last time behind his shoulder and followed Johnny out of the house.

As they walked back down Lawrence Street toward the building that held their apartment on the top floor, Johnny saw the young man and woman who lived in the bottom floor apartment. The woman was a pretty blonde with a tired face, and the man was handsome with brown hair. The two appeared to be having an argument in the driveway of the building, the man holding their small daughter, also blonde, in his arms. The daughter was reaching her arms out to her mother, but the mother appeared to be intent on climbing into the back of a large green car driven by a stone-faced older man with an older woman, who was probably his wife, in the passenger seat.

He could hear more of what they were saying as they got closer. The young man's tone had become more desperate, and the young woman was now crying and shaking her head.

"Jen, please!" the man said. "Please! Rachel needs you! I need you!"

Rachel, who must have been the little girl, was getting more distraught by the second, mystified as to why her mother wasn't taking her, crying out, "Mama! Mama!"

Johnny felt Dad's hand on his shoulder, pressing down, stopping him in his tracks. He looked back at him and said, "What is it, Dad?"

"Aspetta, Giovanni," Dad said in a hushed tone. "Non interrompere."

Wait, don't interrupt them, he'd said. They needed privacy, that was what Dad was saying. Johnny didn't need Dad to tell him that. He had no intention of interrupting them, because he could tell this situation was horrible already, just by watching Jen, the young woman, shake her head again, give Rachel a quick kiss on the cheek while fending off her grasping hands, and climb into the car with one last call over her shoulder, "I'll be in touch, Henry! I promise! I won't let you starve!"