Catherine asked the girl. Cattie hadn’t immediately answered. This pensiveness drove Oliver mad, but Catherine appreciated it. And even Oliver had to concede that Cattie was perhaps the only person he knew under the age of forty who didn’t use “like” in every sentence she spoke. It was one of the first things he trained out of his elite squad of drones. That, and “you guys,” which the upper-class patron did not like to be called. “I don’t think I did run away,” she finally responded. Her silence had forced Catherine to consider the question herself, so that when she answered, Catherine understood. The boarding school hadn’t been home. Wherever Cattie had been that wasn’t her home, that wasn’t with her mother, could not be a place from which she was running away. The sadness of the girl’s situation was sadder still because Cattie didn’t seem to find it sad. “She’s so stoic!” Catherine cried to Oliver. “It’ll serve her well,” he said dryly. He didn’t respond to unpretty girls; he’d had a hard time with young Miriam, when she lived with them, so hell-bent was she on being ugly in both body and spirit.
