A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [129]
“No.”
“Go ask your buddy, what’s-his-name over there, the big guy. Tell him it’s for your mother. Say she really needs something in her stomach.”
“He left.”
“You’re mad. You’re still mad at me!”
Jada didn’t answer.
“I’d just like to know what the fuck I did.”
Jada chewed her lip.
“You know how sick I am? You have any idea what I’m going through? I’m tryna do the right thing here, that’s all, and you’re not helping one damn bit. You don’t even care!”
“Yeah, I do. I care.”
“No, you don’t!”
“I do, Ma. I care a lot. But you—”
“Who’s that?” Her mother pointed across the street.
“The cleaning lady.”
The woman had gone back to her car for a laundry basket and a sponge mop. Now with everything by the door, she slid her hand up under the mailbox, then took something out. She unlocked the door, put the key back under the mailbox, then brought her supplies inside.
“Where’s the old bitch?”
“She left. On a trip, I think.”
“How do you know?” her mother asked in a low, anxious tone, all the while watching the house.
“I don’t know—she had this, like, suitcase thing.”
Her mother went inside, came right back out with a cigarette. “So she’s probably gonna be gone for a few days.” Every deep, wheezy drag made her cough.
“I don’t know, maybe, but, Ma, you shouldn’t be smoking like that. That’s like the worst thing you can do.”
“No! The worst thing’s tryna get rid of it. And I’m not gonna go through that shit again.” She shuddered. She had almost died trying to abort Jada. Once her mother’s cruelest charge, the taunt had come to seem proof of the girl’s worth: Nothing and no one could hurt her. And in this indomitability she might also protect her unborn sibling.
“So you made up your mind, then.” She tried not to smile.
Coughing and exhaling, her mother stared across the street. When her cigarette burned down to the filter, she flipped it over the railing onto the sidewalk. “I gotta go lay down, so don’t leave. Just wait. As soon as she goes, you get me.”
Jada had to keep retying the plastic grocery bags over her sweaty hands. Being an intruder in Mrs. Jukas’s house filled her with the same tremulous excitement she’d felt in Gordon’s and Inez’s. It was like her holy feelings when Aunt Sue used to take her to church on Sunday. Scared, she knew she didn’t belong but was aware of something beyond herself, a presence that demanded she take notice. But of what, she didn’t know. The stillness clung to her from room to room.
Marvella’s footsteps moved overhead. Seeing Mrs. Jukas give Gordon money had convinced her mother that the old lady had a lot of cash hidden in the house. Last night Tron had told her about an apartment over on Brand Street, second floor, two bedrooms, just painted, with a screened-in porch. The guy that ran the place owed him a favor, but she’d need first, last, and security, which her mother was sure they’d find stashed away here. She could smell it, she said. Jada tiptoed into the musty dining room. With the shades down and curtains drawn, she could barely see. She felt along the wall, and the minute she flipped the switch the glass cupboard in the corner filled with light. From floor to ceiling every mirrored shelf dazzled with the small painted statues of children, boys carrying pails, girls with flowers, watering cans. She turned the small key that opened the glass door. Oh, she loved this one of a girl and her dog with his head back, barking. She slipped it into her pocket. Strange that an old bitch who hated kids would have all these statues of them. She knelt down and from the back of the bottom shelf took another of a girl in a windblown scarf, holding a bucket of flowers. She put it in her other pocket.
Suddenly, there was a crash overhead. She ran up the stairs two at a time. “Are you okay?” A dresser had fallen against the bed. One of the drawers wouldn’t open, and her mother had pulled so hard that the whole thing toppled over.
“Look what I found!