A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [142]
“How old?”
“Twelve.” She was afraid to say thirteen. She wanted to be eleven, ten, nine. The bedroom beyond was silent. She worried that her mother might be crawling out the window onto the shed roof. No, she was way too wasted. The old woman across the street, she was unconscious, the cop was telling her. They weren’t sure exactly when, a few days ago, but she’d been viciously beaten. She was in pretty bad shape. Did Jada know anything? No. Had she seen anybody around her house? Anything strange going on over there the last few days? No. What’s in that room? A bed. Anybody in it? He reached around the corner and flipped the switch. He stepped inside.
“Marvella!” he called to the blanketed lump in the bed.
“It’s okay, Ma,” Jada tried to warn her. “They don’t care about that. The old lady, the one across the street. She got beat up and they just want to know if we saw anybody over there.”
Her mother covered her eyes and begged Jada to put out the light.
“Is it okay?” Jada asked the cop. Sweat plastered her T-shirt to her back. Her mother was going to fall apart any minute. She could tell.
The cop said to leave it on. He had to take notes.
Her mother said she didn’t feel too good.
“When’s the last time you got high?” he asked.
She didn’t know. She was trying to quit, doing it herself. Cold turkey. She was pregnant. She had to get clean, she said, and something lurched in Jada’s chest. Even in the lie she found hope. If they could just get through this, everything would be all right. Her mother was saying she hadn’t left this bed in a week.
“Except for last night,” the cop said, and she looked confused. “What was that, Feaster and Polie, what were you tryna get in his truck for?”
“I don’t remember. I was mad, but I don’t know why.” She looked at Jada. “I was mad at you, right?”
“Yeah.” She stared at her mother. “The assholes, you didn’t want them talking to me. You said to come in and I wouldn’t.” Actually, she had screwed up the drop in Dearborn. Thurman had shown up so wasted that he could barely talk, and she had to do the deal herself, forty rocks in her crotch, with him in his do-rag and gang pants, slobbering all over her on a park bench in the middle of prepville while people kept walking by, looking at them like they were freaks. The guy that finally came was older. He looked like he belonged in Dearborn, but his hands were shaking and he had those jangly crack eyes like her mother’s. He said it was too obvious with Thurman there, so they’d go do the deal in his car, just him and her. The minute she got in he took off. He only went around the block, but she was so scared that she riffled through the bills instead of counting and had come up sixty bucks short. As a result, she and Thurman hadn’t gotten a penny from Feaster. And when they got back her mother flipped out because Feaster wouldn’t give her the rocks he’d promised her if Jada ran for him. Jada had never seen him and Polie as scared as when the cops came.
“Was Feaster here two days ago? He and Polie?” the older cop asked.
“Not that I remember,” her mother said.
“Somebody said they were. One of your neighbors, they saw the truck out there.”
“Ask them, then, don’t ask me,” her mother said.
“Feaster doesn’t like the old lady, does he?” the cop asked.
Her mother shrugged. Her teeth were chattering. She hugged herself.
“You see anybody over there on Monday? Up on her porch?”
“Yeah,” she said, shivering. “That big guy, the one across the street. Gordon. He killed somebody once.”
“But all he did was bring groceries!” Jada blurted.
“When?” the younger cop asked. “When’d he bring groceries?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes. Whenever she needs them,” Jada said.
“Did he bring her any Monday?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure.” She could feel the sting of her mother’s stare.
“Yeah, he did,” her mother said, coughing. They waited for her to stop. The younger cop covered his nose and mouth. “I remember,” she wheezed. “He had two or three bags.” Her chest rose and fell as she tried to catch her breath.
“But he