A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [45]
“What? That things aren’t our fault?” he asked quietly. Suddenly she seemed so young.
“Well, yes. In a way. And now science is actually proving it. I mean, in a way it’s all decided ahead of time, when you think of it. Who we are, what we become—it’s all in the genes.”
Stars, he had expected her to say, which meant we were no more than inconsequential fleas jumping through our preordained hoops in a meaningless cosmos. Hopeless, helpless, blameless.
“So in the end, there’s only so much a person can do with whatever they’ve been given. And of course, that’s really the thing, isn’t it? I mean, doing your best, no matter what. No matter what happens or doesn’t happen, or whatever you have or you don’t have.” She sighed. “I’m not putting this very well, but do you know what I mean?”
Her equation made him a born killer, genetically programmed and predisposed to murder, helplessly adrift in the tide of natural homicidal urges that could be incited by any random, intersecting force. If he knew nothing else, he knew that wasn’t true.
“I’m not sure, but maybe. I think so,” he answered slowly. She didn’t realize the scope of what she’d said, but he was touched by her need to exonerate him.
As she drove off, the Navigator came down the street. In the backseat Jada rolled down the window. She smiled, waving wildly at Gordon.
CHAPTER 7
Jada crouched by the toilet, squinting at the outlet. She finally unscrewed the wall plate with the steak knife. Mouse turd and plaster grit spilled out with the crimped bills she pulled from the outlet box. Eighteen dollars, it was all she’d been able to find in her mother’s jeans when she came back from Lowell or wherever the hell her mother had ended up this time. Jada hated leaving her alone for too long, but there wasn’t any food in the house.
The phone rang. She ran to get it before her mother woke up. Probably the guidance counselor again. Or Ronnie Feaster. Either way was trouble. She hadn’t been to school all week. Her mother had had another fight with Ronnie. She owed him too much money as it was, so from now on she paid cash like everybody else, but she was too sick to hustle. She woke Jada up in the middle of the night, crying and saying she had to go someplace but she’d be right back. Three days later, she dragged home with black eyes and cuts all over her face. At first she hardly moved in the bed. Jada kept checking to see if she was still breathing. Today, though, her mother was waking up more. She kept telling Jada to call Ronnie. Jada lied and said she’d already left at least twenty messages for him.
Her mother groaned as Jada snatched the ringing phone from the bed. She ran into the bathroom. If it was him, she’d say her mother still wasn’t back. In a couple more days the worst would be over. She’d be clean again.
“Hello,” she answered in a low voice, hand cupped at the mouthpiece. “Yes, this is Marvella Fossum,” she told the attendance secretary, who then asked why Jada was still absent. “It’s the flu. She can’t eat or get out of bed even, she’s so weak.” It was almost the truth. All she’d eaten today were pretzels and such lousy-tasting milk she’d had to hold her breath to drink it.
“That’s a long time to be so sick,” the attendance secretary said. “Has she seen a doctor?”
“Oh, yes, twice I brung her, as a matter of fact, and both times they said the same thing: a lotta liquid drinks and that she should sleep. A lotta sleep. Get it all outta her system,” she added, on a roll now. She should be an actress, JumJum said once, and Marvella said, Yeah, but in what kind of movies with a mutt face like hers?
“Who’s Jada’s doctor? What’s his name?”
She couldn’t remember. She needed a name. “Gordon,” she said, looking out the window. “Doctor Gordon.”
Pages were turning. “Gordon . . . do you know his first name?”
“He just said Doctor.”
“Well, where’s his office, then?”
“Uh—maybe at the emergency room. That’s where