A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [80]
He didn’t know she’d been alone.
“A week, anyway. Her mother’s in rehab somewhere, she said, but she doesn’t want anyone to know. She’s afraid of being put back in foster care, so she gets up every morning and goes to school, then comes home right after. Funny, huh, kid like that trying to do all the right things because her mother’s not around. The one she’s most afraid of finding out, though, is Ronnie Feaster. Every day he comes by looking for her mother.”
“He even asked me if I’d seen her.”
“Yeah, she owes him money, so now he wants Jada to work for him and pay it back.”
“That no-good bastard,” he muttered, then was embarrassed that he’d sworn, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“I know. I told her she shouldn’t be living alone like this, but she said her uncle comes by almost every day to see how she’s doing. She said he doesn’t like her living in this neighborhood, but she told him how there’s a real nice family across the street that’s always helping her out.”
“Really? What family’s that?”
“You.”
In constant motion, each child had the presence of three or four, halfway up a tree one moment, then crawling out from under the deck the next, now trying to throw tennis balls over the roof. Gordon didn’t want to be here. He had expected a children’s party, but most of the guests were friends and neighbors of Lisa and Dennis. The only one he knew was Delores, and she was busy helping Lisa. He headed toward the deck when he saw Delores come outside with a tray of toothpick-studded fruit wedges.
A tall, barefoot woman in a long gauzy dress was suddenly walking beside him. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Gretta Deacon.”
“Hello.”
“I live in the green house. We just moved in a few weeks ago. I’m still working, so I haven’t met too many neighbors yet. I’m not due till October, so I suppose I will then. I’m not going right back to work. Not until the baby’s a year old, anyway. At least! And then who knows, maybe I’ll—”
“Excuse me.” He turned, slipping into the cool shadows alongside the house. Snatches of conversation floated by.
“You try losing ten pounds in . . .”
“Lee and Kendra’s littlest boy . . .”
“. . . how they lost the entire front to grubs when . . .”
“And who’s got that kind of . . .”
“Hey! Hey, mister! Are you Jimmy’s uncle?”
Gordon nodded. The boy bit his lip, then glanced back at Jimmy and two boys watching from the hammock.
“Are you really?”
“Yes.”
The boy raced back to the hammock.
While everyone around him laughed, Dennis knelt at a croquet wicket, measuring his last shot with the mallet shaft. He and Lisa were playing with a couple whose names Gordon forgot the moment the woman said she’d been wanting to meet him for a long time. Why? What did she mean by that? What did she want? Relieved they hadn’t seen him, he came around the front of the house. The street was lined with parked cars. If he kept walking, he could be at the bus stop in twenty minutes, home in another twenty.
“Gordon!” Lisa hurried down the sloping lawn, followed by a chubby man in rumpled black pants and a short-sleeved shirt. “I’ve been dying for you two to meet,” she said, and introduced him to Father Henry Hensile.
“Hank,” the priest said.
“Nice to meet you.” Gordon shook his soft, moist hand.
“Father Hank used to be at St. Theresa’s in Collerton,” Lisa said, adding that he had been in Dearborn for the last five years.
“Oh. That’s good,” Gordon said.
“St. Theresa’s was Dennis and Gordon’s parish growing up,” she told the priest.
“It’s a great parish. Probably different, though, than the way you remember it,” the priest said.
“Yes,” Gordon said uneasily.
“Gordon works at the Nash Street Market. The Dubbin family owns it. You know Cindy, Father,” she said.
“Oh, sure! Yes. Of course. Without Cindy there’d be no Las Vegas Night,” the priest said.
“Las Vegas Night’s a fund-raiser,” Lisa explained to Gordon. “Actually, I think it’s the biggest one of the year, isn’t it, Father Hank?