A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [84]
“I don’t think it’s that. I saw her trying to read the directions on the medicine box. First she held it this close. . . .” She held her palm to her face. “Then out like this. I think the poor thing needs glasses.”
“Maybe she does. Well, anyway—”
“You’d think her mother would do something. I mean, doesn’t she care? There’s something about Jada—she’s got this spark inside, you know, like a fire nobody’s going to put out no matter what happens to her.” Delores almost sounded angry.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking back now. “I’ve seen a lot of fires go out.” Billy Leeman had gotten his head bashed in for nothing more than refusing to talk to his psychotic cellmate. All he had wanted was to be left alone so he could read race-car magazines and write letters to his wife.
“But yours never did, did it?”
“I never had one.”
“Of course you did. You do. It’s how you’ve gotten through everything.”
“No. It wasn’t that way with me. All I did was wait. That’s all.”
She laid her hand over his, and he froze. “You’re a good man, Gordon. A really good man. I hope you know that. You need to know that.”
Jada’s legs ached. She had walked from one end of the city to the other. It was all uphill now, and she was carrying Leonardo. He kept sitting down and she would have to drag him along on the rope to get him going again. This last time he began to howl, so she had to pick him up. She looked at every house, trying to find her uncle’s. She hadn’t been there in a couple of years, not since his adopted baby’s christening party. Bitchy Aunt Sue had accused her of stealing her fourteen-carat-gold kisses-and-hugs chain. Marvella had taken it, and what could Jada do but keep insisting it wasn’t her? So then Aunt Sue pulled her out onto the porch, her beery, garlic voice hissing how they’d wasted a lot of time and money, a whole year of their lives, taking care of her when the state took her away from her mother, and how Uncle Bob was always telling her that underneath it all Jada was a nice kid, but this just proved she was like all the rest of the Fossums, trash from start to finish. Uncle Bob quit on her after that, which hurt, because he was the only relative who’d ever cared what happened to her.
“There it is!” she told Leonardo. The truck in the driveway said BOB’S SEPTIC SERVICE in gold letters on the green tank. The house was a duplex her uncle had converted into a three-family. An ankle-high white wire fence bordered the narrow strip of lawn. Lining both sides of the short front walk were small American flags her mother said he was always taking from people’s graves. She put Leonardo down, then wet her fingers and tried to brush the dog hairs off her black T-shirt before she rang the bell.
Jada had lived with them for a year the first time Social Services took her away. Her mother said she’d never let them have her again because she’d come back “spoiled rotten,” crying if her pants were wet or every time she was told no. It always pleased her to hear that. Not just because it meant her mother cared what happened to her, but because it seemed proof of some value, some genuine worth, about herself. When she was seven, the state took her again, but she had to go to a foster home because her aunt and uncle refused. They said it was too painful to have her sent back to her mother, who just undid all their good work.
“Hi, Uncle Bob!” She grinned as he opened the door. His hair was the same gingery color as hers. Anglo straight, though, not kinky like hers.
“Jada,” he said in a flat voice.
Leonardo barked. Her uncle stepped outside and closed the door. “What’s that?” He pointed down at the dog jumping on his legs.
“My dog. Leonardo. He really likes you!”
“You shouldn’t have brought him here. Tiffany’s allergic to animal dander. Deathly allergic,” he said with a look of horror.
“Oh! I didn’t know that. Who’s Tiffany?”
“My daughter.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot.” The fat drooling baby that wasn’t even theirs. “She’s like, what, six or seven now?” It seemed that long since she’d been here.
“Tiffany’s just turned