Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [59]
“Tell me about your grandmother,” said Big Jack after some time had passed. “Why didn’t you call her?”
“She hates my mother.”
“I don’t want to contradict you — you knowing her and all. But I talked to her, and, well, that’s not the impression I got. Your grandmother defended your mother. Said she’s a great mom. Said your mother loves you like crazy. But she gets sick, right? From what I understand, she has an illness.”
Jack nodded and started to cry again. Not the sobbing, retching crying he did earlier. Just tears, tears that seemed like they would never stop.
“Do you want to call your grandmother?”
Jack thought about the last time he’d seen his grandmother. He could picture his mother and his grandmother in her kitchen, yelling. Gram had said she was worried about him, said she wanted to help.
Mom had said Gram was evil, had insisted that Gram wanted to keep him, to take him away from her.
Then his mother had grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out of the house.
Mom was prickly, Jack thought. He had been too young to recognize the pattern back then. To realize that his mother always got wound up, like one of those stupid plastic toys, right before she started spinning. She could get crazy mad. So mad, so crazy, she would leave.
And now it hit him:
Mom had left his grandmother. Mom had left Gram.
Maybe Gram understood. Maybe she was the only other person on the planet who knew how things really were. Knew that his mom did her best but that sometimes her best wasn’t enough, wasn’t nearly enough.
Big Jack held out his phone to Jack.
“OK,” he agreed. “But after we see Lydia.”
Jack sat forward in his seat as they drove into the busy town of York, but his stomach took a dive when he saw the entrance of the park. Hardly any cars were parked out front. Definitely not a good sign.
They got out of the car and walked past silent kiddie rides, to the animal pens. “Wait here,” said Big Jack, and he went into the gift shop to get their admission passes.
“No way!” said Jack. “I need to know if Lydia’s here!” He followed Jack inside, where they asked the woman behind the cash register.
“Well,” she said, “Victor, one of the trainers, was in here a few minutes ago to buy a soda and say good-bye. But that doesn’t mean they’ve pulled out yet.”
Jack raced through the gate ahead of Big Jack. She couldn’t be gone! She couldn’t! He couldn’t have come all this way, gone through so much, only to have her slip through his fingers.
There were a few families with young children strolling around the tree-lined park, peering into cages. He dodged past them, not even looking to see what animals he passed. It was enough to know they weren’t elephants.
Almost immediately, the paved path forked around a small pond. Left or right? Which way?
“Go left!” shouted Big Jack, a few yards behind him.
Jack took off, tearing past couples holding hands, a kid with a balloon, more animal cages, and then —
There she was.
Lydia.
Lydia the elephant. Her trunk curled up into the air.
It was really her! He’d actually made it!
And right in front of Lydia’s pen, practically camping out on a park bench, was his grandmother.
Jack turned to Big Jack, his eyes wild. What kind of trap was this? Had he known all along? Who would have told him about the elephant? Sylvie?
“What’s wrong?” Big Jack looked past Jack and must have spotted his grandmother. “Wait a minute, kid,” he said. “You don’t think I —? I didn’t have anything to do —”
Jack tried to push past Big Jack and run away before Gram spotted him.
But Big Jack reached for him. “Hold on, kid.” He placed his hands on Jack’s shoulders and gently steered him toward a different bench, one that was out of sight of his grandmother. “Sit down here for a moment. Talk to me,” said Big Jack.
Jack slumped onto the wooden bench and refused to meet Big Jack’s eyes.
“Listen,” said Big Jack. “I was a foster kid. Bounced from house to house. My mother would be able to take us back for a while, and then something would go wrong and we’d be living with a family we’d never