Tempest Rising - Diane Mckinney-whetstone [26]
And the girls were coming undone. Ramona listened to them cry themselves to sleep just about every night. When they weren’t crying, they were quiet, withdrawn, at least in Ramona’s presence, seeming not to want to have anything to do with Ramona. Just as well, Ramona thought, she was herself too occupied. There was breakfast to cook, and their bangs, which needed hot curling before they went to school and she went to her own day job at Lit Brothers bargain basement. There was dinner and dishes, making their lunch for the next day. There was laundry, that cart she despised, which she lugged to the Laundromat overflowing now with three girls bathing and going through towels as if the towels were Kleenex. There was Tyrone, her sweet country-boy boyfriend, who came by most evenings, trying to beg his way into her bedroom, who’d taken a liking to the girls, though, and sometimes occupied them playing crazy eights or hangman or tic-tac-toe. There was just too much to do, Ramona told herself, to spend time trying to think of ways to draw those girls out. So she listened to them cry and in between did what little she could to distract them from themselves. “Go outside and get some fresh air,” she’d tell them, or, “Go do your homework,” or “Turn the TV on low,” or “Get down on your knees and say your prayers before you go to sleep for the night.” But she didn’t try to draw them out, didn’t really want to carry on real conversation, even as she watched their personalities sneak out during lapses in their outward shows of grief.
She could see that the youngest, Bliss, was combative, smart-mouthed, spunky, though; Ramona was sure she’d heard Bliss laugh at least once since they’d been there. Victoria hadn’t laughed, but she had the mildest manner of the three, always trying to keep peace between those other two. Shern was the most complicated for Ramona to figure, the moodiest, with pitch-black eyes that gave her an intense look. Ramona had to acknowledge the child had beautiful eyes, not that she would ever say such a thing to Shern, too much against her grain to compliment a foster child.
Plus Ramona hadn’t been able to get beyond the apparent opulence the girls had been accustomed to. Most of the foster children came with a modest amount, a brown shopping bag full; some came with the price tag still affixed to what they carried where the social workers had to stop at John Bargain’s just so they could come with something. But Shern, Victoria, and Bliss had come with a loaded trunk and the mind-sets that didn’t understand a thing about stretching the havings, making do until payday. So Ramona was sure an air of superiority was hiding behind Shern’s steely dark eyes. It caused her to speak to all three of the girls in short snippets and usually in a voice that was the texture of burlap.
She spoke to them in that voice right now as the girls stood in the dining room, high-quality wool plaid coats on, and Shern declared that she and her sisters were going to the library.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Ramona snapped.
“She means, Can we go?” Peacemaking Victoria rushed her words like a tide coming in. “Didn’t you, Shern? Tell Ramona that’s what you meant. Can we, I mean, is it okay if we go to the library?”
“I want her to ask me.” Ramona made herself peer into Shern’s eyes.
Shern was just standing there looking at Ramona, though, as if she were forcing Ramona to take in her eyes.
“I want her to ask me,” Ramona said again, anger seeping into her words. “Ask me, don’t tell me.” She had her hand on her hip now and was leaning into Shern’s face.
Shern’s eyes went beyond Ramona’s stormy face over to the buffet cart and a brass-tone fruit bowl filled with plastic pears and bananas. She clamped her lips and stared at the plastic fruit and thought