“It means she’s the saddest in her heart that she’s ever been in her life, now that her mom is dead,” Thaddeus answers.
We read a Charles Dickens novel in class once and the mourning women wore heavy black dresses made of something called bombazine. They wore those dresses for two years, until the sad period was over. But that was mostly for husbands, I think. I don’t know how long they wore the bombazine dresses if their mothers died, or their children. Maybe years. And back then, people were always dying, one after the other, kerplink, kerplunk, because everything was dirty and hard, so maybe some women lived their whole lives in heavy black clothes, grief turning into a permanent kind of perfume.
Leonard says matter-of-factly, “I don’t even know my real parents. They took me away when I was a baby because my daddy left me on top of the car when I was just borned and I fell off. He was high.” He shrugs and takes a huge drink of milk, like being left on top of a car is nothing.
Sarah squeaks, “My mom is in the hospital, she’s always been there, and my father lives in Flagstaff, but he doesn’t give a shit about us. That’s what he always told me and my sister, Pookie. ‘I don’t give a shit about you. Now get the hell away from me.’ And finally, we did. We lived in a cardboard refrigerator box at the corner of Salter and Fifth, right by the 7-Eleven, and we used to eat the leftover hot dogs people threw in the trash.”
I stare at Sarah, surprised at the filthy words and depressing meaning coming out of her mouth. She’s ten years old.
She gnaws her carrot, blinking at me. This is just life for her, and Leonard.
Parents not wanting you.
My mother is overprotective and secretive and sometimes overbearing, but at least she loves me like nobody’s business.
Everyone at the table is quiet, chewing.
I look down at the mound of sticky rice and sautéed carrots and slick mushrooms on the plate Thaddeus gave me.
The girl-bug corrects me. Loved, she whispers. Not loves anymore.
* * *
• • •
After everyone has gone to bed, after I hear Sarah begin to snore, and Leonard begins to hum in his sleep down the hallway, I decide to go outside, to the jelly lounger, to the stars.
Thaddeus is out there, his legs wrapped in a blanket, his earbuds in. I stretch out on my lounger. I wish I’d brought a blanket out, too.
Sometimes Kai and I would share earbuds in the school library, sitting on the carpeted floor between the stacks, and that was nice, the way our heads were so close, like the music went through his body into mine.
I can barely remember what he and I used to listen to together, now. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I probably would have listened to trees being cut down if it meant I could be that close to Kai Henderson.
I shake my head to clear the memory. It just adds to my loneliness and I want to try and stay away from the black hole as much as I can. Last night scared me, how calm I felt, thinking about killing myself. The S word.
Lizards and prairie dogs scuttle in the brush in the darkness of LaLa’s backyard. In just a couple of hours, I’m going to my third brand-new place in six days.
The feeling that rises up in me then is overwhelming, and I wish I could hear my mom’s voice. I sneak a peek at Thaddeus.
His eyes are closed. He’s not paying any attention to me.
I pick up my phone and call my mom’s number. I have no idea where her phone actually is, because I haven’t been back to the house since Cake and I went to pack the suitcase and I fell asleep in the old white Honda.
The minute I hear her voice, a hot kind of lonely washes through me.
“I miss you,” I say quietly. “I wish you were here.”
Where is her phone? What’s going to happen to our things, our little house? What’s going to happen to the jams and jellies on the pine shelves in the backyard building, waiting to be sold from our truck this summer? The Jellymobile. That’s what everyone in town calls it. The half-dead, rumbly former ice cream truck my mother bought from a guy named Canyon on Craigslist and spent hours fixing up and painting. There’s a giant, sexy saguaro cactus on the side with red lipstick and a cowboy hat. It’s completely embarrassing and humiliating to drive that thing through Mesa Luna and then park it by the side of the road, waiting for tourists from Kentucky and North Dakota to stumble upon us, exclaiming about prickly pear jelly and mesquite apple jam, but it was our life together.
What’s going to happen to our piles of books and photographs and blankets and clothes and chipped mugs and the collection of painted rocks in the backyard? Would our things end up in boxes tossed by the side of the road, pawed through by hungry people who needed clothes and coffee cups? Will I see someone in a grocery store in Sierra Vista wearing one of my mother’s shirts someday?
I haven’t checked my voice mail since it happened. I see a few from Cake, and several from my mom’s friend Bonita.
I press the first message. Bonita’s voice is sad. “Mija. Oh, my mija. It’s Bonita. Oh, Tiger.”
My eyes fill up. Bonita’s crying. She and my mom loved each other so much, like me and Cake. I still hate that Cake wore that too-fancy dress to the viewing, but she’s my best friend, and it won’t come between us.
“Honey, I wish I was there. I wish I could come, but my mama is so sick. She’s just not getting any better. I’m going to send some money. Not so much, but a little, okay? To help. I know June was running—”
The message beeps, ends. I press the second voice mail.
“It’s me, again, Tiger. Gracie. Listen, you need to listen to me very carefully. Rhonda called me, okay? She told me what’s happening, all that foster business. Oh, mija, I have something to tell you. Please forgive your mama. She thought she was doing what was best, but I kept telling her and telling her to be straight with you about your daddy and her past and you know your mama, always digging in her heels. Listen, he’s out there. She said she was gonna write you a let—”
Beep.
Third voice mail. My heart is pounding so hard and my hands are shaking so much the phone slips out of my fingers and into the dirt. It sits there, glowing. Your daddy.
Listen, he’s out there.
Thaddeus pulls his earbuds out. “Dude, Tiger. You okay? What’s up?”
He brushes off the phone. His fingernails are dirty. He made a mud kingdom with Sarah and Leonard earlier in the day. “What’s happening? You look sick. Breathe. I’m right here. I’m right here.”
Haltingly, I say, “He’s out there. My dad. He…exists.”
Thaddeus frowns, puts the phone on speaker.
Bonita’s voice rings out in the desert air. “Ay yi yi. These stupid phones. You shouldn’t be going to any foster place, you hear? She said she was gonna write a letter, but I don’t know if she did or not. Oh, honey. I am sorry. Just remember, she had her reasons.”
Somewhere in Texas, Bonita heaves a great sigh. Her little pug, Luther, yips in the background.
What Bonita says next sends a giant shock wave down my spine.
His name is Dusty Franklin and he used to live in Albuquerque, and then Austin, and then Socorro, and then I don’t know.
Thaddeus says, “Holy crap.”
We stare at the phone, which is no longer a phone, but an alien, a stranger, a Magic 8-Ball, the past and the future all rolled up into one.
Dusty Franklin. I have a father and his name is Dusty Franklin.
Thaddeus and I look at each other. Then we run inside the house and wake up LaLa, who rubs her eyes and listens to me ramble and then asks me to repeat what I said. I’m shaking, so she makes me lie down on her bed.
“This is a lot, do you understand, Tiger? You’ve had a lot to deal with in the past week. Your soul needs you to rest.”
Dusty Franklin, Dusty Franklin, Dusty Franklin.
The thou
ght of an actual, tangible father, that mythical piece of my DNA enjoying avocados while spurning kiwis, is almost too much to bear, so I do what LaLa asks.
The bed is warm with the heat from her body and it settles me. LaLa puts her glasses on. She listens to Bonita’s messages, one by one. Thaddeus takes off his giant neon-yellow sneakers and stretches out next to me.
At the end of the bed, LaLa looks back at me. I can’t read her face. I can’t tell whether she’s happy or sad or worried. She gives me back my phone.
“I’m going to go make some calls. Stay here.”
I want to call Bonita back and ask her everything, everything, but she’s probably asleep now.
I have a dad.
I have a dad.
Dusty Franklin, Dusty Franklin, Dusty Franklin.
I do some quick work on my phone.
It’s taken sixteen years, which is roughly 8,409,600 minutes, for me to find out my dad is alive, and that he has a name.
The clock says 4:24 a.m. I keep staring at the numbers as they change. 4:25. 4:26. 4:27, like I’m in a trance. Every minute that passes is possibility now.
Because in less than four hours I’m supposed to be going somewhere new.
But if I have a dad, I can go live with him, right? I don’t have to stay here or go to strangers. I don’t want to think about anything else but that, not about where he’s been, or why my mother never told me anything about him, or anything. I just want him to be as he is, right now, a kind of beacon.
When I open my eyes, it’s because LaLa is shaking me awake. Thaddeus is still asleep. The sun is coming up.
LaLa’s voice is tired. “Okay. I woke Bonita up. She doesn’t know much, or if she does, she’s not spilling anything to me, but I gave her Karen’s number. She says there might be a letter somewhere, but who knows. At least we have a name.”
I sit up and smooth my hair. “Let’s go, then,” I say firmly. “Let’s go…find him. I mean, I like you, and thank you for taking care of me, but he’s my dad.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “You’re welcome, but nothing doing, honey. I’ve got little kids here, and big ones, who need some sleep. Karen’s on it. I talked to her. She’s doing some investigating. I mean, we don’t know who he is, where he is, what he is. There are a lot of legal implications.”
She takes a breath. “It could be a disappointment, too, Tiger, and you need to prepare yourself for that. But if it’s disappointing, it doesn’t have to be devastating, does that make sense? Life has this, life has that, and then something else comes along again, like a wave. We ride the waves. You go down, you go up, you go down, sometimes you just drift.”
I know she’s right, so I nod slowly, but my whole being aches at that moment to meet the biggest secret my mother ever kept from me.
Dusty Franklin, Dusty Franklin, Dusty Franklin.
6 days, 12 hours
IT’S MONDAY.
They put the Sierra Vista home on hold. All LaLa would tell me is, “There are some developments.”
I’m waiting to hear from Karen about my dad. Sarah and Leonard are home from school and watching The Octonauts when there’s a sharp rap on the front door. I’m so beside myself that I rush to answer it, even as LaLa suddenly calls out in a sharp voice, “No, Tiger, let me.”
But it’s too late.
The woman at the door has a no-nonsense look and a big shoulder bag stuffed with folders. “May I speak with LaLa Briggs, please?”
Over her shoulder, I see the car. The seal on the back passenger-side door.
And then Sarah starts screaming.
My tongue feels wooden. They’re here for you, the girl-bug croaks. No, I tell her. Not yet. Not until tomorrow. I have a dad.
No, says the girl-bug. Not yet, you don’t.
But she’s wrong, because it isn’t me the woman wants, it’s Leonard.
The woman says his full name. Leonard Louis Lamont.
Leonard starts to cry. The woman eases past me.
LaLa knew this was coming. She must always know, because she suddenly has a brown suitcase with happy face stickers on it, and Leonard’s Batman backpack.
Thaddeus appears in the hall doorway. His face is grim. Sarah rocks back and forth on the couch. You can’t have him, you can’t take him, you’re always taking us away.
They seem brave most of the time, but not now.
“I need everyone to calm down and follow the rules, please. Leonard.” The woman lowers her head to look at him. Tears pour down his face, but he doesn’t make a sound.
“I’ve got a nice house for you. There’s even a pool in the neighborhood. I’ll bet you like to swim.”
He shakes his head. “No, thank you. There are sharks in the water.”
Make that girl stop screaming, says the girl-bug. She’s hurting my bones.
I walk over to the couch, put my arm around Sarah. She buries her face against my chest.
Thaddeus kneels down in front of Leonard. “Be strong, buddy. You remember what we talked about? The bad stuff?”
Leonard whispers, “All superheroes were sad kids. The sadness made them strong and then they rose up and helped people.”
“You’ll rise up, Len. You’ll find your power. We’ll see each other again, I just know it. Brothers always find each other, right?”
Leonard sniffles and nods. He keeps his eyes on his shoes. Frayed, plain sneakers.
I hope someday Leonard has millions of sneakers that are brand spanking new, so clean they squeak.
LaLa hugs him, but he’s gone stiff; there’s a flatness to his eyes. Thaddeus ruffles his hair.
“Goodbye, Leonard,” I say. “I liked meeting you.”
“Goodbye, smelly girl. Change your dress, okay? It stinks.”
The social worker stands up, collecting Leonard’s things. LaLa signs a form and hands it back to her. “Come with me, Leonard. There’s an ice cream cone out there with your name on it.”
Sarah wails. Leonard looks over at her.
“Don’t take any shit, Sarry. I’ll see you on the flip side. You’ll find Pookie. I know it.”
And then they’re gone.
Thaddeus’s shoulders sag. He walks away quickly, to his bedroom. In a few minutes, he turns his music on, loud.
“What the fuck.” I try to catch my breath. “They just…come like that?”
“Language,” LaLa says, sitting down on the couch and stroking Sarah’s hair. “It is what it is. Kids are moved around, sometimes with no rhyme or reason. They’re great kids, but they also have great big issues that can’t be resolved in a week or a month, and it’s hard to find families who are in it for the long haul. Leonard’s going to some people who have experience with his issues, and can help him, much more than I can.”
The social worker’s car starts up in the driveway.
If I don’t find something out about my dad, and soon, I’m going to be like Leonard, and like Sarah, who will probably be taken any minute now, too, moving from strange house to strange house for years, until finally we’re too old to take in.
LaLa flutters her fingers over Sarah’s back, very lightly, until Sarah, exhausted, falls asleep in her lap. “It’s like raindrops,” LaLa explains softly. “You do this to women in labor. It distracts them.”
She pauses. “Sarah’s sister was taken away by a man who gave Sarah a bag of potato chips and a Coke and told her to wait by the trash can and he’d be back for her. He never came back. Neither did her sister. When people leave, it’s very hard for her.”
I touch Sarah’s kneecap. She’s wearing shorts and a Pinkie Pie T-shirt. Her knee is a little scraped from a game she played yesterday with Leonard.
“She’s next,” LaLa murmurs. “In a few days. And then we’ll get some more. There’s no end to sad children in this world.”
I guess I’m one of them now.
I text Cake. There’s really no other way to put it, so I just say: I have a dad. The social worker is coming over soon to talk about it.
It only takes a minute for her to respond. WAIT WHAT WHAT? A DAD? BE RIGHT THERE. I’ll ditch band.
Pause.
Oh, wait, I don’t know where you live now, and that makes me really sad.
Me too.
I look up. “I don’t really know the rules. Can my friend come over? She’s nice, I swear.”
“Of course,” LaLa says. “The same things apply that I told you about before. No drinking, drugs, or sex, and be mindful of Sarah and Thaddeus’s space.”
LaLa gives me directions. Within an hour, Cake shows up with coffees from Grunyon’s moms’ café.
The first thing she says when I open the door is, “Holy cannoli, a dad?”
“It seems so,” I answer, and let her in. We hug, and I feel safe, for just a minute, like everything is going to be okay, because Cake is the last thing I have left from my old life.
Thinking stuff like that stings and I have to blink really fast to keep myself from crying.
Cake hands me a coffee. “This is huge. How are you feeling?” She peers at me intently.
I take a sip of the coffee. “Lost. Kind of excited. Scared. Sad.”
“Okay, well, like, what’s his name? What do you know? Oh my God, details!”
“His name is Dusty Franklin. That’s all I know. The social worker is coming today to tell me more.”
Cake squints. “Dusty Franklin? That sounds vaguely like an alcoholic country singer from the fifties.”
“Or a singer in his fifties from a vaguely alcoholic country.”
“Can you be vaguely alcoholic? Pretty sure you have to be all the way alcoholic to be an alcoholic.”
“Alcohol makes you sing country. In a vague way. Long into your fifties.”
We grin at each other, and everything is like it used to be, when we’d just ramble about nothing, being silly, but then her smile dies, and mine does, too, and we come back to where we are: a stranger’s house, and one of us has a mom, and the other doesn’t anymore.
How to Make Friends with the Dark Page 13