• • •
It was a beautiful day, the sky clear, the sun warm for the middle of winter. I put on my backup glasses, and Ashanti and I took Pendleton for a walk. Ashanti was real quiet, her eyes all red-rimmed.
“My parents are getting divorced,” she said in a lifeless kind of way.
“I’m really sorry.”
“You’re a good friend.” A trace of a smile appeared on her face. “And so is Silas. He sent me flowers.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“More like a photo of flowers, actually. As an e-mail attachment.”
“You know what they say.”
“It’s the thought that counts?”
• • •
A few days later, I brought Tut-Tut home to meet my parents, step one in my plan. I prepared them with some facts, like his stutter, and not with some others, like his immigrant status. My parents were in a real good mood at the time. My mom had just found a job handling legal work for a nonprofit, and my dad had signed on for another George Gentry. There was talk of us buying the building from Mitch. We’d have lots of extra room.
“Mom? Dad? This is my friend Toussaint. Everyone calls him Tut-Tut.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Tut-Tut, no hint of a stutter at all.
My mom and dad looked at me like I’d gone crazy. But I was sane. It was the charm that was sort of crazy, playing one last trick and saying good-bye in its own way.
The Outlaws of Sherwood Street: Giving to the Poor Page 20