If I Was Your Girl(33)

“Ignore her,” Grant said, smiling and tousling the girl’s hair. She screamed in delight and jumped away, grinning with a mouth missing a third of its teeth. “That’s my baby sister Avery.”

“Hi,” I said. She giggled again and ran inside. I saw the way Grant watched her, almost like a parent, and felt something soften in my chest.

“I’m Harper,” the older girl said. “Grant ain’t stopped talkin’ about ya for weeks.”

“I hope I don’t disappoint!” I said.

“Ya better not,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Anybody messes my brother around’ll get a ass whuppin’.”

“Jesus, Harper, get inside!” Grant said, pointing at the door and giving her a stern expression. She stuck her tongue out and followed her sister.

“Sorry,” he said to me with a sigh as his shoulders sagged. “We don’t have company a lot.”

“It’s fine,” I said, hooking my arm around his and smiling. “They’re adorable. I’m ready to go in when you are.”

“Gotta get it over with, I guess,” Grant said, and we walked inside.

Grant’s trailer was the exact opposite of Dad’s apartment. Where Dad’s walls were white because he had trouble understanding the point of color, this living room’s walls practically glowed in lime green and purple. Where Dad’s furniture was brown because that seemed like the easiest way to keep it looking clean, none of this room’s furniture matched and the upholstery’s colors ranged across the whole spectrum. Where Dad’s walls and tables were bare of any decoration, this room’s walls were almost completely hidden behind dozens of family photos and strange, psychedelic portraits of a Jesus who looked nothing like the sterile thing worshiped at Anna’s church. A thin, gray-haired woman with a heavily lined face leaned out from the kitchen and waved.

“Hey, sugar!” she said in the gravelly voice of a heavy smoker. “Is this her? Oh my lord, Grant! She’s so pretty I could just die.” I covered my face. “I’m Grant’s mama, but you can call me Ruby. I’d come give y’all proper hugs but”—she gestured to her white, flour-caked hands and forearms—“I got some washin’ up to do before dinner. Grant, hon, can you make sure your sisters’re decent for company?”

“They aren’t,” Grant said. “I’ll go get ’em ready. Amanda, you wanna come with? I can give you the tour.” He gestured to the rest of the trailer with a sweep of his arm, a sarcastic look on his face. I shook my head.

“Actually, mind pointing me to the ladies’?”

“Sure,” he said, then pointed at the closest door in the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Bathroom’s over there.”

The bathroom was tiny and decorated in the same bizarre style as the living room. My eyes landed on a cluster of pill bottles on the sink: Seroquel, 800 mg, for Ruby Everett. When I was in the mental hospital after my suicide attempt, one of the other patients had been on that medication for delusions and hallucinations. I knew Grant’s home life was hard considering how much he had to work, but now I wondered how much worse it was than I had thought.

As I stepped out of the bathroom I peeked into the room beyond. It was small, with a well-made twin bed, a battered-looking acoustic guitar on a stand, a poster of Peyton Manning from back when he was in college, and a small television on a desk next to a stack of DVDs. A stack of glossy paperbacks stood on the floor. I picked one up and immediately recognized the Sandman series. A page was dog-eared near the beginning of volume two.

“Hey,” Grant said from behind me. I turned, afraid he was going to be angry at me for snooping, but he smiled. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Thank you,” I said, walking to him slowly, “for bringing me here.”

“No problem,” Grant said, shrugging. “Just … I’m sorry in advance if dinner’s weird.”

“I can handle weird,” I said as we walked out to the kitchen table. Grant gave me a worried look as we sat down at a table covered in a faded green-apple tablecloth, with green-apple wallpaper, red-apple place mats, and stickers of apples covering the refrigerator. Plates of collard greens, fried okra, cornbread, and fried catfish steamed as they waited for us to dig in. I grabbed my fork, but Grant touched my arm and slightly shook his head. I started to ask why when Ruby began to say grace.

“Give us, O God, the nourishing meal, well-being to the body, the frame of the soul,” she began, in the low voice of someone reciting poetry. I lowered my utensils and closed my eyes, feeling a tingle at the back of my neck. “Give us, O God, the honey-sweet milk, the sap and the savor of the fragrant farms.”

“That was beautiful,” I said, staring at Ruby. “Is that from the Bible?”

“Don’t know where it’s from. Mama used to say it, and her mama used to say it, so that’s what we say.”

“Well, I think it’s stupid,” Avery said. Grant opened his mouth angrily to chastise her, but Ruby beat him to the punch.

“Now, Avery,” Ruby said, “you know Jesus loves you like you love them dogs and all them chickens and all the birds in the woods. And you love them a lot, don’t you?” Avery nodded. “And lovin’ them like you do, wouldn’t it just hurt your heart to reach out to try and comfort one of those little babies and they scratched your finger?” Avery thought and then nodded more slowly. “Well, that’s what it’s like for Jesus when you say things like that.” Avery’s eyes widened. “You don’t wanna hurt Jesus, do you?”