Don’t Let Me Go(12)

Long pause.

Then Rayleen gave her name again. And she spelled it — well, spelled her first name, as any idiot can spell Johnson, even fourth-grade Grace (or, at least, so she thought until she learned there was an “h” in it) — and explained how her address was the same as Grace’s, only apartment D instead of F. Then she read off her phone number.

Grace noticed that Rayleen’s hands were shaking, but wasn’t sure what to make of that. Maybe they always did. She’d never thought to check.

“But she’s kind of—” Pause. “Right. I’ll make sure she calls. Give me the number, I’ll write it down.”

After she hung up, Grace waited for Rayleen to explain who that had been on the phone, and why. But she never did.

She just took Grace by the hand and walked out the door with her, saying, “Let’s go talk to Mrs. Hinman now.”

? ? ?

“Who is it?” Grace heard Mrs. Hinman call through the door of her attic apartment. She sounded scared, like she was already sure it was a robber or some other kind of bad man, and was just trying to think how to stay safe against him. Like it hadn’t even occurred to her yet that it might be somebody nice.

“It’s your neighbor Rayleen,” Rayleen said. “And Grace.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Hinman said through the door, sounding only the tiniest bit happier. “I’m coming. I’ll be right with you. Just this one bar lock tends to stick a bit. This will just take me a moment.”

Grace said to Rayleen, “And then we can order the pizza?”

But just then Mrs. Hinman opened the door wide.

“Oh, my,” she said. “Rayleen. What’s wrong? You look very upset.”

“I have to talk to you,” Rayleen said. “It’s really important.”

Still holding Grace’s hand, Rayleen marched them into the apartment and stopped at the kitchen table, staring at a game of solitaire — actual solitaire with actual cards, not the kind you play on your computer. Grace had only ever seen the kind you play on your computer.

Rayleen said, “I didn’t know anybody played solitaire any more.”

Grace said, “People play it on their computer.”

Rayleen said, “Yeah. Computer solitaire. But not with real cards.”

Mrs. Hinman, who was still busy fussing with the redoing of all those locks on her door, said, “Well, if that isn’t the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Computers cost thousands of dollars, and a pack of cards costs about ninety-nine cents.”

“No, computers don’t cost that much,” Grace said. “And, besides, you can do lots of things with a computer, but with cards you can only play cards.”

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Right. Sorry,” Rayleen said. “We want to know if you’ll pick Grace up from school for a few days. Just until her mom is…feeling better.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”

“Do you know how far away the grammar school is?”

“Yeah. I was just there. It’s about ten blocks.”

“Each way. It’s about ten blocks each way. I’m an older woman, in case you hadn’t noticed. I can’t walk twenty blocks a day. My knees would swell. They come up sore just from walking to the market, and that’s only a four-block round trip.”

Rayleen sat down hard on Mrs. Hinman’s couch. Very hard. It made her bounce once, just a little bit.

“I’m in trouble,” she said. “I did something. Just now. I won’t say something bad, because I don’t know that it was bad. But something I could get in trouble for. I lied to a social worker from the county. Told her I was Grace’s babysitter. So now I am. Now I have to be. Because they could send somebody out. Any time. Somebody could show up at the door, and then not only could they take Grace away if nobody’s watching her, I could get in trouble because I was supposed to be in charge.”

“Oh, my,” Mrs. Hinman said. “I can’t imagine why you would do a thing like that.”

“I just didn’t want to see them put this poor little girl in the system.”

Then Mrs. Hinman looked at Grace, who was just standing there, near Rayleen’s legs, and said, “Maybe we should talk about this some other time.”

But Rayleen said, “No. I don’t see it that way. I think people do too much of that. Keeping things from kids because it might upset them. This is her life we’re talking about. I think she has a right to hear. Anyway. I can take her to school before I have to be at work in the morning, but I need somebody to pick her up.”

“Why don’t you ask Mr. Lafferty?”

Rayleen snorted. Really. Snorted. Grace thought it sounded funny, but it was clear that this was not a funny situation in any other way besides the snort, so she was careful not to laugh.

“That nasty man? I don’t want a guy like that anywhere near Grace. He’s mean and he’s rude and he’s bigoted, and I don’t like him one bit.”

Mrs. Hinman leaned in and whispered, “He wouldn’t be bigoted against her.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, she shouldn’t have to be around somebody like that.” Then, to Grace, Rayleen said, “I’m not so sure about Mr. Lafferty. Do you know him?”