Don’t Let Me Go(85)

Billy sat close to her and pressed his back against the wall in a pathetic grab for emotional stability. It didn’t help, of course.

“I didn’t lie to Grace,” Rayleen said, her voice sounding unnatural and unfamiliar. “I told her everything Katz said. No, that’s not true. I didn’t. Everything I told her that Katz said was true. I didn’t lie about what Katz said. I just left some stuff out. There were a few things I couldn’t bring myself to tell Grace.”

“Just say it,” Billy said. “The faster the better. This is scaring me.”

“It should.”

“Just say it.”

“Grace thinks I can go out and apply to be a foster mom and get her right back again. But probably not.”

The news hit a blankness in Billy, as though it had landed nowhere, hitting nothing. He did not reply.

“I talked to Katz a lot about it. I can go through the paperwork. But it takes a long time. Meanwhile, if there are plenty of foster placements open, Grace’ll already have been assigned to one. Or, if they’re short on homes when my paperwork goes through, I’ll probably be matched with a black girl who’s been waiting a lot longer than Grace. There’s a very small chance it could work. But it doesn’t look good. Once she gets into the system we’ve probably lost her. We have no legally recognized relationship. It’s not like we’re blood relatives. We have no standing to get her back. Not even to inquire about her welfare.”

Billy tried his mouth to see if it would work. It did — surprisingly well — but seemingly detached and independent of the rest of him.

“You would think the bond she has with us would…”

But then he realized he wasn’t sure what he thought it would do. Or why. After all, this was the county of Los Angeles, not a single wise and caring decision-maker.

“Yeah, you’d think the bond with a parent would be pretty unbreakable, too, but they break those all the time. Katz said there’s some consideration for a familiar environment. But it doesn’t hold up well against time waited and ‘other suitability factors.’ Her term. I think it’s racial, but I didn’t ask.”

They sat in silence for a time. How long a time, Billy wasn’t sure. Could have been a minute. Could have been fifteen.

“Maybe I’ll just take her,” Rayleen said. “Just take her and go-”

Billy glanced over at her, but Rayleen would not return his glance.

“You’re not serious, right?”

“I might be.”

“They’ll catch you. And they’ll put Grace in foster care and you in jail, and then the chances of your getting her back go from slim to none.”

Rayleen chewed on the inside of her lip for a moment in silence. Billy had no way of gauging what was going on inside her head.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

Billy breathed for what felt like the first time in a long time.

“But maybe we just won’t get caught,” Rayleen said.

Billy felt an odd tingling along his scalp.

“Look,” he said. “I hate to say this, and please don’t take it the wrong way, but you won’t be able to blend in. Black woman, white kid. People won’t just assume she’s yours when they see you. I’m sorry, but…”

“No. You’re right. Don’t be sorry. I was talking crazy. I don’t know what I was thinking there. It was a crazy thought.”

Grace’s huge voice suddenly broke through. “Hey!” she called from Rayleen’s doorway. “Good news! Yolanda says she’ll come kick some addict butt!”

Rayleen looked into Billy’s eyes as if they’d been friends all their lives.

“Can you make an addict not be an addict by kicking her butt?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” Billy whispered back. “But let’s hope so. Because right now it’s looking like our only shot.”

? ? ?

After an entirely sleepless night, Billy’s morning coffee looked and smelled and sounded even better than usual. He made just enough for one full mug, to help assure that he wouldn’t run out toward the end of the month.

While it was percolating, and while Billy was watching it drip, he heard a rough pounding on the door of the basement apartment downstairs.

A brief silence.

Then, “Open up, Sleeping Beauty, it’s your damn sponsor.”

A moment later he heard the creak of the door swinging open. It clarified something at the back of his mind, something he hadn’t entirely known was there. Some part of him had always wondered if Grace’s mom really could hear them when they knocked on the door. And now he knew.

He stood chewing at his nails nervously, then slapped his own hand away. The way Grace would, if she were there with him, instead of at Rayleen’s. Only more gently.

He took the coffee into the living room and drank it, slumped on the couch, watching, through the thin veil of his curtains, as cars rolled by on the street out front.

It would be time to walk Grace to school again in less than half an hour.

Billy sat up straight and made a sudden decision.

He marched into the kitchen and started a fresh pot of coffee, a full pot. While it was brewing he checked his cream supply. He shook, and frowned at, the carton for a long time. Until he realized he was letting too much cold out of the refrigerator. But when he closed the fridge door, the carton of cream was still there in his hand, feeling cold and precious, even though there was no arguing that his supply was barely adequate to last until the next delivery.