The Kindest Lie(100)

“You have so much weighing on you as a parent. I can’t imagine.”

“My son is everything to me. Everything . . .”

Tears must have flooded Verna’s throat. She couldn’t go on. Just thinking of all that could crush her son before he got a good start in the world overwhelmed Ruth. She thought of both boys and how the world saw each of them in black and white, how they’d be forever defined by that distinction.

Ruth pulled a blue turtleneck sweater of Corey’s from the laundry basket and held it to her face, covering her mouth and nose with the fabric, and breathed in the scent of the boy she and this other woman shared.

“I’ll take that.” Verna slid the sweater out of Ruth’s hands and returned it to the basket.

Whether it signaled protection or possession, Ruth didn’t protest.

Then Verna stooped to pick up dirty white socks. Ruth watched this woman, her child’s mother, do something so basic, something she’d likely done thousands of times before without thinking anything of it. The seed Ruth had planted more than a decade ago was now the budding flower Verna would go on tending to keep it blossoming.





Thirty-Eight

Ruth




That afternoon, Ruth’s car idled outside the little green house on Kirkland. Through the window, she could see that a tabletop tree with a tilted Santa were the only remnants of holiday cheer at Lena’s house. Sometimes it took everything in a person to stand upright in a bent world. Tired of waiting and prolonging what was to come, Ruth got out of her car and walked to Lena’s front door. She had no idea how long she stood out there, but the door opened and Lena invited her to come in.

“Happy New Year. Well, almost. He’s in there.” Lena walked down the dark hallway to her bedroom, leaving Ruth in the front of the house.

Ruth’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and she saw Midnight sitting on the couch, his thumbs moving vigorously across the screen of his phone. The last time she’d been in this house, she’d been terrified, hoping and praying he’d make it back here safely. It had only been a few days, but it seemed much longer.

“Hi,” she said. When he didn’t answer or look up, she walked over to the tree by the window, found the extension cord, and plugged it into the wall. The string of colorful lights lit up that corner of the room.

Midnight startled, his lips parted. Still in his baggy pajamas, he appeared smaller than he had just days ago. A mere boy, with the palest skin under the shadowed canopy of the overcast winter afternoon.

“What you doing?” she said, perching next to him on the sofa.

He shrugged. “Playing a game.”

“Something you got for Christmas?”

“Assassin’s Creed.”

A million thoughts rattled in her head, but none of them formed coherently enough for articulation. She began regretting that she’d even come.

Midnight might lose a friendship and would likely suffer from hurt and disillusionment for a long time. But she knew he’d be okay. Just as markets corrected themselves over the years through the inevitable downturns and upswings of the economy, white boys who fell on hard times could often count on being made whole again. Not so much for the Black ones. She wanted the possibilities of the world to open up to him and Corey equally, but she knew that some wishes—even ones made at the start of a new year—would likely go unfulfilled.

She also sensed that the closeness they’d shared in the short time they’d known each other had somehow receded after what happened at the river, and she was just now assessing the storm damage: His sallow skin, and the unruly snatch of hair over his brow that barely obscured his shadowy eyes. His back bent as if an invisible weight pulled downward on him.

Ruth covered his phone with her hand, and he flinched.

“Look at me,” she said.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes.

“What you did the other morning was extremely dangerous. You could’ve gotten yourself and Corey killed. It’s not a game.”

“I know that,” he said, his voice tinged with frustration.

“You’ve been through a lot for a boy your age. I want you to know I don’t blame you for being upset, for wanting to make all your hurt feelings go away.” She thought about all the mistakes she had made as a teenager and how she would’ve done anything to erase the pain that had built up in her over the years. Pain she couldn’t give a name to at the time, even as it consumed her.

Midnight twisted his mouth and said nothing, but it didn’t matter as long as he heard what she had to say. She went on. “The other day at the river, you said I don’t care about you. I do care. I was just starting to get to know you and like you.”

He remained quiet.

When she picked up her purse, looped it around her arm, and began to get up from the sofa, Midnight spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at her expectantly, as if awaiting her forgiveness.

She thought of Joanna, who had left her motherless despite her best intentions. And of Mama, who did what she did for what she considered all the right reasons but had still been wrong. She considered Midnight, his innocence corroded already by a world that had dealt him a bad hand. But he’d been reckless and put her son’s life in danger.

Yet he was just a child, and maybe he deserved her forgiveness. Being Black, she came from a long line of people who were expected to forgive reflexively. But she couldn’t do it. She hadn’t sat long enough with all that had happened to set him free. Not yet at least. So, she gave him what she could. Her understanding.