The Kindest Lie(72)

Midnight shrugged as he often did. “Lots of people picked sides and everything. Eli—I mean Mr. Eli—was the main one who took up for Corey and tried to make Daddy stop saying all those mean things about him. And the day of the fight, Mr. Eli stopped the whole thing when he shot that gun in the air.”

Ruth fell back against her seat. It felt as though someone had vacuumed the air from her lungs. She struggled to breathe. Her mind raced faster than the rest of her body could catch up.

Midnight’s friend Corey. Could he be? Could he be her son?

Still rattled, she forced herself to think. Eli wouldn’t risk going back to jail for just anybody. But he would do it for his nephew.

“Are you okay?” Midnight stared at her, likely confused by the rush of emotions playing on her face.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, looking beyond him.

She scrambled to think of the few offhand references Midnight had made to his friend. It seemed Corey excelled in science just as she had, but she couldn’t remember much else. Was it really possible that all this time, her son had been right here in Ganton, as she’d suspected?

“You don’t look fine,” Midnight said, waving his hand in her face.

“I should get you home. It’s late,” she said quickly. “I don’t want your grandmother to worry.”

Back at Lena’s house, no one was home yet. Midnight told her he slept on the couch sometimes and asked her to tuck him in. A strange request for a boy his age, but she recognized how needy he was, desperate for affection. Guilt consumed her, playing mother to this boy she barely knew while some other woman tucked her own son—Corey?—in at night.

When she and Natasha were girls, they used to play house, lining their baby dolls up on the couch to do their hair and dress them for outings, baking their meals in play ovens, and then putting the dolls to bed at night. Back then, they were playing games with no consequences for missteps and misunderstood feelings. But this was no game, and Midnight wasn’t her baby doll.

She sat next to him as he lay on the sofa, his head resting in the curve of her arm. That shock of hair against her elbow surprised her, slick and smooth against her skin. Soon, Midnight’s eyes closed, and she heard the slow, steady breathing of his sleep.

The moon hung low outside the window. Heavy winds rattled the front door. Doubt crept into her mind. How could she be sure that Midnight’s friend was her son? Maybe this was a coincidence and she’d read too much into what he had told her. Still, she couldn’t reason herself out of the certainty she felt deep in her bones. She wanted to find Eli, beg him to confirm what she thought she knew. Would he acquiesce?

Mama had worked so hard to keep her son’s identity from her. Yet now, she was impotent, stripped of her lies and secrets, everything that had emboldened her self-righteousness for years. Ruth would confront her grandmother, fling the truth in her face until she cowered for once.

She ached to call Xavier and tell him what she’d just learned. That she was almost certain that she knew her son’s name. But would this draw them closer or create more distance between them? She couldn’t be sure.

Ruth carefully lifted Midnight’s head, placed a couch pillow under him, and propped up his legs, covering him with the jacket he’d tossed over the back of the couch.

Planting a soft kiss on his forehead, she whispered thank you and slipped out of the house without waking him.





Twenty-Four

Midnight




The next day, Midnight and his friends, their toes sore and numb from kicking tires in an empty lot and playing at the rec center, weren’t ready to head home yet. It was Christmas Eve and they were hopped up on Ring Dings and grape soda. Their energy needed a place to unravel and run free.

“Watch this,” Midnight said, holding a stale piece of leftover Halloween candy corn like a dart and releasing it with the snap of his wrist. What he’d lost in strength in one arm he made up for in the other. He watched the curve of the candy as it left his hand and then ducked behind an industrial garbage bin when it hit a woman limping along on a cane. She didn’t notice a thing.

“Oh, snap. You hit that old lady,” Corey hissed over his shoulder.

“Wait. Check this out,” Pancho said, as he grabbed the candy bag from Midnight. He aimed and missed the city worker salting the road.

Sebastian laughed. “Man, your pitch needs work. For real.”

And that’s how the game started. Targets weren’t created equal. As messed up as it was, tagging old people and little kids earned you bonus points.

Old man for four points.

Old lady for six.

A baby stroller got you eight points.

Anyone in a wheelchair for ten.

Crouching behind the dumpster, they took turns aiming the candy corn and ducking for cover before their victims caught them. They stifled snorts when a pimply-faced kid in a Santa hat rotated in a complete circle trying to figure out what had poked him on his cheek.

By the time they emptied the bag of candy corn, the streetlights had come on, and they moved across the alley’s edge and made shadow puppets with their hands. The boys’ laughter ricocheted off the walls of the old drugstore and they forgot their curfews.

“I learned a new magic trick last night,” said Midnight. “I can make stuff disappear.”

He remembered Ruth’s hands gliding across the Popsicle stick.