The Kindest Lie(77)
“That’s good to hear,” Ruth said.
Pretty decent wasn’t good enough for her son, but she didn’t say anything, not wanting to offend Natasha any more than she had already. Ruth kept her eyes on Camila when she finally spoke. “What do you wish for Camila? When you think of her living anywhere in the whole world, what do you imagine? Can you picture that place? Can you see it?”
Natasha closed her eyes and ran her fingers through Camila’s hair.
“Remember that group called The Future Is Girl? We were like eight or nine years old and they took us to that big house in Indy with the leather sofas and chandeliers. Even the faucet handles in the bathroom were gold. When you looked out the windows, the grass was the greenest I’d ever seen, all of it the same height, and there was no end to it.”
“Yeah, it was a country club.” Ruth had almost forgotten that field trip for at-risk girls, where skinny white women in capris served them asparagus roll-ups and fried oysters and then watched them like lab rats to see if their palates could appreciate fine food.
Natasha’s eyes widened. “That was a country club? All these years, I thought one of those ladies owned that house.” She laughed. “Anyway, I never forgot it and I always imagined I lived there. Once I had Camila, I pictured her living there, too.”
“I hope Camila redecorates. That striped wallpaper made my eyes hurt, and those golden dog statues were ridiculous.”
They groaned at the memory and sat quietly, letting the past wash over them. Suddenly, Natasha nudged her with her knee. “Sit up. I just remembered the rest of the words.”
“What words?” Ruth said.
“To the rhyme, girl.”
Once again, they played the hand-clapping game, laughing so hard it seemed obscene to indulge themselves this fully.
Brother’s in jail raisin’ hell,
Sister’s on the corner sellin’ fruit cocktail . . .
They parked on the street outside the recreation center, where many of the kids went to socialize while school was out for the holidays and their parents were at work. Many in town now credited Pastor Bumpus for working to get this facility off the ground in spite of his questionable methods.
Just an hour ago, it seemed reasonable to take time to process everything she’d discovered. But the more she talked with Natasha, the more excited she became. After eleven years, what sense did it make to wait any longer?
They decided sitting outside Corey’s house felt indecent for some reason. Stalking him at the rec center somehow felt more appropriate. Since Midnight would likely recognize Ruth’s Infiniti, they’d taken Natasha’s car.
Camila entertained herself in the back seat, loudly singing the Sesame Street theme song. Whenever she took a break to sip her apple juice, Ruth could clearly hear strains of laughter and squeals from the kids on the other side of the fence. The children chased each other, tumbling in the snow, and they became a blur, one kid indistinguishable from the next. Without ever having seen a photo of Corey, she wondered if she’d recognize him, if there would be a maternal buzzer that would sound in her body to alert her.
“There’s Sebastian. He’s the one in the black jacket with the red stripes on the arms. Look at him go,” Natasha said. “You should see him running bases.”
But Ruth couldn’t focus her eyes on Sebastian. She had a familiar tightness in her chest like she was losing air, the same feeling she had when the doctor told the family Papa would eventually die from ALS. It was that dread, the fear of what was certain to come next, that wouldn’t turn you loose. After blinking a few times, she saw that right on Sebastian’s heels was a slender white boy, and Ruth recognized the way he moved with sudden stops and starts. “Midnight?”
“That’s Patrick . . . my bad . . . Midnight, always hanging around the Black and brown kids. He thinks he’s Black, Lord help him. Cracks me up. Always wearing hand-me-downs. White people kill me trying to be Black when it works for them. Just pitiful.”
“Don’t say that. He’s been through a lot. I think he’s just trying to get some love wherever he can find it,” Ruth murmured, keeping her eyes on Midnight darting around other kids, his feet kicking up sprays of snow. She surprised herself with her quiet yet solid defense of a boy she hadn’t known very long. When he turned to face the street, Ruth slouched in her seat, hoping he hadn’t spotted her.
Natasha gripped her arm tight and said, “There he is. That’s Corey. The one in the yellow hat.”
Ruth sat up straighter in her seat. She was staring at a stranger. She was staring at her son. How could both be true at the same time?
A marble grew in her throat, threatening to cut off her airway. Her forehead pressed against the car window, which had grown foggy from her breath, and she wiped it fast. Still, that window separated them. She yanked off her gloves and laid her hands flat on the glass. If she couldn’t have skin-to-skin contact with her baby as she had the day he was born, this would have to be enough.
Her eyes followed the boys, who were flipping and tumbling in the snow. Corey climbed a high mound and rolled down the slope with elegance and ease. He exuded gracefulness and athleticism. He was everything she wasn’t. The other boys followed his lead and seemed to pull from his energy. He stood at the center of things, not apart from the others as she had in middle school.