What's Mine and Yours(18)

“Mommy, it’s too early.”

“We’ve got a lot to do today.” She pointed at his toast and chocolate. It was a command, and Gee sank into a chair, rubbed his eyes, and started nibbling at the crust.

Gee seemed fine, more fine than she had expected. Sometimes, he moved too slow, took too long to answer her, but he snapped out of it when she shook him. He went to school and did his homework, watched cartoons and colored at the kitchen table. He was still seeing the social worker for now, but as far as she knew, he wasn’t doing much crying in there either. He seemed like himself, maybe a bit more turned off, but he had always been that way with her: somber, tentative. He was used to saving up all his play and sweetness for Ray. The biggest change was that he was asking her questions, and it made Jade suspect Gee didn’t understand what had happened at all. He talked as if there were a small chance Ray would be coming back. When the summer comes, who’s going to take me wading in the creek? he asked, as if she might say, Your daddy. Or Who is going to teach me to play ball? or Who is going to make my roast beef sandwiches now? Every question gave her a reason to break. Still, she answered him. What else was she to do?

Jade found suddenly that she’d lost her appetite. She slid her toast onto Gee’s plate.

“What do you think about getting a roommate?”

“Like another little kid?”

“No, like a nice lady. Somebody fun to eat breakfast with in the morning?”

“A stranger?”

“Some strangers are nice,” she said. “Some strangers are nicer than your own family.”

“But I don’t want to live with a stranger.”

Jade shushed him before he could say more. She knew whom he wanted to live with, and she couldn’t bear to hear him say it. “Finish up your toast,” she said, and he didn’t protest. He ate, rose to put his plate in the sink. He was such a pliant child, she often wondered how it was that he came from her. Jade reached for him by the shoulders, looked him hard in the eyes.

“You know I love you, right, little man?”

As soon as she spoke, she realized it had come out all wrong. It shouldn’t have been a question. Gee nodded at her and mm-hmmed, then shuffled back to his room to get dressed. She should have just told him—Gee, I love you. I love you, I love you.



When they finished hanging the flyers, it was ten thirty, and Jade drove them to Superfine, where they could get free breakfast, and she could talk to Linette.

They found it closed, the metal gate down, the windows shuttered. The mums planted in the window boxes were shrunken, brittle. Jade had a bottle of water in the car. She doused the soil, but it wasn’t hardly enough.

“Should we get more water, Mommy?”

Jade shook her head. “It’s too late.”

“They’re dead?”

She nodded.

“And they can’t grow back?”

“No, they can’t, baby.”

She watched him puzzle over what it meant. She laid a hand on his shoulder, and the scent of the rotting flowers, the stale dirt, overtook her. She doubled over in front of the shop and vomited.

Gee thumped her on the back. “Mommy, Mommy,” he said, and she snapped at him. “Jesus Christ, can you stop banging on my back?”

He stared at her, his face twisted with fear. She caught herself, wiped her mouth, and cupped his little chin in her hands. “Come on,” she said. “We’ve got to find Ms. Linette.”



She knew the way to Linette’s house by memory. It was a brick and white town house wedged between identical homes on either side. There was a small courtyard full of crape myrtles. The purple flowers were all gone, the parking lot and walkway slick with rain and crushed petals. Gee walked ahead of her. Jade had to call to him twice before he turned around, took her hand. It was an act of obedience, as if he, too, found it unnatural for her to hold him.

At the door, Jade checked the two of them to make sure they were presentable. Linette had strange ideas about what people ought to wear. Jade was in a black turtleneck and skirt, her lace-up boots, and Gee in a secondhand wool sweater, sneakers, and jeans. He was bleary-eyed but neat. The old woman couldn’t object.

“My little man!” Linette said when she opened the door. Gee stretched his arms up to her, and she hoisted him onto her hip. “You must be cold. Out here with no jacket? No coat? What was your mama thinking?”

Jade made a point not to roll her eyes and followed them into the house.

The living room was dark, velvet drapes hanging over the windows. Linette had grubby carpet that smelled of dust and recycled air. The plywood coffee table was scattered with porcelain figurines—a white lamb, two children drawing water from a well. Linette left Gee and Jade on the couch and went to fix a pot of tea.

Linette had answered the door wearing a rumpled blue housedress, her hair tied into a crooked bun at the side of her head. She was moonfaced, pale lipped without any makeup on. She came back with a tray, teetering with cups, a plate of shortbread cookies. Gee thanked Linette and dug in.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Jade said. “I didn’t want to come over empty-handed.”

“But here you are.” Linette smiled, squinted her eyes at her over the porcelain cup. The cup had a gold rim, blue roses painted on the saucer. Jade wondered whether this tea set was one she’d used when her husband was alive, whether all the things Linette owned were relics of her old life. He’d died of a stroke one day while waiting in line at the bank.