You Think It, I'll Say It(48)

Seeing him cry, I wanted simultaneously to apologize to his mother and to pull him away from her and up into my arms, to feel his little calves clamped around my waist, his head pressed between my shoulder and jaw. But I merely ducked back into the entry hall.

Downstairs, I asked loudly, “Who wants to draw?”

Several of the kids shouted, “Me!”

“And who wants to play farm animals?” I asked.

Several of the same ones shouted, “Me!”

“I suppose I can be a cow,” Alaina said. “Moo!”

“It’s not acting like farm animals,” I said. “It’s playing with them.” I gestured toward the shelf where the bin of plastic figures was stored. “Either you could do the farm animals with them and I could do the drawing, or the other way around.”

She walked to the shelf and lifted the bin. “Look at all these fabulous creatures!” she exclaimed. “Oh my goodness! There’s a horse, and a chicken, and a pig. Will anyone help me play with these, or do I have to play all alone?”

Tasaundra and Na’Shell hurried over. “I’m the baby sheep,” Tasaundra said. “Miss Volunteer, do I get to be the baby sheep?”

“You was the baby sheep before,” Na’Shell said.

“But I called it.”

“But you already was the baby sheep.”

“Na’Shell, be the baby chicks,” I said while I pulled the markers from the drawer beneath the sink. “There are two baby chicks.”

“Then I want to be the baby chicks!” Tasaundra yelled.

I passed paper to Mikhail and Orlean and Dewey and to the boy whose name I hadn’t been able to remember upstairs but remembered now: It was Meshaun. The paper came from the shelter’s administrative office, with graphs on the back, or information about welfare studies from 1994. Everything the kids played with was somehow second-rate—the markers were dried out, the coloring books were already colored in, the wooden puzzles were gnawed on and had pieces missing. When the boys made paper airplanes, you could see the graphs or the typed words where the wings folded up.

“And what have we here?” I heard Alaina say. “If this is a panda bear, we’re living on a very unusual farm indeed. And an alligator? My heavens—perhaps the farm has a little bayou in the back.”

I feared that if I looked at her, she’d make some conspiratorial gesture, like winking. I wanted to say, Shut up and play with the kids.

This was when Karen arrived, holding Derek’s hand. “Sorry I’m late.” Seeing Alaina, she added, “I’m Karen.”

Alaina stood and extended her arm and, unlike me, Karen took it. “I’m Alaina, and I’m finding that this is quite the exotic farm here at New Day House.”

“Hey, Derek,” I said. “Want to come make a picture?”

As I lifted him onto my lap, he reached for the black marker and said, “I’ma draw me a sword.” I loved Derek’s husky voice, how surprising it was in a child.

The drawing and farm animals lasted for about ten minutes. Then the kids built a walled town out of blocks, then Orlean knocked it over and Na’Shell began crying, then we played “Mother, May I?” until they all started cheating, and then they chased each other around the playroom and shouted and Mikhail flicked the lights on and off, which he or someone else always did whenever things became unbearably exciting. At eight, after we’d cleaned up, Karen and Alaina headed into the hall with most of the kids. I washed my hands while Na’Shell stood by the sink, watching me. She motioned to her elbow. “Why you do it all the way up here?”

“To be thorough,” I said. “Do you know what thorough means? It means being very careful.” When I’d dried my hands and arms with a paper towel, I used my knuckle to flick off the light switches.

Upstairs, the kids had dispersed. Na’Shell’s mom, who had a skinny body and skinny eyebrows and pink eye shadow and enormous gold hoop earrings and who looked no older than fifteen, was waiting in the entry hall. I didn’t know her name, or the names of any of the mothers. “Come here, baby,” she said to Na’Shell. “What you got?” Our last activity of the night had been making paper jewelry, and Na’Shell passed her mother a purple bracelet.

“Good news,” Karen said. “Alaina offered us a ride.” Unless it was raining, Karen and I walked home together. The shelter was a few blocks east of Dupont Circle—interestingly, the building it occupied was probably worth a fortune—and Karen and I both lived about two miles away, in Cleveland Park.

“I’m fine walking,” I said. The thought of being inside Alaina’s car was distinctly unappealing. There were probably long, dry hairs on the seats, and old coffee cups with the imprint of her lipstick.

“Don’t be a silly goose,” Alaina said. “I live in Bethesda, so you’re on my way.”

I didn’t know how to refuse a second time.

Alaina’s car was a two-door, and I sat in back. As she pulled out of the parking lot behind the shelter, Karen said, “They’re hell-raisers, huh? Have any kids yourself?”

“As a matter of fact, I just went through a divorce,” Alaina said. “But we didn’t have children, which was probably a blessing in disguise.”

I had noticed earlier that Alaina wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; it surprised me that she’d ever been married.