I recognized the MO of a little girl trying to look way older on the outside than she was on the inside. When I was Zoey’s age, I’d figured out that the right clothes could get you all kinds of attention, and I liked it. It felt good to know that someone could desire me, want to be with me. Want me.
Zoey gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look, and then her eyes turned hard. Icy. Rowdy was sitting in his Jeep out front, his head bobbing to music amped so loud that the bass was creating a minor earthquake.
“I’ve gotta go.” Zoey made a preemptive strike, telling, not asking.
“Wait . . . hold on a minute.” Several quick steps brought me to the bottom of the porch stairs, blocking her exit path unless she wanted to hop over the railing. Which she looked like she might.
“What?” A flash of lashes and a quick tilt of the head. Her hips jutted to one side. I knew the posture. Right now, Zoey looked too much like Gina. My big sister could give attitude like nobody I’d ever known. No matter how wrong she was, she was right. Zoey huffed and jerked her chin toward the house. “The dork’s inside. I brought him home, okay? I made sure he’s all safe in there, since it’s not like you’re ever here to —”
“Stop calling him that.” What was wrong with her lately? She’d been the little mommy since J.T. was born. He adored her, always had. “And all I did was walk over to Bink’s for a minute. I’ve been here all day, waiting for you to come home so we can talk.”
“Whatever.” Zoey fingered the thick silver chain holding an oversize class ring suspended over way too much cleavage. When had my little girl gotten cleavage? When had she become so comfortable showing it? “I figured you’d be gone with Ross again.”
Suddenly I was on the defensive. “Yesterday wasn’t Ross’s fault, Zoey.”
“Of course not. Nothing’s ever his fault.” She rolled her head to the other side, hair skimming over a bare shoulder in a silky curtain. “But don’t worry about it, okay? We’re fine on our own. We’re always fine.” She blinked hard, her dark lashes matted with moisture.
The words sliced through all the soft places, and I saw my sister again, saying the cruelest things, knowing right where to aim to cause the most pain. “What, like those clothes?” I swept a hand in the air between us, indicating the new outfit. “You know what those clothes say, Zoey? Did he buy those for you?” Rowdy must have bought the clothes. Zoey didn’t have any money.
“Like mother, like daughter.” She trotted down the steps and shoved past me, striding toward the car.
“Zoey, get back here!” I hollered, but she just circled the Jeep, slipped in, and closed the door hard.
Rowdy stretched a hand across the seat and strung his fingers into her hair. He didn’t even turn the vehicle around but backed all the way to the street at high speed like he was afraid I’d jump in their exit path. I could imagine the things Zoey had told him about me. He probably thought he was saving her from the claws of a she-devil.
Frustration drove me back and forth across the porch, furious, sad, helpless. I wanted to tie Zoey to a kitchen chair, lock her in her room, force her to listen. She was better than this. Somehow, I had to find a way to show her, to make her see, like Sister Marguerite had with Iola, that she was beautiful, that she was worthy.
Standing here with Iola’s prayer boxes so close, I wanted to be better than I was. I wanted to stop running blindly down all the same paths. The thought nipped and bit, hungry and angry, painful and unnerving. I didn’t know how to be anything except what I had always been.
A car pulled in soon after Rowdy’s Jeep squealed away. I gathered my wits and walked down the steps, meeting the vehicle as the driver turned off the engine and opened his door. He was middle-aged, balding on top, dressed in black pants and a white jacket with some sort of emblem on it. His round-cheeked face made him seem likable enough, but a ripple of concern inched upward inside me. “Can I help you?”
“I just came by to look the property over.” He grabbed a clipboard off the dash.
“Oh . . . are you from the church?” Thank goodness I’d put the prayer boxes away after the UPS driver had surprised me.
The embroidered label on the man’s jacket was from an investment company. He tucked the clipboard under one arm and twirled a pen from finger to finger like a tiny baton, then pointed it at the cottage. “You staying in the rental?”
“Yes.” Up close, he didn’t seem so nice. It was an old horse trader’s trick, not giving a direct answer to a question, and right now he wasn’t really looking at me, but through me, like I was getting in the way of his agenda, whatever it was. I thumbed over my shoulder toward Fairhope Fellowship. “You might want to go by the church because Brother Guilbeau —”
“Just taking a gander at the place for the county commission.” He cut me off, nodding along with his own words as if he wanted to make sure I swallowed them whole. “Looks like the hurricane damage was never fixed. Imagine the place is a health hazard by now. Water through the roof, mold all over the place, no doubt. Terrible to lose a historic home like this one, but it’s obviously listing toward the west. Too bad the owner didn’t keep it up properly over the years. Shame when these aging houses have to be torn down. Do you have a lease on the rental, and for how long, if I might ask?”
“Torn dow —what?” I was possessed with a sudden, fierce defensiveness of Iola and her home. Who was this man? He had some nerve, standing here talking like that when the woman was barely in the ground. I was no expert in social niceties, but I’d been on the receiving end of a down-the-nose look too many times not to recognize one. Her name was Iola, I wanted to yell. Iola Anne Poole. She went to sleep in the blue room and never woke up. Instead, I said, “But I thought I was supposed to clean . . .”
“You have a key to the main house?” He started toward it as if he was accustomed to people following at his heel. I recognized the drill. Trammel treated people this way.
I liked this guy less by the minute.
“No. I don’t. And I have somewhere I need to be, actually. I’m sorry. Maybe Brother Guilbeau can help you. His office is next door.” I pointed to the church again.
The man swiveled at the waist and peered over his glasses.
“I have to go. I’m sorry.” I hoped I wasn’t making a mistake, but something told me to stay as far away from this guy as possible. Without waiting for an answer, I rushed back to the porch and stepped inside.
I nearly collided with J.T., who was clearly on his way out. Like Zoey, he stopped stock-still, blinking as if he’d been caught.
“Where are you going?”
“No place.” A guilty look.
“To Bink’s, so you can hang around, maybe?”
He shrugged, the answer clear enough.
“J.T., listen, I know you like it there, but we don’t need everyone in our business right now, okay?” In view of our latest visitor, that was doubly true. If that man knew we didn’t have a lease and were overdue on the rent, I had a feeling we’d be out quicker than you could say, Pack your suitcase. “We just . . . the three of us have to stick together. We don’t want people checking up on us, understand?”
“But can I still go carry out their trash?” His enormous blue eyes pleaded for me to say yes, to let him continue his trips to Bink’s.
I rested a hand on his head. “What are you doing with all those leftover doughnuts?”
He squirmed under my fingers, looked down at his feet, and kicked a rock across the porch. “I take ’em to school.”
“Why?” Zoey had been packing PB and J sandwiches for lunch each morning because that was all we had around. They could get water free at school. It was hard to believe things had come to this, but they had.
Slipping his hands into his pockets, he shook his head.
“Why, J.T.?”
“’Cause.”
“Because why?”
“Because then we don’t use all the bread, and you don’t have to pay for more.” His eyes rolled upward under a knot of blond brows, watching for my reaction.
I felt sick. I’d been fussing at the kids about every bit of wasted food since we’d come here, especially early on when I was still getting off the pills and wondering if I’d make it through.
Now my little boy was surviving on stale doughnuts so I wouldn’t have to feed him.
“Well, there’s plenty of food now.” I swallowed the tears. How in the world had we ended up here? I was better than this, smarter than this. How many times had I promised myself that I would never be like my mother and Gina? I’d be the one who held down a job, made a living, didn’t take charity from anyone, made a life instead of just an existence.
But this wasn’t a life. This was desperation. We could be kicked out of the cottage tomorrow, end up on the street. Maybe the church didn’t really own this place after all. Maybe it really was about to be torn down. If Ross changed his mind about taking us in, we could end up sleeping in the SUV, and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do about it.
I had to find a job. A real job —something better than just cleaning out Iola’s house. And I had to do it now.
CHAPTER 12