Is she talking about Dwayne? He’s the one who called me that.
“I think so,” I say. I don’t say his name, because I don’t know who is listening. There could be a snitchy prisoner standing near her, or a capital S Someone on the line. There’s no expectation of privacy on a prison phone, not unless she’s talking to her lawyer. “You mean the one who had all the roaches in his house.”
“Yes, that’s the uncle,” Kai says firmly. “Could you maybe send the poem to him?”
She can’t mail it to Dwayne directly. Inmates aren’t allowed to contact inmates at other institutions, not unless they are immediate family. She especially is not allowed to talk to Dwayne, whose active case is linked with hers.
A silence grows on the phone between us. Dwayne was just a boyfriend, and she didn’t even have him that long. Why is she writing him poems? Also, I’m scared of getting caught.
On the other hand, my mother sounds so urgent. She isn’t safe, and I’m the one who made her so.
What is your emergency? the operator asked when I called 911 from the Dandy Mart, and I didn’t even have one. I didn’t know what one even looked like. Now I do. An emergency is Kai locked up a hundred miles away from me. An emergency is living in these cabins full of feral children.
Last night, my new roommate crept over and knelt by my bed. She slipped her hand under the covers, groping for the place between my legs. “Can I sleep by you? I’ll be so nice.” Candace learned this from her stepdad. Joya told me it’s why she’s in foster care.
I sat up and shoved her shoulders, hard enough to tip her over. “Screw off, lesbo. I don’t need a prison boyfriend.”
Candace is a weedy white girl who cringes when I talk to her, sidles up and sits too close when I ignore her. She’s a mouth breather, snuffling from allergies, and the raw, chapped skin under her nostrils skeeves me out. She smells musty, too, as if someone filled her up with damp laundry and then forgot her.
Candace popped back up, blinking, the whites of her eyes pink and glistening with histamines. “I’ll give you two dollars.”
I pinched her arm, hard enough to make her suck her breath in. Hard enough to leave a mark. She crouched lower and took it like it was her due, ducking her head down. If she were a dog I’d have seen her naked belly about then. She was new, but I had a reputation. I let her go and rolled away to the wall, turning my back on her. She stayed where she was.
After a minute, the sniffling got to me. I scooted over, making room on the edge of my bed. “Don’t get handsy. I want that money first thing in the morning.”
She climbed in and pressed herself into my back. We slept huddled together like cold baby animals.
If I am caught forwarding Kai’s messages, her sentence could be extended. I could be here longer. The state would push to terminate Kai’s parental rights. If we’re caught, no family-friendly judge will be friendly enough to overlook it.
Even so, I say to Kai, “I don’t know his address. But I’ll mail it if I can get it.”
It is not a yes, but it isn’t a no, either. It is I’ll try. I’ll try lands me firmly on the righteous side of Maybe.
I open the pantry door to find Candace standing close on the other side of it. She jumps back, bug-eyed. She must not have heard me hang up. I’d thought about snitchy prisoners, or someone on the line with us, but eavesdroppers on my end had not occurred to me.
“What are you doing?” I say, mean-voiced, trying to remember how much I’ve said out loud.
“I came across to see if there was snacks.” Candace has gone about as fetal as she can while still technically standing. I push past her, and she falls in beside me, her dry, pink lips turning up at the corners. “I wasn’t listening to you talk with your mom about the mail or nothing.”
I spin and grab her wrist in my other hand, squeezing her hard enough to feel her bird bones grind under my fingers. She yelps, and I step in very, very close. My growth spurt has given me an inch and change on Candace, and I use it.
“You don’t want to start with me. We sleep in the same room, you understand?” I say it like I hope she will start.
She swallows and her shifty gaze slips sideways, but she nods. The second she breaks, I ease my grip and smile at her, all sweet. Sugar after slaps, because slaps don’t seem to last with Candace. Maybe she’s too used to them? I need to be careful with her now, at least until Kai’s Ramayana comes. At least until I decide what I should do with it.