IF BREE HADN’T CALLED TO GIVE ME THE LOWDOWN, I WOULD HAVE BEEN caught completely off guard. Apparently, Nana had taken in a stray that afternoon, and the girl was still there when I got home after a long day of bureaucratic nonsense.
I could hear everyone talking—and laughing—as I came onto the back porch, but they all went still when I stepped into the kitchen. It was like something out of an old Wild West movie.
Jannie and Ali were at the table with the other girl, whose name was Ava. The kids all had plates of lasagna in front of them, but Ava was the only one eating right now. In the silence, I could hear the dryer running downstairs, and I recognized the old Bob Marley T-shirt she was wearing. It was something Damon had left behind when he went away to boarding school.
“Alex, this is Ava,” Nana told me. Despite the bandages, my grandmother didn’t look too much the worse for wear and tear. In fact, she looked a little smug.
“Hello.”
Ava didn’t look up and kept eating with her elbows jutted out on either side, like she expected someone to take her plate away at any second.
Jannie and Ali both sat up tall like a couple of meerkats, watching to see what I’d do next. I wasn’t quite sure myself.
“Nana, could I speak with you in the living room?” I finally said.
“I’m an old woman, Alex.”
“Now, please?”
I held the door for her and we walked to the far end of the house before either of us spoke. Then she jumped in first.
“The girl’s got nowhere to go,” she said. “She just needs a place to sleep where she doesn’t have to keep one eye open all the time.”
I ran my hand over my head, trying to gather some patience at the end of this very long day. “That’s what Child and Family Services is for,” I said.
“Why? So they can put her in the warehouse?” Nana said, and pointed up at me. “That’s right, I know what they call it down at the police department, so don’t even try that on me, mister.”
I couldn’t argue that point. The temporary holding facility where Ava would probably land was, in fact, pretty bleak, and it was called “the warehouse.”
“The poor thing’s been on the street for a month,” Nana added.
“So she says.”
“Look at her! She’s no bigger than my little finger. I don’t need a polygraph to tell me no one’s been looking after that child. Do you?”
Bree had wandered out behind us. She’d been playing Switzerland so far, but she spoke up now.
“For what it’s worth, Alex, her story checks out. The mother’s name she gave us is Olivia Williams. There was an Olivia Williams who died of a heroin overdose, DOA, at Washington Hospital on August tenth. Also, Kramer Middle School had an Ava Williams enrolled last year, but she hasn’t shown up for seventh grade.”
Nana gave me a told-you-so kind of glare. I could feel myself losing ground already.
“What about the father?” I said. “Other family? You check any of that?”
“Nothing on the school records. I think she really is alone,” Bree said.
“Damon’s room is just sitting empty up there. Besides, I already put clean sheets on the bed,” Nana said. Like that settled everything. The fact that I owned this house didn’t seem to count for much right now. Not enough, anyway.
“All right,” I said. “One night. But first thing tomorrow, Bree’s taking her over to CFS.”
“We’ll see,” Nana said.
“And I’m putting a lock on Damon’s door.”
“You most certainly are not!” she told me. “You can sleep out in the hall if you like. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ve got a guest in the kitchen.”
I looked at Bree again, but her expression said it all: If you can’t budge Nana, how do you expect me to?
“One night,” I said again.
“We’ll see,” Nana said.