22

My heart broke when I saw where Wanda was staying with the kids. The house was little more than a shell, burned out and overgrown with kudzu vines. When we pulled up, Virginia was standing on a bucket, trying to pull the vines away from the windows. The boy, Briscoe, was sitting in a bare patch of dirt, sucking his thumb and pushing his dump truck around. All of this despite it being after nine o’clock at night. By any decent standard, both those kids should have been getting ready for bed and school the next day.

Briscoe grinned when he saw Ronnie and me get out of the truck. Virginia glanced at us and kept working.

“Where’s your mama?” Rufus said.

“Gone,” Virginia said.

“Gone where?”

Virginia shrugged and pulled some more kudzu off the low-hanging roof.

“Why didn’t she take the car?” Ronnie asked.

“It’s out of gas.”

“How long has she been gone?” I winced, fearing the answer.

“Since sometime last night.”

“Jesus Christ, what is wrong with that woman?” Ronnie said. He balled up his fist and punched the front door of the house. I grabbed his arm.

“Take it easy,” I said. “These kids don’t need to see you freaking out.” Oddly enough, seeing Ronnie freak out had calmed me down some. I would listen to my own advice. Getting angry about their idiot mother might feel good, but it didn’t do a lot to help them.

“We’ve got to call the sheriff and get these kids some help,” I said.

“No,” Ronnie said. “I promised Wanda I wouldn’t do that. I’ll take them to my place.”

“Hell no,” I said. I honestly thought they’d be better off alone than with Ronnie. “We call the sheriff. He’ll get them some help.”

“I won’t let you do it. I owe it to Wanda.”

“You owe it to her? The woman who left her kids to go look for…” I started to say drugs, because really, was there anything else she would have left for, but noticed that both kids were watching me closely.

“You can say it,” Virginia said. “I know about the drugs, and Briscoe’s too young to understand.”

I swallowed. Briscoe’s mouth hung open, and he stared at me expectantly, and I wondered if maybe Briscoe understood more than they knew.

“I just don’t get it,” I said. “Why do you owe her?”

Ronnie had wandered off to the other side of the house. When he turned around, I saw he was upset. “Wanda stood by me when I was on the needle bad,” he said. “I thought I was going to die, and I would have too if she hadn’t reported me for the B and E. They put me in lock-up and I was forced to get off the stuff. Saved my life. Now, she’s got the same problem. I want to help her. So she can have her kids back. I know it don’t seem like it, but she loves them kids.”

I sighed. Normally, this would have been where I would have called Mary. She would have known just what to do, would have given me the soundest advice. Now I was alone to figure it out myself.

“For now, let’s get them out of here and find them something to eat.”

“McDonald’s,” Briscoe said. “McDonald’s.”

“He don’t know too many words,” Ronnie said, “but he sure as shit knows him some Mickey D’s.”

“Mickey D’s!” Briscoe shouted, standing up and lifting his arms to the sky.

I walked over, smiling despite everything, and picked him up.

“I don’t have a car seat or anything,” I said.

Ronnie gave me a look like he thought I was making a joke. “Briscoe ain’t never sat in one, so he won’t know the difference.”

Virginia looked at my truck warily. Something told me she’d come by that caution honestly. “Where are we going?”

“It’s going to be fine, Virginia. Uncle Ronnie is going to take care of you.”

She gave him an odd look, one that seemed to suggest she wasn’t quite sure Ronnie could take care of himself, much less two kids. I had to agree with her on that one, though the more I hung around Ronnie, the more I was starting to believe he did care about them, and the whole holding up his sister thing had been more about trying to get some of Lane Jefferson’s money than anything else.

“Is there something you want to get from inside first?” I said.

She shook her head. “Briscoe’s gonna want his truck.”

I nodded and walked over to pick it up, shaking the dirt off it.

“I did have some books,” Virginia said, her voice not much more than a whisper, “but Mama loaded them all up in the car and took them to the thrift store. She got seven dollars for all of them.”

“Your mama’s doing the best she can, Virginia,” Ronnie said.

I shook my head. No, she wasn’t. Not even close, but I kept my mouth shut and made a mental promise that if I did nothing else, I’d get the girl some books.

We all crammed inside the truck, Ronnie in back with Briscoe, and Virginia up front with me. Ronnie, who’d been in tears just moments before, looked as happy as I’d ever seen him as we pulled away from the shack and drove to McDonald’s.