He sighed and raised his eyes and looked toward the outfield, and then he looked down at me. “I heard about what happened to y’all’s mother,” he said.
“You heard today?”
“No, not today,” he said. “A while ago.”
“ ‘A while ago’ meaning you should’ve come to her funeral, what little bit of one she had? ‘A while ago’ meaning you should’ve come and checked on us before now, before they put us in a home?”
“No,” he said. “Not that long ago.”
“Just long enough to do nothing.”
“Nothing until now.”
“Until now?” Just saying that made me laugh. I unfolded my arms and turned to walk back to the bench where Ruby was waiting on me.
“Hold on, Easter,” he said. “Talk to me for one minute-just one minute.” He’d taken his hands out of his pockets and grabbed hold of the chain links in the fence.
“I got to take the field,” I said, and even as I said it I thought it sounded like something somebody might say in a movie right before something good or something bad happened to let you know whether the ending was going to be a happy one or not.
“I just want to spend some time with you and your sister,” he said.
“You can’t,” I said. “It’s too late.”
“I know it seems too late, but y’all are all I’ve got.”
Y’all are all I’ve got: I’d heard Mom say that about a million times, but she’d said it when she tucked us in at night or when she walked us to the bus stop in the morning. Sometimes she’d said it when I found her crying in our old house late at night. She’d pull me to her and hold me like she was trying to make me feel better even though she was the one crying, and she’d rock back and forth and tell me it was going to be okay. When she’d turn me loose, I’d leave her room and get back in bed, where I’d touch my nightgown and feel where it was wet with her tears. I’d look over at Ruby where she slept, and I’d hear Mom’s voice say it again: Y’all are all I’ve got. I hated to see Mom cry, but I always knew she meant what she said. I didn’t know what Wade meant when he said it; I didn’t think he knew what he meant either.
“You don’t got us anymore,” I said. “You gave us up. I’ve seen the paper you signed that says it; that’s why we’re at a home, Wade.”
He looked away from me when I called him by his name. Then he blinked his eyes real slow. “I know,” he said, “and I’m sorry. But that don’t mean we can’t spend time together.”
I looked over my shoulder and saw that the inning had already started and Jasmine had taken my place at shortstop. “Great,” I said. “I lost my spot.” I turned back to Wade. “What do you think we’re supposed to spend time doing?”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know. Your baserunning could use a little work.” He stepped away from the fence and rubbed a hand down each arm, and then he touched both his ears and then the tip of his nose. “I was over here trying to help you, but I guess you didn’t see me.” He started rubbing his hands down his arms again.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m giving you a sign,” he said. “I’m telling you to stay on base, to stay right where you are. Wasn’t no way that scrawny kid was kicking it out of the infield. I still know the game, Easter. I could come check y’all out one day and we could spend a little time out here on the field, tossing a baseball around, fielding grounders.” He smiled when he said it like he thought it was the best idea anybody’d ever had.
“ ‘Check us out’?” I said. “Like a library book?”
“No, not like a library book. I just mean I’d come and pick you up-spend the day with you and Ruby.”
“You can’t do that,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because it ain’t in the rules. You can’t just come and get us.”
“What kind of place are y’all in?” he asked.
“A home for at-risk youth,” Ruby’s voice said. I looked to my right and saw her standing beside me, so close that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t felt her body up against mine. She stared up at Wade like she was afraid of him, like he might be able to climb right through the fence and pull her back through the chain links to the other side.
“I told you to stay over there,” I said. My hip nudged her back toward the bench, but she didn’t move, and she didn’t take her eyes off Wade.
“At-risk youth?” Wade said. “What are y’all at risk of? Is this the kind of place where kids freak out and hurt each other?”
“That ain’t what it’s called,” I said. “That’s something she’s heard kids at school say. It’s just a foster home.”
“Great,” he said. He pushed away from the fence and put his hands on his hips. “I hope you know y’all ain’t going to be in there long. Somebody’s going to come and get you-probably adopt both of you together because you’re sisters. You’ll probably be the next ones to go.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because,” he said, his voice sounding like I should already know the answer. He looked up at the rest of the kids on the field, and then he looked back down at me. “Y’all are white.”
I heard somebody calling my name, and I turned and looked up the hill, where Mrs. Davis was coming down toward us, moving faster than she would’ve been walking if everything was normal. When she saw me looking at her she waved her arms above her head and hollered my name again. Mrs. Hannah had stayed up on the playground, but she was closer to the school than she’d been before, and I could tell she was watching us and waiting to see what would happen once Mrs. Davis made it down to the field. “They’re probably going to call the police,” I said.
“Yeah?” Wade said, smiling. “For talking to your own daddy?”
“They don’t know who you are,” I said. Then I looked down at Ruby. “We don’t either.” I took her hand and walked back to the bench. I didn’t look back, but I could tell by the way she was walking that Ruby’s head was turned so she could stare at Wade. “Come on,” I said, giving her hand a good yank so she’d walk faster.
Mrs. Davis had made it to the bottom of the hill by the time we got back to the bench and sat down. She walked inside the fence and squatted down in front of me and Ruby. She had light brown skin and short curly hair and wore thick glasses. “Who was that man y’all were talking to?” she asked.
I looked down to where Wade had been standing at the fence, but he was gone. “I don’t know him,” I said. I put my hand on Ruby’s knee. “Neither one of us do.”
CHAPTER 2
Are you sure it was him?” Ruby asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” I said. That was about the tenth time she’d asked me that same question since we’d seen Wade that afternoon. It was time for bed, but the lights were still on in our room. Out in the hallway, a couple of kids walked by on their way to the bathroom.
Ruby lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She’d put her hands behind her head, and I could see that she’d crossed her ankles under her comforter. “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s just not how I remember him looking.”
“That’s because you were four years old the last time you saw him,” I said. “And we never had any pictures of him laying around to remind you of what he looked like.”
She rolled over to her side and propped her head on her left hand, and she looked across the bedroom to where I was sitting on top of my bed and leaning against the wall, waiting to hear him tap on the window beside me, even though I knew he wouldn’t be out there for another couple hours. “We don’t have any pictures of Mom either,” she said.