CHAPTER 15
Rebecca
Rebecca stood at Granny’s kitchen counter that evening, chopping carrots into thin strips and popping them into the giant stockpot on the stove as Granny herself washed long stalks of celery, cabbage, and peppers in the sink.
Low music played from the CD player on the counter—something semi-modern, with a peppy beat—and Granny hummed as she worked, her hair pulled back into a cute mini ponytail.
Rebecca smiled over at her, imagined a much younger version of Granny, with a child at her feet and a husband, all clamoring for dinner and attention.
“You do realize you look like a kid with your hair tied back that way?” Rebecca waggled a carrot at Granny’s hairdo.
Granny laughed and shook her ponytail. “You’re only as old as you feel, sweetie.
” Her hands expertly rinsed and snapped.
“Honestly, most days I’m downright stunned I’m this age.
Eighty four! I was eighteen just yesterday, falling in love with your Gramps and setting up house here.
Still feel eighteen half the time. At least in my head. ”
“That’s better than I can say. I feel every inch of forty.” Rebecca made a face. As for the love part, no thanks. The coffee encounter with Erik that afternoon had left her feeling awkward and unsettled, like she was a high school kid sneaking out her bedroom window with some bad boy.
Though why she felt that way about someone like Erik Wennerman was actually rather bizarre. He was handsome, smart, nice, funny, and unmarried—if you judged by the lack of ring. Nothing like a bad boy. And handsome was really an understatement. She felt her cheeks flush.
Maybe that was the problem—maybe he was all right, and she felt all wrong.
Granny laughed again. “Well, you don’t look forty. And besides,” she said, turning off the water and drying her hands on the thin blue dishtowel by the sink. “It’s all up here, anyway. Age is only a number.” She tapped her head, winked saucily.
“I believe you.” Devon flashed in her mind. “That kid from the summer camp—Devon Robinson?—he’s like eleven going on forty.”
“Oh, I believe it. That child has the world on his shoulders. Going to be somebody very special someday, if he can rise above his home life.”
Rebecca started cutting the green peppers now, the motion soothing. Granny joined her, their rhythm smooth, practiced, like Rebecca hadn’t been gone twenty-three years and Gramps was still out in the living room, watching the news and sipping his nightly glass of sweet tea.
“So what is his home life, anyway?” She gave Granny a sideways look. “He said his mom died, and he lives with his grandmother?”
Granny shook her head. “It’s a pretty sad situation.
Arnetta Robinson was a good lady, very involved at the church, but took ill two, three years ago.
Stage four ovarian cancer. Apparently she’d not been to a doctor in years, went from running Mr. Allen’s convenience store out on the highway to the coffin in six weeks flat. Devon was her only child.”
Rebecca shivered, imagining a young Devon at his mother’s funeral, his stoic little face watching everything, not able to understand.
“There’s no dad?”
“Not that I ever heard about. Devon lives with his grandmother, but she’s got a lot of health problems. Asthma, arthritis, diabetes, blood pressure. The church helps out when they can. There’s an uncle that comes around, but he’s a little, well ...”
Rebecca pursed her lips. “He doesn’t want the help?”
“Not sure he likes the poking around, or the charity.”
Rebecca frowned. “So how do they stay afloat?”
“I imagine they do okay. Dolores Robinson gets social security, and there might have been some life insurance money, though I can’t be sure on that.
Believe it or not, you can make it work if your house is paid for and you keep your bills down.
They have a quiet life, live in one of those small cottage homes off Aberville Road.
Devon’s one of our backpack kids, in fact. ”
“The ones who get the extra food sent home in little bags over the weekend so they don’t get hungry?
” Rebecca felt a pang, remembering how Devon had wolfed down the fries and burger at Harold’s Diner.
At the time she’d thought it was a typical boy’s voracious appetite.
Now she wondered how often he got the chance to even go to a diner, eat a burger and fries like a regular kid.
She remembered how skinny his arms were.
How serious he’d seemed. Driven. Determined.
“It’s a lot more kids than you think,” Granny murmured, watching her.
Rebecca shook her head. “I just … .” She stopped, realized she didn’t have the words.
They worked in silence a moment. The rest of the vegetables went into the stockpot, and Granny stirred the pot and set the lid on top. Drying her hands on a dishtowel, she kissed Rebecca’s hair softly.
“Hard to reconcile, the thought of kids going hungry. Kids you know.”
“Yeah,” Rebecca said quietly. “Makes me want to—I don’t know.” She dried her hands, too, gripped the towel. “It kind of makes me want to go buy his family groceries, take him out for dinner every night.”
“It’s just life, sweetie. Life for lots of people. All you can do is try to help.”
“How do you do that?” Rebecca squinted at Granny, folded her arms. “You work all day, every day. Making soup and chili and holding clothing drives. Hosting those free dinners. How do you keep from trying to save them all?”
Granny gave a half-smile. “You can’t rescue the world. You can just be Jesus to them.”
“What, like read them the Bible?” Rebecca shook her head. “I’m pretty sure that kid knows more about the Bible than I do.”
“No, Becca. I mean be him. Actually be his hands and feet. Treat them like he would have done when he walked the earth. Love them no matter what they look like or where they come from or whether their hands are dirty or their clothes smell. Give them food and clothing, a warm blanket, help them get their lives in order if they need it, offer two strong arms to hug them when they need comfort. Be an ear. You can’t save everyone. But you can be kind. You can help.”
When they came, the words were small. “How do I help someone like Devon?”
“You could start by being his friend. Spend time with him.” Granny’s words were gentle. “And sweetie, it never hurts to ask God to guide you. Try it,” she said simply. “He knows what we don’t.”
Rebecca reached out a hand, clasped Granny’s cool, dry fingers in her own. “Thanks, Granny. I’ll see what I can do.”
◆◆◆
The next morning, six copies of the Dahlia Weekly on her front seat, Rebecca drove the ten minutes from the house out to Aberville Road and then to James Watkins Elementary. She parked the sedan out front and clicked the locks, headed toward the doors.
“Heyyy, mamasita.”
She turned, the sharp smack of a bouncing basketball on asphalt filling the air.
Three preteen boys in low-riding jeans and those ribbed white tanks leered at her.
What looked like yellow rags or handkerchiefs were stuffed in their pockets, the edges poking out, and one had a bright yellow bandana wrapped around his head, doo-rag style.
Mini-gangsters. In a couple years when they were older, she might have been afraid of them.
For now, she just smiled and quickened her pace. Gangs, in Dahlia?
“Hi, boys.”
“Boy?” One of them, the one in the middle, puffed out his chest and grabbed at himself. “I’ll show you ‘boy.’”
“Shut up, Vasquez.” The skinny one shoved at him.
“You shut up, Marquis.”
They all stood and stared like she was a platter of fresh meat. The hair on her neck prickled, and she froze. Then she remembered sharks, and prey, and forced a smile, waved like it didn’t bother her. Never let them smell your fear. Even in apple-pie-in-the-sky, wholesome-as-it-comes Dahlia.
Inside, her heels click-clicked on the school’s linoleum.
She remembered her own elementary school, six hours north in Arlington—the classrooms with their uncomfortable metal and plastic chair-desks, the school lunchroom with its ever-present aroma of buttered corn and floppy pizza, her fourth grade teacher Mrs. Boudreaux, with her huge teased hair and rayon pantsuits.
The way it felt to be young and desperate to fit in and aching to grow up and get started on life.
She wondered if the boys outside had ever felt that way.
Or the kids inside. Kids like Devon.
“I wanted to leave these for Devon Robinson?” she said at the front desk, and a tall, attractive woman with rich caramel skin and an oversized emerald-green necklace smiled, held out her hands.
“You can leave them here. I’ll see he gets them.”
“Actually,” Rebecca considered, “is there any way you can call him out front a moment? I was hoping I could ask him about a follow-up story. I’m Rebecca Chastain, from the Dahlia Weekly.”
The woman’s eyes lit as if she recognized her. “Of course we can buzz him.” She crossed the tiny reception area to the intercom, pressed the button. Over the loudspeaker came her voice: “Devon Robinson to the front office.”
She turned back to Rebecca, smiled again. “By the way, I’m sure you’ve been hearing this all over town, but your article on the summer camp was really good. I hope it opens some eyes, gets people realizing what goes on out here.”
Her voice was warm and melodic, like she was singing instead of talking, and Rebecca found herself returning the smile, relaxing.
“Thanks.” Rebecca met her eyes. “I hope so, too.”
“These kids, shoo.” The woman shook her head, her breath exhaling in a quick little puff. “They have a hard time of it. Those houses in this neighborhood outside,” she waved her hand, gesturing, “you don’t know half of what goes on there.”
Rebecca thumbed toward the front. “I saw three boys outside who looked like they wanted to jump me.”
The woman made a face. “Them again. I’ll call the police. They’ve been warned one too many times.”