Chapter Twenty-Three
BAMA EMERGES FROM THE HOUSE and whistles like a bird. “Dinner!” she calls, her Southern accent sweet and thick like honey. “Dinner is ready!”
“Heard you the first time, Bam,” Jasper responds.
I catch his arm.
“Wait,” I say. “I just realized—you traded the rabbit, but I didn’t give them anything.”
“Your company is what they want,” Jasper says. “That’s more important to them than a couple tabs of aspirin.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I’m not certain I believe Jasper until we walk inside.
Five hot, steaming plates sit on the dining table.
An actual, real-life, three-dimensional dining table.
In a dining room! It’s even dressed with a plaid red tablecloth.
In the center of the table, a warm candle melts in an antique candle holder.
I’m suddenly six years old again at Grandma’s house for supper on a summer afternoon, clothed in my Sunday best, holding a tray of ready-to-bake Pillsbury sugar cookies.
This display might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Each plate is set properly with a fabric napkin and utensils. And on the plates themselves, there are equal servings. Each has a hunk of fire-roasted meat, sliced carrots, and fluffy mashed potatoes.
If only there were room for two more seats at this table.
How can I enjoy this meal knowing Grandma and Bunny had shriveled rations tonight?
I wonder if they sat beneath the stained glass window, hunger pangs hushed as they ate bread made by an arthritic old woman and a couple of spoons of expired fucking chickpeas.
Did they look out the window and think of me?
Did they believe they’re the lucky ones, that it’s me who’s starving in Macoby?
“Ah,” Sling says, placing a fabric napkin over his lap.
He sinks into his seat with a grin. As he takes a deep breath, the tension in his shoulders visibly releases.
I try it for myself, but can’t say I’m successful.
I’m still wearing my shoulders like earrings.
“What a nice meal. Thank you, my Banana Bama.” He extends an arm and squeezes Bama’s shoulder, who takes a seat to his left.
Clara stacks three books atop her seat—Yellow Pages, Harry Potter, and the Bible—and perches herself on top. She scrunches her face as her parents make kissy faces at one another.
“Moooom. Daaaad. Stoooop.”
“Clara!” Bama says, pulling away from Sling.
“What did I say about elbows on the table? And—are you sitting on the Bible? Off you go, young lady!” I quickly pull my own elbows off the table as Clara tugs the Bible from beneath her butt and drops it on the table.
“Be gentle, dear, that’s Jesus you’re holding in your hands. Now, shall we say Grace?”
I look down at the hunk of bunny meat on my plate. Bunny is alive and well. Bunny is alive and well. Bunny is alive and—
I jerk backward as everyone clasps their hands together, then bows their heads.
Bama, Sling, Clara, and Jasper close their eyes in unison like robots.
I stare in silence. Under the floor-length tablecloth, Jasper nudges me with his foot.
I look to my left. Jasper cracks open an eye and winks at me.
I groan silently but bow my head anyway. Anything for a bite of food.
“Dear Lord,” Bama begins, “we thank you for this meal, for this shelter, for this company. Clara, would you care to finish the offering?”
“Bless us, O Lord, and These Thy gifts—”
Hard work, not gifts.
“Which we are about to receive, Through Thy bounty—”
Through Jasper’s bounty.
“Through Christ our Lord, we pray. Amen.”
Bama claps, the sound like a gunshot. “Amen!” she practically sings. “Let us eat!”
As I stare down at my plate, I realize I haven’t had meat in three years. The smell is undoubtedly mouthwatering, but I’m scared of what it might do to my stomach. And I’d be dishonest if I said I wasn’t scared it would poison me.
I’ll start with the sides, let the others go first.
The table is silent except for the scraping of metal on ceramic plates, which I’m thankful for, because the last thing I want to do is talk. I want to gorge myself. To taste every bite. To—
OhmygoddidIjustorgasm?
I let out a moan as warm, fluffy potatoes slide down my throat.
They’re almost . . . buttery? But there’s no way.
There are no cows around here for milking.
It’s been so long since I’ve had anything so good, so fresh.
The closest I’ve come is Grandma’s bread.
While that bread is divine, the portions are always so small.
Never enough. Bama and Sling have given us so much.
They may be Jesus lovers, but they’re good people.
Nothing like Mrs. Patty back home. Repent or perish! Repent or perish!
I try the carrots next. Sweet, soft, full of earthy flavor. A slight twinge of aluminum, the result of having sat in the can for several years. It’s easy to ignore.
“You’re not a vegetarian, are you, dear?” Bama asks, staring at my plate. In the span of a few minutes, I’ve achieved a squeaky clean plate—besides the portion of rabbit. Bama tilts her head to the side, her gray curls spilling over her shoulders like a veil.
“No, it’s just . . . been a while.”
Bama simply stares at me, her hands resting gently on the table.
Right. It’s my turn then. I slowly bring a forkful to my mouth and chew.
The rabbit is tender and gamey, and the meat melts onto my tongue.
My belly expands with food. The last meal that left me satiated like this was Zaxby’s sandwich in between races at a swim meet.
Bama swallows a mouthful of potato and sets her fork down. “Clara, how was school today?”
“Max is so bad at the multiplication table, Mom.” She raises her black eyebrows and bites into a carrot. “It only took me forty-five seconds to complete.”
Sling says, “Way to go!” at the same time Bama goes, “It’s not kind to put others down, Clara,” and I blurt out, “You go to school?”
Clara looks around the table as if unsure who to respond to. Sling takes the mic. “Of course,” he says. “A child’s education is very important.” Bama nods her head in agreement.
“Where do you go to school?”
“Just down the road,” Clara says. “On Sycamore Street.”
“And there are other kids that go?”
“You live here, don’t you, dear?” Bama says, cocking her head to the side. “You don’t know about school?”
I look at Jasper, who warns me with his eyes to play cool. “Actually, I’m from E—”
Jasper interrupts me, saying, “Kota doesn’t watch the news.”
Sling and Bama burst into giggles. Clara glances between the adults like she doesn’t understand.
“That’s not funny,” I say. Their laughter dims. “Know what else isn’t funny? Kidnapping. As I was saying before I was interrupted, I’m from Egal. And I was kidnapped by him.”
Thick silence envelops the table as our Southern hosts absorb the new information. No forks move to mouths; no knives clank on plates. Bama doesn’t even blink when Clara’s elbows find the table once again.
“Did you all hear me?” I say. “He kidnapped m—”
Bama picks up her fork and takes a dainty bite of bunny. “Better off here, though, isn’t that right, dear? Sweet Jasper here did you a favor.”
“I’m a hostage.”
“Well,” Bama continues, “one could consider Clara here a hostage if you want to go that route.”
“Mom.” Clara scrunches her nose. “What does hostage mean?”
Bama waves her off. “She is ‘forced’ to sleep under our roof, certainly, but we clothe her, we feed her, we take her to school. We’re her guardians. Now, that’s a fresh perspective, isn’t it?”
Sling starts, “Bama—”
Through gritted teeth, I say, “What if you were taken into Egal, and Clara here was left to fend for herself? And you had no power to get back to her? You had no way of knowing she was safe? How would you feel about that ‘guardian’?”
“That’s all theoretical—”
“Mom! Tell her I can take care of myself, for fuck’s sake!”
“CLARA!”
I can’t think beyond the anger seeping into my bones. Anger for Bunny. Because she could be here, learning, eating. Grandma could be here instead of this wacky woman. I clench my fists, jagged fingernails biting into the palm of my hand.
I direct my next words at Bama, but keep my eyes trained on Jasper. He looks down blankly at his empty plate. “You’d do anything to protect Clara, wouldn’t you?”
Silence fills the room. Nobody knows what to say. That’s fine; they don’t need to say anything. They understand.
The legs of my chair scrape against the wood floor as I thrust backward in my seat. I stand and hurl my napkin at my empty plate. “If you’ll excuse me.”
This place. This place is not what I expected. And I hate it.
Because it’s better.
And Bunny, Grandma, and I . . . we can’t have it.