“What’s that paper?”
“Huh? Oh, I almost forgot. It’s for you.”
I started, realizing what it might be. I scanned the words—We invite your application for a subsidized three-bedroom apartment at Dixie Court. Pending approval. I reached out to hug her. She stepped back so quickly that I almost lost my balance.
“So what does this mean?”
“I saw those girls when you brought them home. Such sadness in their faces. They lost their mama, right?”
She’d barely acknowledged them, and I had not expected her to follow through. It was never clear how much Mama took in. The girls had been so pretty that day, but I’d imagine they still looked pitiful through the eyes of someone who hadn’t witnessed their state before the baths and clothes. I’d cut their hair as evenly as I could, but acne covered Erica’s face and India’s lips were cracked and peeling.
“How did you do this? It’s been barely a month.”
“This letter just means they’re on the priority list. They still got to be approved. I told you my friend Delia is on the board. She merely expedited the application process.”
“So I don’t need to contact a social worker?”
She shook her head.
“Oh, Mama, that’s fine! I’ve got to go tell them.” I took off my sweatpants and stepped into a skirt. Between the packed hanging clothes in my closet I managed to find a barely wrinkled shirt. It was Saturday, and I had never visited the Williamses on a weekend. I needed to look respectable but also practical enough to withstand the dirt of that hill.
“Do they have furniture and dishes and such?”
“Do they have what?”
“Things to furnish the apartment in case they get it. I can’t imagine whatever they’ve got out in that shack will be any good,” she said.
I stooped to search for my penny loafers on the floor of the closet.
“Take this.”
“What’s that?” I straightened up.
“Go over to the Goodwill and see what they got that’s nice. Don’t get anything that’s just as bad as what they have now. Look for some stuff that matches as best as you can. If you get a sofa, make sure to sit on it before you buy it.”
She opened her palm and revealed a square of folded bills.
“Mama, you don’t have to do this. I do have a job.”
“I know you do.”
“And I hadn’t planned on buying them things. Their daddy. He—”
She tucked the money into the purse hanging from my desk chair. “I understand. They got a daddy. Just figure out a way to do it without shaming him.”
“Thank you, Mama.” I tucked my shirt in.
Mama touched her hair and grimaced as if there were an unreachable pain hidden in her body. “Get Ty and some of his friends to move that furniture from Goodwill.”
With that, she was gone. I hesitated, then reached down to push my heel into my shoe. Ty. Always Ty. My parents thought he was untouchable. If I told them we’d been involved, they would probably blame me for the breakup. I folded the letter. I needed to get the paperwork completed. If the Williamses didn’t have to sleep one more night in that awful shanty, they shouldn’t. Sleeping on the floor of a new apartment was better than that sorry excuse for a house.
Mama showed her love in funny ways, and getting that apartment was the kind of gesture that reminded me of that.
FIFTEEN
When I told Mace Williams about the letter, he was not impressed. “Let’s go get the application for the apartment,” I said. “You don’t want to lose your place on the list.”
“Girl, I got to work today.”
“You don’t look like you’re working to me.”
“I got to be here in case the man come around here looking for me. I can’t just go trotting off with some crazy woman.”
“I’m not a crazy woman.”
“Look crazy to me.”
“Mace, go with her,” said Mrs. Williams from her chair on the other side of the room. She was patching up the knee on a pair of her son’s pants. By the way she fingered the needle, I could tell she needed eyeglasses. “This girl taking the time to come around here and see about you and your childrens. The least you can do is go with her and see what she talking about. I’ll talk to Mr. Adair if he come around.”
“Mama, we can’t afford no apartment. How I’m supposed to work for Mr. Adair if I’m living way out in this Dixie Court place?”
“Mr. Adair done told you there ain’t no work for you here no more. We got to get off this man place sooner or later and you know it,” she said, eyeing him steadily.
“As I said, the apartment’s free,” I said. “At least, until you start working. They’ll fix you up with a jobs agency.”
“I done talked with them jobs people before. They ain’t got nothing for me.”
I did not think he had tried hard enough, but I didn’t say that. Maybe he was just too stuck in farm life.
“Well, look, if you want to stay out here and drown in your own pity, that’s fine,” I snapped. “But the girls and their grandma got a right to go out there and live in this nice apartment, with or without you.” Surely it was unbearable that he and the entire family had to share one room—dressing, eating, sleeping. What was wrong with the man?
Mrs. Williams laughed as she stretched the needle out in front of her. Somehow she had managed to thread it.
“Pssht,” he hissed, and then moved to throw a twig on the dying fire. It was cold in the house, maybe colder than outside. April had not warmed up yet, and we were still dealing with blustery spring winds. A dog lying on a pile of clothes lifted his head and started barking at the sound of the wind rattling the door. “Get!” Mace yelled at the dog and it slowly rose, stretched its legs, and walked out. Mace kicked through the clothes, picking out a shirt. He sniffed it, snatched the stocking off his head, and pushed open the back door. Before it closed completely I could see him begin to pull his shirt over his head. I tried not to look. In a brief glimpse, I caught sight of the man’s sinew, and just like his face, the skin was bronzed by the sun.
“I’ll wait in my car,” I said to his mother.
I wanted to know if India and Erica had kept their hair and clothes neat in the weeks since I’d seen them, but I didn’t see them around. There really wasn’t anywhere else for them to go. The closest neighbors lived a couple of miles up the road. I turned the car around so that when Mace came out, we would be ready to drive down the hill. In the meantime I promised myself I wouldn’t let him make me nervous. He came out wearing a clean enough blue shirt and holding a hairbrush in his hand as he limped to the car. At least he didn’t look like he’d just stepped out of a barn. As we passed Mr. Adair’s house, Mace gave a nod and two-finger wave to a white man sitting on the hood of a pickup truck. The man stared at us but did not acknowledge the greeting.
“Is that him?”
“One and the same.”
“He treat you and the family alright?”
Mace didn’t answer. He just stared out the window. I figured he didn’t want to talk, so I said nothing. We did not have to be friends. The man thought I was a nuisance, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t doing this for him. I was doing it for the girls. I held the steering wheel with one hand and the letter bearing the address, 3501 Dixie Court, in the other. The rental office hours were ten to six on Saturdays, so we had plenty of time. The car coasted down the highway. The static in the radio cleared, and Carla Thomas’s voice floated out of the speakers.