car.”
We hadn’t called the cops yet. My brother gave Dewie, a Sioux Falls member who’d likely been the one to tell Rider what’d happened today, a list of possible places where Melanie might be. Delia said the list was short; he didn’t know her all that well.
“Sweetness, I really think you oughta back away from all this now,” Delia told me carefully.
She was a maternal figure to me, but she didn’t overdo it on trying to mother me, which I’d always appreciated. She was there for me but not bossy.
I had already suggested we watch the baby overnight to see if she turned up, but I was talked out of it, agreeing that the fact that she’d taken my purse and car didn’t say I should give her the benefit of the doubt.
“If she turns back up, she’s a thief and a stupid one. Makes no sense she’d take your stuff and leave you stuck there but then come back and expect not to have a problem. She knows who you are, who your family is. That’s not your baby and you barely know her so social services is the right call here, Jojo.”
“I mean, what about her baby, though? She was just going to leave him with me. If he is Luke’s, his grandparents need to know him. I am not someone who lightly says a baby should be taken from its mother, even with the mother that I had, but you saw her place and I’d already spent hours cleaning it. That baby’s rash was wicked bad. And there was a dirty old pillow and ripped mattress in his crib, no food in the place, and she evidently had no money and was down to two diapers and three bottles. Delia, even if he’s not Luke’s or Ride’s baby, he’s a little human being that deserves to be okay.”
“And that’s the job of the social worker. To make sure he’s okay. He’ll be fine while it all gets sorted.”
“If he’s Luke’s, Mrs. Hanson will want to raise him. It might bring her some healing, might bring their home some happiness.”
“Okay, sweetness. Let’s just wait ‘n see. Okay? We’ll talk to the social worker tomorrow and see what’s what. If we can’t supply Luke’s DNA, they can likely test his mother to see if they’re related.”
“I need to know he’s okay,” I told her. “Aunt Delia, if it weren’t for other people giving a shit about us a few times when Dad couldn’t be there because of work, we’d have been in dirty diapers and with empty bellies. You know our mother. If it weren’t for people like you… you taught me it’s not okay to let helpless kids fend for themselves because they got stuck with a loser for a mother.”
“Okay, sweetie,” she said warmly. “That boy is fine right now and safe. Because of you. You did a good thing. He’s good.” She patted my arm.
Right. Okay. I settled myself down. That little boy would have medicine for his sore mouth, Advil for his fever, a clean bed to sleep in, clean diapers and rash cream, plus enough food to eat. He was safer with social services.
“Was it just me or did that baby look a little like that super?” Delia asked.
I spun in my seat to look at her from the passenger seat. “I don’t know. I didn’t look that closely, but he was acting sketchy as fuck. He said he didn’t know where Melanie could be way too many times, and he kept pulling at the neck hole of his shirt as if he was having trouble getting air.”
“Mm hm,” Delia said. “His wife answered the door when I went down there to ask him to lock up after we left, but that baby…maybe. Exact same hair color, they both had green eyes, and he was actin’ like somethin’ was up, was askin’ a lotta questions, wasn’t he?”
“You could be right about that.”
Delia gave me a knowing look. “I smell a rat there, that’s for damn sure.”
She drove me back to her place and her phone rang so I immediately went to work to make some food, plugging my phone into the charging station on the kitchen counter. She hadn’t eaten either and told me we’d have some hungry bikers showing up any time so to make plenty. Uncle Rudy, mother charter Prez, was out of town and she hadn’t talked to him in three days, so I let her catch up with him while