brother. Plus, asking for help from better-off kin was complicated. Those ties were banked, saved for emergency situations or opportunities to get ahead. People were careful not to overdraw their account because when family members with money grew exhausted by repeated requests, they sometimes withheld support for long periods of time, pegging their relatives’ misfortunes to individual failings. This was one reason why family members in the best position to help were often not asked to do so.6
Larraine thought her best bet was to approach her younger daughter, Jayme. Larraine found a ride to Arby’s, where Jayme worked. Before she left, she got dressed up, putting on a pale-blue shirt, clean dark pants, black low-heeled shoes, and lipstick.
“Can Jayme take our order?” Larraine asked another Arby’s worker behind the counter.
“Jayme,” the worker called out.
Jayme looked up from a pile of dirty dishes, rolled her eyes at her mother, and came walking to the front, her thick auburn curls tucked beneath an Arby’s hat. She was not much taller than Larraine and wore wire glasses and a nun’s expression: warm but distant. Staying behind the counter, Jayme whispered, “Mom, you’re not supposed to be here.”
“I know,” Larraine said, dropping her smile to look deeply sad. “I know, honey. But I just got a twenty-four-hour eviction notice. They are going to throw me out if I don’t pay the rent. And, um, I was wondering if there was any way you could help me?”
A line started to form. Jayme stepped away to take orders. Once Jayme had cleared the line, the manager appeared. A rail-thin white woman with straw hair and acne, she looked like a high school student.
“Mom, this is my boss.” Jayme sounded embarrassed. Her manager looked to be ten years her junior.
“Did you come here to visit?” the manager asked.
“To order.”
“Oh, okay.” The manager put an arm around Jayme. “I just love your daughter. She is my very favorite worker.”
Larraine ordered and pulled out her wallet to pay. But with a few snappy punches to the register, the manager cleared the charge. “This one’s on me. Because Jayme is such a wonderful worker.”
“Please don’t fire her,” Larraine replied.
The boss cocked her head at Larraine and skipped off to the drive-through window.
Alone again with Jayme, Larraine leaned in and whispered across the counter: “So what do you think about—”
“I can’t.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t.”
Larraine looked at the floor.
Jayme gathered the apple turnovers. “I mean, I don’t have anything now. But when I get my check, I can have it mailed to you. If you can get someone to help you out till I get paid. But right now there’s nothing I can do. Can you find someone else?”
“I’ll try. I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
“Mom, I don’t want you to pay me back.”
Larraine gathered up her food. “Well, okay,” she said, turning to go.
“Mom, wait,” Jayme said. “I want to give you a hug.” She came around the counter, hugged her mom, and kissed her on the cheek.
Jayme didn’t choose to work at Arby’s. It was her work-release placement. She was in the final months of a two-and-a-half-year sentence. In the evenings, Jayme was transported back to the women’s correctional facility on Keefe Avenue. It was her first time in prison, for her first arrest, and she had mainly kept her nose in her Bible. She’d had a baby in a toilet and left it there. No one in the family knew why; she was already a mother of a toddler at the time. Jayme had been a bookish child, with large round glasses and a mature-beyond-her-years way about her.
Now that her prison sentence was coming to an end, Jayme was focused on a single goal: saving enough for an apartment that could accommodate her son, now six, on overnight visits. The boy was staying with his father.
When Jayme went to prison, she gave Larraine her car and $500 to care for it. But not long after that, Larraine sold the car and used the $500 to pay a bill. Larraine had done a similar thing to Megan, her eldest daughter, borrowing money and failing to pay it back. This was the main reason Megan had not spoken to Larraine in years. Jayme couldn’t hold that kind of grudge.
In the Arby’s parking lot, Larraine stared out the windshield. Office Susie had told her to ask her family for rent. She often heard a similar line at the crisis centers. When the social workers behind the glass asked her, “Well, don’t you have family
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