couple of hours. Then we’d go home, have pizza and popcorn, and watch a movie on television together. Sometimes that was the only time I’d see my folks. They left for work before I got up and some days didn’t get home until I was in bed. How about you? Got any good memories?”
She finished the last of the shirt and hung it on the doorknob. Then she crawled up in the middle of her bed and crossed her legs. “Mama took me to school when I started kindergarten and enrolled me. She got all dressed up and looked like the other mothers, and she’d gotten me a cute little dress with flowers on it.” She remembered the pink ribbon in her memory box and almost smiled.
“Didn’t she do that every year?” he asked.
“Yes, she did, but the rest of the years after that first one were not good. I found out later that she was trying to impress the elementary principal. He’d spent a few nights at the trailer, and she thought maybe he would marry her. She even told me to call him Daddy, but none of the other kids did, so I was afraid to,” she answered.
“How did you ever turn out to be the person you are today? You had more reason to be an alcoholic than I did,” he whispered.
“Your grandfather was a preacher, at least some of the time,” she answered.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Noah asked.
“He was respected even if he drank,” she replied. “My mama was trailer trash. They both drank too much. He was respectable and loved you enough to provide for you. My mama’s liquor wasn’t as expensive as his, but it was more important than me or what I needed.”
“Think you’ll ever forgive her?” Noah asked.
“Already did,” Teresa said. “I wish she would have signed the papers so Miss Janie could have adopted me. The Social Services folks tracked her down, but she wouldn’t sign unless she got money for doing it. When they told her there wouldn’t be any payment for letting Miss Janie adopt me, she told them to go to hell and take me with them.”
“They told you that?” Noah asked.
“No, they told me that she didn’t feel right about it, but I eavesdropped when they talked to Miss Janie. They told Mama that it was illegal to sell a child, and her reply was ‘No money, no kid. You can go to hell and take that brat I birthed with you.’ I wasn’t alone, though. When they found Kayla’s mother, she pretty much said the same thing.”
Noah got up from the chair and picked up his shirt. “I was raised in a fairly good environment and became an alcoholic, and you were raised in a horrible situation and don’t drink.”
“Don’t matter if you’re brought up in a rich, comfortable world or a poor one, whatever your home life is like, it definitely will affect who you become,” she said.
“You got that right.” He started toward the door. “Thanks a lot for ironing my shirt. This looks like it came right from the professional cleaners.” He nodded and stepped out into the hallway.
“Hey, where are you off to?” Kayla asked him as they crossed paths right outside her door.
“My friend talked me into taking care of one last PI case, but this is absolutely the very end. I took it because it’s right around here,” he said.
“Who does it involve?” Teresa called out. “Do we know them?”
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you and Kayla, because you’d talk about it to each other.” He laughed and kept walking.
Kayla giggled at his comment and went on into the bedroom. Her hands shook and her pulse raced. Had she been out of her mind to let Teresa and Miss Janie talk her into going to that damned reunion? It was still two weeks away, but she couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. What if she hated that dress Teresa offered to let her borrow? She would be obligated to wear it or hurt her foster sister’s feelings.
Well, you sure never minded hurting her feelings before, the niggling voice in her head reminded her.
She never did anything nice for me like this before, Kayla argued right back as she took a deep breath, crossed the hallway, and knocked on the edge of Teresa’s open door.
“What do you need?” Teresa hung the last duster on a hanger.