said. “I’ll talk to your mother on Sunday.”
“She don’t care,” Edwin Miles shouted back.
“You see if she doesn’t once I’m through talking to her,” Mrs. Greene said, walking toward them.
The boys faded before her, falling back in the face of her wrath. The last one standing was Edwin Miles.
“All right, all right,” he said, stepping backward. “I didn’t know they were with you, Mrs. G. You know us, we like to keep an eye on the comings and the goings.”
“I’ll comings-and-goings you,” Mrs. Greene snapped. She reached them and gave Patricia and Kitty a sudden smile. “It’s cooler in the house.”
She walked toward her house without a backward glance, and Patricia and Kitty scampered along in her wake. Behind them they heard Edwin Miles’s voice fading as he walked away with his friends.
“I’ll just leave them here with you, Mrs. G.,” he called. “It’s all good. Didn’t know you knew them, that’s all.”
The little girls started jumping rope again as they passed:
Boo Daddy, Boo Daddy
One, two, three
Sneaking in my window
And sucking on me.
Inside the house, Mrs. Greene closed the door and it took a moment for Patricia’s eyes to adjust to the cool darkness.
“I am so grateful, Mrs. Greene,” Kitty said. “I thought we were going to die. How do we get to Patricia’s car? Do we need to call someone?”
“Like who?” Mrs. Greene asked.
“The police?” Kitty suggested.
“The police?” Mrs. Greene said. “What would they do? Jesse!” she hollered. A skinny little boy with a serious face appeared in the hall door. “Get some tea for our guests.”
“Oh,” Patricia said, almost forgetting. “I brought you something.”
She held out the pecan pie.
“Jesse, put this in the refrigerator,” Mrs. Greene said.
She passed it to him and he disappeared back down the hall and Mrs. Greene gestured to the sofa. This close, Patricia could see that her knuckles bristled with stitches.
Mrs. Greene limped stiffly to a La-Z-Boy recliner that bore the imprint of her body. Patricia’s eyes had finally adjusted to the dim room and she realized it was full of Christmas. Red, green, and yellow Christmas tree lights ran around the ceiling. A large, artificial tree dominated one corner. Every lamp was made of an oversized nutcracker or a ceramic Christmas tree, and every lampshade sported a smiling Santa or a snowman. On the wall next to Patricia was a framed cross-stitch of Santa Claus holding the baby Jesus.
Patricia perched on the edge of the sofa, closest to Mrs. Greene. The bright white sterile dressings on Mrs. Greene’s arms glowed in the dim room.
“You have to forgive those boys,” Mrs. Greene said, settling into her chair. “Everyone out here has their nerves up about strangers.”
“Because of super-predators,” Kitty said, sitting gingerly on the other end of the sofa.
“No, ma’am,” Mrs. Greene said. “Because of the children.”
“Are they on drugs?” Kitty asked.
“No one out here’s on drugs as far as I know,” Mrs. Greene said. “Unless you count brown liquor or a little bit of rabbit tobacco.”
Patricia felt like it was important to change the subject.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“They gave me pills,” Mrs. Greene said. “But I don’t like the way they make me do, so I stick with Tylenol.”
“We are so grateful that you were there, and I know—and Dr. Campbell knows—that no one could have done more,” Patricia said. “We feel responsible for leaving those windows open in the first place, so we wanted you to have this.”
She put a check, folded in half, on the arm of Mrs. Greene’s La-Z-Boy. Mrs. Greene picked up the check and opened it. Patricia was proud of the amount. It was almost twice what Carter had wanted to write. She felt disappointed when Mrs. Greene’s expression didn’t change. Instead she folded the check back up and tucked it into her breast pocket.
“Mrs. Campbell,” she said, “I don’t need charity from you. I need work.”
Patricia saw the situation