I licked some frosting off my finger. “Your grandmother’s okay?”
“If you listen to her she’s at death’s door. One of the things I like about your mother is she never complains about her health.”
“She’s never sick,” I said. “I don’t know why. Willpower, I guess.” And we both laughed, and then Callie sucked in her breath the way people do when they’re getting ready to say something they think you won’t like.
“I just needed to talk to you without your mom and dad around,” she said.
“You’re moving away,” I said.
“I wish,” Callie said. “What would I do with Clifton without you and your parents and my mom and grandmother and everybody? I need to stay put at least until full-day kindergarten. It’s about Tommy. I need you not to leave Clifton alone with him.”
It was quiet inside the car. Someone was honking a couple blocks over, but then they stopped. Finally I said, “Don’t worry. I never would. Never ever.” Saying it like that made me know it was true, and why it was true, and it must have showed on my face because Callie put her hand on my arm and rubbed it the way she did with Clifton sometimes when he was crying.
“I know this has to be hard for you, Mimi. I know you love the guy. But I just don’t think he’s reliable with a little kid, you know?”
“I know. It must be hard for you, too.”
“Not really. I got to be honest, I didn’t really know him that well. You know the way he was, like he could sell ice to the Eskimos. He picked me up at the Dairy Queen one night, and the next thing I know I’m in the backseat with my feet out the window. In a way I don’t regret it because how could I regret Clifton? I knew from the beginning that I was going to be on my own. Well, not really, because your mom was a lot nicer about the whole thing than I thought she’d be. But you know, Tommy and me, it didn’t amount to much. I’d like it if he liked Clifton and Clifton liked him, but I’m not so sure what’s going to happen at this point.”
“Is he giving you any money? He has money.”
“It’s fine. Your mother has been great about stopping by with groceries and buying Clifton clothes. She buys him the cutest things.” I knew that. I knew, too, that my father had told her to stop doing it. “A father should support his own son,” he’d said to my mother. “You shouldn’t let him off the hook.”
“Don’t let Tommy off the hook,” I said to Callie.
“Really, it’s okay. Sometimes he drops over some milk, or toys. He doesn’t really know what to do, you know? He brought Clifton a bike. Like, a big bike. I don’t think he knows that he’s three. Or what three-year-olds like. Or something. So that’s another reason. I’m fine with him seeing Clifton at your house, or when he’s with you. But not taking him out, you know? I’m not sure what he’d do with him.”
What could I say? She was right. Even when I was around, Tommy looked at Clifton like he couldn’t quite figure out what to make of him. Half the time when he was supposed to come to the house and see him he never showed up. Once or twice I ran into him by accident. The day after I talked to Callie I saw him when I was coming out of the library. Mrs. Farrell kept saying that she wanted me to enter the state science fair and I was searching for something I cared enough to spend six months studying. I kept thumbing through books about diseases and space exploration, but I hadn’t found anything I really wanted to do yet.
“What are you doing here?” I said when I saw Tommy in the parking lot between the library and the high school.
“Meeting up with a guy,” he said. He acted like he barely knew me, kept looking around the lot as he smoked a cigarette. He didn’t offer me a ride, and I wondered if he was nervous because he figured our father was coming to pick me up and they might get into it again. I wouldn’t have driven with him anyhow. His eyes looked funny.
“What are you doing here?” he said. “Isn’t it late for school? What, you have cheerleading or something?”