first time, I sensed a softening in her. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Theodosia.”
“Me too,” I joked a little, smiling at her in an attempt to coax a smile from her too, but it didn’t work.
Nibbling on my bottom lip, I watched as she dropped her gaze to the table, to the snacks, and she questioned, “These all for me?”
“I was reading about how you don’t get to have this stuff much.”
“No. Not unless we have visitors, and I never have visitors.”
My throat grew thick. “I-I’d like to visit if I could.”
She shook her head. “No, child. Your place isn’t in here. I don’t have the gift you do, but even I know that.” Her eyes darted around the confines of the walls, taking in the guards, the other prisoners, their families. The smell of disinfectant in the air, as well as traces of tobacco smoke from people’s clothing...she seemed to absorb it all and, with a decisive nod, muttered, “No, this ain’t your place.”
My throat tightened with tears even as I whispered, “It’s not your place either.”
“Judge disagreed,” she stated flatly, then she reached for a box of Mike and Ike’s and muttered, “Want one?”
“I-I can’t. I have to watch my diet.”
Her eyes narrowed. “A boy tell you that?”
I shook my head. “No. No boy. I’m training.”
“For what?”
“I swim,” I told her offhandedly.
“Nicodemus taught you that.” Her lips twisted. “I think he’d like that.”
“You talk of him with fondness,” I replied, somewhat shaken. “I don’t get it.”
“What’s to get? He was my one. My jílo.” She shrugged, not noticing my surprise as I heard that word aloud for the first time since Nanny. “And I didn’t listen to my momma. I was stupid and selfish, and I stuck by him when I shouldn’t have. Wasn’t his fault.”
Of the many things I’d expected her to say today, of the many things I’d anticipated, her defense of my father wasn’t one of them.
But then, nothing about the past few days had been normal, nothing had gone right. At least, it felt that way to me.
Stanford hadn’t wanted to draft Adam into their swim team when he was a damn fine swimmer, and that wasn’t love talking, just truth. We wouldn’t be getting close now, and instead, not only was that not happening, he was going to be flipping real estate—nowhere, along the line, had that felt like a possibility.
But it was.
Then, here I was, sitting with my momma, and she was defending the man she murdered because he’d beaten her and her daughter.
Something was definitely not computing, but it wasn’t in my nature to get mad. Wasn’t my way to make demands.
I’d learned, repeatedly, that with certain people, you couldn’t force them to speak. You just had to let things flow.
Funny how that was one of the things I was most looking forward to about college, about being out from someone’s household, being under my own roof, because it meant never having to watch my words. Not having to withhold from doing something in case it offended another.
Some might say that was only consideration and politeness, but it wasn’t.
I’d been bullied my entire life. Even when I’d been free from tyranny, something had come and snapped at my status quo, ruining it forever.
The day I could live on my own merit, without another person to answer to, was a day I was going to sob from the relief of being free.
And the thing that hurt the most?
If Adam came and lived under that roof, I’d just feel as free as if I was alone.
Adam was mine.
Just like Nicodemus was Genevieve’s.
“W-Would you explain? I don’t understand.”
“Why would you?” she countered, chewing on some candy, her eyes flittering over the colorful packages like she was unsure where to start next. But as she plucked open a Butterfinger, she murmured, “Whatever gift you got, there’s always a price for it. Only the oldest bloodlines get them with enough strength for them to be of any use. Most Roma who claim to be psychic are talking out their asses, just trying to get Gadže to waste some of their coin. But some do have a talent, and if they do, they ain’t wasting it at fairgrounds, let me tell you.
“Gifts don’t hop a generation because we have to learn to deal with them ourselves. There ain’t no books that teach us stuff. We don’t even have it passed down in stories that we can tell our kids. That isn’t the point.