“What other team?”
“The one we don’t like?”
At that moment, I couldn’t find words to explain my motivation. I’d been thinking about it since I left Jo’s house. I stared at my feet. I stared at Quinn’s canvas shoes he’d drawn on with a black marker.
“Do you believe in God?” My words surprised me. I’d wondered this about Quinn since I heard him make the comment about theodicy in Mr. Landmann’s class, but maybe because of how I was raised, maybe because of where I was raised, this wasn’t a question you asked out of the blue. Really, it was too private.
I chewed on my lower lip and fixed my gaze over his shoulder, on the exit sign at the end of the hall. I could tell he was shaking his head slowly, though.
“No, Meg. I don’t.” The humor that usually colored everything he said was gone. “That doesn’t mean I think you’re weird or anything if you do. Everyone has their thing.”
“Everyone has their thing?”
“Yeah, I mean…it’s not that I don’t get why people are spiritual. I think it’s a huge part of who we are.” We both leaned against nearby lockers at the same time, facing each other.
“It’s just that I don’t think it necessarily has to translate into a belief in a god,” he said. “It can be, like, a belief in the goodness of humanity or the power of nature. I just don’t think things are as black and white as that.”
“Black and white?” My voice cracked with emotion. “There’s nothing black and white about it. I think I saw things as black and white before. Now, things are…just less cut and dried. It feels like everyone deserves a chance. Everyone needs compassion. No one is here by accident. There’s a reason I met Jo.”
Quinn sniffed and stayed quiet for a minute. I could tell he was worried he’d offended me and he wanted to proceed with caution. “Everything you just said is what I believe. That’s what I mean…about spirituality. We’re closer than you think, Meg. It’s just semantics at this point.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Okay. Prove it.” He reached out and touched my shoulder to get me to look at him. His face was sincere and this moment between us felt significant. I’d only ever had this conversation with Henry and my parents. It still felt too new to me. Like I needed to work the stiffness out first.
“Okay?” he said. “I’ll let you prove it to me.”
“I’m not good at that.” I shook my head and moved away from him.
“I’m not asking for a miracle, Meg. Just…show me what you mean by faith and belief and God.” He smiled crookedly. “I could be your first convert. That used to mean we’d be linked together for life. I’d actually be okay with that.”
I met Quinn’s gaze and tried to return his smile. The bell rang, making me jump and start toward my locker. Quinn stayed by Mr. Landmann’s door.
“Wait,” he said. “There’s one more thing.”
I turned around and raised an eyebrow. His eyes were wary and he lacked his usual confidence.
“Will you go to the Winter Dance with me?”
EIGHTEEN
henry
“Not quite like a Wyoming winter, is it Henry?”
Sam and I watched the sun come up in the courtyard, shelling beans for Rosa. My fingers were stiff with the effort so I stretched them toward the already warming sun and used the bottom of my t-shirt to wipe sweat from my forehead.
“No, sir,” I said. “We’d be frozen in these chairs if we were in Chapin.” In my head, I pictured winter in Wyoming. The tall banks of snow lining the roads. The frozen rivers. The barn stacked with enough feed to last four months.
Winter meant seeing the inside of your house for too many hours in a row. It meant watching every single breath come out in a thick white fog. Pulling out the block heater for the truck and stocking up on antifreeze. Trying to keep cattle from dropping dead.
“What’s on the agenda today?” Sam asked. “Can we get the kids involved in part of this construction mess?”
I glanced up to see if he was serious. “I guess if I’ve got enough patience today I might find something they could do.”
“I think that would be big of you.” Sam laughed. I’m sure he knew he’d just guaranteed another nonproductive day for me.
I shouldn’t complain. Things had run smoothly since Sam and Janice arrived. Lessons were taught and kids were entertained and loved. That was not to say we didn’t all miss Kate, John, and Whit.
I couldn’t spend a lot of time thinking about home. Imagining my family gathered around the table mourning the loss of one of our own children. Hannah, who probably would’ve been a barrel racing rodeo queen like her mama and kept her daddy on his toes, was missed. Sometimes the crushing pain of it woke me up at night out of a deep sleep.
As the kids started peeling away from the breakfast table, coming outside in groups of twos and threes, looking for activity, I smiled at them. They were happy. They were protected from the worries that filled my head.
Sam and I bagged up five sacks full of shelled beans and delivered them to Rosa, who poured them directly into her huge pot of boiling water. “Gracias, mijo.” She tried to pat my back, but she’s tiny and I’m a freak of nature, so she ended up patting me on the rear end, which led to an awkward moment or two.
“You’re moving slow these days, Henry,” she said. “Are you heartsick?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, cheer up.”
“Okay.” I smiled to let her know I was mostly teasing.
Outside, I clapped my hands and motioned for the kids to gather around.
“All right. Today, we’re going to crush rocks with our bare hands.”
A few of the older boys laughed. The girls looked like they might faint, so I picked Karalyn up and swung her through the air. “I’m joking, mis amigos. But we are going to move rocks. We’re going to clear the area right around the flex building so we can have a garden there one of these days. We need to smooth it out. Remove the rocas. ¿Comprende?”
I set them to work. The older kids went for the larger boulders and even attacked them with shovels when necessary, while the younger kids filled their shirts and pockets with smaller rocks. I marked off a zone around back where they could offload the rocks, and within a couple of hours I had a large group of hot, sweaty, tired kids, and a respectable pile of discarded boulders.
The girls sat down to rest first. The older boys figured out quickly they were being watched and used the opportunity to flex muscles and make fools of themselves. Every one of the kids, down to the littlest, smiled. I wanted to tell them all to hang onto how this felt.
I swigged water and tried to gain control over my lousy emotions because I knew this scene, like the vapor it was, would disappear soon.
When the kids were done and they’d scattered to lunch, I stayed behind even though my stomach growled loudly. I couldn’t get my body to move away from our tower of stones. About that time, an unfamiliar black sedan turned into the property. My heart skipped a few beats.
This could be the first visit from a social worker looking to take our kids or this could be law enforcement here to investigate something Raf had got himself into. Or the Ministry of Family making sure John had fired me. I couldn’t see a thing through the tinted windows.
A door opened and closed behind me and Sam stepped out to stand with me. My fingers itched for a rifle, so I wiped my hands down the front of my jeans.
But a familiar guy got out of the sedan and my nerves reset themselves to zero as soon as I saw his face. Patrick Lane, the character witness who’d helped me in Managua. He grinned as he walked toward me, hand extended.
“You look like you’re ready to face down a firing squad,” he said.
I laughed, shook his hand with both of mine, and introduced him to Sam with a brief explanation of his role in the gang fight debacle.
“I don’t guess you’ve heard about the heat that children’s home are taking right now.” I motioned with my chin for him to follow me to
the dining hall.
“I heard,” he said. “Thought I’d check in with you and John to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”
Sam, Patrick, and I took a left toward the office to talk in private. The sounds of laughing children carried through the thin walls. Patrick got quiet and smiled when he heard them, even pressing his ear to the wall.
“Dang, I miss my kids,” he said. “Where’s John?”
“He and his wife, Kate, are home on furlough for a while.” I figured it would be fine for Patrick to know the situation. “Kate had a miscarriage a few weeks ago. I’m not sure when they’ll return or if there’ll be much to return to.”
Patrick nodded gravely and cleared his throat.
“I’ve got friends in the consul’s office.” He tapped his fingers on the desk. “They’ve filled me in on Programa Amor. What’s your game plan, Henry?”
I stole a look at Sam, who stared out the window, looking thoughtful and calm. He seemed to be waiting to hear what I had to say, too.
“Right now my game plan is to use a tough defense,” I said. “Protect the power zone, put maximum pressure on the man with the ball, and force bad shots.”
Sounded good. I mean, man to man…sports analogies worked. A grin crossed Patrick’s face, but it faded when he saw I wasn’t laughing.
“Oh, I thought you were joking, but that’s really your plan?” he said. “They suck at basketball in Nicaragua. They play baseball and you’re up to bat. Now, Henry, what’s your real game plan?”
Patrick rapped his knuckles on the desk again. He seemed to need constant movement to burn his huge energy reserve.
I decided to shift the focus. “After you gave me your business card in Managua, I Googled your company. What exactly do you do for Holton Industries?”
“I’m VP of Operations. I scout out new locations and move on, usually.” He stretched his arms over his head. “This time, looks like I’ll be long-term in Nicaragua.”
“Holton’s enormous,” I said. I’d learned from snooping around on their website they were into all facets of industrial construction.
“What are you guys doing in Nicaragua?” Sam said, perking up when he heard Patrick’s line of work. Like me, he’d probably launched a train of thought that barreled down a track toward an easy supply drop for our flex building. Heck, at this point, I was picturing a cargo plane flying over and pushing out a solid ton of supplies that would land neatly next to our courtyard. Freely donated and wrapped in a red bow.
“What’s any American company doing in Nicaragua?” Patrick said, grinning. “Looking after the bottom line.”
Sam and I both grunted an acknowledgment. A lot of American companies came to Nicaragua looking for cheap labor.
“Personally, I don’t think we ought to be anywhere but the United States of America right now,” Patrick said. “But I see the luster of the shiny money we’re saving, same as my CEO.” He picked up a picture of John and Kate on their wedding day and used his sleeve to clean the dust off the frame before setting it back down.
“The ink just dried on a deal I made for a huge piece of property right outside of San Isidro,” he said. “Which is why I was poking around here, hoping to help find a way to keep Quiet Waters viable.”
“We’ll take any help you can give us,” I said.
“I’d like to see you guys stay here. I’m going to be doing a lot of hiring here and moving some Oklahoma transplants down when we get our place built out. We can all play poker or something.”
“Drink eggnog at Christmas,” I pointed out.
“Yeah,” Patrick said, opening his arms wide. “Look, we’re already celebrating Thanksgiving together.”
I crossed my legs and leaned back in my chair. Patrick’s presence here seemed part of a bigger plan set into motion the day we met in Managua.
“Back to your earlier question,” Sam said. “Right now, we’re tightening up all our loose ends. I’m working on clarifying the backgrounds of every kid living here. You don’t have to look far to see they’ve got nothing to return to. Some of the families that turned over their children to us have since moved and I can’t find any trace of them in the country.”
“From what I understand, that doesn’t mean the government won’t take them and put them in foster homes,” Patrick said.
All of us sat in silence for a while. What could we say to minimize the threat or improve the outlook for these kids?
I cleared my throat and changed direction, pointing through the dusty window to the shell of a building directly across the courtyard. “We’ve got this project going over there. We’re trying to finish up what we’re calling the flex building, which will give us more dorm space or classrooms. We’ve run into a few snags finding materials here.”
“Oh, yeah?” Patrick stood to look out the window. “It’s a bit smaller than our usual projects but I might be able to piggyback some supplies onto another shipment.”
His wry grin made me laugh. “Do you have the men to get it built?” he said.
“I’ll be doing it,” I said. “With help from some of the bigger kids here.”
I felt Patrick studying me, with eyes that seemed to know me, trying to decide if I had what it took. “You a farm boy?”
I nodded. “I grew up farming and ranching in Wyoming.”
“You’re rangy, but I’d bet you’re strong as an ox,” Patrick said. “We’ll see what we can scare up for you.”
“Anything you can do to help would mean the world. It feels a bit like we’re on a sinking boat here and I’d like to patch up the holes before it’s too late.” I shook his hand and Sam leaned in to shake his hand, too.
Patrick stayed for lunch and joked around with the kids. He had an easy way about him that the kids seemed to get. Later I walked him to his car, both of us with hands in our pockets, feet kicking at the dirt. He’d thrown me a lifeline and I didn’t want to see him drive away.
“No one told you this would be easy, did they?” he said.
“Nope. No promises made on that front.”
“It’s such a shame this is the fight.” He stopped and turned a full circle, surveying the property. “Survival, right? The fight ought to be something with a shorter shelf life. Like how to scare up enough textbooks for your school. Or how to hire enough people to take care of more babies. Or, heck, how to feed these kids something other than beans and rice. It’s messed up, brother.”
Patrick lifted his chin toward my construction project. “Email me your list when you get a chance. We’ll see what Papa Noel can do.”
He spat into the dust at his feet. Without another word, he clapped me on the back, climbed into his sedan and drove away, taillights blinking briefly as he bumped over the huge pothole at the end of the drive.
I’m no dummy. I headed straight in and grabbed my laptop. I had my materials list attached to an email and fired off before you could say sweaty desperation.
NINETEEN
meg
I checked again to make sure the kitchen shades were down so the neighbors couldn’t see me, then dipped my hands into the hair in the sink where I’d just poured the dandruff shampoo Jo normally used.
“Dang it,” she said. “Take your rings off, Meg. You’re pulling every last hair I have.”
Jo the dynamo laid on her back across the tiled kitchen counter with her head hanging over the sink so I could wash her hair. She’d convinced me this was a good idea because it’s how her mother had done it. She closed her eyes while I ran warm water over her scalp.
Jo’s hair had a yellow cast to it when wet and it sort of freaked me out. I was always afraid if I was too rough, it would wash right off her scalp. Like slimy yellow seaweed.
Once I had the shampoo and conditioner rinsed away, I wrapped her head in a towel and helped her sit up. She rolled her shoulders, rubbed her back where it hurt, and held her arms out to me like a child.
The first time she did that, I didn’t know whether to turn around and let h
er ride on my back or to lift her down. She took the decision out of my hands when she launched herself at me. I slowed her descent, at least.
“Comb it, braid it, and we’ll be all ready to go,” she said.
I nodded and followed her down the hall to her bedroom where she waited for me on the edge of the bed. I stood in the doorway for a second, catching my breath.
For a couple of weeks now, this scene had played out after school on a daily basis. I followed Jo around, did what she asked, and tried to keep smiling. Sometimes I flinched when her thin hand reached out for mine.
What struck me, in the fading afternoon light while Jo looked at me expectantly, was that I wanted to sit down. I wanted to be still for a minute. Think my own thoughts. I wanted to stop smiling and be…just…less agreeable. I wanted to read a book start to finish in one sitting. I’d been lifting and cleaning and listening and nodding for days and days.
“Meg?” Jo said. “Did I hurt your feelings somehow?”
My head snapped up at the unusual softness in Jo’s voice. “Of course not, Jo. I’m just tired.”
Her hands turned nervous circles in her lap. Immediately, whatever hardness had been trying to work its way into my heart melted. I picked up her comb from the dresser and moved her way more willingly.
I’d noticed over the last couple of days that Jo’s demeanor was changing, becoming more dependent and less hard. I worried this meant she was slipping into an “episode”—her word for spells of dementia.
I sat behind her on the bed, cross-legged, and carefully combed the knots from her hair. Once I had it perfect, I gathered it with a band and began braiding the pencil-thin ponytail.
“Henry seems like the kind of man who will braid his daughter’s hair one day,” Jo said. “Do you let him braid yours?”
“He never has,” I said. “I think I’d get addicted.”
Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) Page 13
