BAE BOY

11

"I know you," I told her.

And she raised her chins again and said, "How so?"

"They call it Dogpatch, where we come from," I said.

She smiled real quiet and said, "Can't see it on you, though."

She said that kind of like she was proud of me for it. And then she got up and came over to give me a real long look. After which she nodded like she'd read something in me that settled something I didn't need to know about.

So I said, "What about the other thing?"

Took her a minute to figure out I meant those damned pictures of her daughter.

But then she snorted, waved one of those mama bear hands and said, "Tryin'a say we done it."

"I heard about that."

"Well, we done some pretty bad things in our time for money, I'll allow that. But the day we get that hard up's the day I'll put a bullet in my brain."

After that, she smiled again, and said, "Course...if there's somethin' you'd like to do about it..."

"Oh, trust me," I said.

She chuckled all down in her soul somewhere. Made all that blubber quiver. She was a big old fun house, Lurleen. Full of those mirrors that make you see yourself all kinds of ways.

And she said, "Don't get yourself thrown in there with Daniel now."

"Oh, I won't. Thanks for comin'."

She said, "I'll be checkin' on ya'. Your lawyers'll keep us in touch, too, pro'bly."

And then she looked deeper and said, "Your mama, she done what she was sent to do before she left here. You was her gift to us, and that sufferin' you been through, that was a gift to you. So you'd feel for folks and do some good in the world. So you think about that and you think about her'n' you'll be all right."

I said, "I will," trying not to let her see me tear up.

I couldn't forget the racist part or the parts that had done wrong and gotten the whole family in trouble. But she knew pressure even worse than mine.

So if pressure makes diamonds, then that's what she was. A diamond with a big old crack running through it. Cause life can break even the hardest thing there is. And I bet she knew that, too.

When she left, I thought about that a little more. And how some Rick's people had done wrong and prospered, and how Lurleen's family and mine had done wrong and got broken.

I wasn't mad, I was just confused by it. And the more confused I got, the less like just laying there by myself I felt. I needed to work off some nervous energy.

So since they'd taken out the IV and I felt pretty solid, I got up and hung by the door watching 'til I didn't see anyone who might stop me, and then I slipped down the hall to this stairway exit.

And then I just went down to the main floor and wandered.

It was like a maze, that hospital. I had to duck the waiting rooms and nurse's stations and whatnot sometimes. But then I found these weird places, places only the custodians and people behind the scenes used, probably. All these alternate routes to parking lots, loading docks, spooky stairways that looked like nobody ever used them.

And when I opened one of the exit doors, there was this kid out there sitting on the steps. Back to me.

She had this rainbow colored knit cap on. Probably to cover up a bald head. In fact, it was actually kind of hard to tell if it was a girl or boy because s/he was wearing a gown over jeans and was so "sick for a long time" skinny.