Marie took the plunge and said, “So you live in Memphis?”
“I do.”
“Married? Children?”
“Married, yes. My wife and I have two girls, thirteen and fourteen.”
“Do you have pictures?” she asked eagerly.
The way he paused and then glanced away gave Lily a bad feeling.
“Um, look,” he said to Marie. “Honestly, I don’t want to have a relationship with you. I was adopted by a great couple, and my life’s been good.”
Marie drew back as if she’d been slapped. “Then why am I here?”
“Curious about who you were, I guess. Most adopted kids are. I also wanted to know if there are any health issues in your family that may impact me or the girls in the future.”
Marie looked so stiff and brittle, Lily was afraid she’d crack into a thousand pieces.
“No,” she whispered. “We usually live a long time.”
He searched her face and seemed to see how his statement had impacted her. “My apologies if I’ve hurt you.”
Marie shrugged. “No problem. I appreciate the honesty. Is there anything else?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then you have a wonderful rest of your life.” She stood up. “Nice meeting you. Let’s go, Lily.”
Lily could see that he felt terrible about how this had turned out, but she wasn’t concerned about him. “Nice meeting you,” she said.
“Same here.”
Lily and Marie left without another word.
In the car, Marie stared out the window.
Lily said, “Marie?”
“Just get us home, honey.”
So she did, while tears streamed silently down their cheeks.
When they finally reached Henry Adams, Lily stopped the car in front of Marie’s house. “Do you want me to come in with you and sit awhile?”
“No. I’ve wasted enough of your time today.”
“You didn’t waste my day.”
“I feel like a fool.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I thought he wanted me in his life.”
“That’s a perfectly normal response, but he should have told you what he wanted on the phone.”
Marie didn’t respond.
“You sure you don’t want company?”
“Positive.”
Tight-lipped, Lily nodded.
Marie leaned over and gave her a hug that was so filled with emotion, Lily began to cry again.
“I’ll see you later,” Marie promised and got out of the car.
Lily watched her slowly climb the steps to the porch. Genevieve, sporting the cast on her hand, met her at the door and opened it. They spoke for a few seconds. Lily saw Genevieve gather Marie into her arms and hold her tight as the door closed them in.
Driving back to town, Lily thought back on the disastrous meeting. The parts of her that loved Marie thought French had been selfish to reach out just for curiosity’s sake and not consider she might be expecting more than a handshake. Marie hadn’t given him up by choice, nor even been allowed to hold him after his birth. As a mother herself, Lily couldn’t imagine having been forced to give away her son without so much as a kiss good-bye. She sighed sadly. How much more heartache could one woman bear?
She called Trent to tell him about the rotten day. He was sympathetic and heard her out, but then rocked her with the news that Devon had been caught stealing at school. “What?” she yelled. Fighting to stay calm, she listened for a few more seconds, then said, “Okay. I’m on my way.” She slammed her fist against the steering wheel and drove to the school.
In hindsight, Devon realized he should never have gone anywhere near Crystal’s tote bag, but Mr. James sent him to the art room to get some markers, and the bag had been lying there. Devon knew that Crystal had a job as a waitress at the Dog, and he’d been so greedily focused on how much money might be inside, he’d had no idea that she was in the adjoining storeroom, taking inventory. He’d grinned upon finding two five-dollar bills in her wallet and had just slipped them both into his pants pocket when he heard her yell from behind him, “What the hell are you doing in my bag! I know you’re not stealing from me, Devon Watkins.”
He’d jumped in panic and spun around, and there she was, bearing down on him with murder in her eyes. Shaking, he somehow managed to say, “But Amari made me do it.”
She smacked him across the top of his head. “Give me my money, little boy, before I beat you to death!”
She smacked him again, hard. “And that’s for lying on Amari. He didn’t send you in here, and you know it. Have you lost your damned mind!” She stuck out her hand, palm up, and glared.
Devon’s shakes increased tenfold, so he had difficulty getting his hand into his pocket to retrieve the bills and give them back.
“Hurry up!” she demanded.
Once he placed the money in her hand, she latched on to his upper arm and propelled him forward. “Let’s go!”
She marched him from the room, which is how he came to be sitting in Mr. James’s office with the angry Mr. Trent and Ms. Lily standing over him at that moment.
In truth, Lily was past angry. “Stealing, Devon? How could you?”
When he didn’t respond, Crystal reached out and smacked him upside his head. “Do you hear her talking to you, boy!”
“Crystal!” Lily cried.
Crys looked at her and said respectfully, “Ms. Lily, he knows you aren’t going to spank him, and that’s the problem. I’m not his parent. I can smack the taste out of him, so you better answer her, Devon,” she warned him, leaning down to make sure he got it.
Looking on, Trent wanted to cheer. He didn’t know if that made him a bad parent, but Devon was out of control, and if it took peer pressure from the Henry Adams big sister to make him straighten up, he was all for it. Otherwise Lily was liable to strangle the boy with her bare hands.
Devon got the message. Eyes downcast, he muttered, “I’m saving money to take the bus back to Mississippi so I can live with Ms. Myrtle.”
“You dummy!” Crystal snapped. “You can’t buy a ticket to Mississippi with ten dollars.”
“I can with the fifty dollars I have in my room!”
Uh-oh.
Lily cocked her head. “Where’d you get fifty dollars?”
Belatedly realizing he’d volunteered too much information, he shot Crystal a look of fury, but she simply folded her arms angrily.
“You may as well answer her, son,” Trent advised him. “You’re already in this mess up to your tie.”
Devon saw that Mr. James was standing quietly with his arms folded. Devon hoped he’d rescue him, but there appeared to be no salvation there either, so he mumbled, “I got it from Mr. Mal.”
“Mal gave you fifty dollars,” Lily replied skeptically.
Devon squirmed.
Trent took out his phone. “Let me call him.”
“No!” Then he admitted quietly, “He didn’t give it to me. I stole it.”
“The entire fifty?” Lily asked.
More squirming. “No. Just ten. I took the other forty out of your purse.”
Lily’s eyes went so wide, Trent thought they’d explode. He shook his head and announced to Devon, “You just earned yourself a fence painting, Mr. Watkins. I’ll be by to pick you up in the morning at six. Be ready.”
Lily fumed, “I thought I had misplaced that money. Mal thought he had, too. Wait until I tell him his baseball buddy is the one responsible. Come on, Devon. We’re going home.”
And with that, the three-day crime spree perpetrated by the now very contrite Devon Watkins was over.
As promised, Trent picked Devon up just as the sun was rising and drove him out to the Jefferson place.
“But I’m going to get paint on my suit,” Devon protested as Trent parked.
Trent cut the engine and glanced over. “I know you didn’t think wearing that would get you out of this. You took money from your family, Devon. Suit or n
o suit, you have to pay the piper. Now let’s get out.”
Devon grudgingly complied, and the awful day began.
Even though Trent showed him how to use the brush and how to make the strokes, Devon had never painted anything in his life, and when he began working alone, it showed. He had white streaks and splotches all over him by the time the first twenty minutes ticked off the clock. At one point during his ordeal he took a misstep and wound up with his foot in the paint tray, and there he stood with paint all over his shoes, socks, and pant legs. He hated it. He could see Mr. Trent sitting on Ms. Marie’s porch step, drinking coffee and watching. Devon hated him, too.
To make matters worse, when it came time for him to stop working so that he wouldn’t be late for school, it took him so long to clean up the brushes and put everything back into the Jefferson barn that there wasn’t time for him to go home and change clothes. He had to wear the paint-stained suit to school. The moment he entered the classroom, all the kids looked up. They knew what he’d been doing and why. No one said anything, but he caught their looks of amusement as they returned to their assignments. Pouting and angry, Devon took his seat.
At the end of the school day, Mr. Trent appeared to take him back out to the fence. Devon decided he’d never steal anything again.
On the drive, Devon asked, “When do I get to do my homework?”
“After your two hours of work. You’ll put in two hours before and after school until the fence is done.”
“But that may take a year.”
“The way you paint, you’re probably right, but you should have thought about the consequences before you began helping yourself to other folks’ money.”
Trent parked and glanced over at his son. “You know you’re breaking Ms. Lily’s heart, right?”
Devon dropped his eyes.
“And mine, too, son.”
Devon looked up with water-filled eyes.
“You’re a better person inside than this, Devon, and you and everyone else knows it. I can’t believe you’d steal from the people who love you so much. This has to stop. All the anger you’re throwing around can’t be making you feel good inside, either. Am I right?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Then come on, help us out so we can help you. What will make this stop?”
Devon looked up out of tear-filled eyes and whispered, “I just want to go home, Dad. That’s all.”
An emotional Trent pulled Devon across the seat and held him like a father holds his son. Devon wept as if his heart was breaking, and Trent let him cry.
“Lily and I will see what we can do about a visit,” he said thickly. “I promise.”
When the crisis passed, Trent rifled through the glove box, found the small box of tissues inside, and gave some to Devon.
Devon wiped his eyes and blew his nose. “Please don’t tell Amari I was crying.”
“I won’t.”
“Do I still have to paint?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” he said with soft resignation, and got out. Before he walked away, however, he told Trent, “Thank you.”
Trent smiled. “No. Thank you.”
Devon looked confused. “For what?”
“Calling me Dad.”
Devon assessed him silently for a moment more. “You’re welcome.”
Kids having to paint the Jeffersons’ half-mile fence as a punishment for serious misdeeds was a Henry Adams tradition started by Tamar and Ms. Agnes, who’d been at their wit’s end trying to exercise parental control over the teenage Malachi and his running buddies Cliff and Marie. Once they grew up, the tradition was passed down to Trent’s generation, but with no children coming up behind them, it passed into legend. However, thanks to Amari and Preston it had been resurrected, and now it was Devon’s turn. If the previous results proved true, he’d never want to be sentenced to paint duty ever again.
Devon agreed. Painting was hard, and from the looks of him and his clothes it was difficult to determine whether he was working on the fence or painting himself. He looked up with sorrowful eyes at Mr. Trent sitting on the porch with Ms. Marie and Ms. Genevieve, but knew they weren’t going to commute his sentence, so he went back to stroking the whitewash on the picket fence.
He’d just finished his fifth slat when Mr. Reg in his white truck drove up and parked. While Devon watched, Zoey, wearing her signature green everything, opened the door and hopped down to the road. Mr. Reg waved at him and walked off toward the porch, but Zoey came over to where he stood with the dripping paintbrush.
She slowly scanned his paint-stained self, and the first words out of her mouth were “You look a hot mess.”
He wanted to smile but said instead, “Go away.”
To his dismay, she did. Distraught, he watched her walk to the porch where the adults were sitting. His new dad was right; being mad wasn’t making him feel good inside. He went back to work.
Up on the porch, Trent saw Zoey approaching the porch. “Hey, Zo. Welcome home.”
“Hi, Mr. Trent. Hi, Ms. Marie and Ms. Genny.”
“And you’re talking,” Genevieve gushed. “This is wonderful.”
“With a southern drawl,” Reg pointed out.
Zoey put her hands on her hips and tossed back in a humor-filled voice, “It’s ’cause I’m from Florida, Daddy Reg.”
“I know, baby girl. Just teasing. How about you tell Trent and the ladies why you had me drive you out here.”
“I came to help Devon paint.”
Trent glanced over at Reg, who shrugged, so Trent said to Zoey, “That’s real nice of you, Zoey, but he has to do it by himself.”
“Amari and Preston didn’t paint by themselves.”
Trent studied her. She had a look in her eyes that was reminiscent of every other strong female person in Henry Adams, and he knew he was in trouble.
Reg came to his rescue. “I tried to tell her it was because they were both in hot water at the same time.”
Marie added, “And tradition says you mess up, you paint. Devon stole money, baby girl.”
“No disrespect, but tradition needs to get a clue.”
Trent looked around to see if Crystal was nearby and somehow had her hand up Zoey’s back, using Zoey as a ventriloquist’s dummy.
“He’a little kid. It’s going to take him a year to do that all by himself. And he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Have you seen his suit? I know he’s been doing dumb stuff, but he’s my brother, and I’m going to help.”
Trent tried again. “Zoey, it’s tradition.”
She crossed her arms and waited.
Genevieve said, “You know, he is probably the youngest one we’ve had out there. How old were you the first time, Trent?”
He gave her a quelling look. “Twelve.”
“And you were pretty tall even then. Marie, we were thirteen. I remember because we got caught wearing that tawdry red lipstick at school.”
Marie asked, “So you’re throwing in with Zoey?”
“Yes. He is a little guy. Maybe we need to have an age limit.”
Trent sighed. He pulled a brush out of the bag at his feet and handed it to Zoey. “You’re a good sister, Zoey.”
“Thanks, Mr. Trent.”
Back down by the fence, the paint-covered Devon was still wielding his brush alone when another big pickup pulled up. This one he’d never seen before. It was silver and red and looked brand-new, so he stopped to see who it might belong to. Out stepped Reverend Paula. She was wearing jeans and a matching denim jacket over a black shirt and her pastor’s collar. On her feet was a pair of navy blue cowboy boots that had small gold stars stamped into the leather.
Devon decided to ignore her by pretending to be too busy painting to notice her, but she walked over anyway.
“Hey, Devon.”
“Hey,” he replied grudgingly.
“Heard you were out here. Thought you might like some help.”
“It’s not allowed.”
“Rea
lly?” She looked speculatively over at the adults up on the porch. “Be right back.”
Devon wondered who she thought she was. They weren’t going to let her help. No way.
Way!
Not only did Zoey return with paintbrush in hand, so did the reverend. Devon was so surprised he was speechless for a second or two.
Zoey said, “Close your mouth and get to work. We don’t want to be out here all day.”
Grinning, he turned to Paula, who echoed, “What she said.”
For the next hour the three of them painted and talked. Zoey did most of it. Her voice was lower toned than Devon had been expecting, and her way with words reminded him a lot of Crystal.
Paula knew that Zoey’s sassy southern way of speaking stemmed from her having been raised by an addict mother on the streets of Miami. It did Paula’s heart good to have Zoey chattering away beside her, because it reminded her of Old Ab.
Devon’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Reverend Paula, why are you helping me?”
She paused in her painting. “I don’t know. Your mom told me a little bit about what’s been going on, and I just thought you might need a friend.”
“I’m sorry I stole the money.”
“I know you are. Your mom says you miss Mississippi so much you want to go back.”
“I do. I want to talk to Ms. Myrtle, and then go and see my grandma’s grave. I didn’t get to see her in the hospital after she got sick. Only after she died at the funeral parlor.”
Paula was surprised by that. “Why?”
“Everybody said I was too little to go to the hospital.”
“So you didn’t get to say good-bye?”
He whispered, “No, ma’am.”
Paula draped an arm over his paint-stained shoulder and hugged him close.
Zoey looked at her friend and declared sagely, “Then I think we should ask Ms. Bernadine if Ms. Katie can fly you to Mississippi in the jet.”
Paula took in the serious set of Zoey’s features and agreed wholeheartedly.
Later that evening, the adults in Devon’s life had a meeting of the minds. Trent related Devon’s emotional admission in the truck, and Paula added what he’d revealed to her about the death of his grandmother, and his being denied an opportunity to say good-bye. After a few more minutes of discussion, it was agreed that Devon, Lily, and Trent would be taken to Mississippi in the jet. Their hopes were that the visit would help the little preacher’s broken heart and assist him in moving on with life.