“It’s rubbish,” she says. “But the assignment is short, thirteen weeks. You’re close enough if an emergency arises with your brother.”
“Probably best I lie low,” he says. “What did you have to give them?”
“It is what it is.” She takes a tin from her pocket, plucks a mint from inside, then tosses him the tin. “Didn’t I buy you gloves for Christmas?”
Andre eats a mint, which is bitter and tart. Who eats these things as treats? Maybe, if he does find a new job, he’ll summon the courage to finally tell her that, while he loves her, she has terrible taste in sweets.
She says, “You leave tonight.”
“Thirteen weeks in South Carolina?” he says. “I can do that.”
“Good.” She rises, straightens her suit. “It’s not like you have a choice.”
* * *
One hour later, Andre raps on the door of a two-story rowhouse. He doesn’t like this Northeast neighborhood: icy sidewalks, pulsing music, teenage boys who loiter on stoops. Two weeks ago, while Andre was away, rival gangs sprayed bullets across this street, the sole casualty a seeing-eye dog that seemed to know every command except for duck.
“Dre? Honey.” Vera opens the door, hugs him and invites him inside, where he’s overwhelmed by a stench that he guesses is sour milk. Yet the smell is only the beginning. Dirty clothes litter the living room carpet, and oyster pails lie spread across the table. He tries to resist the urge to judge but can’t help himself. Damn, Vera. You don’t have a job; the least you could do is tidy your home.
“I’m so glad to see you.” She points toward a sofa that he must clear to sit. The couch, lumpy, sticky, faces a bare wall, where, a year ago, a flat-screen TV hung. The television was a gift, something Andre bought to comfort his brother. Vera swears a burglar snatched it. She even filed a police report. Andre suspects she hocked the television and pocketed the cash, insurance against the possibility that, if Hector dies, she might again be cast onto the streets. Andre doesn’t hold that against her—he remembers sleeping in alleyways, remembers the compulsion to squirrel away cash—but he’ll never again buy this house nice things.
“Excuse the mess,” she says. “Handsome, baby, c’mon in here.”
Handsome, a square-headed eight-year-old, stomps into the room wearing only plaid boxers. Andre cannot see himself in his nephew. Nor, for that matter, can he see Hector. But Vera and Hector have a complicated relationship, forged first as junkies, then maintained through sobriety. If Hector doesn’t question the boy’s paternity, then Andre’s happy to ignore the obvious.
“How you doing, little man?” Andre refuses to call the kid by name. The boy is, at best, odd looking: widespread forehead, crooked teeth, small ears. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Say hello, Handsome,” Vera says, and the boy tilts his head and squints. Andre thinks the boy should be tested. He never speaks. But Vera doesn’t trust school psychologists. The school system, she likes to preach, has incentive to diagnose your child as broken.
“Oh, ain’t that cute?” she says. “He’s shy around his big-shot uncle. Handsome, baby, why don’t you go take the roast out the oven? Mama will fix your plate in a minute.”
She gives her son a kiss before he runs away. Andre doubts there’s a roast in the oven. In fact, he’s certain that Vera doesn’t know how to cook. She’s nearly fifty and wants people to think that she’s respectable, the perfect wife and mother. She’s ashamed that she’s spent most of her life in shelters; that, long before she met Hector, a court declared her unfit to care for her three daughters; that her criminal history includes prostitution, possession, petty theft, and extortion. Andre doesn’t care about her past—hell, he has a past—so he plays along. Sure, Vera, you’re a great mother. But some might question why your mute, funny-looking son is standing half-naked in a pigsty on a school day.
“He’s getting so big” is the nice thing that Andre chooses to say.
“Oh, and he’s smart. All the teachers say so. But that school he going to ain’t worth shit. And the principal, don’t get me started.” She rubs her palms together. “I used to be down there all the time. Volunteering. Nowadays, things have changed. I’m talking to a lawyer. The lawyer says we got a case. A great case. We might get paid. But how are you? How’s Cassie?”