Birthday Dinner Read online

Chapter 7

  Becca stopped by Mrs. Brackett’s on her way home Wednesday afternoon. Having resigned herself to the inevitability of Jonah missing out on the Summer Learning Program, she wanted to inform Mrs. Brackett of the remaining summer educational options for her great-grandson, should he ever reappear. Those options were few, and none particularly attractive. They could make a hardship application to a private daycare program, and pray for a quick acceptance. Or they could try to string together several weeklong summer camps—all of them expensive, with few need-based scholarships, and ill-suited to Jonah’s interests and background. Or she could tap all her available church resources in an attempt to put together an ad hoc program of individual tutoring and care that would probably end up being little more than glorified (and volunteer-intensive) babysitting. Beyond the Summer Learning Program, there were no opportunities suited to Jonah’s skills and needs. The taste of disappointment and frustration lingered in her mouth along with the dust from the road and the stale humid air as she knocked at Mrs. Brackett’s door.

  That all disappeared the moment Jonah opened the door and without a word or even glance up pushed his face into her turquoise polo shirt and wrapped his arms around her waist. Becca wanted to both laugh and cry but did neither as she gazed down at the dark curly hair on his perfectly round skull. She whispered, “My dear Jonah,” and patted his head lightly.

  Jonah finally pushed away and looked up at her with bright eyes and a big smile. “Me-me-maw say she has a paper for you.” He turned and loped into the dim house.

  Becca followed slowly. “Mrs. Brackett?”

  “Come in, dear,” Mrs. Brackett said from her seat in the chair in front of the dark T.V.

  Becca shut the door behind her and walked toward the woman. The kitchen chair she’d pulled over two days earlier was still there beside the upholstered chair. She walked to it and asked, “May I?”

  “Please, dear.”

  Becca sat down. Jonah had disappeared, so she focused her attention on Mrs. Brackett. “He’s back,” she said in a sudden swell of emotion that made her voice crack.

  “Since dinnertime,” Mrs. Brackett said, referring to the midday meal.

  “With Latonya?”

  “She come in here like a house afire dragging the boy like some old whooped dog and say ‘Where the paper?’ and I say ‘What paper?’ and she say ‘The blond-girl paper.’” Mrs. Brackett chuckled in wonder. “Latonya don’t like you,” she said with a mix of awe and respect.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I have no ill will for Latonya.”

  “Should. She holding Jonah down.”

  “I’ll hope and assume she’s doing the best she can for her son.”

  Mrs. Brackett snorted loudly. “Doing what best for Latonya.”

  “She brought him home.”

  “Probably tired of dragging him around.”

  “Did she sign the consent form?”

  Mrs. Brackett pulled a sheet of paper from the knitting basket on the far side of the chair and handed it to Becca. “Didn’t even read it. Just scribble her name there where you mark.”

  Becca checked the signature—it was a scribble alright, but adequate to the need. She folded the paper up and slid it into the back pocket of her khaki shorts. “She still here?” Becca asked with just a hint of anxiety as she glanced around the open room and to the closed doors of the bedrooms.

  Mrs. Brackett could laugh. “No need to fear, child. She gone quick as she come.” Then she took Becca’s near hand in her cool, dry leathery palm. “No harm come to you in my house.”

  Becca nodded. “Thank you.”

  “No harm,” Mrs. Brackett repeated slowly. “Not here.”

  Becca stared into the bottomless dark pools of the old woman’s eyes, knew to trust her words even if she didn’t understand why she’d made the pledge or how she’d guarantee it.

  The door to the bedroom at the front of the house creaked open and Jonah walked silently into the living room carrying a roll of cheap Christmas wrap. He went to the far wall, to an open section of floor beyond the T.V. on its table. He knelt down and laid the roll of wrapping paper on the floor in front of him then looked up at Becca around the T.V. and shyly waved for her to join him.

  Becca stood from her chair and walked over and knelt beside him on the floor. He handed her the cut end of the roll of wrapping and used his hand to guide hers so she was holding the end of the roll flat against the rough planks of the floor.

  Then, still without a word, he slowly rolled out the paper on the floor. But instead of showing the printed side up, with its mundane pattern of gold ornaments and red garland, he unveiled the white back of the roll—except the white backside was no longer plain white but covered with a full mural of fantastic and surreal scenes—a grand church (a recognizable if creative rendering of the front of St. John’s) soaring above a lone blond girl standing in its doorway looking to a night sky populated with angels flying and singing, a schoolyard with children playing inside a black fence with ferocious dogs pacing just beyond the fence, a modest millhouse on a darkened street with passing cars flashing gunfire through dark windows, and at the far end of the roll a massive craggy mountain with a golden cave at its base and a fire flickering to one side. The swirl of colors and figures and passionate expression literally took Becca’s breath away. She couldn’t speak. She had to remind herself to breathe.

  Jonah looked at her from the far end of the roll, maybe ten feet off to her left. He gestured toward the church at her end of the roll, just inches from her splayed hand. “That you,” he whispered. “I just finished.”

  Becca stared down at the blond girl in the church, splashing the figure with her sudden tears. She rushed to wipe up the drops with the hem of her shirt before they stained the drawing.

  Jonah stood beside her and touched her hand trying to daub the tears. “Don’t worry. That just a little rain.”

  Becca looked at him and burst out laughing. Then it was her turn to bury her face in his shirt.