CHAPTER ONE
“We can’t afford to feed them or give ‘em clothes anymore, Roy.We gotta take ‘em somewhere.Drop ‘em off at the fire house or somethin’.”
“Are you nuts, woman?We do that and we’ll be arrested for sure.It’s better if we just put ‘em to bed and disappear.”
“But, what if someone comes in durin’ the night and hurts ‘em?” asked Annie.
“I’ll put all the locks on, hun.I promise.We can leave a note for the girl,” he said without appearing to possess any compassion whatsoever.Yet she knew in her heart that he loved his children and her.
“The girl has a name, Roy.She’s your daughter and he’s your son.Just ‘cause he can’t hear don’t change that.At least remember their dang names,” she said with sad eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Annie.You knew how I felt about havin’ kids.I ain’t had no good upbringin’ myself.My old man was mean as a snake and I was worried I would be too.Besides, work don’t come easy for us.We ain’t smart and we don’t have no skills.Kids is expensive and we can’t afford ‘em anymore.We gotta give ‘em away.”
“But you aren’t mean.You’re wonderful with the kids and we could keep tryin’.I’ll see if I can find somethin’ at the grocery down the street,” she said feeling hopeful.
“I’m losin’ my patience here, Annie.We got no jobs, no food in the house and nowhere to go.We can travel light and leave the girl, leave Sutton instructions for her and the boy, for Pippen.”
“She’s just ten, Roy.Ten years old.Do you know what men might do to her if she goes out there beggin’?”
He at least had the decency to let that sink in and realize that his wife was right.He might be a shitty father but he wasn’t a child molester and he’d kill any man or woman who touched his kid in that way.
“Okay,” he said shaking his head as he walked toward the kitchen sink, staring at the other doublewide piece of shit in their mobile home park.None of the places were worth the rent they charged but most didn’t leak and had clean water and heat.
Of course, in the summer they battled the cockroaches and lack of air conditioning, nearly suffocating in those tin cans.You could open the small windows if the screens were good but if they weren’t, you were risking more bugs.
It was getting to be that time again.Looking down, he realized there was a cock-roach searching for a scrap of food, but even he couldn’t find anything. He slammed his hand over it and then rinsed off the bug’s guts, wiping his hand on his pants.
“There’s an orphanage as we head outta town.I’ve seen it before.It’s probly’ run by a church or somethin’.We’ll leave ‘em there, tell ‘em we’ll come back for ‘em when we can.Pip can’t hear a damn thing anyway, so Sutton’ll have to make him understand.”
He wasn’t going to tell Annie but he had no intentions of coming back for the children.He truly never wanted to be a father.He tried.He wasn’t cruel, he wasn’t abusive, but he also had no education and no desire to be tied to one place for very long.
Kids required work, lots of work and love he didn’t know how to give.He watched Annie with them and saw the love and attention she was able to give them.He wasn’t built that way.He just couldn’t.
When Pippen began having severe ear infections as an infant, the doctors at the free clinic all said they knew what to do.They said the boy was deaf already but he didn’t believe it.
Whatever they did left his son unable to hear.He was no help around the house, no use for gettin’ a job anywhere and just another mouth to feed.
He and Annie could start over. Go somewhere that maybe had good work and good pay. The orphanage took kids that couldn’t hear or speak. He’d asked someone in town, and they knew exactly where to send him.
He hadn’t told Annie but he’d had the free clinic snip him good.There’d be no more babies from him.
Annie leaned over the tiny body of her son, too small for his age.Roy picked up Sutton, holding his daughter close, surprised at the wave of emotions and sadness filling him.
Neither child woke, both exhausted and hungry, it was easier to stay asleep than wake and want what wasn’t there.
While they drove, Annie wrote a note in her broken print handwriting, with words misspelled, and stuck it in the small brown grocery bag she put the children’s belongings in.It wasn’t much, but it was theirs.When Roy rang the bell of the orphanage, a woman answered, smiling and nodding as he explained their situation.
“It’s alright, sir.We’ll take the children for as long as you need.We’ll need you to sign over rights in order for us to deliver medical care and such.”
“I-uh.Okay,” he said.
He didn’t want to tell the woman he could barely read and his chicken scratch signature wouldn’t be worth much.When they lifted the children from the car, Sutton woke, staring up at her father.
“Daddy?Where are we?”Somehow, somewhere deep in her small brain, she knew.She knew they had no money, no food, no home, nothing.
“Honey, your mama and me we gotta go find work in another state and we can’t afford to feed all of us right now.This place is gonna take care of you and feed you.We’ll be back in a month, maybe two.You just take care of your brother.”
Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at her father.She knew that he was lying.He lied a lot.It was usually to make Pip and Mama feel better but Sutton knew.
