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“Coffee cake, even if she doesn’t remember much these days.”
“Oh? Why not?”
Mom always has all these stories about people. It’s soothing to listen to her, half-turning my brain off, as she prattles about neighbors in Destiny, and here in St. Louis, and people she met at work, and in the homes and hospitals she visits. Her memory of people is phenomenal.
“She got sick. Alzheimer’s. Progressed pretty fast, too. She doesn’t remember who I am, or where she is on most days.”
“Oh no.” I stop, inexplicable sorrow filling me for this woman I don’t know. “That’s so sad.”
“It is. Such a nice lady. Helped me so much when we first moved here. She had me over for coffee with the other neighbors every Saturday.”
“She was our neighbor?”
“Lived down the street. You know, people said it wasn’t a good neighborhood, that gangs ruled it, but my memories from that time are good.”
Gangs. Jarett.
Of course Mom knew all our neighbors. What if she knows what I need to find out? “Mom—”
“Jesus, look at the time!” Mom grabs more boxes and piles them up on the table. “Help me pack them up, Gigi. Janet is picking me up any moment now.”
“Okay, but, Mom.” I help her pack up the cakes, then place them inside cloth bags, my frustration mounting. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“What, honey? Can it wait? I’ll be so late.”
“Yeah, sure.” We load the cakes in the back of the car in a frenzy, Janet, one of Mom’s friends, talking on her phone the whole time and glancing at us through the rearview mirror.
I wouldn’t ask Mom about Jarett, if she remembers him and if she knows anything about him, with this lady in her beehive hairdo listening in.
After I watch them drive away, I head back to the house, feeling defeated.
Who can tell me about Jarett? There’s no one left… except Jarett himself.
Chapter Sixteen
Jarett
“You’re sick again?” Suzie asks over the phone, the buzz of the bar filling up with customers loud in the background. “Jarett…”
“I know,” I say, turning away from Mav and Angel who are talking in low
voices at the street corner. “I know, okay? I’m sorry.”
“I can’t keep covering for you. What’s going on?”
What am I gonna tell her? Gang business? We’re about to rob a store, and I’m the lookout?
Hell.
“You’re gonna lose the job if you keep doing that, Jarett,” she says, and actually sounds sad. Fuck me… “You know that, right?”
“Yeah. Thanks, girl, I appreciate it.”
“If this is about your mom, you just come out and say it,” she goes on. “No need to lie to me.”
My blood goes cold. “My mom? What do you know about her?”
“Sorry, was that a secret? You once said she’d had a couple of bad days, and I figured she’s sick.”
