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Deborah rose and embraced him, cradling his head from behind.
He clutched her wrist. Ruby pulled her legs beneath her on the padded chair and leaned her head against Mason’s arm. She was crying, too. Deborah slung her other arm around her, and they hugged as a family of three.
Feeling intensely out of place, Evan stood. “Better get ready for tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” Deborah asked.
“If Ruby was threatened,” Evan said, “it’s likely that the people around Angela Buford were threatened as well. Someone’s scared about what might come out.”
“Buford’s from Mattapan,” Deborah said. “There’s a reason they call it ‘Murderpan.’”
Evan said, “I’m not gonna get the answers I need in Wellesley.”
“I want to go with you,” Ruby said.
“No,” Evan said.
“You said you’d stay with me.”
“That’s true,” Evan said. “But it …”
“What?” Deborah asked.
“It doesn’t work this way. That neighborhood’s not safe for her.”
“You said you could protect her.” Mason had produced a handkerchief and cleaned up his face. “No matter what.”
“That’s true. But—”
“She’s a capable young woman,” Mason said. “And this is what she wants. Are you here to help her? Or not?”
34
An Overwhelming Sense of Déjà Vu
Ruby beamed in the passenger seat of Evan’s purloined rental car. “I’ve never been to Mattapan.”
After leafy Wellesley the blocks here looked even more dilapidated. Dense streets crammed with triple-deckers, a few mid-century split-levels, and homes with peeling vinyl siding, barred windows, and sagging porches on the verge of decomposing into overgrown weeds. A few burned-out houses, a number more boarded up with mortgage-foreclosure signs nailed to the doors likeMARTIN LUTHER’S NINETY-FIVE THESESminus the reformist optimism.
Turning onto Blue Hill Avenue, Evan was hit with a familiar sense of vibrancy and agitation. A number of beautiful former synagogues had been repurposed as Haitian Baptist and Black Pentecostal churches. Mom-and-pop shops advertised rent-to-own furniture, hair braiding, and pay-per-minute cell phones. Caribbean women with headwraps ushered their children along uneven sidewalks. Middle-aged men with dreads sucked off-brandcigarettes. Teens congregated in clusters, their baggy pants low-slung. Gang signs and love letters encoded as graffiti-embellished walls, sidewalks, billboards, and even one unfortunate street dog.
It was a hood not unlike the one Evan had grown up in. Different cultures and currents but the same muddy-rich water he’d pulled himself out of. He felt more comfortable here than in the arid atmosphere of Wellesley.
For the past few blocks, Ruby had gone speechless, a not-unwelcome development, staying focused on the fearsome new world revealing itself beyond her window. A homeless man emerged from an alley without pants, his teeth rotted to tiny nubs. A girl who couldn’t have been older than seven watched her younger siblings play in a cracked wading pool devoid of water. She held a baby on her hip with maternal dexterity, his diaper sliding down. An ancient boxy Jaguar glided by, the hood rusted, bass booming from woofers. Painted on the driver’s door in black:Is there a problem, officer?The dude slumped in the passenger seat smiled at Evan menacingly, gold grill gleaming. When the Jag accelerated away, the modified engine sounded like it might rip a hole in the fabric of the universe.
As the noise faded, Ruby said, “I can’t believe this is a half hour from my house.”
Joey’s words swirled around in Evan’s head, and he felt his hackles go up. He’d had dozens of foster brothers representing an assortment of shades and stations. Remembering the First Commandment, he sought to clarify. “It’s dangerous,” he asked, “having people like this close to your neighborhood?”
“No,” she said. “It makes me so upset. No one’s taking care of anything.”
“A lot of people here,” Evan said, “take care of a lot.”
“I’m not saying that. I mean …” She struggled to grab the tail of a thought. “Did you see that little girl back there?” Her eyes misted. “Taking care of all her siblings? And all those moms alone with their kids …” Her anger felt thin, a veneer to hold in more complex emotions. “Why aren’t they getting real help? It’s just … as an empowered woman? It pisses me off.”
“It should piss you off no matter what you are.”
She held her hand to her mouth and stared out the window some more. The sights were no more uplifting.
