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“You don’t understand. After next week, I won’t have any sisters. Noney said some social workers came snooping around yesterday. She told them our Mama was out shopping, but they’ve heard that before. If Mama isn’t there Monday when they come back, they’re gonna take my little sisters and me away to God knows where.”
Adrienne was confused. “But you’re grown and headed for college. It doesn’t make sense.”
He shrugged helplessly. “Noney is the only one they can’t touch. I won’t be eighteen until the second week in January. They’ll put me in a group home until then. When Noney told me all this, I just had to get out of the house. I started walking to Manhattan, but I got tired. That’s when I tried to jump the turnstile.”
Adrienne was silent. LaMar in a group home! This was awful. Something had to be done. She wondered if her parents could give LaMar some advice or, even better, take him in. But what about his sisters? They were the light of his life. Adrienne had seen pictures of the girls. Noney was nineteen, Denise, twelve; Pam, eleven; Annie, nine; and the baby, Brenda, was seven. None of them had the same father. Their mother was a drug addict who had run off with her current lover and left them almost three years ago. Since then, the Jenkins children had kept to themselves, afraid that if any adults found out the truth about their home life, they would be forced to separate. Only Adrienne, and LaMar’s landlord, an elderly woman with a kind heart, knew their secret.
“How did this happen?” Adrienne asked tearfully.
“Brenda did it. She said something to a teacher yesterday about Noney crying cuz she didn’t sell enough reefer and was worried about the rent money.”
Adrienne started hugging him, but he pulled away. There was a strange look in his eyes. “Adrienne, I can’t do nothin’ for them, and I’m the man of the house.” He wiped a sleeve over his eyes.
Adrienne patted him on the back. “Let’s get out of here, LaMar. My parents and little brother will be back soon, and I know you don’t want them to see you like this.”
LaMar had a lot of pride. He stood up quickly. “No, I don’t. I’ll call you when I can.”
Adrienne shook her head. “I’m going with you.”
“Where?” he asked, throwing up his hands.
“To your house,” she said firmly. “I’ll talk to Noney, and maybe she
and I can figure this thing out. There must be something we can do.”
“I can’t let you see my house, Adrienne.”
“Don’t be silly, LaMar. I’m your best friend.” After the words came out, Adrienne realized they were true. LaMar had stopped being just a math tutor a long time ago. She had actually become quite fond of him over the past few months and often shared her girlish hopes and dreams with him while he hung on her every word.
“I’m going to get my graduation money and take it with me,” she declared, and ran into the bedroom to get it.
Grimly, the two young people set out for LaMar’s home in Brooklyn. Adrienne blinked back tears when Noney let them in. She was a tired-looking girl who looked Adrienne up and down as though she hadn’t seen clothes that weren’t ragged in a long time. Her manner was almost shy as she said hello and forced “the brood,” as she called her sisters, to do the same.
There was no sofa. “The springs busted a long time ago,” a solemn Annie told Adrienne, “so we threw it out in the alley.”
It was a three-bedroom apartment. Noney and LaMar shared one of the bedrooms. LaMar took Adrienne into that room, which was neat and clean and furnished with various odds and ends that Adrienne guessed had been scavenged from Dumpsters. The only whole piece of furniture was a bunk bed.
“The top bunk is mine,” LaMar said, “but Noney won’t mind if we sit on hers.”
Adrienne knew that even though LaMar had refused the free graduation lunch offered by her parents, he would never be selfish enough to turn away a gift for his sisters. So they sat on the lower bunk. “Call Noney in here and give her this,” Adrienne said. She opened her purse and removed a $50 bill, which she pressed into LaMar’s hand. “They all look hungry. Tell her to buy some food. How can you think straight if you’re hungry?”
LaMar kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
Adrienne heard whispered conversation, a lot of scampering around, and then LaMar came back. “They all went with her to the grocery store,” he said.
Adrienne couldn’t help the emotion that welled up inside her chest and rose up to close her throat. She had never known just how bad LaMar’s home situation was. She leaned on his shoulder and cried for him. When his tears joined hers, they lay down on the bed. One kiss led to another, and when his bony fingers undid the buttons on her blouse, she did not protest. When his hand cupped her breast, she didn’t have the heart to let him down. He kissed her deeply and unzipped her pants. Consumed with pity for the one person in the world who knew her deepest secrets, she let him undress her. He knew that it was Adrienne’s first time and tried to be gentle, but he was inexperienced, too, and he hurt her more than was necessary.
That night Adrienne told her parents the whole sad story of LaMar and his family. “Please, Mama, can he stay here until his birthday in January? It’s only seven months away,” Adrienne begged.
Surprisingly, they agreed. “The group home will only destroy a good kid,” her daddy said.
Since LaMar didn’t have a phone, Adrienne couldn’t call him that Saturday night to tell him the good news.
On Sunday morning, the Montgomery family piled into the car and went to Brooklyn. The door to the Jenkins apartment was standing open. The elderly landlord was just coming out of it. Something about the woman’s expression made Adrienne clutch at her chest. “I’m looking for LaMar,” she blurted out.
The old woman sighed sadly, and her eyes filled with tears. “The city paid them a surprise visit. A bunch of social workers and cops came and got ’em. I don’t know where dey gone.” The old woman had hunched her shoulders and shuffled back across the hall.
Adrienne’s jaw dropped as the full weight of what Lloyd Cooper was saying to her impacted her brain. Her legs felt wooden, and a feeling of dread coursed through her body as his eyes bored into hers.
