I FOUND ALTHEA in the cafeteria. At this time of day, the cafeteria was mostly empty, although the odors of gelatinous gravy and burned coffee hung over everything. A fat middle-aged man sat in the corner, his face in his hands. From his posture, he might have been crying. A white woman sat on the other side of the room, absently stirring a cup of coffee, a piece of chocolate cake untouched before her.
Althea clutched her own cup of coffee. A pile of newspapers spread across the table. She had pushed aside an orange tray. It was covered with empty plates. Apparently she hadn’t had lunch until now.
I slipped into the chair across from her. “Okay,” I said.
“How is Lacey really?”
Althea’s eyes lined with tears. She wiped at them angrily. “When I was sixteen, a white boy grabbed me on the beach, hit me against some rocks, and then I couldn’t fight back. I didn’t smile for a year, maybe more, and all I did was read. When Franklin met me, he thought I was so quiet, but before that, I was never quiet. I laughed all the time and was loud, and—dammit, Smokey. Damn.”
I folded my hands. I wasn’t surprised, although I wanted to be. It seemed like so many women I knew had a story like this one. The stories made me feel helpless.
She wiped at her eyes again. She wasn’t looking at me.
I couldn’t quite imagine a different Althea. The person she described sounded like Norene. Her youngest daughter wasn’t an anomaly. She was a miniature version of her mother.
That thought made my heart literally ache.
“How is Lacey?” Althea grabbed a napkin and bent it over her forefinger. “How is Lacey? How do you think she is? Does she look the same to you?”
“No,” I said.
Althea used the napkin to dab her eyes. “She’s not. She never will be.”
“At least you understand.” The words hadn’t sounded patronizing when I thought them. When I spoke them, they did. I wanted to take them back.
But Althea didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, Franklin doesn’t understand,” she said, “and I’m trying to keep him from doing too much damage.”
The damage had been done by Voss. But I didn’t say that. I knew what Althea meant.
“Does Franklin know about you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “And you’re not going to tell him either.”
Other people’s secrets. I was always keeping them.
Sometimes it was hard to keep track of who knew what.
“Let me ask my question differently,” I said softly. “Has the doctor said anything new since yesterday?”
“She’s going to be able to have children,” she said. “That much he’s sure of. But, God, Smokey, what if she’s pregnant now?”
“We’ll deal with it,” I said. “Whatever she chooses.”
“God.” She slapped her hand on the table. The dishes rattled and the white woman looked at her. The fat man didn’t seem to notice. “God.”
I wasn’t sure if I should respond.
“I’m sending my kids back there,” she said. “Every day, I’m sending them back there.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m not happy about it either.”
She picked up a section of the newspaper in front of her and shook it at me. “This morning’s Chicago Tribune says that eighteen thousand kids are taking an exam to get into the Catholic schools on Saturday. Eighteen thousand. I’ll bet those are all white kids. And those kids, their parents can pay tuition. Or maybe they can’t pay, and they’ll get a scholarship that no one’ll give to black kids.”
“You don’t want Lacey to go to a Catholic school right now,” I said.
“That’s not my point.” Her voice had gone up even farther. The white woman leaned back in her chair. The fat man bowed his head, resting it on his arms.
“Where’s Lacey going to go, Smokey? She’s thirteen. She needs school, and I can’t send her back there. I can’t. I can barely send the other kids there, and even that…”
She let her voice trail off. She shook her head, then wiped her forehead with her right hand. Then she tossed the newspaper on top of the others.
“I’ve talked with Laura. She’ll help,” I said.
“Charity.” Althea hissed out the word. “I have to take someone’s charity because I can’t provide for my kids. Who are going to live the same damn life I did. It won’t get any better.”
I had no idea what to tell her. My thoughts had gone along the same lines all day.
“I’m going to shut that hotel down,” I said.
She crumpled the napkin into a ball. “And then what? Another will crop up in its place. And another. Plus we have the gangs now and the drug dealers and all that stuff on television telling the kids to tune out or drop in or whatever they say.”
She set the napkin delicately on one of the plates. Her hand was shaking. “I’m so scared for her, Smokey.”
“She’s not going to go through this alone,” I said. “She has you. She has Marvella, if you’ll let her help. And I’ll do what I can. I’m not good with the comforting part. But I can take care of the people who hurt her.”
“People,” Althea said. “You mean there was more than one?”
“He worked for someone else, Althea. It was an operation. I’m finding out who ran it. I told you this morning. I’ve already dealt with him.”
She clutched at my hands. Her fingers dug into mine. “If you need me to do something, you just tell me. I can fire a gun.”
I put one hand over hers. The last thing I wanted was an angry, bitter Althea beside me with a gun.
“You take care of your daughter,” I said. “You don’t think of anything else.”
“I mean it,” she said. “If those people need to be removed —”
“You’ll take care of your daughter,” I said. Althea wasn’t exactly rational about this. She was seeing the crime through the prism of her own attack, which she clearly kept secret. “You’ll trust me to do what I need to do.”
“You’ll tell me what happened, right? So I know?”
I ran my hand over hers, trying to calm her as best as I could. She wouldn’t like what I was about to say.
“I’ll tell you when I’m finished,” I said. “That’s all. You have a family. You have people who need you. We can’t risk you.”
“Jimmy needs you,” she said.
He did. And I would be careful. “You’ll be there if I’m not, right?”
I was gambling on a non-relative to take care of him. Either the Grimshaws or Laura. I didn’t like that feeling anymore.
This crisis had gotten to all of us.
“Of course I will,” Althea said. “Jimmy’s like our own now.”
“Good,” I said.
“You’re not going to let anything happen to you, are you, Smokey?”
What could I promise? That I would try? That I wouldn’t do what she had just asked me to do? That I would ignore the hotel and the people who ran it?
“I’ll be careful,” I promised.
I just wasn’t certain careful would be enough.