“It’s open,” Jenny answered. It wasn’t exactly an engraved invitation, but Joanna opened the door and eased herself into the room. Guided by the shadowy glow of a night-light, Joanna crept over to the rocking chair that had once belonged to Butch’s grandmother.
Joanna settled herself in the old rocker, which emitted a loud squeak as she put her weight on it. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly.
“No.” Jenny flopped over on the bed. Even in the dim light, Joanna could see tears glistening on her daughter’s cheeks. “I hate Grandma Lathrop!” Jenny whispered fiercely. “I don’t care it I ever see her again!”
Joanna was taken aback by the ferocity in her daughter’s voice, by the burning anger tears hadn’t begun to extinguish. “I’m mad at her, too,” Joanna said quietly, “but I know Grandma Lathrop didn’t mean any harm. I’m sure she had no idea your friend would he hurt.”
Jenny sat up. “Dora Matthews is not my friend,” she declared. “I don’t even like her, but she doesn’t deserve to be treated like that. That woman grabbed her and threw her into the car. It was like an animal control officer dragging a stray dog of to the pound.”
It wasn’t the time to point out to Jenny that animal control officers were only doing their thankless jobs the same way the (;PS caseworker had been doing hers. For once, Joanna managed to keep quiet and let her daughter do the talking.
“Why couldn’t Dora have stayed here with us?” Jenny demanded. “She wasn’t bothering anybody or hurting anything. She did everything the Gs said, like clearing the table and emptying the dishwasher and even making her bed. All she wanted to do was go home and be with her mother, the same way I want to be with you. She said she’s already done the foster-care thing and would rather be dead than go through that again.”
“I don’t doubt that foster care can be pretty miserable at times,” Joanna agreed. “But surely Dora didn’t mean she’d rather be dead. She’ll be fine, Jenny. I promise. Girl Scout’s honor.”
Suddenly Jenny erupted out of her bed. In a single motion, she crossed the space between her bunk bed and the rocking chair. Jenny had shot up more than three inches in the last few months. There wasn’t enough room for Joanna to hold her daughter on her lap. Instead, Jenny knelt in front of the rocker and buried her face in her mother’s lap. For several minutes they stayed that way, with Jenny sobbing and with Joanna caressing her daughter’s tangled hair.
Finally, Jenny drew a ragged breath. “Why did Grandma have to go and do that?” she asked with a shudder. “Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone? We were doing all right. The Gs wouldn’t have let anything bad happen to Dora.”
Joanna had to wait a moment until her own voice steadied before she attempted an answer. “I don’t like what happened either, but there’s a good chance Grandma Lathrop was right,” she said carefully. “Dora’s mother has evidently been running a meth lab out of their house. Do you know what that means?”
Jenny shrugged. “Not really,” she said.
“It means that the house had illegal drugs and potentially dangerous chemicals in it. The people who are up there now, cleaning it up—the DPS Haz-Mat team—arc doing it in full hazardous?material protective gear. Those chemicals are dangerously explosive, Jenny. II the house had caught lire, for example, Dora and her mother both might have been killed. They shouldn’t have been living in a place like that. It’s irresponsible for a mother to raise a child in such circumstances.
“That’s what society means when they say someone is an unlit mother. Considering what they found in Sally Matthews’s house, I think there’s a good chance that’s exactly what will happen she’ll be declared an unfit mother. She may even go to jail. In other words, Dora Matthews would have ended up in foster care anyway, sooner or later. Grandma Lathrop fixed it so it happened sooner, is all. I’m sorry it had to be tonight, and I’m terribly sorry that you had to be here to see it happen.”
“But even if Dora’s mother is a bad mother, Dora still loves her.”
“That’s right,” Joanna agreed. “And I understand exactly how she feels. When I first heard about Grandma Lathrop calling CPS, I was really upset, too—just like you are. But Eleanor’s still my mother, Jenny, and I still love her.”
“And I love you,” Jenny said.
For the next few minutes, as they sat together, with Jenny resting her head in her mother’s lap, Joanna was glad Jenny couldn’t see her face. If she had, Jenny would have seen that her mother was crying, too.
