Banished

much less someone my age.

“Yes… Clover, your mom, she was very shy. She didn’t really have many friends at school. And nothing like a boyfriend.”

So she was like me, then. I knew what it was like not to have friends. “But maybe Gram knows something.”

Prairie pressed her lips together for a moment as though trying to figure out what to say next. “If she knows, I’m afraid she’ll never tell.”

“Why not?”

“I know how hard it is to live with Alice,” Prairie said gently. “I… remember. She doesn’t have the power that she wishes she had, and the way she is… it’s left her angry and bitter. Maybe even unable to love anyone. I think it was hard on your mother, harder than it was on me. Clover was sensitive, and sometimes I think it bothered her more when Alice was mean to me than when she did something to her. I just… steeled myself, I guess. I decided a long time ago I wouldn’t let her hurt me, and for the most part it worked.”

I knew what she meant, though I didn’t say it. You told yourself her words were nothing. When she refused to talk to you, you reminded yourself that you didn’t care. You shut off the part of your heart that wanted a mother, a grandmother, and you made it through by remembering every day that she couldn’t hurt you if you didn’t let her, if you didn’t make the mistake of caring too much.

My mother hadn’t been able to do that.

“Whose child is Chub?” Prairie asked.

I felt my face get hot. “We got him from one of Gram’s customers. He’s Gram’s foster child.”

“For the state money,” Prairie said thoughtfully. “Right?”

I nodded, surprised that she figured it out so quick. “Yes, but I think she also wanted him to be like… a project. Something she could fix. He has, um, problems? I mean, he’s slow. He’s really great and all, but he isn’t really developing as fast as he should be.”

I felt disloyal saying it. I waited for Prairie to say something mean about him, to make some careless criticism, and I was ready to hate her if she said the wrong thing. But she just nodded, her eyes sad. “He seems like a sweet boy. You take very good care of him. That must be hard.”

“No.” The word came out harsher than I intended. “I mean, I don’t mind. It’s not hard, it’s fun.”

I didn’t tell her how Gram had acted different for a while, after she applied with the state. I didn’t want to admit that I’d been dumb enough to hope things had really changed during that brief time when Gram kept the house clean and cooked real meals and didn’t do any business out of the cellar. That I had almost believed she could change Chub.

“Do you know his real name?” Prairie asked gently.

I stared at my plate. “No. Just Chub.”

I’d thought about changing it. Charlie, I’d suggested to Gram, but she’d laughed and said she guessed he had a good enough name already. And the thing was, Chub knew his name, he answered to it. I figured he had enough confusion in his life that we didn’t need to go adding any more.

“That’s fine,” Prairie said. “What about a last name?”

“Gram knows it, but she never let me see any of the papers,” I said. “She just says he’s a Tarbell now.”

Prairie nodded. She had that look again, the one I was pretty sure meant a lot of thinking and figuring was going on.

The waitress came with our dinner, and I dug in. I couldn’t believe how good the steak was. Tender and buttery and salty-the best thing I’d ever tasted.

Prairie barely touched hers. She sighed and sliced off a tiny corner and slipped it into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed, but it looked to me like she didn’t even taste it. As hard as she was trying to seem calm, I could tell she was uneasy, almost frightened. I wanted to know why.

I set down my knife and fork. “Why are you here? What do you want from me?”

Prairie looked me right in the eye-something hardly anyone had ever done-and took a deep breath.

“I’m taking you with me,” she said. “You can’t stay here with Alice anymore.”

My heart did a little flip at her words. Leaving-even if it wasn’t the way I planned, even if it was with a stranger-the thought was almost irresistible. I wanted to say Okay, fine, let’s do it. To hell with school, with the stupid Cleans who’d made fun of me forever. To hell with our falling- down house, the weedy yard, the long walk to the grocery. Anywhere would be better than here. I was tempted to say “Sure, let’s go right now,” before she changed her mind.

Instead, what I said was, “I can’t leave Chub.”

Prairie didn’t look surprised. She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin and set down her fork.

“Look,” she said, “I’ll admit I hadn’t planned on Chub. I was actually hoping to leave tonight. This complicates things a bit-but we’re still leaving. We’ll just go a little later than I planned, and we’ll take him with us.”

She said that last part kind of fast as I started to protest.

“But-but what about-”

She held up a hand to stop me. “Try not to worry. I want you to let me handle the details. At least for now. Okay? Look, I know you probably aren’t sure about me yet, and you may not completely trust me, and that’s-that stands to reason. It does. I understand. But I just-I’m not doing this lightly, Hailey. After you get to know me a little more, you’ll understand that I don’t take anything lightly.”

The way she said that, it sounded like a promise, but even more than a promise. Like something she’d worked hard to convince herself of and now she’d do anything to keep it true.

“I can’t just-”

“You can.” Prairie reached across the table and patted my hand, but I pulled away from her. “I have… resources that I’ll tell you more about later. I have some money. We can stay the night at the house and you can gather up a few things-not many, just one small suitcase. And we can’t let Alice see you packing. She doesn’t know. I told her that I was moving back to Gypsum so I could be closer to you. I told her I was going to look for a house here in town.”

“You told her…?” There was no way Gram would believe that. There was no way anyone would believe a person would come back here to live if they had a choice. “I don’t have a suitcase.”

“A box, then. Whatever you and Chub need, we can buy.”

“And then what? Where would we go?” I knew it was crazy. But it was so tempting to believe in Prairie, in what she said she could do.

“I don’t want to say just yet,” she said. “I know I’m asking a lot from you, Hailey, but I promise you that soon I’ll tell you everything. Right now I just need to focus on getting us all out of here. And you need to help me make Alice believe what I told her. Do you think you can do that?”

I didn’t say yes-but I didn’t say no, either.

CHAPTER 10

WHEN WE GOT HOME, I saw that Gram had made a few plans of her own. Dun Acey’s truck was pulled up in the yard, the back fender hanging a little lower since the last time I’d seen it, the result of some accident that had probably been worse for the other guy.

Prairie pulled the Volvo into the yard about as far away from the truck as she could.

“Whose truck is that?” she asked, voice neutral, but I could hear the tension underneath her words.

“That’s Dun Acey.”

“What a surprise,” she muttered, as if it was anything but.

“You know him?”

“I knew some Aceys.” She said the name like it was poison.

She walked ahead of me. I let her, glad to have a buffer between me and whatever waited inside.