After reading it, Ms. Pendragon looked up at me. “Ms. James, you’ve been called to the office.”
“For what? I haven’t done anything.”
Mrs. Pendragon held out her hand with the note, waiting. I huffed again as I stood up and walked over to grab the pink slip of paper, not even glancing at it as I left the classroom.
“I do not believe…” Mrs. Pendragon said.
Mickey murmured something I couldn’t really make out.
I was only a few steps down the hall when Mickey caught up to me.
“She actually let you leave?”
He shrugged. “I convinced her you needed moral support.”
The lady at the office told us to go the guidance counselor. It turned out to be the same guy who’d given me my school schedule a week ago.
“Ms. James. It is an honor—” Mr. Hayes began. Mickey cleared his throat. “Oh. Oh, yes. I, uh, we have, that is to say. Um.”
Mickey cleared his throat more forcefully. The counselor jumped.
“Your caseworker is on the phone and wishes to speak with you. She has indicted that my presence during the conversation would be appreciated, although she was hesitant to explain the details.”
I stared. “She wants you to monitor our phone call?”
Mr. Hayes’ eyes widened as he darted a glance to Mickey and back to me. “Not monitor, per se. I believe she requested my presence with the idea that I would play a supporting role.”
He glanced at Mickey and then quickly back to me. “If that pleases you, Ms. James.”
If that pleases me? He talked like some chivalrous knight out of a medieval movie. “Um. Yes?”
The guidance counselor nodded and ushered us behind the receptionist and toward his office. He offered me his phone on outstretched hands. I almost expected him to kneel like a knight would when offering something to his queen. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
I gingerly picked up the receiver, eying him for any sign that he was messing with me—a quirk of a smile, a glint in the eye. But no, nothing.
I cleared my throat, bringing the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, Kella.” Deena’s voice was subdued as she continued, “I got some information you should know about and I didn’t think it should wait until my next home visit. I was gonna tell you when you got home, but Ms. Reid didn’t feel—well, she thought your school counselors might be better at this sort of thing,”
“Counselors—why? Wait, is this about Caleb? Is he okay? He’s not getting worse, is he?”
“No, honey. Caleb’s…”
Something was wrong—I could hear it in her voice. It had to be Caleb. Tears beaded at the corners of my eyes.
“What’s going on? What’s happened to Caleb?”
“Honey, this ain’t about Caleb. He’s doing okay right now, I promise. It’s your daddy.”
“My dad? Then Caleb’s okay?”
“Yes, honey, he’s stable.”
I took a deep breath. She was telling the truth.
“But your daddy…” Deena trailed off.
“What? Let me guess, one of his ex-girlfriends posted bail.”
“Kella, he’s dead.”
I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat.
“Dead?”
“Yes, honey.”
It took me a moment to process the word “dead”—like it was some complex math problem that my brain kept stumbling over. “Dead” wasn’t a thing I’d ever connected to Cory James before. To Caleb? Yeah. But my dad—he was the bogeyman, the ever-present bad guy shutting down anything I was trying to do with my life. Yeah, I’d wished he were dead sometimes, but it was more in a wishing-unicorns-existed kind of way. To have him really, permanently gone… I didn’t even know what to think.
“What happened?” I meant the question to come out strong, but my voice squeaked.
“They’re not sure on that. The, uh, cellmate said your dad had some visitor and when he came back to the cell…” The line went silent. “Honey, you sure you wanna hear this? Dead is dead and…”
“I do.” The words came out strangled.
More silence.
“Really, I do. I’m fine.”
“Okay, hon.” Another pause. “Far as they can tell, your daddy grabbed a shiv from his cellmate. They had a fight over it—the camera caught all that. But the cellmate says your dad fell on it. On purpose.”
“On purpose,” I echoed.
“They, uh, they don’t know yet. They said they’re waiting on some reports.”
A few moments passed, punctuated by the ticking of the guidance counselor’s clock.
“Okay,” I said.
Deena drew in a ragged breath. Static crackled as she exhaled into the receiver.
“One more thing, honey. About your momma.”
My heart thumped in my chest, like it knew what she was about to say before I did. I looked at Mickey, but he stood staring at the blank wall beside us.
“We found out—they told me…” Another burst of phone static. “She died twelve years ago.”
Blood rushed from my face to my toes and I wobbled on my feet, like someone who’d just taken a punch in the gut. And I had. My mom. Yeah, I didn’t know her, but I’d always hoped that, I don’t know… That she’d come back one day, telling us our dad had lied. That she hadn’t just abandoned us when I was three. That she had some really, really good reason for not coming back for years.
I wanted to scream, to cry all at once. Instead, I asked, “How?”
My voice sounded distant to my own ears, like it’d come from someone else’s mouth. The room seemed to evaporate before me as my brain worked overtime, trying to hold back my emotions long enough to figure out what this all meant for me. For Caleb.
After a pause, Deena said, “Drug overdose. I’m sorry, Kella. I’m real sorry.”
My emotions roared to life, growing into a fiery inferno and burning all of my well-hidden fantasies and hopes—things I’d tucked away from even myself—to ash.
There would be no red-headed, smiley mom to swoop in and save the day, to take me out of foster care and into a real family. No mom to sit next to me at Caleb’s bedside, waiting for him to wake up. No dad I could scream or curse at,
