Free Bad Moon On The Rise by Katy Munger Page B

here.”
     “ You found her?”
Alicia whispered. “She’s dead?”
    I nodded.
    She put her head down and held her
hands over her eyes and I could not tell if she was heartbroken or
relieved. I’m not sure she could, either.
    “ Are you okay?” I asked
her as kindly as I could.
    “ Could you be the one to
tell my mother?” She held out her house keys and would not meet my
gaze. “I don’t think I can.”
    “ Sure.” And why not? At
least my sympathy would be unpolluted by years of heartache and
frustration. 
    I entered the small house and followed
a hallway to a back bedroom. Sally was in bed, eyes closed,
surrounded by sunny linens and a sunflower comforter, her face a
startling dark brown against all that yellow.
    “ Sally?” I asked
tentatively.
    “ Come in,” she croaked. As
I drew nearer, her eyes focused on me. “It’s amazing what a
difference a few days can make, isn’t it?” she asked.
    “ I figured you were sick.”
I could not understand the conflicting feelings that warred inside
me. “I figured out a lot of things.”
    She tried to sit upright. Her wig was
on a stand on her dresser and her natural hair had come loose from
the bobby pins that usually clamped it tightly against her scalp.
It dangled about her head like gray wire mesh, giving her a wild,
almost barbarian appearance. “Come closer,” she
demanded.
    I inched forward cautiously. This was
Corndog Sally, after all. She’d swung a pocketbook at bigger people
than me—and connected. “What have you figured out?” she
demanded.
    “ I’ve figured out that
you’re dying,” I said quietly. “And that’s why you need me to find
Trey so badly.”
    She nodded. “Fair enough. I can’t let
go unless I know my grandson is safe. And I’m tired and I miss my
husband Mac and I want to go to him. It’s time for me to go, but I
can’t. Not yet. Can you understand that?”
    “ Yes.” I took a step
closer. “And I figured out you already knew Tonya was dead, didn’t
you? You knew that already.”
    She closed her eyes. She had known,
but not quite believed, and now had to face a bitter reality. “I
hired a private detective before you,” she admitted. “He told me
she was probably dead. Maybe he even knew for sure and didn’t have
the nerve to tell me. But you must understand that, in my heart, my
daughter Tonya died a long time ago.”
    “ Okay,” I said. “But
you’ve known who Trey’s father was for a long time, too, haven’t
you? That was why you came to me. Because you knew I’d have to find
the boy. For him.”
    “ I wasn’t sure you’d do it
just for me.”
    That hurt my feelings. “You could have
just asked me,” I said. “I would have done it for you. You could
have been upfront, Sally. You could have trusted me.”
    She peered at me through milky eyes.
“Miss Jones, I did not get this far, I did not live this long, I
did not survive the times that I survived by trusting white people.
That’s all I can say to explain. You will understand or you
won’t.”
    “ But you could have
trusted me,” I said stubbornly.
    “ I trust you now,” she
whispered fiercely, taking my hand. “Tell me you will keep looking
for him.”
    “ I have to tell his
father,” I explained. “I owe him that much.”
    She nodded. “Fair enough. Will my boy
be taken care of?”
    “ Better than you could
ever imagine,” I said. “I guess you don’t know his
father.”
    “ Only his name,” she said.
“Only his name and that he was a friend of yours. People tell me
that he was your friend.”
    “ He’s a good man,” I said.
“Trey will be more than well taken care of. He’ll have everything
he could ever want in life, including his father’s
love.”
    “ That’s if you can find
him,” she reminded me gently.
    “ I will find Trey,” I
promised her. “I will find him.”
    “ Are they waiting
outside?” Sally asked.
    “ Yes. Alicia and an
ambulance crew.”
    “ Have patience with her,”
Sally told me.