“My melon’s cut in such a way that it forms an almost perfect rhomboid. You have the self-control to pass up rhomboid melon?”
“I do.”
“I do not.” She took a bite and he groaned inwardly. “Did you grow up in Misty River?”
“I was born in Chicago. My mom brought me to Georgia when I was five.”
“Was your dad in the picture?”
“No.”
“Not ever?”
“No.”
“What was your mom’s name?”
“Denise.”
“Why did Denise move you from Chicago to Georgia?”
He hated talking about his pre-Coleman childhood years, and yet he didn’t want to say no to her. About anything. “The spring before I started kindergarten, my mom felt pressured to make a decision about our future. She didn’t want to stay in Chicago, but she also didn’t want to move me around a lot after I was in school.She started looking for a new place to settle, where we could both be happy for a long period of time.”
“Why did she choose Georgia?”
“She loved nature and wanted a warmer climate. She applied for work up and down the southern section of the Blue Ridge range and got a job here.”
A bee buzzed close to Leah. Sebastian brushed it away.
“What did you think of Georgia when you arrived?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I liked it. On her days off, we’d go to the lake or a river or a waterfall.”
“What happened to her?”
A memory split into his head, and he saw his mother lying in front of him, with just days to live. When she’d gotten too sick to work, the two of them had moved into the apartment of the old lady next door, who’d been grumpy and, at the same time, soft-hearted enough to take them in. At first they’d shared her guest bedroom. But then, when Mom had worsened, hospice had placed a hospital-type bed in the old lady’s living room for her to lie in.
For her to die in.
Every day he’d taken the bus home from school, then stood next to that bed. The apartment smelled faintly of cigarettes, even though the old lady had quit years before. A dark brown recliner and a sagging corduroy sofa were lit by two ugly matching lamps on end tables. The white porcelain lamps had been painted with orange and brown flowers, and Sebastianhatedthem and every single other thing about the lady’s apartment and his mom’s health and his life.
“Were you nice to your teacher today?” Mom had asked, looking right at him with sunken eyes.
“Yes.”
She smiled affectionately. “No you weren’t. Did you try your best?”
“Yes.”
“No you didn’t.” Mom was still trying to tease him the way she always had. “I can tell that backpack you just set down is empty. You didn’t bring any books or your homework home.”
This ain’t my home, he thought.
“How do you expect to pass second grade?” she asked. “By learning through osmosis?”
He didn’t know what osmosis was. And he didn’t care about passing second grade. His mother was skinny and pale and getting weaker every day. Gut-wrenching fear had consumed every inch of mental space he had.
Sebastian refocused on the present, on Leah. “Ben’s told you my story, right?”
