With a cry Graves whirled around, grabbing for the hilt of the blade, reaching for Joy. She danced away from him, backing out of the kitchen even as her mama collapsed.
Later, Joy would not remember running out of her apartment and banging on the other doors in the hallway. She did not recall Miz Darla open the door wearing her head scarf and housecoat; how she washed Joy’s hands and face with lukewarm water. When the police came to take her away, Joy noticed the small bloody handprints marking every door on the fourth floor.
She was taken to a foster home, a couple called the Grays, who looked like they sounded: thin and bled colorless by the four kids they housed. Her mother was allowed to visit her once a week. She showed up only once, and Joy begged to be taken back. Her mother said this wasn’t such a good time, and that’s how Joy realized that Graves was still living in their apartment.
Her mother never returned.
Joy went to three other foster homes just that first year. The Grays’ biological daughter bullied her, and when she finally decked the girl, she was placed somewhere else. She loved her second home, but the couple moved out of state because of the father’s job. At the third home, one of the other foster kids—a thirteen-year-old named Devon—made her touch him places she didn’t want to, and threatened to say she was stealing from the foster family if she didn’t.
By age ten, Joy was a husk of the girl she had been. When she cut her wrists at age eleven, it wasn’t because she wanted to kill herself. It was because she wanted to feelsomething,even if that was only pain.
Staring at Janine all these years later, Joy sure as hellfelt. She felt volcanic anger—for having been born to a parent who couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of her. For being judged by a stranger who acted holier than thou. How dare she think Joy was selfish, when in fact, she was being selfless—knowing she didn’t have the resources to raise a child, giving up the one person who might love her unconditionally?
“I was in foster care for ten years,” Joy said. “Trust me. There are not people lining up to adopt the children other parents don’t want.”
“If you didn’t want to get pregnant then why did you…” Janine’s voice trailed off.
“Have sex?” Joy filled in.
Because I was lonely.
Because I wanted to.
Because I wanted fifteen minutes where I was the center of someone’s world.
But Joe, bless his heart, had neglected to mention that he was already married.
The fourth week he came through Jackson, Joe told her that he and his wife had been having problems for a while, and that she had finally accused him of having an affair. For one beautiful, breathless moment Joy had imagined the rest of her life—one in which Joe admitted that he was in love with Joy, chose to be with her, lived happily ever after. But he had come to say goodbye.
It was good,Joe said.To get everything out in the open.
He had looked at her with his beautiful eyes, which no longer reminded Joy of seas she might travel, but of pale glaciers, an ocean of ice.
I should have told you. I would have if…His voice trailed off.
If what?Joy thought. What condition had to exist for her to be loved?
We’re going to Belize. Some place Mariah found that’s off the grid, so that we have nothing to do but talk. I’m taking a two-week leave of absence from the bench.
Mariah,Joy thought. That’s her name.
She thanked God for her prescription for Ortho-Novum.
A few weeks later she discovered she was one of the 9 percent of women who still got pregnant while using the Pill.
She had not let herself think about Joe. Telling him about the pregnancy might have been morally right, but to what end? He had made it clear that it was over.
But now, she gave herself a hiccup of space to imagine where he was at this moment, and what he was doing. She wondered if he had heard the news about a shooter at an abortion clinic. She wondered if she would be a casualty, if when the victims’ names were read by a reporter, he would grieve.
“You want to know why I had sex?” Joy repeated. “Because I made a mistake.”
“Babies are born flawless. They deserve the world.” To Joy’s surprise, Janine started to cry. She reached for Joy’s hands. “Babies are born flawless,” she repeated, “and they deserve the world. I’m not talking about…what you did today. I’m talking aboutyou. I’m sorry that you got stuck in foster care. I’m sorry you didn’t feel safe. Just because you didn’t get that protection doesn’t mean you were born any less than perfect.”
Joy had not cried the night she stabbed a man.
She had not cried when she was taken away to a foster home.
She had not cried when she was told her mother had died of a broken neck after an “accidental” fall.
