“Jeff said it was apartment 4B.” Doug’s eyes scanned the buildings. “There,” he said, pointing. “It must be that one right there.”
All eyes were on them as they got out of the car. Scarbrough locked the van that had the words “Sheriff’s Department” painted on the side. The sign and the uniform produced an instant aura of suspicion among the residents. Some stepped back into their open apartments. Clusters of people spoke in low voices, staying out of his way.
But he headed toward one of those clusters. Doug and Kay followed him at a distance. He asked about the children in 4B. “We’ve heard rumors they live up there alone. Any truth to that?”
“They have a mama,” a man said. “But I ain’t seen her in a while.”
A skinny woman with a bandana on her head spoke up. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her in weeks.”
“She’s probably laid up somewhere with a needle in her arm,” the man said.
Kay met Doug’s eyes. So the mom was a drug addict. That explained a lot.
The sheriff questioned a few other neighbors as they made their way to 4B. All confirmed that the mother hadn’t been seen in weeks.
“Not sounding good,” Scarbrough said as they reached their door.
“No, it sounds like Jeff got it right.” Kay glanced at her husband. His frown lines cut more deeply into his brow as they moved closer to the door.
Scarbrough was getting angry. “I ought to arrest the whole bunch of them for letting this go on. Four children, all alone. And when I find that sorry excuse for a mother …”
He banged on the door.
The curtain was snatched back from the window and a little girl looked out, apparently the three-year-old Jeff had described. Her face was dirty and her mop of curls was tangled and unbrushed.
No one answered the door, but the sheriff had seen the little girl peering out too. He banged harder. “Sheriff’s department, open up!”
The door cracked open then, and a small boy peered out.
He didn’t look much older than the girl, and his face was just as dirty. “We didn’t do nothing,” he said, looking fearfully up at the sheriff.
Behind him, a voice yelled, “Luke, I told you not to open it!”
Luke looked back. “But it’s the sheriff!”
Kay peered into the dark apartment and saw two older boys — perhaps the ones who’d broken in.
The oldest one came to the door. “Our mom’s not home,” he said. “She’s at work. But we didn’t do anything wrong.”
Scarbrough pushed the door open so they could look into the apartment. Kay took it all in. The place looked like the back room at a Goodwill shop, where people dumped their discards before they were sorted. The floor was covered with clothes and items of all sorts, and on the table she saw the bag of apples the boys had stolen from her house earlier that day.
A sewage smell wafted out of the apartment, making her want to cover her nose. She shot Doug a distraught look. This time, he returned it.
The sheriff led them inside, and the picture grew more grim — as did the smell. How could anyone live in conditions like this — much less children?
“Where’s your mama?” the sheriff asked.
“She’s at work,” the second oldest said. “She’ll be home late tonight.”
“Where does she work?”
“At Western Sizzlin’.”
Kay and Doug looked at each other. The Western Sizzlin’ hadn’t been open since the day the Pulses began.
Aaron saw the exchange and quickly corrected his brother. “No, that’s where she
used to
work. Now she works for that family in Birmingham. Cleaning houses. I can’t remember their names.”
That didn’t even make sense. Hardly anyone had cash for the bare necessities. Even the richest person in town was probably cash poor by now and wouldn’t spend what they had on domestic services.
“So why did the neighbors tell me they haven’t seen your mama in weeks?”
Aaron just stared at them. “They lie, some of them. They don’t know anything.”
Doug moved a box off a chair and sat down, putting his face on an eye level with the boys. “Look, kids, we’re not here to hurt you. If it’s true that you’re living here alone, we just want to help. Our son was here earlier, and he told us some things about you.”
Aaron swallowed. “We gave most of the food back. He said we could have the rest.”
“It’s not about that. We’re worried about the conditions you’re living in here, and how you’re getting food and water. Four kids shouldn’t be living alone.”
The little girl, thumb in her mouth, looked up at Kay. Despite her filthy face, Kay could see that she was a little doll. She smiled at the girl, who pulled her thumb out for a second, as if considering the small kindness. Then she shoved it back in.
“We’re
not
living alone,” Aaron said. “I told you that’s a lie.”
Scarbrough sighed. “Fine. Then tell us where we can talk to your mama, and we’ll leave you alone.”
There was a long pause, and all three younger children looked at their brother … waiting.
Emotions tugged at Aaron’s face, and for a moment, Kay wished they hadn’t pushed him into a corner. Defeat hung over him as powerfully as the apartment’s horrible smell.
“I don’t know where she is, okay? She left a while back.”
“Did she tell you where she was going?” Scarbrough asked.
“No. We’ve looked all over for her. Nobody knows where she is.”
Scarbrough let out a long breath, and suddenly the hardness went out of him. In a softer voice, he said, “Son, why didn’t you tell the authorities?”
His face flushed red. “Because I knew what you’d do. You’d want to put us in foster care. Only nobody’d wanna take all four of us. Sarah has bad dreams, and Luke walks in his sleep. I have to be there to take care of them.”
That was all it took for Kay to lose it. Her eyes filled with tears, and she stooped in front of the little girl and put her arm around her. The thumb came out again. “Aaron, I’m sure something can be worked out,” she said. “You know it’s not healthy for you to live here like this.”
“We live fine,” he bit out. “I take good care of us.”
There was pride in his voice, and she didn’t want to shoot it down.
“I can understand your fears,” the sheriff said. “Maybe I can keep you four together. We’ll see what we can do to make that happen.”
“Yeah?” Aaron cried. “Who do you think is gonna want to take in four extra mouths to feed when they can’t hardly feed theirselves? I know what’ll happen. When nobody shows up, you’ll
have
to split us up!”
He was right, Kay knew. That was exactly how it would happen.
Joey’s mouth curled as his own emotions took over. “We’ll run away if you do that!”
Sarah started to cry. “I don’t want to go! I want to stay here!”
Kay tried to hug the little girl, but she pulled away and went to Aaron. He stroked the child’s curls. “It’s okay, buddy. Don’t cry.”
“But I want to stay with you!” she wailed.
Kay looked at Doug. She saw something in his eyes, but it wasn’t compassion. How could he not be moved?
The sheriff cleared his throat. “Kids, all I can say is I’ll do the very best I can. But this is not negotiable. You have to come with me, period. You’ve broken the law, and I can’t let you keep doing it. No way can I let you stay here. I’ll try to keep you together, or at the very least place you in pairs, but at this point you’re lucky I’m not locking you up.”
Kay imagined her own children — what if, when they were small, they’d lived in squalor or been farmed out to foster care?
She looked up at Doug, her eyes pleading. But he wasn’t biting.
The words flew out of her. “We’ll take them!”
Doug’s mouth fell open.
“What?”
She got to her feet and turned to the sheriff. “I said, we’ll take them. All four of them.”
Scarbrough’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Are you sure?”
Kay saw the dread on Doug’s face. He had enough problems feeding the six of them. She knew what he was thinking: How would he feed four more?
But she was ready for a fight if it came to it.
“Kay, I know what you’re trying to do, but we’re not equipped — ”
“Doug, we have to take them. Just until the sheriff finds a home for them.”
“We got a home, lady,” Aaron said. “We don’t need anybody else messin’ things up.”
Kay sighed. “Aaron, you don’t have much choice right now. The only way you’ve been surviving is by stealing, and now that the sheriff knows, that has to stop. We’ll help you until your mother is found. Or a grandmother or another relative who can take care of you.”
Doug’s tension was growing. “Kay, that could be a long time.”
Her eyes flashed. “Doug, we are not leaving these children!”
He swallowed hard, then looked from one to the other of the urchins lined up before him, his struggle plain on his face.
But when he turned back to her, the struggle had turned to resolve. “All right. Let’s get them packed.”
Kay knew he wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t care. She would convince him later that it was the right thing. “Okay, come on, kids, I’ll help you get packed, and the sheriff can drive us home.”
“In a car?” Sarah asked.
“A van,” she said, smiling. “It’s one of the only ones in town that runs. How about that?”
Sarah jumped up and down, delighted at the interesting turn of events. But the three boys brooded. And when the sheriff found and confiscated their empty revolver, they looked even more distraught. Kay could see this was going to be a challenge.
She hoped her marriage was up to it.
D
ENI
’
S PARENTS HAD BEEN GONE WAY LONGER THAN SHE
’
D
expected, so the task of preparing dinner on their outside grill fell to her. The choices were slim, and the food Jeff had salvaged from the thieves would have to last. She had just started boiling six potatoes, one for each of them, when Brad next door brought several fish he’d caught that day. Her unbelieving neighbor didn’t even realize he’d been used by God today. She had quickly cleaned the fish and put them on the grill.
Three months ago, she hadn’t known how to boil water. Now she could bake bread, can vegetables, clean fish — and her father threatened that she’d soon be skinning animals, a talent she’d rather not foster. But a lot of good all those domestic skills did her, since she’d probably be fifty before she saw Craig again. By then, he’d probably be married to some cute intern. Deni hated her already.
“Smells good.” Jeff came out of the house, still filthy from working at the well. “I wonder if I should go looking for Mom and Dad. I’m getting worried about them.”
“Maybe you should. They may have gotten conked on the head in that neighborhood.”
The words were no sooner out of her mouth than they heard an engine turning onto the street. Since it was such a rare sound, one that usually meant bad news, she scooped the fish off of the grill and ran to see who it was.
It was the sheriff’s clunker van, pulling into her driveway. Her chest tightened. Was he coming with bad news about her parents?
She breathed in relief when she saw her dad in the passenger seat. “It’s about time,” she said as he got out. “Where have you been?”
Her dad opened the back door, and her mother got out. Behind her, a scrungy-looking boy filed out, followed by three other filthy children.
Her jaw dropped. “Dad, don’t tell me …”
Her mother flashed her an overbright smile. “Deni, this is Aaron, Joey, Luke, and Sarah. They’re going to be staying with us for a while.”
Deni wanted to scream. This couldn’t be happening. How had the burglary of their house turned into an opportunity to feed four more? “Mom, you’ve got to be kidding!”
Doug shot her a stern look, then turned to the children. “Are you guys hungry? Looks like Deni’s got fish.”
The four nodded, but Deni quenched the urge to remind them that they couldn’t be hungry since they’d probably pigged out on a couple weeks’ provisions they’d stolen out of her pantry.
Sheriff Scarbrough opened the back of the van and began unloading. There were bags of filthy, reeking clothes for the kids, and a couple of boxes. When he set one of the boxes on the driveway, she saw its contents. They’d brought back a few more of their jars of vegetables, but not all of them. That was probably her dinner hardening on the little ones’ faces.
Kay herded the children inside, as Doug and Jeff helped the sheriff unload. Deni grabbed her dad’s arm. “Dad, this is a joke, right? They’re thieves!”
“They’re abandoned children, Deni. They’ve been stealing to eat. They don’t even know where their mother is. She’s been gone almost since the outage.”
Okay, so they had a story. That didn’t mean Deni was responsible for them! Lowering her voice, she said, “Dad, we can’t feed them!”
“Tell it to your mother,” he whispered. “She’s dead-set on keeping them until we can find their relatives.”
Deni watched, stunned, as they unloaded more bags of stinking stuff. “Why do we have to take them?” she whispered harshly. “Do I need to remind you that they broke into our house today? They can’t be trusted. They might slit our throats while we sleep.”
He shot her a look. “Deni, they’re little kids.”
“I don’t care how old they are. They’re criminals.”
Jeff walked up behind her. “Get over it, sis. Mom did the right thing. They have to stay somewhere.”
“Why not with a neighbor?”
Her dad sighed, and she got the feeling that he’d already made the same arguments. “If someone at the apartments could have done that, they would have by now. But those people are in squalor. They don’t have gardens, they don’t have yards. I have no idea where they’re getting their water.”
She couldn’t believe it. “How long do we have to keep them?”
“Not long, I hope. I’ll start looking for relatives tomorrow. Meanwhile, God will provide, like he always does.” He nodded to the fish on the plate. “Looks like he already has today.”
Deni looked down at the fish. God
had
provided for them for three months. He’d even provided for her in her deepest stupidity, when she’d been on the road with a killer. She had surrendered her life to Christ on that horrible journey, and she was learning to trust him.