Louisa Meets Bear Read Free Page B

mother wondered if she should ask more, but child care was not on her list of questions and it seemed like prying to inquire further. “Well, maybe we should start,” she said. Clearing her throat, she began reading aloud the lines typed under the heading “Instructions to Participant”: “These are all questions about family relations—how you and your family work as a unit. Answer them as honestly and completely as you can. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers.”
    Jackie rubbed Brandon’s back with her free hand. Denise sucked on the fuzzy key-ring ball. “What’s relations mean?” Jackie asked.
    My mother struggled to find a way to explain. “You know,” she said, “it’s like relationship, how people get along.”
    Jackie looked bored already. “Sounds okay. I’m just gonna put the baby down first.” Jackie got up with Brandon and walked toward the back of the apartment. The music stopped and then my mother heard the familiar rattling of crib rails lifting.
    When Jackie returned, she took the cigarettes out from her shirt pocket, turned the pack over, and tapped another one out.
    â€œAll righty,” my mother said, embarrassed at how unnatural her voice seemed. (Something about the way that all righty came out, my mother told me, sounded like the Mr. Rogers imitations your brother used to do. Do you remember? He’d tease you, going on and on in that singsong voice, until you were so overexcited you’d start to cry or pee in your pants.) “Could you list for me the members of your family?”
    Jackie took a drag on her cigarette and blew out three silvery rings. “Well,” she said, “there’s my gram and my two sisters, but they’re both out of the house. And then my brother, but we’re not sure where he’s at.”
    â€œAnyone else who lives here?”
    â€œNo. Sometimes my uncle sleeps over, but that’s not too much. And my kids.”
    Jackie looked at Denise. Her face softened. She really is awfully pretty , my mother thought about Jackie. As though sensing the shift in her mother’s mood, Denise went over to her. She rested her head on her mother’s knee. Jackie leaned down to pick up the child. She cuddled Denise in her lap.
    When my mother finished writing down what Jackie had said, she moved on to the second question. “Who do you turn to when there’s an emergency?”
    â€œAn emergency,” Jackie repeated.
    My mother could hear Brandon starting to cry. For a moment she thought about telling Jackie that probably he needed a clean diaper after having drunk that bottle, but then she realized that Jackie would, of course, know this.
    â€œHold on.” Jackie put Denise down on the chair and walked to the back.
    My mother looked over at Denise. She was reaching a hand toward Jackie’s still-burning cigarette.
    My mother jumped up. “No, no. Cigarettes aren’t for children.” She put out the cigarette and carried the child and the soggy key ring that had slipped out of her mouth over to the couch.
    The crying stopped and Jackie returned.
    â€œI put out your cigarette. I was afraid Denise would burn herself.”
    â€œThanks.” Jackie patted her shirt pocket and pulled out the cigarette pack. She turned it upside down, but nothing came out. “Shit.” She covered her lips. “Pardon my filthy mouth.” She sniffed, wiggled her nose, and looked around the room as though willing more cigarettes to appear.
    â€œYou mind if I run to the corner and get a pack?”
    My mother wondered if it was against the rules for her to be in the apartment without Jackie, but it was hard to think of what or whose rules and it seemed silly to say no. “Sure,” my mother said. “No problem.”
    Jackie took a jacket from a nail near the door. When Denise spied her mother with her hand on the bolt, she wailed. “You stay