Stealing Home Read Free

his daddy, too. Now he really was an orphan. The strong arms that he’d imagined holding him vanished. The shiny car. The home in Chicago …
    “There’s more, I’m afraid,” Miss MacNeill went on. “Your grandparents, your father’s parents, have also passed away. They were living in Kansas City, but a car accident took them three years ago.”
    Grandparents
. As soon as she said it, a memory arose in Joey, one that had been buried for years. Two blackfaces smiling down at him, warm arms holding him against a soft chest, mingled smells of lilacs and starch and hair oil.
    “What a shame,” Mrs. Webster said, shaking her head. “They were good folks, your grandmama and grand-daddy, Joey. You know, they wanted to take you when your mama and daddy started … going downhill. But your parents wouldn’t let them.”
    They’d wanted him.
    But they were dead. So that possibility, only just remembered, was gone. Tears started to Joey’s eyes. He clenched his teeth not to cry.
    Mrs. Webster rose, enfolding him in her arms.
    He jerked away. “Leave me alone.”
    Then it hit him. Newark. That was only over the bridge in New Jersey. His grandparents had an excuse, but his daddy had been living right nearby all those years, and he’d never got in touch with him and Mama, never come to see them. Never played with his son, never helped out during the bad times, when Mama was shooting the drug into her arm. His daddy hadn’t cared. Not about Mama. Not about him.
    “I hate him!” His fist flailed out and knocked over a can of pencils on Miss MacNeill’s desk. The pencils clattered to the floor. Joey wished he could break every one.He wished he could find his daddy and kill him all over again. “I’m glad he’s dead.”
    “Joseph Sexton, how can you say such a thing!” Mrs. Webster scolded.
    Joey tossed his head. “He didn’t care about me. Why should I care about him? Now I got no family –”
    “But Joey, you do!” Miss MacNeill broke in.
    Joey looked up. Miss MacNeill was smiling. “That’s why I called you here. I wanted to tell you right away, but … Please sit down.”
    Joey sat, feeling a shiver of excitement.
    Miss MacNeill riffled through the papers in the file. “When the police released your mother’s things a few weeks ago, there was a bundle of papers, including her birth certificate. And guess what, Joey – her maiden name wasn’t Green, as we thought, but Greenberg. And I’ve found your mother’s family – her father, sister, and niece – alive and well and living in Brooklyn. Isn’t that wonderful?”
    Mama’s family! Joey never knew Mama had any family. Why… they’d be his family. He had one after all! For a moment, hope flared in his chest.
    Then it died right down. “Greenberg?” he said suspiciously. “How come Mama never told me her name was Greenberg? How come she changed her name?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “How come she never talked about them? How come they never came to see us?”
    Miss MacNeill looked serious. “I don’t know, Joey. I’m sure there were reasons.” She brightened. “But that’s not important right now. The important thing is, I spoke to your grandfather, Mr. Sam Greenberg, and to your aunt, Mrs. Frieda Rosen – she’s your mother’s older sister, Joey. She’s a widow; her husband died in the war. And she’s very anxious to meet you and welcome you into their home.”
    Welcome you into their home.
    Mama’s sister. His aunt. His grandfather. He hadn’t even known they existed.
    “A girl?” he said. “The kid?”
    Miss MacNeill consulted her notes. “Yes. Roberta, her name is, and she’s your age, Joey. Just turned ten in April. A couple of months older than you.”
    “Won’t that be nice, a cousin to play with?” Mrs. Webster said.
    Joey snorted. “Who wants to play with some girl? She’s probably all prissy, like the girls in my class. Rather have a boy.”
    “Even so, isn’t it swell to discover a cousin you never knew you