“You do that,” she says, picking up the remote and flicking the channels.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Don’t stop now.”

“When you got older, did you ever confront him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause he’s a good pretender, too.”

“Why didn’t you or your sister just report him?”

“To who?”

“The police.”

“He was the police!”

“I know that, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t go to jail.”

“You really believe that shit?”

“Oh, you just watch and see,” I say.

She looks at me like she believes me. “Mama said me and my sister woulda ended up in foster care if somebody hadda believed us. And we wanted to stay together.”

“Look, do me a favor, JaDonna. Tell your mother I said thanks for her time, and you try to take good care of yourself.”

“I will,” she says. “Mama wasn’t even going to no Ross store.”

“No?” I say as convincingly as I can.

“Hell, no. She ain’t got nothing on hold nowhere. She beelined it outta here ’cause she was scared a what you really came here for. I mean, it ain’t like you drop by to kick it with us all the time, now, do you?”

“No I don’t.”

“Look, before you go, would you mind grabbing me a beer out the ’ frigerator and then make sure you pull that front door tight, or else it won’t lock, and Lord knows I do not feel like getting up to do it.”

“No problem,” I say, and head out toward the kitchen to get her beer. Before I get back, I wipe the smirk off my face. It was no accident that Arlene sent us those Christmas cards. And Arlene knew JaDonna would tell me the truth. Because she couldn’t. She’s probably been waiting a long time for her daughter to tell her story to the right person. For a moment, I’m tempted to hang around just to wait for her. To let her know that I appreciate what she’s done. That I understand how hard it’s been for her all these years. But I know she won’t come back until my car is gone.

When I get back to the room, JaDonna has actually sat up. She has on a light-blue sweatsuit. I feel so sorry for her. She looks like a giant baby. And that’s when it occurs to me that I haven’t seen any sign of her child. “Where’s your daughter?” I ask.

“In foster care,” she says. “Where else?”

I turn to leave, and when I get outside the front door, I pull it so tight that I actually scrape the knuckles on my hand against the doorframe. I look up and down the street. A new set of children are racing. If Jimmy were here, he’d walk right over and ask if they’d like to try running on a real track. On a team. He would tell them that they look fast enough to win medals. Even if they weren’t he’d make them believe they could. I wish he were here to help me believe that all of this is going to work out.