The hair underneath looked like baby dreds at first, but it wasn’t quite that. It was regular braids that had been chopped off at some point. Maybe to look more like a boy out on the streets, Bree thought. In the close quarters of the front hall, it was obvious this one hadn’t known a shower in a long time either.
“What’s your name?” Nana asked.
The girl thrust the tan leather purse out at her. “I’m sorry, okay?” she said, not sounding very sorry at all.
Nana let the bag hang there between them. “I didn’t ask if you were sorry. I asked what your name was.”
“Ava,” she grunted out. Then she set the purse on the newel post and looked at Bree. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I? Can I go now?”
But Nana wasn’t done. She still had the floor. “Tell me something, Ava, and that’s a beautiful name, by the way. What was the first thing you were going to buy with my money?”
“Huh?”
“Huh is not a word. What I want you to tell me is why you needed to take my purse. I got knocked down for it. I think I deserve to know why.”
Bree was almost starting to feel sorry for the girl now. Ava’s face was like a stone mask, but one tear had escaped down each cheek. She scrubbed them off with her sleeve right away.
“I dunno,” she finally said.
“Well, if you don’t know, then you can’t go,” Nana told her.
The girl’s jaw dropped open. “Say what?”
“That’s what I used to tell my students,” Nana said. “I was a teacher, see, about a hundred years ago, maybe more than that. It seems to me you need some time to come up with a better answer.”
The tears were coming faster now. “I never done anything like this before!” Ava blurted. “I swear!”
“That much I can believe. She was just hanging out in the square when I found her,” Bree said.
Nana turned away from both of them and headed toward the kitchen.
“Come on, Ava. I’m going to make some tea with milk. And from the look of you, I don’t suppose you’d mind a sandwich.”
Ava didn’t move, but Bree noticed she wasn’t angling for the front door anymore, either.
“I don’t drink tea,” she said sullenly.
“You do if I make it!” Nana said, and she disappeared on the other side of the swinging kitchen door.
IF BREE HADN’T called to give me the lowdown, I would have been caught completely off guard. Apparently, Nana had taken in a stray that afternoon, and the girl was still there when I got home after a long day of bureaucratic nonsense.
I could hear everyone talking — and laughing — as I came onto the back porch, but they all went still when I stepped into the kitchen. It was like something out of an old Wild West movie.
Jannie and Ali were at the table with the other girl, whose name was Ava. The kids all had plates of lasagna in front of them, but Ava was the only one eating right now. In the silence, I could hear the dryer running downstairs, and I recognized the old Bob Marley T-shirt she was wearing. It was something Damon had left behind when he went away to boarding school.
“Alex, this is Ava,” Nana told me. Despite the bandages, my grandmother didn’t look too much the worse for wear and tear. In fact, she looked a little smug.
“Hi, Ava,” I said.
“Hello.”
Ava didn’t look up and kept eating with her elbows jutted out on either side, like she expected someone to take her plate away at any second.
Jannie and Ali both sat up tall like a couple of meerkats, watching to see what I’d do next. I wasn’t quite sure myself.
“Nana, could I speak with you in the living room?” I finally said.
“I’m an old woman, Alex.”