Between, Georgia Read Online Free Page A

interpreted, hardly aware of what she was saying. The gun pressing into Stacia’s belly was a black beast in her peripheral vision.
    “It means I’m deaf,” Genny interpreted. “I was born deaf. And it means my eyes are going. I’ll be blind in another ten years, fifteen if I am lucky. The edges are closing in already. It’s dark beside me, like shutters are being drawn. At some point my depth perception will go, and I won’t be able to work anymore. I’m a sculptor; I make molds and cast dolls in porcelain. That’s my work. So I’ve lost my sweetheart. And I’m losing my work. And here’s this baby.
    “This baby is mine. You brought her to this house, and she slid into my arms. No one is going to call your mama, because no one is going to take this baby from me. Frank is gone, my work is going, and I’ve been asking God, ‘Why does my heart keep beating?’ And you brought me the answer. Don’t worry about Bernese. She won’t do a thing to take this baby out of my arms.
    She’s going to help me keep this baby. Once she sees my side—and she’s seeing it now—she won’t worry about what’s practical or legal or even what’s right. She’ll make it happen. I’ll take this baby, and you can go home. Home or anywhere you like.”
    Stacia looked hard into Hazel’s eyes and signed, and Genny said, “But if you shoot me, Bernese is going to have to call your mama.”
    After a long moment, Hazel’s arms dropped, pointing the gun down into the carpet. She sagged, and Bernese ran the last few steps up the hall and caught her before she slumped into the glass. Bernese peeled the gun out of her limp hand, flipped the safety on, then set it carefully back on the table.
    “Help me,” said Bernese, and Genny darted forward, panting, and together they lifted Hazel out of the glass and half carried her back to her pad of old sheets and towels.
    “All right, then,” said Bernese. “Let’s make sure you haven’t ruptured anything. What a mess.”
    Hazel closed her eyes. The sun was rising, spilling pale light across the lawn. Stacia turned and shut the front door. After a few minutes, Bernese got up from between Hazel’s legs.
    “You look okay,” Bernese said. Her gardening shoes were sitting by the front door, and she slipped them on and crunched into the glass. She picked up the phone.
    “Bernese!” said Genny. Hazel’s eyes flew open and she started crying again, making piteous mewling noises deep in her throat.
    But Stacia smiled and shook her head, meeting Bernese’s eyes with a cool and level gaze.
    “Don’t get your pants in a bunch, Genny,” said Bernese. “I’m calling Isaac.” She added to Hazel, “That’s my lawyer, so stop with that fuss. You sound like a kicked cat.”
    Bernese dialed from memory and stood waiting for the phone to wake up Isaac Davids.
    “It’s me,” she said when he answered. “Yes, I know what time it is, but this is an emergency. You need to walk down here, quick as you can . . . I know, but pull some pants on and hurry down.
    Stacia needs us to help her steal Ona Crabtree’s grandbaby.”

CHAPTER   2
    WITH SUCH A loud beginning, small wonder I grew up to be a person who studies silence. The Fretts and the Crabtrees spent the better part of my childhood chafing hard against each other at the point where they connected, and I was painfully aware of it because that point was me. I was barely out of diapers when Ona Crabtree found out I was her grandchild and appeared on our front lawn, drunk and howling for me.
    Bernese ran out to meet her with equal force and volume; I was only three, but their enmity was obvious, and I understood enough to realize I was somehow the heart of it. The brawl on my front lawn trained me to look for and interpret the subtler signs that told me how deeply my adopted family despised my birth family and vice versa.
    I was raised in my mother and Genny’s quiet, well-ordered house at the end of Grace Street, playing with my boy