Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail Read Online Free Page B

that Jackie couldn’t afford to spend much on a child, but it seemed to her that nowadays children had too much. Her California cousin’s children had a room full of expensive stuffed animals that they never played with. Jackie’s house was a modest brick ranch dating back to her second marriage. She cleared out her sewing room for Tobrah. Jackie’s uncle and aunt let her have an old twin bed they weren’t using, and at yard sales she found toys and furnishings. She collected hand-me-down clothing from friends. Baby talk didn’t come naturally to Jackie, and she stood around awkwardly at store counters and in checkout lines while people burbled enthusiastically to the little girl, as though she were a pet on a leash. They actually said she looked good enough to eat. Being seen with Tobrah, Jackie began to feel an unfamiliar pride. People asked the typical questions: “Whose little girl are you?” and “How old are you?” and “What grade are you in?” Jackie, who was guilty of asking kids the same kinds of questions, had never before realized how trite they were. Yet they were real and important questions. Whose little girl are you? she wanted to know. Where did you get that hair?
    Sometimes in the night, Jackie heard Tobrah stirring and thought of prowlers, then remembered. One night she awoke to find Tobrah curled close to her. The child had waited until Jackie had gone to sleep before crawling in with her, as if she didn’t want to reveal her need. There was so much Jackie wanted to know. What did Tobrah’s mother look like? Did her father love Tobrah? Did he buy her Christmas presents, play dolls with her? When Jackie was small, about Tobrah’s age, her father came home once after a weekend trip to Tennessee. She had waited eagerly all day, and when she was exhausted with the excitement of waiting, he finally appeared. He had forgotten to bring her a present. He had promised to bring her a souvenir with the name “Tennessee” written on it. When eventually he left for good, she was glad. Her mother encouraged her to forget him.
    Jackie pieced together a few facts about Tobrah. She couldn’t read. She had never been to preschool but had been to some kind of day-care facility, a large place where hundreds of children lined up for ice-cream bars in the afternoons. They napped on mats. The woman in charge had “fuzzy hair, big glass eyes, and a fat butt,” according to Tobrah.
    â€œDo you miss going there?” Jackie asked one morning a few days after their return from Oklahoma. Jackie was getting ready for work—her bereavement leave was over. Bereavement was a joke, she kept thinking.
    Tobrah kicked her feet against the kitchen-chair rungs. She was eating cereal straight from the box. “It smelled like bad soap.”
    â€œI have a surprise,” Jackie said. “I have a place for you to go while I’m at work. It’ll be nicer than that place in Oklahoma.”
    â€œI don’t want to go.”
    â€œYes, you do. It’ll be fun.”
    â€œThey won’t say my name right.”
    â€œWell, people around here have a different accent from Oklahoma. They don’t always pronounce things right. You’ll have to be patient.”
    Tobrah disappeared into her room. When Jackie went to get her, she found that the child had made up her bed like a polite guest and placed her doll and bear on the pillow. The bedspread was crooked though, and the sheet trailed to the floor.
    â€œDon’t you move till I get back,” Tobrah said to the toys.
    When Jackie left Tobrah at Kid World, she wondered what a mother would feel, letting go of her child like this for the first time. During the day, she thought about Tobrah’s parting glance. She seemed calm, not afraid or shy, as if she were used to being dumped somewhere strange. At the end of the day, Mrs. Fields, the day-care director, told Jackie that Tobrah had