Page 32 of The Other Side of Green

“I couldn’t sleep.”

She tutted her tongue. “Or eat by the looks of it. All that delicious food yesterday, and I’m betting lil’ miss didn’t eat a bite of it.”

I had no answer to give. How could you eat when your stomach resembled a crushed origami crane?

“Waffles,” she stated and yanked me in through the door.

I didn’t want waffles. I wanted Grams’ things—which I didn’t know why they were here in the first place—and then I wanted to get the hell back to the house so I could sit and stare at a wall for a few hours.

That was the limit of my capacity.

“I see your college has been in the news?” She nodded to the ancient television. The pixelated and fuzzy picture showed the library steps at Berklee.

I swiped at the cold sweat that sprung on my skin with the back of my hand. “Oh.” Squinting, I looked into the top left corner of the screen to see what channel the set was on. Fuck. Three letters of a major news channel hovered with a blur.

“Quite the news.” Patience waved for me to sit down, but my legs didn’t want to move.

“Mmm.” Good, nice and non-committal.

“Your Grams would be there brandishing her stick. “Y’all back away from my girl.” She chuckled deep in her throat and then coughed.

I offered a faint smile before her words really registered. “How do you know they’re talking about me?”

“Well.” She poked a bony finger at a kitchen chair, and I sat down without question. “Me and your grammy, we talked a lot.”

Too much, I wanted to say, but decided better against it.

“I know. You were best friends.”

“And she told me about the day of your interview. Said she didn’t know what in hell was wrong with you, but she hoped you’d snap out of it before you all but ruined your future.”

Tears stung my eyes and Patience waited, scrutinizing me with dark and sharp, round eyes.

“So what ya gonna do about it?”

I looked up. “Me? Nothing. I don’t want to be part of any race row, and I’m not exactly what you’d call a model citizen.”

This wasn’t the whole truth. I’d been stewing on it since. It had nothing to do with the Collins racist fascists and their twisted games. It had to do with the fact I hated I’d turned up at college already knowing I would fail.

That place should never have been mine. I couldn’t play. I’d only got the place on account of the color of my skin.

My skin, which it now seemed had hues of unexpected Latino.

“Did Grams ever talk about when I was a baby?” I changed tack, though not quick enough to hoodwink Patience. She settled down in the chair opposite mine, all promise of waffles forgotten.

“Of course.”

“Like did she know who my father was?”

Patience’s face gave nothing away. Her skills at hiding truths were on a par with Grams, which put them at the same level as Nazi spies. “Let me get her box.”

“Box?”

“Yes, of things. This is why you came, isn’t it?”

“Sure. Box, right.”

A box.