Chapter 14
We go visit Jason on Sundays after church. Mama stays up late the night before and cooks fried chicken, potato salad and fruit cocktail cake because it’s Jason’s favorite. Then we all pile in the car with food on our laps like we’re goin’ on a picnic. I hate goin’ there because I know that the chicken that rides down there on my lap will later stand straight up in my throat when Jason cries and begs Mama to please let him come home.
We don’t get to see where he sleeps. We have to meet him at the picnic tables in the middle of a tall fence. Jason cries when he sees us and by the time he stops its time for us to leave and he starts cryin’ all over again. Take my word for it, potato salad don’t taste so good when there’s a great big knot stuck deep down in your throat.
Drivin’ home, Mama always says that bein’ there is good for Jason, even though that’s not what he says. He cried and said the people are mean to him and they hurt him bad. I worry so much because he’s not big like other boys his age. He’s the same size as me! When I think about him scared and cryin’ I hurt so bad inside.
I do wonder if he gets whipped there. I don’t never ask him what he means when he says they hurt him. That way I can keep pretendin’ that it ain’t nothing real bad. Just like I keep pretendin’ that he only cries when we’re there. That’s what Mama always says when she’s smilin’ on the way home.
