Excerpt from True Believer by Virginia Euwer Wolff, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

and yet it is still the face of Jody from back then.
I get out of the elevator at my floor
and I lean on the wall,
my heart too loud for comfort
and my brain not so level either.

8.

I get my whole breath back
by the time my mom comes home.
She is not struck dumb by the news.
She reminds me what I was not paying attention to
when I was a kid, the reason why they left:
Jody's mom moved them away
to try to get Jody a better chance in life.
"That woman, she's exhausted, she's drained,
cleaning dirty houses day in, day out,
Jody's all she's got."

I make comparison with Jody's mom and mine
but it is not the same at all. My mom never
cleaned other people's houses.
She would not live such a beat down life,
she just would not.
"Well, they tried, she couldn't pay that higher rent,
she got farther behind all the time,
and...." My mom plunks her paperwork on the counter,
reaches over and rubs a sponge around the sink,
lets her breath out in a huff.
"...and here they are, back again."

She says in her emphasizing voice:
"She was the first one when your dad died.
The very first one.
She come up here with a casserole,
she brought Jody along,
she stayed with me the whole night."

That is all a fog to me. Maybe I didn't notice him,
so confused as I was.
I'll never know how my mom made it through that time.
"You be nice to Jody, LaVaughn.
They don't have it easy."

So that's the way it is about Jody.
And she's telling me to be nice to him.
Does she not even know what Jody looks like?
I look at her flat as a plate, no expression.
I say Sure, I'll do that.

Jody's back just in time to start the new school year.
My heart is clunking.

Copyright © 2001 by Virginia Euwer Wolff