Shadow Baby by McGhee Alison

Author:McGhee, Alison [McGhee, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780307462596
Publisher: Random House LLC
Published: 2009-09-15T07:00:00+00:00

Crystal and Johnny live in a two-person family. I live in a three-person family—Tamar, me, and Baby Girl—although Tamar would disagree.

Tamar would say, “It’s you and me, kiddo. Get it through your head.”

Johnny Zielinski was in his booth coloring in a coloring book. You might think that because he’s fifteen, Johnny’s too old for a coloring book. You would be wrong. Coloring helps to improve Johnny’s coordination, which is not good. He falls quite a bit. He has a hard time with a pen or a pencil, so Crystal keeps a mug filled with giant crayons in his booth. Johnny will color for an hour or more at a time. Many’s the time I’ve watched him.

“Hello, Mr. Kominsky,” Crystal said. “Hello, Ms. Winter.”

“It’s not Winter,” I said. “It’s winter. Lowercase w.”

Crystal gave me a look.

“And how do you know I was saying it with an uppercase w?” she said.

“I can tell.”

“You’re right. I did say it with a big W.”

“I know you did.”

Crystal said nothing about my bare feet, which were covered with Band-Aids but still oozing blood.

“Mr. Kominsky?” Crystal said. “Do you prefer your name spelled with a lowercase k?”

“He doesn’t care,” I said. “Big K is fine.”

“I was asking him,” Crystal said.

“Big K is fine,” the old man said.

How would he have known? How would the old man have had any idea whether a big K was fine? He couldn’t see the words scrolling by in the bottom of his head the way I can. He had no idea what the difference between a big K and a little k is. All he could do was listen for the difference, and the listening difference without the seeing difference is so tiny as to be naught.

We sat down in the booth next to Johnny’s booth. He was coloring with a giant red crayon held in his left hand. The old man took the star cookie cutter out of his shirt pocket and put it on the table in Johnny’s booth. The sun shone in the window and sparked off the shiny metal. Johnny put down the red crayon and picked up the cookie cutter. He swung it from the tip of his finger. He laughed in his own particular way, which if you didn’t know better you’d think was crying.

Crystal brought over two hamburgers and two milkshakes. She set down a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of mustard. The old man gave her the bunch of scallions wrapped in wet newspaper.

“Thank you, Mr. Kominsky,” she said. “I will put these to use in the tuna salad.”

Was Crystal Zielinski the old man’s friend? Did she know he couldn’t read? Did the old man love Johnny Zielinski? These are the things I wonder about now that the old man is gone. I remember that day and I wonder.

“Do you love Johnny Zielinski even though he can’t read?” I said.

It was a day when I could not stop myself. The words kept flying out of my mouth and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

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