Lila and Hadley by Kody Keplinger

Author:Kody Keplinger [Keplinger, Kody]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

On top of sending letters every week, Mama keeps calling. Every. Single. Night.

After she first picked me up six weeks ago, Beth had to call a special number on her cell phone and set it up so Mama could make calls to her from the jail. I told her she was wasting her time. That I wasn’t gonna talk to her. But Beth did it anyway, and now every evening, right at dinnertime, her phone rings.

“Hi, Mama,” Beth says after waiting through the automated voice at the start of the call. “Yeah, it’s me … I’m doing all right. How are you?”

It’s weird hearing Beth talk to her, even after all these weeks. At first, it had seemed like she didn’t know what to say and was just filling the silence until she could get off the phone. Now, though, Beth seems more comfortable. She always spends the first few minutes of every call telling Mama about her job or Vanessa or plans she’s made with her friends. I don’t know if that means they get along now or what. And I don’t know how I feel about it, either.

I don’t gotta think about it for long, though, because after a few minutes, Beth pauses and says the same thing she does every single night:

“Yep. Hadley’s right here. Let me ask her.”

Then she turns to me. The first few times, she asked if I wanted to talk to Mama. But after I said no enough times, loud enough I knew Mama could hear it on the other end, she stopped asking. At least with words. Now she just looks at me and waits.

Tonight, though, when Beth turns to look at me, I’m already leaving the room. As soon as the phone started ringing, I went to rinse off my plate in the sink. Beth usually makes me do the dishes on nights when she cooks, but I can do them later. For now, I’m going to my room, and Lila is following close behind.

I hear Beth sigh as she says, “Um, she’s busy right now, Mama. She’s … she’s doing some training with Lila … Yeah, that’s going pretty well. She’s real good with the dog, already made some good progress with her … Uh-huh, she’s still doing that mobility training. She’s getting lots of practice with her new cane.”

I grit my teeth and shut the bedroom door behind Lila and me so I ain’t gotta hear Beth talk about me anymore.

I guess there’s a limit on how long they let you talk on the phone when you’re in jail, because Mama’s calls only last about fifteen minutes. But tonight, when Beth gets off the phone, she comes to my bedroom door. And for once, she knocks and waits to come in.

“Hadley,” she says from the hallway. “Can I come in a minute?”

“I guess.”

I’m sitting on my bed, holding one end of a short rope toy as Lila, standing in front of me, tugs on the other. Lila hadn’t really shown any interest in toys until Beth brought this one home a few days ago.

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