“We’ll put you in the children’s home, and everything’s going to be just fine,” Mrs. Penn added, nervously rubbing her hands like they had pine pitch on them.
The woman was more than just gray-haired and wrinkle-faced with age. She was addled by coldness. How could someone tell these children that everything was going to be fine when they’d just been informed that their mother was dead and their father was in jail. Perhaps the latter was a good thing, but the children might not see it that way.
These poor babies were going to find life as difficult as it had been for me. Maybe even more so. Being the child of a murderer had to be even worse than being dumped in the middle of the town square wrapped in banana leaves and nothing else.
Little Carlo was still clinging like spider webbing. I tried to free myself from his hold but had no success. His fingers rewrapped faster than I could unpeel him.
“Here, I’ll take the little fellow,” the woman said, as she strode over to me.
At that, Carlo’s wails went up a pitch. His howls took on the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard. I sprouted goosebumps. He honestly felt like wet plaster against my chest, and with the increase of volume and the nose slobber on my shirt, I felt my own legs starting to buckle.
I collapsed in the dirt, tugging Carlo into my lap. I’m not sure he noticed. The hold on me didn’t lessen an inch, and the wet simply crawled further up my shirt.
“Go do the house thing,” the officer ordered Mrs. Penn.
Apparently seeing that Carlo was being taken care of, Frances manned up and prepared to follow Mrs. Penn back into the shack.
“I’ll be back in a minute, Carlo,” Frances assured his brother as he charged forward, attempting to keep up with the woman’s rush to get this over with.