“You know, sometimes good people do stupid things and go to prison,” Aunt Zee said. “Not everybody in prison is bad.”

“Like who?”

I thought she would say Mommy, and I would know she was a liar, but she said, “Sir Gentry.”

“Sir Gentry is in prison?” I didn’t know knights could go to prison, but it made me sad, because I liked him.

“Yeah, that’s why Leon is our dog, because Sir Gentry is in prison. But he’s still a really good person.”

“Did he do something bad?”

“Yes and no. He broke the law, but he was trying to do something good. It just didn’t turn out right.”

That scared me, because what if sometime I tried to do something good, but it didn’t turn out right, and I had to go to prison?

That first time, we didn’t go see Mommy. Instead we drove home, took Leon for a long walk, and ate pizza.

I thought maybe we wouldn’t have to go again, but my next Saturday with Aunt Zee, we went to Topeka again. I yelled at her, and even though I didn’t want to cry, I did. She gave me like ten tissues out of her purse, because I snotted a bunch.

“Did you get it all cried out?” Aunt Zee said, when we got to Mommy’s prison.

“I don’t wanna go.”

She was quiet for a long time, and I hoped she would start the car like last time, but she put the car keys in her purse.

“Ten minutes,” she said. “We’ll go in and sit with your mom for ten minutes. You don’t have to talk to her or anything else, but I want you to spend ten minutes. After that, we can go to the rain forest, okay?”

“What rain forest?” I said. Because there aren’t any rain forests in Kansas. Those are only in South America.

“The Topeka Zoo has a rain forest. The website says they have toucans and snakes and giant bats. If you’ll go see your mom for ten minutes, we can spend the rest of the day at the zoo.”

“Okay.”

She said ten minutes, but we walked through all the chain-link fences, and down sidewalks and hallways. There were policemen and police ladies, and Aunt Zee had to give them paperwork, and we walked through a big machine that scanned us, and then we waited in a hallway for a long time. None of that counted for our ten minutes.

Finally, one of the police ladies said, “Visitors for LaReigne Trego-Gill,” and that meant we could go into a room that looked like the cafeteria at school. Aunt Zee took my hand and we walked across the room to a table, where there was a lady in a gray sweatshirt with short brown hair. She was crying and Aunt Zee hugged her, but I didn’t know why until the lady said, “Marcus, baby. I’m so glad to see you.” It was Mommy, but she looked different. Not just because her hair wasn’t blond, but because her face looked fatter.

“Come give me a hug,” she said, but I hid behind Aunt Zee.

At the other tables, there were more ladies in gray sweatshirts talking to people. There were other kids, too, and I wondered why their moms were in prison.

“Just give him a minute,” Aunt Zee said. After she sat down, I stood next to her so she would put her arm around me.

“How’s school?” Mommy said.

“Okay.”

“Just okay?”

I nodded.

“Mom says you got a dog, Zee.”

“His name is Leon,” I said.

“What kind of dog is he?”

“Big and ugly.”

“He’s a pit bull,” Aunt Zee said and rolled her eyes at me.

“But you always say he’s big and ugly.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what kind of dog he is. That’s how he is.”

“I don’t care if he’s big and ugly. He’s a good dog.”

“Yes, he is,” Aunt Zee said.

“He’s part my dog, too. And part Sir Gentry’s dog.”

Mommy glared at Aunt Zee. Then she said, “Did you bring some money for the vending machines?”

“Do you want something?” Aunt Zee said.

“I thought Marcus might want a pop.”

“Can I, Aunt Zee?”

“Sure.” She got out her change purse and dumped a bunch of coins on the table. Then she leaned over and whispered to me, “Will you ask your mom if she wants something?”

“Do you want something out of the vending machine?” I didn’t look at her when I said it, though.

“No, baby. All I want is a hug.”

I didn’t answer her.

Aunt Zee slid the coins off the table into my hand and said, “Get whatever you want.”

I walked all by myself to the other side of the room where the vending machines were. I could have run there—I was a fast runner—but I walked as slow as I could. Heel, toe, heel, toe. I put the coins in as slow as I could, too, using up all the nickels first, because the longer I took, the quicker the ten minutes could be over.

CHAPTER 60

Zee

   When I was recuperating from my motorcycle wreck LaReigne had given me this book about Mount Everest. I guess it was supposed to be motivational. People rising above difficulties and challenging themselves to climb the highest mountain. All I remember about Mount Everest is that the altitude is so high, there’s not enough oxygen, and it’s like one hundred degrees below zero. It’s so dangerous that when people die on Mount Everest, they leave them there. There’s one body they call Green Boots, and he’s right on the main route to the top of the mountain. Everybody has to walk past his frozen, mummified corpse that’s been there for two decades. How’s that for motivational?

I thought it was a pretty good description of how relationships are. Everywhere you go, you leave behind the corpses of your failed relationships. If you’re lucky you can shove the body down into a crevasse, so you don’t have to look at it, but some bodies you can’t get rid of. You have to walk past them all the time. I doubt that’s what I was supposed to get out of the book, but there it is.

That’s what I thought about bringing Marcus to visit LaReigne. He would be twenty-six years old before she was eligible for parole. I didn’t want her to be a corpse he had to walk past for the next twenty years, but I didn’t know what the answer was. I thought about how I had promised him we would all be together again, and there was no way to keep that promise. I didn’t agree with Mom that it was my duty to make sure LaReigne had a relationship with Marcus, but I did think he needed to have a relationship with her. I just thought it should be on his terms, which was why she was pissing me off so much.