Banana Split by Josi S. Kilpack Read Free Book Online Page A

eyes. He loved his mother. Sadie wondered what their relationship had been like. All she knew about Noelani was that she was a drug addict. Had Charlie been living with her? Who was CeeCee?
     
    “Was she nice too?”
     
    Charlie nodded, but his smile faded and he looked back at the plate as he lifted the brownie. There was so much in his head, Sadie could almost feel his thoughts wanting to burst out. But life had taught him to be careful—she could sense that too—and she didn’t dare betray the little bit of trust he’d given her by pushing too much. He reminded her of the feral cats on the island that would eat your food, but never really let you get close.
     
    “Have you always lived on Kaua’i?” Sadie asked.
     
    “No,” he said, shaking his head and taking a bite, a big one. “We lived in Honolulu when I was little,” he said after he swallowed.
     
    Sadie had to smile. He was only eleven; being little wasn’t that long ago. She lifted her own brownie and took a bite out of one corner. It wasn’t bad—for a mix. “Do you like it here?”
     
    He shrugged. “I guess.” He took another bite.
     
    “Why did you come to Kaua’i?”
     
    “’Cause my mom did,” he said, though he eyed her carefully. She was asking too many personal questions.
     
    “How’s that brownie?” Sadie asked.
     
    “Ono.”
     
    Sadie smiled; she knew ono meant good, or delicious in this context. “Would you like another one?”
     
    He nodded quickly, and Sadie served him another brownie, hoping she could get more information from him before his stomach realized how full he was. She waited almost a minute, finishing her own brownie, and then pushed forward again.
     
    “When you and I first met, you said that your mom wasn’t doing drugs.”
     
    Charlie looked up quickly, instantly defensive. “She wasn’t. She’s been clean ’cause the judge told her she has to if she’s gonna get me back.”
     
    Ah. So he was in foster care of some sort but expected to go back with his mom. For an instant, Sadie wondered what it would feel like to have things change so sharply, so quickly. It wasn’t that hard to imagine. She remembered the feeling of coming home to two young children after Neil had been pronounced dead at the hospital from a massive heart attack. And then, a decade later, her brother had called to tell her their mother had been killed in a car accident. A year and a half ago, Sadie’s neighbor had been found murdered in the field behind her home. Sadie had experienced her share of those turns of fate that gave you whiplash and shook up your future like a snow globe. But she’d been an adult when all of those things happened, not a child.
     
    “You think the police are wrong about how she died?”
     
    He nodded. “She don’t take drugs no more, and sometimes people lie.” He looked up at Sadie with a guarded, yet eager, expression. Like he wanted to make sure she was listening. “Even cops lie sometimes. You can’t trust nobody.”
     
    Sadie winced inside and leaned back in her chair, feeling overwhelmed by the hurt inside this little boy and remembering why she had been so hesitant to involve herself earlier. It was hard to feel what other people were feeling.
     
    “Who do you live with now, Charlie? CeeCee?”
     
    “I already told you I don’t live nowhere.”
     
    “So you’re homeless?” Sadie asked. “You live on the streets?”
     
    He nodded, but Sadie could see that, for all his toughness, he wasn’t that hard or neglected. His fingernails were trimmed, and the slippahs were still shiny, they were so new. She glanced at the wall clock near the phone. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning, and while she knew she would have to call the police at some point, she wished she could have more time with Charlie first.
     
    Calling the police would drag Sadie even further into this “situation,” and the anticipation of giving another statement landed like a block of ice in her