Keesha's House by Helen Frost Read Free Book Online

to ask you for a place to stay
    tonight. They’d stay a week, a month, a year …
    It’s still like that, ’cept now they look at me
    like, Where’d you come from? Ain’t this Keesha’s house?
    I go get Keesha, and I watch while she
    checks out the situation, thinks what couch
    or bed we got. Time and again, she makes
    the right decision. She helps so many kids.
    The way she holds her head up, my heart breaks—
    ain’t nobody thinkin’ ’bout what Keesha needs.
    I love this girl whatever way I can,
    too young to be her father, too old to be her man.

SAME OLD STORY      CHARLES (DONTAY’S FATHER)
    A month now, Dontay’s missing. Letter came
    today—his foster father still ain’t said
    just why the boy run off. Sound like the same
    old story: they get paid, he don’t get fed.
    Ain’t nobody seen my boy. I know Lucille
    be sick with worry too—our youngest son
    in danger, us in here just prayin’ he’ll
    be found before he mess up bad. Just one
    mistake. He’ll think he won’t get caught. Might
    be right, a time or two. But he won’t stop.
    Stakes get higher; can’t get out; some night
    somebody got no use for him. I got
    two years behind me, about one more to go.
    There’s too much I can’t see. Too much I know.

HE’S GOT A PLACE      ANTHONY (DONTAY’S FOSTER FATHER)
    Sounds like Charles and Lucille are blaming us
    for Dontay being gone so long. We’ve
    tried to keep them up to date, and trust
    they’ll call us if he contacts them. We leave
    the front porch light on every night in case
    he comes back here. Lenora keeps his bed
    made up, and we agree he’s got a place
    with us if he comes back. We must have said
    something that set Dontay off—it’s hard to know.
    The rules that make our own kids feel secure
    don’t work that way for him. He has to show
    how much he doesn’t need us, but I’m not so sure.
    There’s so many things he should be told
    but he can’t hear them. Fourteen years old.

WHO’D BE HURT?      JUDGE DAVISON
    The juvenile system is set up
    to protect kids and the community at large.
    I don’t see it as either “pass a cup
    of kindness” or “put the monsters behind bars.”
    Take Carmen: I read her case and try to judge
    what she did, what she intended, what she knew.
    She’s not perfect. There’s a little smudge
    or two in here I can’t ignore. But who
    would I be helping by coming down too hard?
    Who’d be hurt by letting her go home?
    I weigh the facts, decide what I regard
    as truth, and think what I’d want for my own
    child. I believe Carmen will be okay.
    I’ll talk straight, then send her on her way.

SHE’S DOING OKAY      WILLIAM (KEESHA’S FATHER)
    Tobias knows the place where Keesha stays,
    that house on Jackson Street with a blue door.
    She’s prob’ly better off there. Still, some days
    I wonder—if I went over there and swore
    I’d stay sober: first, would she come home?
    and second, could I keep my word?
    Sounds like she’s doing okay on her own,
    and why should she believe me now? Third
    time I’ve been through this. The other two
    I lasted a few weeks, then let someone talk
    me into just one drink. Twelve Steps. That shoe
    fits some people, but it’s not the way I walk.
    Love holds up an angry fist to pride;
    they beat each other down till I’m half dead inside.

WHERE’S HARRIS?      JEANNINE (HARRIS’S MOTHER)
    Hey, King, come here. You miss him too, I know.
    The house has been so quiet since he left.
    You were a puppy when he was a boy, and now
    we’re both getting old. Where’s Harris? What Greg calls the theft
    of his blankets and clothes at least lets me hope he’s warm.
    I keep setting his place and cooking for three. More
    for you, I suppose …