Lena by Jacqueline Woodson Read Free Book Online Page A

you. They start to . . . it’s like the names own you. I see Dion walking with her head down and I want to yank it up, say, You can read and you can write and you can walk, girlie, so don’t let the names own you. But she probably wouldn’t even know what I was talking about.
    â€œMama’s people were farmers,” I said one afternoon. Maybe a week had passed since we’d gotten dropped off in Owensboro. We’d gotten a couple more rides since then and I tried to remember the name of the town we were in. We were sitting out in front of an old shed we’d found the night before. All around us white pine trees shot up tall enough to keep the shed halfway hidden. I leaned back against it. It was pretty out, warm, with the sun shining in splinters through the trees. We were closer to something. I could feel it.
    Dion scratched her head and stuck a few pine needles between the pages of her book. She was sitting across from me with her legs folded Indian style. It’d been some time since we’d had a good shower. Dion’s hair looked oily. I kept a bottle of water in my bag alongside the toothpaste and brushes and made her brush her teeth every night but her neck looked like it could use a good scrubbing and our nails were chewed and dirty.
    She shrugged and looked up at the trees.
    â€œYou should know about Mama,” I said softly.
    â€œI’d rather just think it was you all along, Lena,” she said. “Just you taking care of me.” She looked down at her fingernails. “I miss Daddy. I don’t want nobody else to miss.”
    Â 
    â€œKnowing about her don’t mean you have to miss her, Dion. I just figure it’s a way of having a mama.”
    â€œYou’re like my mama, though. You always took care of me. I don’t remember her—just shadows and stuff. I miss things I remember—like school, my bed in Chauncey, that pair of red sneakers I left at home.” She smiled. It was one of those sad grown-up smiles.
    I leaned back against the shed. “Maybe I tell you Mama stories ’cause I want to hear them. I don’t want to forget her.”
    â€œWhat kind of stuff did her people farm?”
    â€œShe never really said . . . or I don’t remember. What can you farm up in the mountains?”
    Dion squinted and thought for a moment. “Mountain land is sloping and whatnot. Dirt would slide right down it. One good rain and—”
    â€œWell, maybe her people lived in the valley,” I said. Sometimes Dion’s smartness got on my nerves.
    â€œWell, maybe you know what they grew then!” She snapped her book open and started reading again.
    I watched her for a few minutes. She was wearing her sweater turned inside out and her blue jeans and hiking boots. Her hair was starting to grow out some and every now and then she wiped it back away from her forehead.
    I lifted up my own boots and checked the bottoms for holes. There was a tiny one in the right boot but other than that, they were holding up fine. I leaned back against the shed again and sighed. Some nights, standing out on the road with my thumb out, I got scared. Scared the next ride was going to be our last one—that someone would hurt us real bad or turn us in to the police. But every time we got out of somebody’s truck or car, I felt good— a little bit more free. And times like this, when we could sit and get our minds together a bit, I started getting real sad. I didn’t know what was harder—moving or sitting still.
    â€œYou know what I miss most about Chauncey, Dion?”
    â€œWhat?” Dion mumbled, not taking her eyes off her book.
    Â 
    â€œRemember how on Saturdays we’d go over to Marie’s house and take baths?”
    Â 
    Dion nodded. I didn’t care that she was only half listening, it felt good to be talking about Marie. Even if I was mostly talking to myself.
    â€œSometimes Marie would come in and sit