Numbers by Dana Dane Read Free Book Online

retorted, trying with no luck to hold back the tears that were streaming effortlessly down her cheeks. “Please don’t be like that, Lewis.”
    “I’m not being like nothing. How you gonna come up in here trying to pin a baby on me, knowing you’ve been having sex way before me,” he rationalized, avoiding eye contact.
    It was true, Jenny wasn’t a virgin like Lewis when they got together, nor was she promiscuous like her sister Anna Beth and Lewis suggested. She had had sex with only one boy before Lewis. She’d thought she was in love with him but soon found out he was having sex with one of her so-called friends. She ended it right then and there.
    “How dare you say that to me?” she cried. “You know I’m not like that, Lewis.”
    “All I know is you better go find the father of that bastard you’re carrying,” Lewis spat.
    Before Jenny knew what she had done, she hauled off and punched him square in the mouth. His mouth filled with blood instantly—Muhammad Ali would have been proud of her right cross.
    Lewis stood there in shock and fear, holding his mouth. He saw the anger and hatred in her eyes and made the correct decision to not say another word. Jenny was ready to swing on him again, but when Lewis cowed she turned on her heels, grabbed her duffle bag, and stormed out.
    When she moved in with her oldest brother, Samuel, and his wife and kids in New York, she thought it was her chance to start over. She lived with them for almost three years after Dupree was born but couldn’t endure the constant fighting in the household. She didn’t want her son raised in such a volatile environment. When Jenny left she wished she had the means to take her niece and nephew with her, but she could barely take care of Dupree and herself.
    The first couple of years after leaving Samuel’s house, she bounced around from shelter to shelter waiting for a vacancy toopen up in one of the subsidized housing developments social services would provide. In the meantime, she met her daughters’ father.
    Elroy hadn’t come around much since Jenny had beat him with the frying pan. He reappeared on the girls’ birthday and like Houdini disappeared, never to be heard from until their next birthday or whenever he felt like it, which wasn’t often. He had the deadbeat-dad disease, too.
    When he did come around, he was more concerned with getting back with Jenny than their well-being or spending time with his daughters. Once Jenny let him know she wasn’t interested in having sex with him, he’d catch an attitude and storm out until he felt it was time to try his luck again.
Screw him,
she thought.
    “Jenny May Wallace,” a squatty, light-brown-complexioned man with salt-and-pepper hair read from his clipboard.
    “Right here, Mr. Sampson.” Jenny stood up.
    “Good to see you, Jenny. Come this way,” Mr. Sampson said. “How are the children? Are they in school today?”
    “Thank you, Mr. Sampson. They’re good, and yes, they’re in school,” she lied. The twins were supposed to go on a school trip, but Jenny didn’t have the money to send them. She had Numbers stay home with them.
    Jenny followed Mr. Sampson into a small office, where he took a seat behind his desk. She sat in the one metal chair in front of the desk and rested her coat on her lap.
    “Have you been working? Is there a man living in your house? Anything you want to declare to me?” he interrogated.
    “No,” she lied.
    “Jenny, did you think about what we discussed last time you were here?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then are you going to take the high school equivalency test? You’re a very intelligent young lady, I’m sure you would pass it,” he pressed.
    “Yes, Mr. Sampson, I’m ready…. I need this to better my life for me and my children.”
    Mr. Sampson was pleased with her response. He genuinely cared about her well-being. He had only been her caseworker for the last year and five months. The change was the best thing that could’ve