“Oh yeah. He tells everybody what to do, and they have to do it. That means he’s pretty powerful around here.”
“You have to do anything he asks you to do?” Her eyes were very round, and she stopped tapping a wooden spoon against the bottom of a pot. What a relief.
“Well, not anything. If he asked us to go something silly, like jumping off the roof, we wouldn’t have to do it.”
“But he would never do that,” Erica added. “He’s a very good president. He’s smart and wise. He makes good decisions.”
“Solomon was wise,” Gigi said, tapping again. I closed my eyes, gritting my teeth. I wondered if there was aspirin anywhere nearby.
“Solomon? Is that one of your mommy’s friends?” Traci asked.
“No, silly.” Gigi giggled. “Solomon was a king, a long time ago. Like, a thousand years.”
“More than that.” I grinned. I then gently took the spoon from her hand. She gave it up agreeably enough.
“What did Solomon do?” Traci asked. She and Erica had such a good way with Gigi. They seemed to understand exactly what she needed. At that time, she needed a distraction. If she was telling stories, she was distracted.
“He was the best king in the world. He did lots of good things. People used to come from all over the place to ask him questions.” She spoke with great reverence, and I turned away so she wouldn’t see the smile on my face.
Traci stopped what she was doing, sitting on the prep table beside Gigi. “Then what?” I wondered if she wouldn’t make a good teacher if she went to college. I knew neither she nor Erica had.
“Then, one day, two ladies came in. They were both so upset. One of them had a baby in her arms. They both said the baby was their baby.” I stopped working, and felt Erica’s eyes on me as Gigi went on. “They wanted Solomon to decide whose baby it really was.”
“Did he ask the ladies why they both said it was their baby?”
“One lady—the one who didn’t carry the baby—said the other lady killed her baby by accident. She rolled over on him when he was sleeping. So she took the first lady’s baby and pretended it was hers.”
“That’s awful,” Traci said, putting the right emotion in her voice.
“I know. It was so sad. So Solomon thought and thought about. It was just a baby. Babies all look the same.”
“Yes, they do.” Traci giggled.
“So he came up with an idea. He said, ‘Bring me a sword!’ And somebody did.”
“What would he do with a sword?”
“He said he was gonna cut the baby in half so both ladies could have half of it.”
“No! Did he do it?”
“Well, he was gonna, but the one lady—the one who didn’t have the baby in her arms—she said, ‘No! Don’t do it! Let the other lady keep the baby!’”
“And did the other lady tell him not to do it?”
“No. She said she didn’t care.” There was smugness in Gigi’s voice. “That’s how Solomon knew the first lady was the baby’s mommy. Because she would give up the baby if that meant the baby would be safe.”
“Wow. He was really very wise.” The two of them kept talking about whatever came to mind, but I couldn’t join them. I held onto the side of the sink with white knuckles, closing my eyes.
“You okay?” Erica whispered.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“From the mouths of babes, huh?” Erica chuckled, shaking her head. I shook my head, too. From the mouths of babes, indeed.
What if Rae refused to give Gigi up? What if she came back for her one day? I’d kill her first. She had to have some self-awareness. She was an unfit mother—all it would take would be a walk-through of the house to prove it. There were plenty of witnesses, too. Like the other teachers at the school, and Vickie. She had to play it cool, obey by the school board’s rules. But if given the chance, she’d testify against Rae in a heartbeat.
Still, that would only matter if Rae went about it legally. What if she kidnapped Gigi? There would be nothing we could do. She was her mother, Gigi had lived with her for her entire life. The police might not even try to help us.
I hoped if the time ever came, Rae would be like the mother in the story, willing to give up her child if it meant giving her a better life.
“What else about my dad?” Gigi asked. It was sweet, hearing her call him her dad. I wondered what he would think of it, and had the feeling he would grin when he didn’t think anybody else could see him do it.