Miss Kew said, ‘Gerard, I asked you a question.’
‘Keep your pants on,’ I said. ‘ I got to find out, don’t I? Yes, if that’s what you want, we’ll listen to Miriam too.’
Miss Kew turned to Miriam. ‘You hear that, Miriam?’
Miriam looked at Miss Kew and at us and shook her head. Then she held out her hands a bit to Bonnie and Beanie.
They went right to her. Each one took hold of a hand. They looked up at her and grinned. They were probably planning some sort of hellishness, but I guess they looked sort of cute. Miriam’s mouth twitched and I thought for a second she was going to look human. She said, ‘All right, Miss Alicia.’
Miss Kew walked over and handed her the baby and she started upstairs with him. Miss Kew herded us along after Miriam. We all went upstairs.
They went to work on us then and for three years they never stopped.
‘That was hell,’ I said to Stern.
‘They had their work cut out.’
‘Yeah, I s’pose they did. So did we. Look, we were going to do exactly what Lone said. Nothing on earth could of stopped us from doing it. We were tied and bound to doing every last little thing Miss Kew said to do. But she and Miriam never seemed to understand that. I guess they felt they had to push every inch of the way. All they had to do was make us understand what they wanted, and we’d of done it. That’s okay when it’s something like telling me not to climb into bed with Janie. Miss Kew raised holy hell over that. You’d of thought I’d robbed the Crown Jewels, the way she acted.