Upside Down

6

Faith Ann Porter sat cradling her backpack to her chest as the streetcar made its way up St. Charles Avenue. Faith Ann and Kimberly had lived in New Orleans for a little more than a year. She stared down at the damp knees of her jeans and thought about her mother, whose blood was staining her clothes and skin. How many times the two of them had ridden those few miles together during the past months. Sometimes they rode the streetcar for the sheer pleasure of the experience, sometimes because the five-year-old Dodge Neon had some problem. Faith Ann knew the transportation routes, because weeks before she had moved here she'd gathered as much information on New Orleans as she could so she wouldn't be a stranger. Research, her mother always told her, was crucial preparation.

Faith Ann felt an involuntary tear rolling down her cheek. She swiped it away with the back of her hand. She didn't have time to feel sad. She looked out the window to see where she was. Just one more stop. Faith Ann wondered if she should go to school, act like nothing had happened, and wait for the principal to send for her. She imagined herself walking into the office, where two cops would be standing there to inform her that some crackhead had murdered her mother along with some big-breasted client named Amber Lee.

She couldn't risk it. She had to remember that the cops were her enemies and they had ways of tricking people with lies. Even if Amber hadn't said so, Faith Ann knew from listening to her mother that the police and prosecutors had their own agendas. You couldn't trust most of them.

Hank and Millie Trammel were her only relatives. Millie was her mother's older sister and about the nicest person you'd ever hope to find. Hank was big and could be intimidating, but he was always nice to her and her mother. She held on to the thought that very soon Hank and Millie would be there to take care of her.

Faith Ann let her mind focus on its image of Horace Pond, her mother's client on death row. He was merely a picture on a corkboard and a small voice heard once over the speakerphone in her mother's office. She noticed that her fingers were trembling and she clenched her fists. She needed to form a plan-to decide how to spend the time until her relatives came, but all she could come up with was to go home and change clothes. At home, it would be easier to think. At home it would all be better. She would be safe at home.

Faith Ann felt the streetcar slowing for her stop and she stood. When it stopped, she climbed down from the cabin, stepping onto the neutral ground. It was just three blocks to her house.