"She didn't take Olive to kill her."
"I know."
"It was something else, something to do with her mother."
Adonie nodded, but in a thoughtful absorbed way that I now recognized.
"What?" I asked.
Adonie cut me a look up from her boots which she had been regarding.
Somehow I did not think all this had anything to do with Georgina's
smuggled drugs and bartered cells and tissues.
Adonie seemed reluctant to speak. She may only have been tired.
"What?" I prodded.
"I think it possible that it had to do with her grandmother."
Georgina's? Olive's?
"Whose?"
"Olive's."
Adonie turned her face to study the small sleeping form.
I could feel those little monkey's hands clinging tightly to me.
She had been desperate.
There had been in Olive's eyes, when I swung her up,
a full, complete, wordless trust. And a desire filling all of her heart:
to come with me. To be with us.
The little rodent.
Maria, then. Adonie meant Maria.
What do you think? I asked myself. What happened?