They said her blood was too sweet—that’s why Mercedes was like a magnet for bugs. She didn’t know about sweet but knew from the welts that sprang up between her fingers, on her eyelids, and along her arms that she’d been bit. Big angry-looking things that itched and swelled and sometimes hurt too, and because her skin was lightish or at least lighter than some, the wounds also showed up raised and red, like fresh blooms or coals from a fire. She wasn’t supposed to touch them.

Mercedes Hooks was twelve that summer, and in Cleveland twelve didn’t count for much unless you’d had your period or been to juvenile court down on East 22nd, and she’d done neither. Still a kid, then, a little girl, splay-legged and knob-kneed and to make matters worse she wore braces. Metal in her mouth that flashed in the sun like the lightning after nine o'clock in July, her grandmother said, the silver kind of lightning you saw no other time of day or year. Of course she hardly ever smiled then, hearing that. And yes on top of it she was still a virgin—which in private she’d admit was all right, there was plenty of time for that, and it scared her no small amount, though on the other hand there was a feeling down there, too, something like the bites and she couldn’t scratch that either or there would be a much different kind of trouble, maybe worse.

It all left her feeling a little she-didn’t-know-what, on toward crazy she supposed, a little jittery and jumpy and all there was to take the edge off was the pool. Thank the Lord for chlorine and cold water five feet deep. Cumberland was only up and around the corner from Superior and a short enough walk, nothing that could kill you, especially knowing what awaited once you discovered your way through the big brick pool house, all wet and dark and bad-smelling but a gateway to earthly paradise anyway. Thank the Lord for Cumberland Pool, whose cool bright waters were biblical relief, sweet salvation—no itching, no pains, no problems. Every afternoon from one to five you’d have to search beneath the hard blue surface if you wanted to find her, because that’s where she’d be, drowning all the plagues she suffered.

When Mercedes lifted her head out of the water she saw the baby and the words just came out of her mouth. "Can I play with her?" It was like that sometimes, words bleeding out before she knew what happened. And just the same way, her arms went up, too, reaching for the child in front of her—give me give me give me. The mother shrugged and handed the little girl over from where she sat on the edge of the concrete deck. The girl squirmed like a caught animal against her itchy skin and then settled by her heart.

Mercedes cradled her and squinted against the afternoon sun. "You used to go to Coventry Elementary?"

"Graduated like three years ago," the mother answered. Weary-eyed and fat in the legs, she suddenly pulled back her head in alarm. "You watch it now. She’s only two. She can’t swim yet."

"I know that." Mercedes dipped the little girl’s feet in the water anyway, and the smile this got made it seem like the sun had just grown a bit brighter. "What’s her name?"

"Destiny."

"That’s pretty."

"Middle name’s Jasmine."

"I like that too."

The mother sighed, like this was no new kind of conversation. "It’s hard, though. They make you so tired."

Mercedes lifted the girl and dipped her feet again, getting a giggle that made her laugh as well. Nearby, where it was deeper, older boys and girls plunged screaming into the water from the high diving boards, coming out slick-skinned and surprised-looking, some of them maybe even scared.

"You got any?" the mother asked after a minute.

"Babies? No."

"What’s that on your arms?"

"Bug bites."

"She not gonna catch nothing, is she?"

Mercedes stared into the child’s eyes, dark and brown and deeper it seemed than anything she’d ever looked into, so deep she thought she might get pulled inside herself. "No. It’s just mosquitoes." She pulled the small brown body against her own again, the cool water of the pool swirling around them both.

"Oh, she likes you. She likes you a lot." The mother pushed up from the deck and got her heavy legs under her. "You bring her back here and I'll put her sundress on, give you money for something at the snack bar too. You’re good with her. I don't want her in the water if I can't see her, but you’re good with her."

Destiny could already walk, which surprised Mercedes because she didn't expect this tiny thing to be able to take any steps yet. She took the little fingers in her own and with her other hand clutched the damp, wrinkled dollar bill the mother had pulled from a change purse decorated with cartoon princesses. She stopped and put on her sandals and slipped the pink LeBron jersey she’d gotten for her birthday over her wet bathing suit, then took Destiny’s hand again. "You want some M&Ms?"

They got in the line and Mercedes held her like she was her own little girl, feeling those tiny bony fingers against her skin and the warm blood she knew was flowing through Destiny’s body. In her yellow sundress and pink pool shoes she looked more than adorable, and now Mercedes noticed the braids too. How could she have not seen them before? Little twists like early flowers—oh, this was too much. When the cashier handed her the candy she decided not to open it right away. Instead she hauled Destiny up to her hip, and riding her there like that headed for the exit, thinking as she pushed through the iron turnstile and made her way out of the dark and damp pool house that the mother was wrong. This wasn't so hard at all.

Outside Cumberland it was like back in the world. No cool bright water to take the edge off, no spray and splash to catch the sun. The high willows wept hard under the weight of the heat, but it was quiet too, and she thought, okay, maybe she liked this. A summer afternoon and no one on the sidewalks. She'd opened the M&Ms and now Destiny held the crinkling brown bag like it was some precious object found in a fairy tale. "Go ahead. Don’t just look at it. You can eat some too."

She didn’t know yet where to go, but like the choice had been made somewhere else a red- and cream-colored RTA bus eased up to the corner and opened its doors just for her. The driver smiled and waved his hand when Mercedes said she'd forgotten her student pass. "Don’t worry about that," he said. "You got too much to think about already." It worked so well she tried it again a few minutes later when she reached the top of the cracked steps at University Circle station, where the rapid transit trains stopped.

"You don’t have money for the fare?” the booth clerk said.

"No, ma’am.” She hitched Destiny on her hip and saw the lights of the train coming down from Euclid station. "Please. I got to get to Lorain to drop her off at my grandmother’s, so I can get back for my summer school class." Lorain was a name she’d heard before and this caused her to notice it on the map alongside the booth. Already the Red Line train was far enough into the station now to read the white letters of the word "Airport" on the destination sign over the driver’s window. "Please," she said again.

It was that easy. The doors opened for her and she carried Destiny down the aisle to a front-facing seat near the rear of the car. There was just one other person on the train at this time of day, and that was fine with her—she didn’t mind the chance to be alone with the child. She sat on the side opposite the sun because she hated the bright light in her eyes, and as she risked a scratch at her arm she watched as the little girl put one of the bright pieces of candy in her mouth.

"See now? Didn’t I tell you it would be good?”

The train swayed its way west, on past Quincy and East 79th and East 55th, through big round curves lined by barriers splashed with graffiti that made her think of bright flowers opening up to the morning’s light—like Destiny’s braids! Under the LeBron jersey her suit was still wet where it pressed against her belly. She flattened a palm over the spot, imagining it round and shapely with the weight of the little girl next to her. "Destiny," she said out loud, and those deep brown eyes turned up to her at the sound of the word. "Where do you want to go?"

East 34th came and went, and then with an echoing rumble they passed into the darkness of the Tower City station. Downtown Cleveland, and it was like the train needed to take a breath, the way it sat there not moving. There was a spray fountain in the mall right above them, and an old Christmas memory of it—shots of water chasing after each other like kids in a playground—made Mercedes want to see it right now, to show it to Destiny, but before she could stand up the driver’s muffled announcement signaled it was too late. "Doors closing." Then back into the bright afternoon light, and there was the muddy twisting river and the steel plant and the tangled highways and the whole mess of the city itself, smoke and rust and all of the things that made her feel bad just looking at. She scratched her arms, and as the train rocked past West 25th and then Lorain—no need to stop, of course; Lorain? What’s Lorain?—she leaned down to Destiny.

"Where you want to go?" she whispered. "You don’t want to go all the way out to the airport, do you?"

West Boulevard came next, and then Madison. Mercedes read the signs on the platforms, searching in the letters of each for something that told her this was the place—here was where they’d get off. The train was more crowded now, and a couple of people, elderly ladies with bibles and mostly holy attitudes, smiled at her from under their wigs like they were bestowing blessings. Better that than the opposite, Mercedes thought—better to travel with the best wishes of strangers rather than their dirty looks.

Just then Destiny spilled the M&Ms, which scattered across the floor of the train with a sound like teeth in a jar, and as Mercedes got down between the seats to scoop them up she heard the watery garbled announcement. "Triskett station." The word was strange to her, and she wondered if she'd heard right, and she was on her knees before the seat thinking about this when Destiny's foot brushed her face. The little girl laughed, and this made Mercedes want to laugh too—because this was an adventure, after all, and like the bus driver had said back at the beginning there was enough to worry about already. You got a little girl, she told herself; you need to be there for her.

"Don't want to pick those up," an old woman across the aisle said. She clutched some folded pamphlets in one bone-hard hand and a short, folded umbrella in the other, which she used to point to the floor. "They dirty."

Mercedes smiled but went on scooping up the candy, feeling Destiny's foot on her face. "That's all right," she said to the lady. "I don’t want to leave them here like that." Anyway, it was a game now: Look up, bend down to search the floor, look up again, get a foot in the face. Destiny laughed louder each time. Mercedes didn’t want it to stop, but when she peeked up again there were trees outside—they were definitely on the other side of the city now, the far west side, the farthest she’d ever been alone. Then the driver said "Puritas." She cupped the gathered M&Ms in her hand. It was time to leave this train.

"Don’t let her eat those candies," the old woman kept on calling as she led Destiny up the aisle. "They been on the floor."

"Yes, ma'am," Mercedes said over her shoulder, feeling for a minute like she was talking to her own grandmother. "I'll make sure not to."

Out on the platform, Mercedes leaned close to the little girl’s ear. "I know not to give you candy that's been on the floor of a train. What's that old woman thinking?" The cars clattered away down the narrow track, headed out to the airport, which must have been close because a smoky gray jet growled above their heads just then. She looked up to watch it pass, then out over the rocky paths leading to the empty streets. Trash and broken glass gathered at the edges of the pavement, where high weeds leaned out like jungle trees and fat black flies spun in slow-turning clouds. She held Destiny's tiny hand in hers. "I'm sure glad you got your water shoes on," she said. "I don’t know a thing about Puritas, but it don't look like a good place to be going around barefoot."

She didn’t know if it was a good place to be going around, period, but here she was, wandering up a gravelly road toward somewhere with Destiny alongside, humming a little something under her breath and trying to ignore the bites on her arms. At the first house that didn’t look like it was barricaded against the world she stopped. There were square windows with curtains lifted up by the light breeze and a screen door in the middle, and its roof went up in a smart little point that made the whole place look like the kind of house she’d have wished for when she was a little girl. There was a steel mailbox with reflective letters that spelled "Lakatos."

She gripped the little fingers in hers and nodded toward the house. "Want to go see what’s in here?"

It wasn’t like she was hoping for a lady to appear out of the shadowy insides, but there was something like happiness when that’s what happened. She didn’t know why, but she just didn't want to have to try to explain herself to a man or boy right now. She thought it best to pull up some extra politeness, too, seeing as she was just coming up to this door out of nowhere, so when the lady peered down at her with a puzzled smile Mercedes said: "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon yourself." The smile flickered a bit, kind of came and went like clouds passing the sun. "Well you’re kind of a funny looking one, aren’t you?" Mercedes shuffled her feet, then opened her mouth, ready to say something, but for the first time that day nothing came. The woman squinted and looked at her more closely. "And don’t you know you have braces too."

"Yes." She set her lips tight and pulled Destiny closer. "I got off at the wrong place," she began to explain, "missed my stop at—" and now she had to go and search for the name that had jumped into her head without a second’s thought, back at the University Circle booth. "Lorain." She swallowed. "My grandmother’s. To drop off my baby girl so I could get to my job."

"Is that right?" The woman wore an old blue housedress, and her heavy white arms and legs poured like running water out of the big loose openings.

"Yes, ma’am."

"And you don’t have return fare."

Mercedes looked down at Destiny, who turned those deep brown eyes back up at her. "That’s about right," she said to the lady. "You must get this a lot, living so close to the stop."

"Well, I ain’t sure that’s true." The door was bent in its frame and made a screeching sound along the cement stoop when the lady pushed it open. "You can come in, long as you tell me her name."

"Destiny," Mercedes answered. She lifted her up over the step and into the cool, shadowy house. "Destiny Jasmine."

"That right?"

"Yes, ma’am."

"And you?"

"Mercedes."

She nodded. "Like the car."

"I guess so. Ma’am."

"My name is Miss Irene Lakatos." Mercedes felt her hard stare coming down. "You’ll need to know that for when you mail back the fare money. I'm the type that expects to be reimbursed."

The house, she had to say, was not what she thought it was when she'd looked at it from the gravelly street. But she kept her mouth shut, and not just to hide the braces. Mercedes knew what it meant to be invited into someone's home, and even if the place was a falling-down mess, you didn't say a word. Just pick your way around the piles and let yourself be led, holding your nose only in your thoughts. Hospitality, she’d once been told, was a precious thing.

"You sit there at the table a minute while I find some money."

Irene disappeared from the cramped kitchen through a dark door set in the grimy wall like a cave opening. "Don’t you touch anything," Mercedes warned, sitting Destiny in her lap. She eyed the pile of cigarette butts on a plate, the wrinkled oranges settling in a dusty, cracked bowl, the bent-back phonebooks and greasy pizza boxes. She wrinkled her nose. "It’s like a dump in here."

On the far wall was an old black-and-white photograph in a frame, showing a man in a soldier’s uniform and holding his cap in front of him. There was no smile to be seen, and his eyes looked angry, and his head was piled up high with hair that made Mercedes think of a winter hat. She sighed and turned halfway around in her chair, shifting Destiny to her other knee. The girl felt heavier than when they’d started out.

"Now," she heard herself say, her eyes coming to rest on an object in the corner. "Would you look at that?"

It was a big black charcoal grill shaped like a kettle. The sides were a little rusty and the wheels had been removed from the thread-like axle, but it rested there all steady and solid, and with the sun falling on it just so seemed like the only thing of beauty in Irene’s house. There were flowers piled inside—hundreds of them, is what it looked like. Except for the daisies, she couldn’t give them names, but she recognized them just fine, the same kinds of wild flowers that grew along the edges of empty lots back on the East Side and all around the city. She’d even seen them along the train tracks on the ride out here. There were blue ones and pink ones and ones with fat orange petals arranged around big black balls at the center. They were all on long green stems and were piled up to overflow the drum of the old grill, like bright candy coming out of a jar or water from a fountain. She looked at it and scratched her arms.

"Your lucky day," Irene said, coming back through that cave opening. She waddled toward the table, sat with a grunt, and pushed two wrinkled bills toward Mercedes. "Sometimes," she said, breathing out heavily, "it just seems too hot to move."

Mercedes nodded. She looked at the money, wondering what was best to do. Take it now? Leave it sit for a minute?

"You want something to drink?"

She hadn’t thought of that. She knew she was thirsty herself, could taste the dryness on her tongue like a hot stone, so that meant the girl probably was too, especially after the long ride.

"It’s in the fridge." The flesh on Irene’s arm shook as she pointed. "Fruit punch, in a pitcher. And up in the freezer compartment there’s a bag of ice cubes. I'd get it but I just sat down."

There was some arranging to be done then, as Mercedes needed to rest Destiny in the chair so she wouldn't fall out. And then there were cups to find and she wasn't so sure about the punch, either, because the plastic pitcher was cloudy and the handle was half-broken, with a cracked piece of it jutting out like the point of a knife.

"Don’t be spilling anything."

"Yes, ma’am."

"I’m going to write down my address on this slip of paper here, and you don’t forget to take it with you so you can mail back the money."

"All right." The pitcher shook in her hand as she poured out red punch into two plastic cups.

"I didn’t make a fortune in my life working at that factory."

Mercedes returned the pitcher to the refrigerator, pushing aside a bowl holding something black and greasy to make room.

"I get some social security. I save some change along the way when I can. But I’m not rich."

"No, ma’am.”

"You know what they used to say you got when you dated a girl from Erie Screw?"

"What?"

"Exactly that."

"What?” Mercedes was puzzled. “Exactly what?"

"You kidding me?" Irene shook her head. "Okay. Here comes the joke now. 'Exactly that&mdasdh;an eerie screw.'"

Mercedes came back to the table and helped Destiny take a sip. Yes, the girl had been thirsty—and now the red punch came out of the cup and dribbled all down around her chin and neck. She didn’t know what to think of the joke, if that’s what it could be called, but when she looked up Irene was shaking a little in her chair, laughing.

"Anyway," Irene said, sighing. "They’ll do that."

"Ma’am? Who? Do what?"

"Babies." She pointed a fat finger at Destiny. "Still too hard for her to drink out of a cup. But she’s a beautiful one. With those braids, too."

"Thank you." She let Destiny try one more sip and then pulled the cup away. With Irene talking now, and not just about sending the money back, she thought she might try a little conversation too. "That your husband up there?" She pointed to the unsmiling man in the photo.

"Never had a husband. That’s my father, back in Hungary."

"What’s that?"

"A country. In eastern Europe."

"He passed?"

"You mean dead?"

Mercedes nodded.

"A long time, now," Irene said, looking like she was thinking. "Forty years, maybe more. I lose track."

Mercedes sat back down and rested Destiny on her lap again. The girl pressed her face against her chest and wriggled around, making a little sound like a protest—the first unhappy noise from her all day, and Mercedes was wondering what to do next. Babies needed naps, she remembered that now—they needed rest. But she didn’t want the girl laying down on anything around here. "I like your flowers," she said suddenly.

Irene shrugged. "on’t know what else to do with them. I never use the grill, so, I figured, put them there. I'll admit I like all the colors against that shiny black. Looks pretty, don't you think? Bold, and whatnot."

Mercedes felt her lips open and a smile start to unfold. “Yeah,"she laughed. "It does."

"What’s that on your arms?"

"Oh," she said. "Mosquito bites. It’s like they always find me and attack me and leave everyone else alone. I have sweet blood," she said.

"You know that’ll change," Irene said.

"Really?" Mercedes rubbed an open palm along the bites, doing all she could not to apply her nails in search of relief, knowing it would only get worse, knowing that blood might follow. "When? Is there some secret? Because I'm about to go crazy."

"When? When it comes down."

Mercedes looked at the woman. She was not an easy one to figure out. "When what does?"

Irene pulled her hands off the table and brushed them down her belly. "The blood," she said, like it was something you could learn from seeing advertised on a billboard or TV. "Mosquitoes hate the monthlies. When it comes, they won't bother you anymore. It's the only thing it's good for, is keeping the biting insects away."

She didn't know what to say to this, what came from this woman's mouth. Irene just sat there, flesh falling down in big white waves, nodding like she had revealed the secret of life.

A big, lazy fly bumped up against the inside of the pane over the sink, half searching for a way out. Mercedes was thinking now might be about the right time to go herself. There were two dollars on the table and a tired baby in her lap. But leave to where? Where was she supposed to go? Almost a whole afternoon had passed. She'd poured another cup of the fruit punch from the cloudy pitcher, and it wasn't all that bad, not really—it kind of brought life back to her—and Irene had directed her to a half-bag of pretzel twists hiding on a shelf. She was starting to like the feel of the kitchen, drinking punch and eating pretzels, and the way the sun came in and touched the flowers piled in the round bowl of the grill. Now and then a jet passed over somewhere in the sky, and even this began to give her some pleasure, like a palm placed on her face. She didn't know why.

Oh, but Destiny. The girl was whining and writhing and searching for a good way to get comfortable. Those little hands clutched at the LeBron jersey and pulled and pulled, like trying to get inside at something. "What you looking for, girl?"

"She’s hungry." Irene hauled herself out of the chair and made as if to come around the table. "You still have her on the nipple?"

"Ma’am?"

"She’s kind of old for that. And I can't help you. Last thing you'll find around here’s a baby bottle."

"A bottle." Mercedes couldn't help the word coming out of her mouth. It was like leaves and petals being pushed away to show her something, all at once.

Irene went and ran some water out of the tap, leaving it while she pulled down a red-and-white box from a cabinet. Mercedes watched her spoon some powder from it and into a coffee cup, which Irene then held under the tap and when it was full she stirred it up loudly. "Give her this," she said. "Just powdered, but it should work."

"Thank you."

"So." Irene stood before her like a big white mountain. "She belong to a friend, or your sister maybe?"

Mercedes held the cup to Destiny's lips and helped her drink. She couldn't look at Irene; she had no good answer for her. Her arms were giving her furious discomfort all of a sudden, too, and it was torture not to have a way to scratch them. She peered down to see Destiny's lips part just a bit, dark and wet, and the milk spill into her mouth in little white drops.

"You pretty much told me you haven't had a period," Irene said. "Can't have a baby without that. Besides. You look all of what—thirteen, I'd say. And she's about two or three. I can do math, you know. You thirteen?"

Destiny grasped the cup with both hands, and Mercedes looked at those little fingers wrapping around the curves of the white cup. The girl's lids fluttered and sank like she was going to sleep. "Twelve."

There wasn't anything to say after that, so she just sat there and watched the baby fall away into blissful rest, her little wet mouth still open some, and those tiny hands still clutching the cup. She could hear Irene breathing too, like some big machine, but then she realized it was because the woman was right there, right above her, reaching down to take Destiny away.

"Wait," Mercedes said, as Irene lifted the girl. She threw her arms out to get the baby back, but Irene was already moving away. Her lap felt empty and warm where the dozing child had lain, empty and blank with the weight of her suddenly gone. "Wait," she cried. Irene was halfway to the cave-like opening at the other side of the kitchen, moving faster than Mercedes had seen her move since she made the mistake of coming into this house. When she looked back her eyes were like the eyes of the man in the old picture. "Where you taking her?"

She hurried after her, trailing her into the dark hallway, wondering where all this was headed but now half-letting it too—it was turning into a long day. The huge shape of Irene moved around a corner and Mercedes followed behind, and she was more than surprised by the room she ended up in. It was spotless and immaculate, clean as a white sheet on a line, with a bed pushed up beneath a window and a shiny bureau against the wall. She stopped. Irene laid Destiny down on the bed; she arranged some pillows around her to keep her from rolling off. The little girl was like a doll in the yellow dress and pink shoes and like a doll she didn't move a muscle.

"We'll need to get her some diapers. You didn't bring any?"

Oh, diapers too. Mercedes shook her head.

"Well." Irene stood back and put her round fists on her hips. "She'll sleep a while, anyway. Long enough."

"For what?"

Irene extended a heavy white hand and wrapped it around her wrist. It felt to Mercedes like a blood pressure cuff right before it’s squeezed—strapped on and tight but kind of comfortable, almost safe. She let herself be led across the hall to the bathroom, small as a box but in the same spotless condition as the room where Destiny slept. Irene pulled back the white vinyl curtain and there was a blue tub behind it. She turned on the water. "I won't make it too hot. It's best for the bites that way."

Mercedes felt herself shaking her head. "I can't."

"You just get in."

The door closed and she was there alone, watching water filling up the tub. It wasn't as deep as Cumberland but it seemed clear and clean in its way. She looked at the door, tried to listen for Irene, but the running water was too loud, and the sound of it was finally enough. She slipped out of her LeBron jersey and swimsuit, left them folded on the closed lid of the toilet, and climbed into the tub. It felt good, she had to say that, the kind of purifying thing that might make the pain of the bites go away and the thoughts of the day disappear.

Or maybe not. Irene could be calling the police, or taking Destiny down to the street to some other house where they’d hold her until the mother was found. Then she'd be in trouble—maybe more trouble than she could even imagine. Mercedes turned the water off. Another jet went by somewhere outside, not so high above. She closed her eyes and envisioned Miss Irene Lakatos in the kitchen, resting her fat arms on the table, maybe looking at the flowers piled in the grill. She stretched her legs all the way out, pointed her toes, and in a minute knew this vision was true. It had to be true, because she couldn’t leave the water, not now.

Lord let me sink here for just a little while longer, she thought, toes just touching the cool blue porcelain at the other end of the tub. Or maybe, if You could see to it, for fully as long as it takes.