A Blossom of Bright Light by Suzanne Chazin

numbers work in reverse. The bigger the negative, the smaller the amount. So negative six is smaller than negative one.”
    â€œBut six is bigger.”
    â€œWhen it’s a positive number.”
    â€œBut if you owed somebody six dollars, you’d owe more than if you only owed them one. So it’s bigger.”
    Ay caray! Adele’s head was pounding. Her nerves were shot. Every time the phone rang, it was someone else telling her about the dead newborn found behind La Casa—everyone but Jimmy. He had yet to call since he’d stormed out of the house at seven-thirty this morning.
    She was in the process of drawing a number line for Sophia when the phone rang again. She checked the caller ID. It wasn’t Jimmy. But it was a call she knew she had to take: Steve Schulman, the county supervisor, who, if the polls were correct, would soon become the next Democratic U.S. senator from New York.
    â€œI have to answer this,” Adele told her daughter. “Fill in the numbers on the number line, and I’ll check them when I get off the phone.”
    The little girl groaned and rolled her eyes. She was nine going on thirteen. Rhinestone jeans. Sequined shirts. All sparkle and high drama. Adele took the phone upstairs. She hadn’t told Sophia anything about Schulman’s offer yet. She hadn’t told anyone.
    She walked into her bedroom and shut the door. “Hey, Steve.” She feigned a brightness she didn’t feel.
    â€œYou’re busier than I am, Adele, and that’s saying something. I’ve been trying to reach you for two days.” He had no idea she’d been dodging his calls. And why would he? Most people would give their right arm for the opportunity Schulman was offering her. What was her problem?
    â€œIt’s just been crazy at work lately,” said Adele. That was one way to describe a homicide investigation behind her community center.
    â€œSo—you’re coming to the gala Saturday night, right?”
    â€œI wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Adele wondered again if Jimmy had gotten around to renting a tuxedo. She’d been asking him for a month to do it. He kept putting it off, like a lot of things in their relationship. Then again, the same could be said of her.
    â€œYou know,” said Schulman, “I would love to be able to introduce you on Saturday as my new Hispanic Affairs appointee.”
    The words hung on the line a half beat too long. Adele knew she was supposed to say something.
    â€œI’m flattered, Steve. More than flattered. Honored—”
    â€œYou are going to accept, aren’t you?” He had an airline pilot’s voice. Quietly confident under the most harrowing of circumstances. More than once Adele had relied on Schulman for his reassuring demeanor, not to mention his political savvy and sway with community leaders.
    She’d first met Steve Schulman ten years ago when he was an up-and-coming state senator for the district and she was a former Wall Street lawyer who’d just won a class-action discrimination suit against the town of Lake Holly on behalf of a group of day laborers. As part of the settlement, she’d been granted the resources to start La Casa. It was not a politically popular decision. Overnight, picket lines formed across from the center. Adele was deluged with hate mail, even at her home, telling her to “Go back to Mexico”—despite the fact that she was born in the United States and her parents were from Ecuador.
    Every week, there were angry letters in the local newspaper decrying the death of their bucolic little village at the hands of “alien invaders.” All the local politicians walked a fine line with Adele, on the one hand extolling the “American melting pot” and, on the other, reassuring their voters that they did not support “lawbreakers.”
    Only Schulman was able to step above the fray and see the bigger picture. A