“I sure hope she doesn’t let other folks be a bad influence on her. I like to think both you girls learned a lot about right and wrong from your time with us.”
I certainly had, but I couldn’t speak for Mya. From what I could tell, the only lesson she learned was obedience wasn’t for her. Mya did only what she wanted—no more and no less.
“Nikki?”
“Huh?” I was listening, but my thoughts had begun to wander.
“I do miss having both you girls under the same roof.”
I nodded. “We miss it too.”
I figured that was better than telling her the truth. Not only had Mya not mentioned Darlene since she left, my sister developed a fascination with parties and boys. That would’ve been too much for the preacher’s wife to handle. So, I lied and changed the subject. “What do you think of Jean-Louis?”
“Oh, he seems like a good man,” she nodded as she sipped her coffee. “I do wish he was in the church.”
That’s when it occurred to me. The answer lied with Jesus. If my soon-to-be fiancé accepted Jesus Christ as his savior, he would be better equipped to fight the devil’s temptation. Last night would’ve ended like all our other dates—with a polite kiss on the cheek.
“It’s just that his family never took to religion,” I began as the plan took shape in my mind. “I bet he’d be open to it though. I could ask. Maybe bring him to service on Sunday…”
◼︎
As the reverend would say, takes a strong person to forgive those who have done them harm. So, when Jean-Louis put the small gray box in my hand, I felt ready to put that hormonal incident behind us.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” I swallowed hard, my fingers shaking around the jewelry box. We sat in his car with the radio playing softly in the background as the windshield wipers squeaked back and forth, whisking the gentle drizzle away.
“Open it.”
I nodded, but my fingers wouldn’t cooperate. Would I be able to continue to support the weight of the tiny box? Like all little girls, I waited my whole life for that moment.
“Wait. I wanna say something I…”
I’d agreed to let him take me to dinner for one reason. I’d been a fool to think love was all we needed. God is love, so there can be no love without him, and I meant to say just that.
“I’ve been thinking and—I mean I spoke to Darlene and—”
His eyes stared deeply into mine as his long dainty fingers began to stroke my hand. A beautiful but otherwise distracting moment.
“Last time I saw you…”
He gave a nod to demonstrate his understanding and squeezed his hands around mine. He never meant to hurt me. He only wanted me to accept how much he cared for me. He loved me, really loved me. The tip of his index finger traced my jawline, drawing a single line from my ear to my chin. It had all been a misunderstanding. I simply wasn’t accustomed to having a man pursue me, desire me, so I panicked and overreacted.
“I know you love me—”
“That’s right. I do. Why else would I be asking you to marry me?” He smiled, withdrawing his fingers enough to open the small gray box. “Nicole Morrow, will you marry me?”
“Mama.” Jenna hardly ever showed up without her counterpart, so I figured Callie would poke her head in from the hall at any second. “Ooooo…” She pointed at the mess I made of Jackie’s bedroom.
“I’m cleaning up. Y’all go back downstairs and play.”
“Die-a-ree?” Jenna flopped down on the bed and pointed to the closet. “Die-a-ree!” She smiled, congratulating herself on being helpful.
Was tempting, but I needed more than some words to prove what I thought.
Jackie and Mya would be home at three fifteen. The school let out at three and took ‘em a few minutes to get their stuff together and ten minutes to walk home if they walked at Jackie’s pace. The clock on her nightstand said a quarter after four but still no sign of them.
I needed some proof I could put my hands on. Condoms, a diaphragm, birth control pills, something she couldn’t lie her way out of.
“Mama?” Natalie stood in the doorway with Callie, both of their eyes getting big at the mess.
“Everything’s fine. Y’all go on downstairs.”
Soon as I said it, Jenna’s words whispered in my ears. Her diary. I brushed past the girls and hurried into my bedroom to study the pages. Starting from the beginning wasn’t an option. I flipped to the middle and skimmed a few lines. Flipped a few pages and skimmed some more.
◼︎
“I told you,” Jackie said as the front door opened. “Did you see him staring? You damn near put a spell on him. We should go shopping. Get you outta them jerseys and into some more cute tops.”
Their book bags hit the floor and they went about hanging their coats on the coat rack by the door.
“Hey, Mama.”
“Wh-Where y’all been?”
“Jackie tried out for the talent show.”
“I told you.” She grinned. “Guess what? I’m in!”
I shook from head to toe by then. Ain’t matter if Jesus himself walked through the door with ‘em. I wouldn’t have believed one word out their mouths.
“You was ‘posed to come straight home. Straight home! Y’all don’t listen to a word I say!”
“But I told you—”
“I ain’t done!” I realized I was yelling and decided to keep it down so as not to scare the younger ones. Instead I waved the notebook in her face and demanded an explanation.
“Answer me.”
“Where you get that? It’s mine! Give it back!” Jackie reached out to grab it, but I moved faster. The motion actually sent her stumbling forward a few steps. “You can’t just be going through my stuff!”
I never been the most cosmopolitan woman, but I recognized liquor when I smelled it, and I couldn’t ignore drunk when it stood right in my face. Although Jackie had done a pretty decent job of acting normal up until she stumbled.
“You been to see that man again?”
“What man?” Her top lip curled into a self-satisfied snarl. “You mean that man you said you were gonna kill? That man?”
She wasn’t lying on me, but for some reason hearing the words aloud sent dread deep into my bones. Was it the reality that I hadn’t been lying when I said it. Most folks threw the expression around without any serious intentions. Not me. I’d meant it. Mya inhaled sharply, and in that instant I saw that it was the past sneaking its way into the present. Somehow after all the harm he’d done, Ricky ended up the victim, and I became a murderer. He could beat me black and blue, whip the skin off Jackie’s back, and damn near put Louis in an early grave and somehow my crime dwarfed his. Wasn’t fair, but standing before his favorite chile as she looked upon me with them eyes so dark they looked like two lumps of coal, I couldn’t say none of that. Instead I fixed my sights on dealing with the issue at hand.
“This ain’t about me. It’s about you, and this right here gonna stop. You hear me? I mean it. You not gonna be like this. If I gotta walk you home every day, then that’s what I’m gonna do. You not gonna be writing him no letters, and you damn sure ain’t going nowhere near his house! If I gotta lock you up in your room, then that’s what I’m gonna do!”
Jackie started to say something, but Mya took her by the arm and beat her to it. “But Mama, we really went to the tryouts. Jackie sang—”
“Heziah is right. Y’all been getting away with too much around here, and it’s gonna stop! You ain’t gonna be like them fast girls getting themselves into trouble! So you tell them lil’ boyfriends of yours, you can’t have boyfriends, you hear? Ain’t gonna be nothing but school for you two. Y’all gonna go learn and bring your behinds right back here.”
“But, Mama—”
“Mya, you ‘But, Mama’ me one more time—”
“But we ain’t do nothing, and I got practice tomorrow!”
“Not no more, you don’t. From now on, you got school
and home and that’s it.”
◼︎
Mya slouched down in her chair, shooting daggers at me from across the dining table. My daddy would’ve never let me get away with that. I raked lines into my mashed potatoes, took a small bite, and raked some more lines. I’d loved my daddy something fierce. Still did even though he’d been dead and buried going on twenty years. Little girls and their daddies… I didn’t blame Mya for her feelings. Probably would’ve made it easier if I did.
“Mama, you not listening.”
“I hear you, Nikki.”
“What I say?”
Heziah lifted his napkin to wipe the gravy from his lips then said, “You were telling us about your male friend. Again.”
“Oh, he’s just so wonderful, so perfect.” Jackie swooned pretending to be Nikki. “I wouldn’t know what to do without him.”
“Well, he is wonderful,” Nikki replied. “I’d be jealous too if I were you.”
“Yeah, right. Sure. You ever see me running behind a damn leprechaun you can bet hell’s about to freeze over.”
“Watch your language,” Heziah’s eyes darted from Jackie to the twins and back again. “There’s no need for all of that.”
But Jackie and Nikki never paid nobody else any mind when they got going.
“You just jealous! And he’s not a leprechaun! He’s average height!”
“For a girl.”
“Quit it, you two.” Heziah broke in. “Jackie, be nice.”
“Not my fault she got low standards. Done hooked up with one of Santa’s elves. Boy so short he don’t even have to bend over to tie his shoes.”
“At least he’s not a pervert! At least I’m not s-s-some pervert!”
Jackie wanted to leap over the table and wrap her fingers ‘round Nikki’s neck.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Heziah immediately took offense as any father would have. His face turned stone cold, the word ‘pervert’ weighing heavy on his mind.
Still there was a possibility it would all go away. Just needed a good change of subject.
“We gone change the subject. This ain’t supper talk. Nikki, how you like being a senior? It’s going okay?”
In some ways my girls seemed completely different from how I remembered ‘em, but Nikki was still the same in this one way in particular. She loved to tell folks something they wasn’t already on top of. So, when she didn’t say a word, instead nodded, staring down into her plate, I figured the lil’ tiff with Jackie left a bad taste in her mouth.
“Jackie, say you sorry.”
“Why I gotta always be the one apologizing to her? She never apologize to me…walking around here like she better than everybody else. Lil’ Miss Perfect.” Jackie’s fork clanged up ‘gainst her plate as she leveled her gaze at her sister. “You the one living in a fantasy world. Ain’t no man up in the clouds looking down making sure everything go right. The world is a fucked up place, and we live in it, and then we die. In between, we might get to have some fun but that’s it.”
“Fun…yeah, right,” Nikki mumbled under her breath. “You know all about that.”
“You ain’t no betta than me!”
“At least, I’m not…”
“What? You not what? Say it!”
“You keep going like you is, and…and something bad gonna happen to you! You and your nasty ways! You asking for it! Simple as that.”
“That’s enough, now y’all stop it. Always biting at each other. You sisters. Act like it.”
Before I could say any more, Heziah stood up from the table and ordered Nat and the twins to finish their supper in the kitchen. He wanted to get a handle on what was going on. His stare traveled around the table, giving each one of us a chance to speak up, but nobody did. Me and my girls, we ain’t plan to keep things a secret from him, but nothing good would come from letting him in on it. Heziah still thought the world was full of good people, living decent lives.
“What’s this talk about a pervert? Somebody say something. Now. Belinda?”
“It’s nothing. Really. They acting out.”
His skeleton-like fingers stretched out across the table toward us, and he shifted his weight onto his palms. “Are you lying to me? Because family doesn’t do that, and we’re family.”
“See, what you done did!” Nikki exploded. “You gonna ruin Mama’s marriage. You don’t care about nobody but yourself! Trying to turn Mya into a slut like you! I’m sorry, Mama, but it’s true. She’s like the snake that went after Adam and Eve. Everything she touch gets ruined.”
The anger that gave Jackie such a strong spine wilted away without the slightest warning, so her body had a tough time keeping from slumping forward. And her eyes…hadn’t seen such pain in them since…well since her daddy was breathing. I had to turn away. And Jackie hightailed it for the stairs. Left her chair wobbling from side to side.
“Why you do that?” Mya finally saw fit to open her mouth and that left Nikki speechless. She sat frozen in her seat, while Mya’s chair scraped ‘gainst the floor. She headed toward the stairs, leaving the three of us alone at the table.
Heziah sighed and sank back onto his chair. The question faded away in his eyes and what took its place brought panic to my heart. I was lucky to have him, but my luck never stayed good for long.
For all my faults, I kept a clean room. Not that anybody could tell from the state it was in. Damn twins. Always messing my stuff up.
“Don’t listen to her.” Mya tucked one foot underneath herself, and scooted back until she was leaning against my headboard. “Jackie?”
Nat had her own room across the hall, but when we were little me and her used to share the room that now belonged to me. The walls remained the same tangerine color, but I taped posters on all four walls and even across the closet door: Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, New Edition, Anita Baker, and Luther Vandross. And Prince. I loved me some Prince. His sultry stare seduced me from all angles. In that moment, draped diagonally across the bed, I was happy to get lost in it.
Below, on the floor of my room, Nat squeezed her knees to her tiny chest and rocked back and forth, looking up at me with wide attentive eyes.
“Don’t listen to her,” Mya said again from the head of my bed.
“You mad at me?”
Her brow wrinkled in confusion and soon after smoothed out as she remembered. I got her in trouble. Because of me, she couldn’t be on the track team anymore.
“Season’s almost over anyway.”
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded. Wasn’t quite forgiveness as much as it was acceptance. Couldn’t undo what had already been done.
“You gotta stop seeing him. And drinking. It ain’t good for you.”
I nodded because Mya would never understand. The things that made her feel normal everybody cheered. They literally cheered. But me? All that met me was disdain and judgment. Even singing was outlawed now.
“You think I’m a slut?”
Mya shrugged. “What’s a slut? Betcha it ain’t in the dictionary.”
More evidence she could never understand. Wasn’t like the word was new to her. Every girl over the age of thirteen was familiar with the word. We’d all been taught to fear it, run from it or even from the thought of it. To be a slut was the worst thing a girl could be, but my farsighted sister took this opportunity to begin a discussion over the definition.
“You not a slut,” came Nat’s shining voice from down below. “You’re just really popular.”
◼︎
The argument between Mama and Heziah began an hour before lights out and lasted beyond my bedtime. I hesitated to call it an argument because it wasn’t anything like what I normally associated with the word. Usually when Mama argued with a man, there was pleading and possibly a scream or two, broken glass, broken bones, stuff like that. But Heziah wasn’t like that. I could tell he was upset, but I didn’t worry about Mama the way I did whenever Ricky had gotten upset. I’d stopped calling my father “Daddy” the day I
figured out what the word meant. A daddy was somebody who loved you and protected you from anything that might cause you pain. He was more than the same blood type. Heziah was my daddy, and he loved my mama, so I didn’t worry at all as I slid my window up in the dead of night. I was sure they’d work it out.
What I focused on was the long way down. Nash stood on the ground below, pushing the ladder against the side of the house. It scraped against the frozen ground covered in the midnight chill. The lawn had a slight frost coating each blade of grass. It was unlikely the earth would provide a gracious welcome if I fell from my second-floor window. I never thought I’d get my mama back only to be running away from her.
“I’m not saying that!” Mama said exasperatedly.
The wind blew upward into my face, and I realized I was under dressed. I’d dressed in fuchsia tights, a black miniskirt, and a sweater with a brightly colored abstract pattern that bared my shoulders. Nash had given me his jacket, and it hung down far enough to cover the hem of my skirt. The collar held his scent, and for a moment, I forgot about my fear of heights.
“Don’t go.”
She’d slipped into my bedroom without a sound—her long black waves tucked behind her ears and cascading toward her waist. Mya’s pajamas were black-and-white polka dots, not ‘cause she liked them, more so because they had been on sale.
“I’ll be back.”
But that wasn’t the point. She folded her arms under her chest and squinted at me in the darkness of my bedroom. Mya was the one who wasn’t afraid of heights or anything else for that matter.
“I promise,” I said, straddling the window sill.
Most Chicagoans didn’t expect April to have too many beautiful days, but the Lord handed us two in a row. On the second day, I broke the news of my engagement to Darlene and the reverend. They weren’t surprised. Darlene said she could tell there was something different about me. I started blushing right there on the spot.
The reverend’s house was only a few miles from a forest preserve, and once the sun went down, the parking lot was basically private. Jean-Louis cracked the windows, letting the night breeze infiltrate the warmth of his car. Talk radio played on the stereo, but neither of us was listening to it. I still wanted to wait until our wedding night, but that was getting harder the more time we spent together.
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