“Does he hit you?” Her words filled my ear, echoing and airy, as if she’d cupped her hand around the receiver. “Nikki?”
“No! Never!”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, I’m not lying, and I don’t care if you believe me or not! It’s my life and I don’t owe anybody any explanations!”
I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I didn’t want to be there, but I needed to see him. I had already rung the bell when it occurred to me that maybe he wasn’t alone.
“Hola,” a static-filled voice burst from the speaker.
“It’s me. Jackie.”
The door let out a long buzz, and I hurried into the inner sanctum of Kem’s apartment building. He met me at the door to his apartment wearing only jeans. No shirt, no socks. Just jeans and a smile.
“Sorry to show up like this. I was in the neighborhood, so I thought…” I smiled and glanced around the living room for signs of a woman or girlfriend or whatever he called her.
“I am glad you did. Come. Sit.”
He shoved the assortment of magazines and bills to the floor and offered up the futon. The same futon we’d made love on. I walked to the window instead and looked down onto the street.
I’d called Mya’s job, but they said she wasn’t on the schedule until Tuesday. I couldn’t wait three days to get what I was feeling off my chest. Couldn’t talk about it with Mama. It would make her worry more. My boyfriend came to mind, but I quickly dismissed that possibility.
“You all right?”
“My father was abusive.”
Kem lingered in my shadow, watching me as I watched the world on the other side of the glass. He didn’t say anything, just listened as I confessed. It wasn’t my sin, it was Ricky Morrow’s, but I carried it with me like a wound that needed to be sheltered from the rain. A secret that everyone knew but wasn’t allowed to speak of. He beat my mother. Terrorized her. And when she wasn’t around, he took it out on me. Not Nikki. Not Natalie. Definitely not Mya. Just me. And then my mother killed him.
“I am sorry, mami.”
“My sister’s husband is abusive.” I searched his eyes for an answer. An instinct about what I should do. Should I talk to her again? Should I run him over with a car? What?
“How do you know?”
“I just do. She says he isn’t but…I just do. You have anything to drink?”
He nodded and led the way to the kitchen, broke the seal on a bottle of rum, then took two glasses from the cabinet. “Forgiveness isn’t just for the person who did wrong. Hard to move on if you don’t forgive.”
I finished my drink in one gulp. “Anything stronger?”
◼︎
I awoke with a start. Sat straight up in bed, clutching the sheets to my chest, certain that it was all a dream. A toilet flushed nearby, and I glanced around the room. It was vaguely familiar. Magazines and books were stacked against the far wall, laundry littered the floor, and the bed consisted of a mattress with a box spring.
“You are awake.” Kem stepped into the darkness and closed the door gently behind him. He was without apparel.
“What happened? What time is it?”
His eyes darted to the tray posing as a bedside table. On it was a digital clock. It said 2:37.
“Twelve hours? I’ve been here twelve hours!”
It all came flooding back. Nikki. My father. The booze and the cocaine. Sex. And more booze. At least I hadn’t tossed my cookies. That much was certain. Kem slid into bed next to me and held me close, leaving moist kisses from my shoulder to my neck. I’d heard of men who lost their erections when intoxicated. Kem was not one of them. His love was relentless. Hard and soft, passionate and caring. If I wasn’t already in love with him, I would’ve been. It was like he set my body on fire and then saved my soul by putting it out.
“Stop.”
“Do you want to talk more?”
Had we talked? What did we say?
“Jackie? What’s wrong?”
“I…I have a boyfriend.” I broke free, fumbling at the foot of the bed for my underwear.
“That doesn’t change how I feel about you or how you feel about me.”
“I…” I kicked listlessly at the ball of sheets surrounding my feet and did my best to resist the warmth of his touch. I figured I had about a fifty-fifty chance that I could get out of his bed and out of his apartment without falling into his arms again.
“Mami?”
“I need my clothes. Where…where are they?” I trembled openly and swore under my breath as my body betrayed me.
Kem’s kiss had settled on my neck, and his hands molded against my breasts, coddling them as if they were two soft mounds of clay.
“You do not need clothes.”
Oh, but I definitely did. I needed them, so that people wouldn’t stare at me as I walked down the street.
“You have me. I will keep you warm. I will protect you.”
He sniffed and brushed the white powder from his nose before snorting another line and passing the handheld mirror to me. Some couples did pillow talk after lovemaking. We did lines.
“I wish you would’ve told me. I would’ve liked to go with you.”
“But it would’ve meant taking more time off work.”
“I don’t care about that, Belinda. This is your health we’re talking about.”
My health. I was sick and tired of thinking about my health. The girls watched attentively from their places around the dining table. Once I made up my mind to lie, I’d intended to tell Heziah the truth later on in private, but that was before he started to read me the riot act. Now, I was having second thoughts.
“I told you. Doctor said everything’s fine. I’m fine. It was all a mistake. Nat, you hear from Jackie? She say anything about being late for supper?”
Nat was now the oldest of my children. With Nikki and Mya off living their own lives and Jackie God knows where, it left Nat and the twins. She shook her head. It wasn’t like Jackie not to call.
“She’s an adult now, Belinda.”
“Being eighteen don’t make her an adult.”
We still had two slices of Jackie’s birthday cake in the fridge. I wasn’t ready to start calling her an adult.
“Mommy, the doctor said you not sick anymore?”
Callie took after Heziah. Never quite believing what somebody said unless she could rephrase it into her own words. She’d make a brilliant lawyer or maybe a psychiatrist ‘cause she was full of questions and doubted every answer that came her way.
“He said I’m just fine.”
I ain’t feel no shame in lying to my girls. They had the rest of their lives to be sad.
◼︎
After supper, Heziah came up behind me as I was washing the dishes. Hugged me so tight, I knew he knew. The years had been kind to us. As married folks we’d learned to read each other. He must’ve known about my lie from the very beginning.
“Tell me again,” he whispered.
I turned to face him, held his face in my hands. “I ain’t never gonna leave you. Even if I ain’t here…”
“No.”
“Heziah—”
“No. You said you were fine. That the doctor said…what did he say?”
“It don’t matter what he said.”
“Of course, it does!” He wanted to yell, wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, but he smothered the impulse and lowered his voice. “Tell me.”
The doctor had spent a good ten minutes telling me how they was learning new things all the time about cancer. That there was experimental treatments I could have. That they could zap my tits with some fancy ray that would kill all the cancer. They could keeping giving me chemotherapy, and it would make me sick as a dog, make all my hair fall out, but I’d have a shot at beating it. Or they could just cut my tittie off.
“What are you gonna do?” Heziah looked at me with eyes so big I thought about the puppies I saw in the window of pet stores. “Pecan.”
I nodded. “I had one of their so-called treatments, and I ain’t gonna torture myself no more with it.”
“You just gonna give up?”
“I’m gonna be normal. Keep my wits about me. Long as I can. I don’t want my girls to see me falling apart.” I pivoted back to the dishes and turned the faucet on full blast. Some things was worse than death. Dying slow and making my girls and Heziah watch was one of them.
“Mama, buy me a car.”
“What?”
Jackie grinned and kept on stirring the greens for me. “Buy me a car, and I’ll get rid of him. Probably wouldn’t even have to drive that fast to knock his little ass down.”
“Jackie, stop!”
“What? Like you weren’t thinking it too!”
I wasn’t. Running him over seemed like too much work. I was partial to a scoop of rat poison in his lemonade.
“Knock who down?” Nat suddenly appeared in the doorway. She’d begun her ascent to womanhood or so I was told. All I saw was my little chocolate baby begging me to pick her up. She took up position next to me, her back against the countertop. Quick as a cat, she stole a slice of tomato, smiling at me guiltily as it disappeared. “Who’s gonna get knocked down?”
“Nikki’s little toy husband.”
“Jackie.”
“Why? What he do?” Nat sucked her fingers dry.
I didn’t need to give her another warning. Jackie knew better than to divulge all the dirty details to her baby sister.
“How come nobody tells me anything? I’m not a baby you know.”
Of course, she was. She was a baby. Jackie was a baby. They was all babies.
“Mama.” Nat stamped her foot and pouted, proving my point. “What’d he do?”
“Nothing, baby. You do your homework?”
My child let out a growl like she was a lion warning some other lion to stay away from her cubs. Then she stormed upstairs. Jackie thought it was funny. Her laughter filled the kitchen until the sound of Nat’s bedroom door slamming shut put a stop to it.
“Ooo, she’s mad now.”
If I’d had a sister growing up, I liked to think I would’ve been more sensitive to her feelings, but my girls got they sensitivity from Ricky. Made them poke fun when they should’ve been sympathizing. Made them be careless when they should’ve been careful.
“You think Daddy’ll let me borrow his car?”
“Just finish up them greens. You need to be thinking on college and signing up for them classes this fall.”
“Yes, Mama.” Jackie grinned.
◼︎
Supper was over and done with when I walked in on them. Sitting on the sofa, whispering in soft tones. Both of them looked up with great big teary eyes soon as I walked into the room. Don’t know why I expected Heziah to keep things to himself.
“Is it true?” Jackie was sobbing.
Damn man. Why he couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie? He had to go and be all familiar with the truth. Lies had they place too. World wouldn’t keep turning if folks didn’t tell lies every now and then.
“Mama.” Jackie stood and crossed the room, threw her arms around me, clinging to me like the baby she was. “Mama, no…”
“I’m fine. It’s fine.”
She brushed her wet nose against my shoulder, then stood back enough to press me with her eyes. Eyes she’d gotten from me.
“Y-You gotta do whatever the doctor said. Whatever he says is best. Promise me.”
Couldn’t say no to that. Couldn’t tell my child that it wouldn’t make any difference. So, I nodded and said, “I promise, baby.”
Two bedrooms and an eat-in kitchen were plenty. More than we’d ever had before. The floors sparkled from their recent waxing, and each room smelled of a fresh coat of paint. Darien nodded somberly as the landlord explained the fees associated with the application, but his eyes danced about excitedly. Was probably the same look George Jefferson had when he was just about to move on up. Mia bounded around the room, mimicking a galloping pony—an outward expression of Darien’s controlled enthusiasm.
“What do you think?” He turned to face me and whispered, so the old lady wouldn’t hear.
“It’s big.”
He agreed, then fixed his gaze to study what I was thinking but not saying. “You think it’s too much.”
I thought it was gonna be a long way to fall when reality caught up with us. There was a laundry room in the basement and mailboxes in the entryway. Didn’t even have to go outside.
“We have a credit requirement,” the woman informed us, but she kept her eye on Mia, as if my child might break something in the furniture-less apartment. “Do you know your score?”
“It’s good,” Darien lied.
“How long have you been at your current job?”
“A while,” he lied again.
Usually, I was the one who made contact with landlords, but he’d expressed a burgeoning interest in all things related to responsibility. So, I hung back. Crossed my arms against my chest and squeezed, hoping to dull the impulse to take over the appointment. Mia disappeared into one of the bedrooms, and I followed. The distance was a good idea. I could barely hear the negotiations that were taking place, which made it easier to be less critical.
“Mommy, I sleep here, and the baby sleep there.” She pointed to the corner near the closet then spun two hundred and seventy degrees to point to the window. “And you and Dee sleep over there.”
“I think we would sleep across the hall.”
“No, you sleep there. Me here. And baby over there.”
I sighed. How many kids didn’t understand the concept of separate bedrooms? Probably just mine.
“So…what do my girls think?” He was grinning. “Should we take it?”
“How much is the rent?”
He hooked an arm around my waist and whispered that the woman wanted eight hundred, but he’d talked her down to seven fifty. A typewriter appeared in my head, keeping a very specific list of expenses complete with realistic minimum and maximum costs. If his custodial position turned out to be permanent, we’d have to work something out for childcare ‘cause I wasn’t about to give up my job, part-time as it was.
“Don’t worry so much.” He was still grinning. “I got this.”
“Smile, Mommy. Dee got it.”
I was surrounded by delusional fools and children. And somehow I’d ended up as the bad guy. The disciplinarian. The realist. The adult. I was the one charged with keeping the truth from them. What stood before us was a nice vacation from the norm, but as with all vacations, it would eventually come to an end.
◼︎
“You should leave him. You don’t need him,” Nikki said between bites of lettuce and croutons. She’d ordered lobster to take home to her little Napoleon and subjected herself to a salad. “It’s not like you’re married to him.”
“Because if she was married to him, then she’d have to stay, right?” Jackie snarked. “She’d owe him the rest of her life?”
Nikki rolled her eyes and reached for the frosty water glass to the right of her plate.
I often wondered if we’d been born in a different order, would they be closer. Maybe if Jackie had been the second child, then Daddy would’ve loved her as much as he loved me, and she wouldn’t be so sensitive. Or if she’d been fourth instead of Nat, then Nikki would’ve carried her around like she was a doll instead of treating Jackie like she’d stolen her spotlight. Although none of that would’ve worked in the end. The problem was their personalities—oil and water.
“You can’t be with somebody thinking you gonna fix them. Mya, you hear me?”
“You should talk. I don’t think you need to be giving anybody relationship advice,” Jackie said.
Nikki feigned a gasp and replied, “I was going to say the exact same thing to you!”
“I’m not leaving him.” They both turned, expecting me to elaborate which I had no plans to do. Five minutes passed. Five minutes of them watching me take a bite of
my cheeseburger, swallow, grab a few fries, swallow, and gulp down unsweetened iced tea.
They spent the next thirty minutes taking turns changing the subject. Jackie spoke to me as if Nikki weren’t at the table and Nikki did the same. Topics went from Mia to Jackie’s impending collegiate attendance to Nikki’s pursuit of motherhood to Jackie’s love triangle. Nikki was clearly disgusted by our sister’s vivid explanation, which tickled Jackie endlessly.
The Irish pub was on my side of town, between the suburbs where Nikki lived and the south side where Jackie still lived with Mama. It was a cross between a highbrow restaurant and a neighborhood bar. The kind of establishment that offered filet mignon as well as a decent burger. Nikki’d chosen it. She was the more thoughtful of us, considering carefully what would be the most neutral location for our get-together. Men lingered at the bar and roamed around the room, sparing suggestive glances at our table. They outnumbered us six to one. A phenomenon that had plagued me since we sat down. I nodded, pretending to listen to the current conversation, but I was actually trying to figure out the reason that so many men were unattached and present.
“Babies ain’t Band-Aids.”
“You sound like Mama.”
“Well, it’s true. You’re crazy if you think everything’s gonna be all roses just ‘cause you have a baby.”
“Just shut up, Jackie. I didn’t ask your opinion.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up! You—”
The men began to converge toward three tables pushed together. Robust laughter emanated from the group, and they raised their glasses in a toast. It was a bachelor party. I smiled, congratulating myself for having figured it out.
“Nikki’s knocked up,” Jackie claimed pointedly, staring at me. “Did you know that?”
I didn’t.
“Aren’t you gonna congratulate her?” She sounded pissed, like I’d offended her with my silence.
“Shouldn’t we all congratulate her? Throw her a congratulations-you’re-having-a-little-asshole party?”
Maybe it wouldn’t be an asshole. There was a fifty-fifty chance that the kid would take after Nikki. But something told me not to point that out.
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