Blue Sky

by D. Bryant Simmons

  “Give this to my sister Jackie.” I folded the page into perfect thirds then in half and wrote Kem’s address on the center line. “Don’t read it.”

  “Fine.” He accepted it without a second thought and moved on with his agenda. “Arraignment is set for Monday. This is where you’ll enter a plea of not guilty, and the judge will decide bail. Any questions?”

  “What’s the likelihood he’ll dismiss this thing?”

  Ross Brooks stood and slipped the pages I’d signed into his briefcase. “Judge Pearson? Not likely.”

  “I just can’t believe this is happening.”

  It was all I could think to say to break the silence. Jackie just stared out the window. The brake lights of the car in front of us flashed, and I pushed the pedal to the floor. I much preferred highway driving to the streets, but neither the Stevenson nor the Dan Ryan would bring us any closer to our destination.

  “It’s like we’re cursed or something.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, but at least that got my sister’s attention. Mama was careful to put a positive spin on it, smiling and declaring the whole thing a misunderstanding, but nobody who knew her believed it. Mya had been out of our reach for so long, we all secretly feared something like this might happen.

  “There it is.” Jackie pointed to the neon sign, and I turned into the parking lot. “Doesn’t look that bad.”

  It looked horrible. Made my skin crawl as the tires rolled over the loose gravel.

  Jackie unfolded the piece of paper with the address and room number and replied, “Two twenty-two. You wanna wait here?”

  “No.”

  Jackie thought she was doing me a favor, but I wasn’t gonna relax until we were all out of there.

  We climbed the rickety metal staircase to the second floor and went left until we noticed the numbers on the doors were only getting bigger. Then turned and headed to the right. It was a horrid shame. My sister could’ve had a good life. She didn’t deserve this.

  Jackie paused outside the door and stared at me. “Fix your face.”

  How exactly was I supposed to look? Wasn’t like I was calling on a neighbor for a cup of sugar. I doubted anybody there even had sugar. They probably ate crap and slept half their lives away. But I smiled and Jackie knocked, tucking the paper into the back pocket of her jeans. At least my sister had the fortitude to dress appropriately. It was the only time I’d seen her wear a turtleneck. Meant I didn’t have to worry about her getting raped on the way back to the car.

  The curtains swayed softly, but the movement didn’t give us any clue to what waited inside the dark room. Jackie knocked again, and the door opened a crack. One droopy eye and then another appeared, blinking erratically at the early morning light. I nodded, confirming for Jackie that he was in fact the notorious Dee.

  “Hi, I’m Jackie Morrow. I think you know my sister Nikki. Mya sent us.”

  “One second.”

  The door slammed shut, leaving us standing on the outside. Was a good thing Mama didn’t come. She didn’t need to see this. The door opened after some shuffling noises, and we stepped inside.

  “She okay?”

  “She’s in jail,” I snapped.

  He stared at the floor. I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. It had been on the news the last two nights. It was in the papers. He knew and he hadn’t done a thing about it.

  “Hi, auntie.” Mia waved from the foot of the bed. She was eating cereal off a Styrofoam plate.

  “How are you, sweetheart?” I smiled, running my fingers through her hair. Her face was clean, her breath smelled of toothpaste, and she appeared to be in good spirits. “You bring my mommy from work?”

  “No…no, honey, but she asked me to come see you.”

  “How long she gonna be at work? Dee says she’ll be home soon. Why she not take me with her?” Mia hopped down from the bed, spilling Cheerios across the floor. “Take me to her.”

  I wasn’t prepared for this. Mya told us to bring baby formula, but that was all. I tried to think of what my sister would say if she were there, but nothing came to mind other than, “Your mom wants you to eat your breakfast.”

  She walked to the dresser and tilted the half-empty box until her plate was once again full. Then returned the box to its place, next to a row of baby bottles, each one filled with water. Jackie had been conversing with Dee, neither of them paying any attention to the two of us.

  “Excuse me. You haven’t been feeding the baby tap water have you? Newborns can’t drink water.”

  Jackie’s eyes darted between us, and she sighed. “Can’t hurt, right? Not like it’s poison or something.”

  “He’s on the breast.” The man whose parenting skills were in question explained. “Soon as Mya gets back he’ll be okay.” He went quiet as I unwrapped the container of baby formula and set a gallon of nursery water on the dresser. “He’s on the breast,” he repeated.

  “Mya sent this.” I’d already read the instructions, so I began mixing bottles.

  “She’s just covering all the bases,” I heard Jackie say. “It might take another day or two before we get this whole thing straightened out.

  “So, you’ve seen her?”

  “No, but Mama says she’s okay. Stubborn. But you know how she is.”

  “Yeah…”

  Even I heard the smile in his voice. Maybe I’d been too hard on this man. If Mya loved him, then there had to be something good about him.

  “She just wanted us to come by and check on you all.”

  “You mean make sure I’m not fucking up.”

  “Make sure you have everything you need,” Jackie corrected him with a smile. “Is there anything else you guys need? We can run to the store for you.”

  I added three fresh bottles to the mini-fridge and went about mixing up one more which I intended to feed to my nephew before we left.

  “I…I been thinking about moving on…from here. Folks been talking about what happened. And about us. Eventually one of ‘em is gonna go to the cops.”

  I turned around in time to see Jackie nod and hand him the piece of paper. He read it silently and sank into the bed closest to the window. “They really think she did this…”

  “They think she was partners with somebody who did it. A man.”

  “Auntie, I can’t see.”

  “Sorry.” I hurried away from the television and joined the conversation. I hadn’t read Mya’s note, but seeing his reaction, I realized most of it was meant for him.

  “Okay.” His voice turned brittle with conviction, and he returned to his full height. “Okay, then we’ll go to umm…Good Shepherd. Tell her she can find us there. Okay?”

  “What exactly is Good Shepherd?”

  “Church shelter.”

  “Well, don’t you think the kids really need some stability right now—”

  “Nikki,” Jackie whispered urgently, but I ignored her.

  “Why don’t you let me take them for a while. Just until Mya gets out. She said something about you having to go to work anyway.”

  He double-checked the note, then asked Jackie if that was what Mya really wanted, and I held my breath. Jackie and I were never of the same mind. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d backed me up on anything.

  “I think she wanted us to help you. So, whatever you think is best.”

  He nodded and wandered over to the window, turning the note over and over in his hands. Then finally said, “What about you?”

  “Me?” Jackie shifted her weight and squeezed her hands into her back pockets. “Yeah. You live nearby, right?”

  “I could take them. Sure.”

  “No, she can’t. She’s in school. She doesn’t have one clue what to do with kids.”

  “I’m not a freaking idiot. I’ve babysat Mia more times than I can count.”

  “But you live in a dorm.”

  “I live with Kem.”

  “In a one-bedroom apartment.”


  “They’re family. We can make it work.”

  “Don’t you wanna run that by your boyfriend first?”

  What could she be thinking? She was in no position to take on a toddler and a newborn!

  “Don’t listen to Nikki. Kem will be fine with it. And if I have to, I’ll take a semester off. That way I can have them during the day, and you can visit anytime you want or even take them at night if you want. It’ll be fine.”

  “I can ask the school to put me on the night shift. If you can watch them for a few hours in the day, so I can sleep…”

  They had both lost their minds. It was like I wasn’t even in the room. Jackie spoke and he nodded. He spoke and she nodded. But then I remembered. They were both drug addicts, so of course, they thought each other made sense.

  I made one last appeal for sanity. “I’ve got plenty of room, and Mia’s already familiar with my house.” It should’ve cinched it. I was clearly the logical choice.

  But he still wasn’t convinced and said, “What about your husband?”

  “Oh, he won’t mind.”

  “Liar.” Jackie shifted her weight again, folding her arms under her chest. “Last thing that man wants is more Morrows under his roof.”

  I would’ve killed her, but he spoke first. “Well, I want them close by so…”

  “Good. Then it’s settled.” Jackie hugged her new friend, and the two of them darted around the room packing things.

  ◼︎

  It wasn’t just for my benefit, I argued with myself. The little ones would obviously be better off with me than with Jackie. She couldn’t even take care of herself, much less another human being. Not that I was wishing my sister would fail. That wouldn’t be Christian-like. I sighed and tapped the garage opener, pulling into the dimly lit space next to my husband’s car. One night. I was giving myself one night to mourn my bad luck, then tomorrow, I’d call Jackie and work out a babysitting schedule. If it meant I had to go into the city, then I would. We were family after all.

  “Where were you?” He sat at the counter, an open bottle of mineral water and glass of water at his elbow.

  “I had to help Jackie do something.”

  “Ah, yes. Jackie.”

  He’d only set eyes on her a handful of times, but whenever the conversation turned to her, his lips puckered and his voice dropped an octave. It only made sense. I was the plain, responsible sister and she…she was not.

  “Hungry?”

  I’d found a recipe for a French casserole, prepared it, and stuck it in the fridge. The glass dish couldn’t go straight into the oven, so I set it on the counter to warm to room temperature. It was enough to feed four. Maybe I’d bring the leftovers to Jackie. Poor Kem probably hadn’t had a home-cooked meal the entire span of their relationship.

  “Darlene called.”

  “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  “Fine.” He stood, walked slowly toward me. “How is your sister?”

  “Jackie? She’s fine. The same as far as I can tell.”

  “Good. She is the only one of you who doesn’t hate me.”

  I didn’t have the heart to correct him.

  “Dinner won’t take long. Twenty-thirty minutes at the most. Can I ask you something?”

  My sister was in jail. For all her flaws and mistakes, I couldn’t imagine anyone thinking she deserved that. So, I did the unthinkable. I asked my husband to help.

  “Think of it as smoothing things over with my family.”

  He returned to his station and gulped down what was left of his water. Then returned the glass to the counter with a clang.

  “Please. Mama’s doing everything she can to scrape up some money for bail, but that might not even happen if we don’t get her a halfway decent lawyer…Jean-Louis? Say something. I know you two have had your differences—”

  “You mean when she attacked me?”

  “Please. For me.”

  Once she was done swearing up a storm, Clara reminded me that everything happens for a reason. Me and Ricky happened, so I could have my girls. And because of the divorce, I had this house. Soon as they came of age, the girls got to split Ricky’s life insurance. Nikki paid for a year at that snooty Christian college with hers and should’ve had some left, but there was a rumor that she’d ended up paying for her wedding ring and possibly a good portion of her wedding with what she had left. How that man talked my child into that I’ll never know.

  Now Jackie, I had to talk fast just to get her to put it toward her schooling, and Mya, she wouldn’t even discuss it with me. Wouldn’t sign the papers to have the money transferred into her name. Wouldn’t admit that the money even existed. So, I sat at the kitchen table, searching through the most recent statements to find the latest one. Dragged my finger across the bottom of the page to the balance, was more money than I’d ever see. At least he managed to do one good thing for my girls.

  “Belinda?”

  “I’m okay.”

  Heziah had taken to checking on me every hour or so. First thing out his mouth when he walked into a room was to ask me if I was okay.

  “You need to get some sleep.”

  I nodded. Couldn’t sleep and worry at the same time, so it sounded like a good idea. “You think they’ll let me put Mya’s money up for bail?”

  “I think it won’t come to that. The judge is gonna set this thing straight, and there’s gonna be some apologies. That’s what I think. Now come to bed.”

  “Guess we’ll see, huh? Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow.” Heziah took my hand and I followed his lead.

  Couldn’t shake it loose. The alarm clock announced a new day, and it started all over again. Thoughts that had finally receded into the back of my mind returned again, picking up exactly where they left off. Mya. I stumbled into the bathroom and pointed the tube of toothpaste at my toothbrush. Mya. My sister was a morning person. Was she awake? Had she slept at all? Was she even alive? How many people get killed waiting for trial? Cold water flowed at a steady stream, slowly filling the basin, lifting the frothy blue remnants of saliva and toothpaste from the walls of the sink. I smiled in the mirror. We had the same smile, but most folks didn’t know that because my sister hardly ever showed her teeth. I’d given up trying to keep my unruly mane straight, instead pulling it back into a somewhat tidy ponytail, the tail end of which reminded me of a scarecrow. Mya’s hair was always well-behaved. My sister and her hair never got into any trouble that I didn’t pull her into, and yet, here I was secretly, happily married while she was locked behind bars.

  “Morning, mami.” Kem traipsed past me with a long vibrating yawn and lifted the toilet seat.

  “You’re seriously gonna do that in front of me?”

  He yawned again, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet as the last ounces of urine left his body.

  “So this is marriage, huh? Pissing in front of each other?”

  “What time do we have to be at the courthouse?”

  “Oh, about that…you don’t have to—”

  “Of course, I will.” His voice rose to be heard over the flush.

  We traded places, so he could wash his hands. I lowered the seat, the cover, and sat down. Kem shook the last drops of water from his hands and began running them through his hair until he was satisfied that there were no more tangles.

  “I can be ready in ten minutes.” He leaned toward the mirror, digging the sleep out of the corners of his eyes.

  We weren’t morning people. We were breakfast at noon, up until dawn sort of people, and yet there he was promising to change for little old me.

  “Kids’ll be here soon,” I didn’t think I’d have to remind him, but apparently I did.

  “I’m gonna stay until the kids get here. Make sure you guys are okay, then run like hell to the courthouse. Mama said for us to be there at eight, but hopefully I won’t miss anything.”

  “I thought that was tonight.”

  “What?”

  “The kids.”
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br />   That had been the plan—school during the day, my niece and nephew at night—but the more time that passed, the more convinced Dee became that they should be with me not just at night but all day. It honestly wasn’t my doing although I could imagine Nikki’s expression when she found out. She’d probably think I’d manipulated him into handing over his kids just to piss her off. Like it was my life’s ambition to steal everything she wanted.

  “Mami?”

  “Darien couldn’t switch shifts. We’ll have them days and nights. If that’s okay.”

  “Of course, it’s fine. Whatever they need.” He gave a sad nod. “I just thought he’d want to be there. In court. Today.”

  “You don’t know my sister. If she saw him, she’d wanna know why he wasn’t with the kids or at work. Mya’s all about the bottom line. That’s her idea of romance.”

  “So, I’ll stay here with the kids. But you’re still going?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kem’s chest rose and fell just as he attempted a smile. “You’re a good sister.”

  “I just couldn’t say no. Something about him…the way he asked me…it was like…”

  Kem sat before me on the edge of the tub, hands perched on his knees, bracing himself for what he was about to hear.

  “I don’t know. There’s something off with him—”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No, not like that. It’s just…” I wasn’t an expert on the man, but I didn’t need to be to understand that he was desperate. So desperate for something good that he’d convinced himself he was unworthy of having it. So, he was pushing everything away. Pushing it away before he lost it.

  “Mami?”

  “He’s a good guy, I think. Just needs some help. It won’t be forever. I just think he needs a break from the kids. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “I just said of course not. I am here for whatever you need. That’s why I wanted to be there for you. At the courthouse. For you to lean on.”

  “I spent all night leaning on you.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” But his eyes sparkled at the memory. “I told my family. About you. About us.”