“Eight years. She gives you the shooter and you drop the other two holdups since you can’t even place her there.”
I had a natural poker face, but now that I really needed it, it was nowhere to be found. Couldn’t stop glaring at the men discussing my future like I wasn’t even in the room. If it wasn’t the asshole who would’ve sooner sent me up river than look into my eyes, then it was the man who was supposed to defend me, basically confessing he didn’t believe any parts of my story.
“Fine eight years.”
“I need to talk it over with my client.”
“No need.”
“Actually, Mya—”
“No. I’m not doing eight years.”
“Five with good behavior.”
“I don’t care. Not doing it.”
The prosecutor chuckled, gathered his things, and walked out the door. Didn’t matter to me how much of a fool he thought I was because I wasn’t a big enough fool to do time for something I ain’t do.
Brooks closed the door behind his buddy, then faced me like he was my daddy about to punish me for insubordination. “That was a good deal.”
“Funny. Seemed like a waste of time to me.”
“Trust me. I’m the professional here.”
“Yeah? Then get me off, professional. That sounds like a good deal to me. So, the next time you pull me away from my family to discuss a deal…it better come with an apology for putting me outta the Christmas spirit.”
“Miss Morrow, I’m doing my very best for you here. I am. They may not have much of a case, but you don’t have a defense! And their nothing is gonna look a lot heavier than your nothing when we put it in front of the court.” Brooks dove into his briefcase and came out with a current copy of the Sun-Times. “Have you seen this?”
I’d barely glanced at it. Preferred my fiction to have a plot instead of bogus headlines. “Says you were in foster care. That true?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Also says your mother killed your father. Bashed his head in right in front of you.”
I winced. “Well, if it’s in the paper it must be true.”
“Miss Morrow, please stay with me here. I’m trying to keep you out of prison.”
“Not sure how chasing old ghosts keeps me outta prison.”
“Juries don’t convict people that look like them. You, my dear…look like a criminal. If we go to trial, you’ll have to answer for all of this.”
“No.”
“Yes.” He nodded as if I were merely ill-informed. “I believe you will. Now, I can pull out the violins, but you’ll need to get on the stand and denounce or explain your colorful background.”
“Move on.”
The folds of skin between his eyes popped out like wrinkles in the bed sheet. His eyebrows became slanted and short, just like his words. I wasn’t even on the stand, but there I was getting the hostile-witness treatment.
“Miss Morrow—”
“Not trying to be difficult here. Really, I’m not. But I ain’t talking about any of that. You put me on the stand, and I’ll say just that. Nothing else.”
Didn’t know what to say anyway. My mama killed my daddy. I hadn’t seen it but I couldn’t say it didn’t affect me. Couldn’t say it was right or wrong either.
“Miss Morrow, I’m on your side.”
“Yeah? I’m still not talking about any of that.”
He could try me if he wanted to. Folks that knew me would advise against it, and I got the feeling that he knew that. I’d given him the truth, and if he couldn’t work with that…well, I guess I was screwed.
Natasha Strayhen was her name. She’d put together enough of the truth that it looked like she knew what she was talking about. This woman that never met me and didn’t know my girls had convinced all of Chicago that she was the authority on us.
“Belinda, come on. Put that away.”
No chance in that. Hadn’t put it down since I got a minute to myself. Had six other ones stacked up next to the door. I’d liberated them from my neighbors’ yards before they got home from work.
Heziah sat across the kitchen table from me, sipping his third cup of coffee. Needed that many cups to keep up with me. I was bouncing off the walls.
“Who the hell does she think she is?”
“She’s just doing her job.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Nobody is gonna read it anyway. Tomorrow it’s gonna be lining the trash bin.”
“But it ain’t tomorrow. It’s today. And today’s paper got Mya’s face splashed across page nine, calling her a…a…” I glanced down searching again for the exact phrase. “A by-product of the cycle of violence. I’m gonna show her some violence. She wanna see violence? Let her bring her flat behind up on my stoop again!”
“Belinda.”
“Quit calling my name.”
His hand shot across the table to cover mine. I’d given up smoking, but the impulse was alive and well in my joints. My fingers jumped about restlessly tapping the table.
“I need a cigarette.”
“No, you don’t. You need to let go of the paper and go upstairs to put the girls to bed.”
I shook my head, feeling every bit of my age plus a few more to grow on. This woman and her words had taken apart my life. She wasn’t the first, truth be told, but she was the most recent to say it was me and my choices that had ruined my girls. And she had the ear of the whole city.
“Morrow was as brutal a specimen as Chicago had seen in decades. The power in his reach was only rivaled by his prowess against the ropes. It’s possible there hasn’t been a boxer like Ricky Morrow since.”
“Stop reading that.”
“He killed a man once. You know that? She missed that part.” I tossed the pages on the table. “The man’s widow wrote Ricky a letter. ‘Course he ain’t read it. I told him about it, and he sent the woman fifty dollars and went about his business.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
Wasn’t it enough I’d made supper, cleaned up, even made small talk with the girls? Spent the whole day thinking about things I couldn’t say and now he couldn’t wait to shut me up.
“She don’t deserve this. Mya. I did what I did true enough, but—”
“You protected yourself. No shame in that.” Heziah shook his head defiantly, warding off the past that had crept into my kitchen. “Nobody in their right mind would hold that against you.”
Nobody except Ricky’s favorite child. Maybe she ain’t hate me anymore, but I wasn’t about to fool myself into thinking that was the same as the love every girl supposed to have for her mama. Might never be, and I’d have to make my peace with that. Someday when all of this was done, I’d sit down with her. I’d tell her everything. Tell her how the twins really came to be and about my nervous breakdown. It would ruin any love she still had for her daddy but at least she’d know the truth. Know where I went and why. Then maybe she’d understand that when her daddy showed up again…showed up and beat Louis half to death, meaning to do the same to me. She’d better understand where I was coming from. I’d wished Ricky dead a long time before then, that’s true. But I had my reasons. Reasons no woman should have to bear. Now thanks to this Strayhen woman and her damn interpretation that day seemed a long way off. Who did she think she was saving with that article? She could crucify me all she wanted, and it wouldn’t bring Ricky back from the dead. Woman acted like it was her personal duty to let the world know Mya was my child. Make sure she ain’t get away like I did. The woman clearly wasn’t in her right mind.
“Belinda? Come on, honey. I see how tired you are.”
“This just one more thing for her to blame me for.”
“Who? Mya? Did she say something?”
“No.”
“Of course not. Because you don’t have any say over what this Strayhen woman writes in the paper. Mya’s a smart girl. She knows that.”
“Maybe she ain’t seen it yet.”
; Heziah took me by the hand and led the way to the stairs. He meant well, always thinking things out so they made sense, but some things ain’t work like that. Folks could hide ‘em even try to talk themselves out of ‘em but they couldn’t help their feelings.
“Do any of them look familiar, Miss Morrow?”
I’d told the detectives that I didn’t get a good look but they insisted I come down to the station anyway. “Look carefully now.”
Each face in the row wore the same disinterested expression. All of them within a few inches in height and the same dark complexion. Maybe this was a test. They were trying to prove that the attack never happened. That I was a liar. Or maybe they were all innocent, and the cops were using me to railroad a good and decent person.
“Miss Morrow?”
Well, fuck if I was going to help them do that! These weren’t the same assholes who had picked Mya up, but all cops tended to look alike. Lord knows they all marched to the same beat. The chatty one gave a nod, and his partner pressed a button then instructed the line of men to turn to their right.
“I never saw them. I told you that.”
“Take a look.”
“I am looking!”
“Look again. And concentrate. Is he there?”
We’d gone through the same process with a row of fair-complexioned men as well. None of them looked familiar either.
“Can I go now?”
“Don’t you want us to catch them?”
“I want to go home.”
“Let her go, Otis.”
So go, I did. Down the bright hall, past the suspects chained to the bench waiting for questioning, and to the clerk who had stuttered at my last name. Never heard anybody struggle with Morrow, not until this week. Classmates whispering behind my back, cops studying me up and down like I might be carrying a bomb to blow them all to kingdom come. The scrawny gatekeeper pushed the clipboard in my direction. I signed my name in the sign out column and kept moving toward the sunshine.
◼︎
“Where were you?” shouted the blinding voice in the sky.
Wasn’t it enough that mere mortals thought I was up to no-good, now God was persecuting me too. “You—look at me. Look at me!”
I wondered if other folks knew how demanding the Lord was. I mean after all he did come up with Ten Commandments like five wouldn’t do.
There was a commotion nearby, the screech of tin against porcelain. Cold porcelain, so hard it pushed my neck into an awkward position as I relaxed against it. Darkness fell in a gentle wave then repealed itself only to fall again.
“What did you take?”
Who? Me? I wasn’t a thief!
“Mami, look at me. What did you take?”
There was a rush of water and even though my senses were limited, I could tell he’d plugged the tub. A light mist sprinkled my face.
“Come on, mami. Come on. Help me. Get up.”
My bare feet slipped against the tile floor, and I clutched to his shirt, while fighting off the darkness. It was useless to fight. I knew that now. Good guys never won. Good guys weren’t even good.
“Hey! Mami! Hey! Open your eyes!”
My body slumped into the tub, still and numb, as the water weighed us down. Kem leaned over me, a wet washcloth in his hand. Kem was my angel. The dry tickle in my throat turned into a coughing fit, and I realized I’d been drooling. Drooling in front of my angel.
“No, it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.” He stroked my face calmly with the towel.
The darkness was gone, but she left behind a gray field of guilt. What a terrible wife I was, making him worry. I smiled and tried to lift my hand to shoo away the towel but only managed to tread water. “I’m okay. Just sleepy.” If only I could get a few hours of sleep…
“No, mami. Wake up. Eyes open. There you go. Good. Look at me. Stay with me.”
The tub was full now. My blouse floated away from my body with each slit still buttoned. I remembered. The lineup. One by one they’d come in, and I looked for any sign of guilt, but there was none. Nothing in their eyes but boredom. They were there, I could feel it. They were right there. If only I could remember what they looked like.
My hand finally broke free of the water and connected with his. “I’m awake now. I’m okay.”
He nodded, stood, and helped me out of the tub. Quickly peeled the wet layers of clothing from my body until I was standing there naked. I smiled, but he didn’t notice. Covered me in towels instead, like he was drying off a child. A naughty child.
“What were you thinking? Where did you get that?” His head jerked to the bathroom floor. The lighter, spoon, and needle lay discarded and partially hidden by the toilet.
“I tried something new.”
He glared at the floor, seething with rage. Then turned on his heels.
“Kem?” I shivered and stumbled a few feet behind him down the hall. “Kem, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise. I didn’t even like it—”
He whipped around so fast I almost ran into him.
“It was just a one-time thing.”
“You swear to me?”
I nodded, my high souring as I waited for him to wrap me in his arms. “Tell me you love me, okay?” Silence filled the emptiness between us. Drops of water slid down my legs to the floor, and I gripped tighter to the towels. “Kem?”
It was painfully obvious he wasn’t going to swoop in with a heartfelt hug. Wasn’t going to whisper sweet nothings in my ear.
“I love you….You’re my husband.”
“Am I?”
“Of course.”
A second passed. His penetrating stare interrupted by the flicker of his long lashes. “When are you going to tell your family?”
“Soon.”
“When? Do you think it was easy for me? To tell mine? But I did.”
“I know—”
“I am trying to be here for you, but you won’t let me!”
“I—”
“Where were you? Today. This morning. You went to the police station didn’t you?”
I nodded, realizing I’d forgotten to erase the detective’s message from the answering machine.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You like to sleep in so—”
“You can’t stop lying can you?” He grabbed handfuls of air, pitching them over my head with enough force to stun a seasoned batter. “Who am I to you? Am I anything at all? Or just someone to fuck you?”
“Okay, overreacting much? I was doing you a favor. Kem! Don’t walk away from— Hey! I’m still talking!”
I dropped one towel on the floor of the bedroom, so I could stop picking up dust and dirt with my wet feet. Wiped my feet across it and wrapped the remaining towel lengthwise around my body, tucking it into my cleavage.
“Kem.”
An armful of clothes fell in a heap across the bed. He began packing. “You’re leaving me?”
“I’m going on tour. Alone, but I am going. I have to make some money.”
“Bullshit! You’re just pissed I got high without you! Well, I’m sorry my whole fucking world doesn’t revolve around you. If that’s what you want, then you got the wrong girl.”
“I see that.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, good! Go! Run away! Soon as I need you! My sister’s going to jail, and all you can think about is yourself!”
I’d been searching the want ads when the phone rang. Sitting in the kitchen trying to convince myself that the time was right for me to go back to work. Bills were piling up, and a second mortgage was hanging over our heads, not to mention more mouths to feed. Even with work wasn’t much I could do about it, given the pitiful wage I was worth.
The newspaper rustled as I turned the page and an ad for Chicago City Colleges popped out at me. For all the hell I rose about my girls taking their schooling seriously, I hadn’t finished high school. Could have. I’d been a smart girl, but sometime between now and then, I’d forgotten what that felt like—to be thought of as smar
t.
Then the phone rang.
Maybe I wasn’t perfect as a mama, but I never been confused about who my girls were. Nikki and her wide-eyed sweetness or Mya’s quiet spirit bursting to be set free, and the fight in Jackie that put her at odds with folks whether she meant it or not. With all the drama of the older three’s teenage years, I was in danger of losing sight of the younger ones. I could feel my attention wavering. Could be looking right at Jenna, and my mind would wander after Mya. Had to make it stay put. Focus. So, when the school called to tell me there was a problem with Nat, I hurried down there. Sat outside the principal’s office wringing my hands.
“Mrs. Jenkins?”
“Yes.”
“The principal will see you now.”
I nodded, rose, and walked through the open doorway.
Principal Burgess was a dark-skinned man with a sprinkling of gray hair across his lip and head. Looked like a man who was tough but fair. He was new to the school, but he’d seen his fair share of trouble.
“Mrs. Jenkins, please. Have a seat.”
So I did. Perfect posture and all. Waiting for him to tell me Nat had been hurt or something like that.
“We’ve never had any trouble with Natalie before. Her teachers say she’s a wonderful addition. Kind. Respectful.”
I nodded, breathing slowly as the idea took hold that Nat wasn’t hurt. “Where is she?”
“She’s in the library finishing her test. There was an incident,” he said, then pressed both lips firmly together. “She had an outburst during the test. As you can imagine, quiet is necessary during tests. Her teacher sent her down here, and I sent her to the library.”
“What kind of outburst?”
“She screamed at another student.”
“What he do?”
“She.”
“What did she do?”
“Mrs. Jenkins—”
I shook my head. “Don’t need it spoon-fed to me. Just tell me what happened.”
“It seems some of the students were making comments. Inappropriate and rightly insensitive, but we cannot tolerate disruptive behavior regardless of the circumstances.”
Blue Sky Page 31