Just as she was about to ring the bell again, the door swung open. For a few beats, Zora was too stunned to speak. The woman standing at the door was thin, with almost sunken cheeks, and eyes that appeared almost too large on her gaunt face. She wore a silk scarf wrapped around her head and a matched top and bottom pajama set that, once upon a time, had probably made her look sultry.
“You might as well c’mon in,” Sheryl said, holding the door open and standing aside.
Zora entered, sneaking a side-glance at Deuce’s mother’s hand on the door. It gave meaning to the phrase “painfully thin.” It was so thin, Zora wasn’t sure how her wrist didn’t just shatter into pieces at any contact at all.
Remembering the woman with the long, thick hair, the slender but curvaceous physique, and fire in her eyes, Zora had to blink back tears. She heard people describe cancer as something that ate people from the inside out, but this was the first time she had ever seen up close what that looked like.
“Are you shocked?” Sheryl asked, as she shut the door.
“Excuse me?” They were the first words Zora had spoken.
“That I’m not dead yet.”
Zora looked at her for a moment, clutching the bag of food in one hand, and her oversized purse in the other. And for reasons she couldn’t explain, burst into noisy tears.
Sheryl surveyed her with flat, dry eyes. She sighed, a lengthy, long-suffering sigh. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she said.
At that, Zora’s tears turned to laughter.
She didn’t dislike this woman. She wanted to be her. Even while staring right into the face of death: bad-ass.
~~~
“Deuce said I should apologize about what happened that time. With Regan coming over.”
Zora looked up from her plate of chicken and rice and beans and offered a small smile. Across the kitchen center-island, Sheryl sat, playing with her own plate of food. She had warned Zora that she had no appetite, but said she wanted to try eating, since Jamaican food had always been one of her favorites.
“I wouldn’t want you to apologize if you don’t feel you have anything to apologize for. And also, this is your home, so of course you should have over anyone you want.”
“Of course I should.” Sheryl’s tone was sharp. “It’s the … timing he had problems with.”
“Well,” Zora said. She refused to pretend it hadn’t been an aggressive move.
“What does that ‘well’ mean?”
“It means I agree with him. That the timing was a little questionable.”
Sheryl smiled. “Questionable. You’re so diplomatic. And smart enough to know when to be. You remind me of someone.”
“Would I want to know who?”
“I don’t know. You might be flattered. You remind me of Chris’ wife.”
Zora’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of …”
Sheryl nodded.
“Then I guess that explains it,” Zora said before she remembered to edit herself.
“What does it explain?”
“Why you dislike me.”
It was Sheryl’s turn to look surprised. “Dislike you? How I’ma dislike a child?”
“A child?”
“Yes. You and Deuce. Babies. And don’t even know it.” Sheryl shook her head.
Zora sighed. “Look, I don’t want to get into some … I don’t want to argue …”
“All I mean is, y’all are so much younger than I was at your age. He’s so much younger than his father was at his age. That’s all I mean.”
“And you don’t … dislike me?” Zora couldn’t help but ask. Nor could she help the skepticism in her tone.
“No, Zora, I don’t dislike you.” She sounded weary.
“Then what is it?”
“Should I tell you? You ain’ gon’ get all in your feelings, are you?”
Zora sighed.
“You …” Sheryl seemed to think for a few moments, choosing her words. “You’re like one o’ them chicks. Who always seem to have it together. Always know where you’re headed. And why. The ones who … get everything.”
“Who get everything? Unlike girls like Regan? The pretty ones?”
Sheryl scoffed. “You’re way more beautiful than Regan. Regans come a dime a dozen in this world. I should know. I was just like her. Pretty and with plenty of hustle. But not … not like you. Not … smart.”
“Well, Deuce says you’re one of the smartest women he knows.”
“He does?”
Zora nodded. “He says you can make something out of nothing. In more ways than one.”
Laughing, Sheryl reached up and absently pulled the scarf off her head. Zora tried not to react. Her hair was thin and lacked its usual lustrousness. It was thin enough for her scalp to be just visible beneath it.
“It isn’t just chemo that makes you lose your hair,” she said, noting Zora’s poorly-concealed reaction. “Your body isn’t processing nutrients. And you’re not taking in as many nutrients as you used to. Lots of reasons. I think I have enough for a cute little pixie-cut though. What do you think?”
Zora nodded. “I think that’d be pretty on you.”
“My hair was part of my look. My overall thing that made me get a whole lot more attention than any other chick. When I was younger, my mother had to wash it in four braids, it was so thick. And twist and wring each one out like a rope.” She smiled at the memory. “It was one of the things that I think Chris liked about me when we met. It was down to here.” She indicated a spot low on her back. “And all real, when other chicks was rockin’ horse-tail on they heads.”
Sheryl was on a roll now, and not inclined to stop. She seemed to have forgotten who she was talking to, where the conversation began, and where she wanted it to end up.
“We used to turn up, me and Chris. But I think I knew I was just a stop on the way to bigger things for him. Y’know when other nigg … when other dudes was just happy they had a Bentley and some ice on they arm, and round they necks, he didn’t care ‘bout all that. Those were … trinkets to him.
“For a girl from Queens who never had nothin’, I couldn’t get that. I mean, the material things, I never seen stuff before in real life. So how could he not be satisfied, y’know? But he was lookin’ for something else. Something bigger and better. And the more he saw I didn’t understand that, the more we fought. Until that’s all we did, was fight. One time I ever tried to stab his ass.”
Sheryl laughed at the look on Zora’s face.
“I would’ve just nicked him, I think. But he took it so serious! Wouldn’t come near me for months after that. And then we got over it, and I got pregnant.”
“Are you saying you …?”
“Got pregnant on purpose?” Sheryl shrugged. “I don’t think so. I was just … young. Stupid. You’re young, but not stupid. At least not stupid in the same way I was.”
Zora couldn’t help but smile. “I know you want me to, but I’m not going to ask you in what way I’m stupid.”
Sheryl smiled. “Oh, I think you already know.”
Zora rolled her eyes.
~~~
“Did she apologize?”
When Deuce shed his shirt and crawled into bed next to her it was after three in the morning. Zora was up when he came in, smelling like cigar smoke and hard liquor, a little tipsy and plenty excited, because he’d managed to get the artist he was courting to agree to a pitch meeting when he came back to New York in a few weeks. But he wasn’t so excited he forgot to be curious about how his mother and Zora’s interaction had been that evening.
“She didn’t apologize. I mean, not in so many words. But I think she’s sorry.”
Zora moved over to make room, but Deuce pulled her back against him. She slid down a little, sniffing his skin— which was actually almost sexier when mixed with smoke and booze—and resting her head on his chest.
“‘Not in so many words’ is how she apologizes,” he said.
“She was fine. We were fine. But I have
to tell you this part. I did the dumbest thing when she opened the door and saw how … different she looks.”
“What’d you do?”
“I … I started crying.”
Deuce said nothing for so long that Zora sat up so she could look at him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that was …”
“No,” he said. He pulled her back down to him. “It’s okay. Sometimes I want to. Sometimes I wish I could.”
“You can.”
“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “Not now.” Then he looked at her, a smile playing about his lips. “What’d she do, when you started crying?”
“Rolled her eyes at me and said that I had to be ‘fuckin’ kidding’.”
And then Deuce did what Zora had done.
He laughed. He laughed so hard, and for so long that Zora had to put a pillow over his face, so he wouldn’t he wake his mother.
“I love you,” he said, when finally, the laughter was done. “And … thank you. For tonight.”
“You don’t have to …”
“No. I do. Thank you.” He pressed his lips against hers.
“You’re very welcome,” she said, allowing her lips to part for a real, and deeper kiss.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“you should stay home tonight.”
Deuce looked up as his father entered the kitchen, carrying an empty water bottle and a kitchen trash bag stuffed with what looked like soiled linens. The bag had been secured tightly, doubled over, and tied again.
Deuce, who was already dressed and ready to leave for an SE event, glanced at it, then quickly away, not wanting to know precisely what was inside.
“I have that thing. That party at SE. Jamal set up a …”
“Call him and cancel,” his father said. “Tell him you can’t make it.”
“Why?”
“How long’s your mother been like this?”
“Sleeping? All afternoon, but yesterday Zee was here and they went walking around the block so …”
“This isn’t because she walked around the block.” His father looked him directly in the eye and Deuce thought he knew what he might be saying.
“Deuce.” His father’s voice was firmer. “You need to call your Aunt Stacey. Call your grandmother. Tell them … tell them to come, and that they need to maybe think about spending nights here from now on.”
“Why? She’s just … she’s worn out from …”
His father set the garbage bag on the floor. Deuce’s eyes fell to it, because suddenly it was easier to look at that than at his father’s expression which was something between grim and focused. He rested a hand on Deuce’s shoulder.
“Call Turner and tell him you won’t be there. And then make those other calls.”
Swallowing hard, Deuce nodded. “Do you think …?”
“I think we should call her mother and her sister,” his father said more deliberately. “And maybe … maybe anyone else you might want … or need to have here.”
His father picked up the trash bag again, and turned to head toward the kitchen’s backdoor which led out to the side of the house where the large garbage cans were kept.
“Are you leaving?” Deuce heard the slight tremor in his own voice.
“Nah. I’ll be here, too.”
Deuce’s shoulders sagged just as the door shut. Fumbling as got his phone out of his back pocket, he took a breath and tried to slow the beating of his heart by taking three slow breaths.
When he called his aunt, his voice had steadied again. He told her to come as soon as she could, to bring a change of clothes and plan to stay a little while; and that it might be a good idea to bring his grandmother. She didn’t ask him why. She said she would be there soon.
Then he called Jamal to let him know he wouldn’t be at the SE event. He did ask why.
“My mother,” Deuce said, his voice breaking. “My mother … I think …”
He didn’t need to finish his sentence.
“Damn, man. Okay. Don’t worry about it. You take care of what you got to take care of,” Jamal said. And his voice fell to the same muted tone that his father’s had. “And if you need …”
“Thanks,” Deuce said, cutting him off, and hanging up before he could say anything further.
“You made those calls?”
His father was back, and turned to the sink, squeezing some anti-bacterial soap on his hands before washing them.
“Yeah.”
“Anyone else?”
“What?” he asked uncomprehending.
“Is there anyone else you can think of who you should call? Does she have a church, or …”
Deuce gave a bark of laughter. “You know she doesn’t.”
His father shrugged. “Anyone else she would want to …”
“Would want to what? What’re you tryin’ to say right now?”
Turning away from the sink, his pops dried his hands, slowly and deliberately with a wad of paper towels and came toward him. When he was standing directly in front of Deuce, he spoke.
“Look at me,” he said. And when Deuce didn’t look, he repeated himself, and even chin-checked him a little so he would raise his head. “This is your mother. Your house. You’re the man of this house. Not me. If something needs to be done, you do it. I’ll help. But you need to do it. You understand?”
Blinking away the sting of tears, Deuce bit hard on his lower lip and nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“So now … what can you think of? That we might need to do.”
“I gotta … I have to go see her,” Deuce said. “Before I … Before anything else, I have to …”
“Go.”
~~~
He heard her breathing. The breaths were audible, but even and steady. Her eyes were shut, and she looked, for the first time in days like she wasn’t fighting off significant discomfort.
For the walk around the block, she held Zee’s arm, as Deuce watched them walk away. The contrast from behind, between Zee’s healthy frame and his mother’s fragility had been tough to take.
Just the fact that his mother was holding on to Zora—to anyone—should have told him she was struggling far more than she had at any other time since she had stopped treatment. But he didn’t want to see it. Deuce had averted his eyes long before they made it to the end of the block and did not stick around to see how long it would take them to make it back.
Seeing her in bed now, he couldn’t avoid it, because she looked tiny among the covers, and pillows and fluffy duvet. Her hair was short, having been professionally cut just three days earlier. Once the job was done, his mother had grimaced at her reflection.
Shit. I don’t look like Halle Berry, do I?
Prettier, Deuce told her. You look prettier.
You know doggone well, the prettiest person in this room is you, she retorted. Then she looked at the female in-home hairstylist, adding: No offense.
Pulling the ottoman from the foot of the armchair and next to the bed, Deuce sat on it, watching the rise and fall of his mother’s chest.
“Ma,” he said quietly.
Her eyes fluttered open almost immediately, startling him so much he jerked backward.
“You’re awake,” he said.
She smiled at him. It was a small, almost beatific smile.
“Lately, sometimes I can’t hardly tell the difference,” she said. “Except that when I sleep … nothing hurts.”
“Do you hurt now?” Deuce touched her hand.
She seemed to be trying to shrug. “Yes. But it’s … behind a piece of gauze. Like the pain is … muffled with something. The drugs, I guess.”
He nodded. “I can get you more if …”
“Not ‘less you want to kill me,” she said.
Then she smiled. Deuce didn’t smile back.
“Hold my hand,” she ordered, turning hers over so it was palm up.
Deuce held her hand. It was dry, cool, and papery.
She smiled again
and shut her eyes.
“When you was little,” she said, her breaths shallower and more halting. “You used to like to squeeze my hand … like a game. You would squeeze it as hard as you could … and grunt and squeeze with all your might …” She paused to gasp a little, like she may have felt a stab of pain, piercing through the gauze. “And you’d say ‘Mommy, does that hurt?’ And I’d say ‘no’ and you’d try again, and say, ‘Does that hurt, Mommy?’ and I’d say, ‘nope’.”
She turned her head on the pillow so she was looking toward him. She didn’t seem to be able to lift her head. Each time she blinked, her eyes took longer to open.
“You didn’t hurt me then. You never hurt me since. You’re … you’ve always been … my perfect boy.” Her eyes closed, and stayed that way.
Deuce felt himself choke on a sob and struggled to swallow it down.
“Mommy,” he said, his voice thick, urgent. “Ma. Ma.”
“Quiet,” she said in a voice that sounded more like her own. “Leave me alone so I can get some sleep.”
~~~
The house was quiet, but hushed voices came to Zora from different rooms. The front door had been left unlocked, so she was able to walk right in. There were three women in the living room, who looked up when she came into view, but no one asked who she was.
She made her way up the stairs and first to Deuce’s bedroom where she intended to drop her overnight bag. On the bed, Chris Scaife, Sr. was asleep, shoes off, on his back. She almost yelped when she saw him because for a second, he looked so much like an older Deuce, she was confused.
Finally, she went slowly, quietly to Sheryl’s bedroom. When she stood in the doorway, Sheryl’s sister Stacey and her mother turned to see who it was, and both offered Zora wan smiles. Deuce was sitting on the ottoman which had been dragged alongside the bed. He was clasping his mother’s hand in his, and his head was resting on the bed next to her leg.
“She’s sleeping,” Stacey said.
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