by Kiki Swinson
I started toward the House’s steps and was suddenly halted when the raggedy front door creaked open.
“Who that?”
I recognized that grating, stupid voice before I even saw his ugly face. I sucked my teeth and rolled my eyes.
“It’s me, Darwin. Karlie . . . your niece,” I shouted. I hadn’t expected to find him there.
“Karlie?” Darwin questioned, stepping all the way out of the house to the edge of the steps. He squinted and put his hand over his eyes as a visor against the sun. His high-yellow skin gleaming against the sun made him appear like a ball of light.
“Damn, girl. I ain’t seen you in years. Ain’t think I would ever see y’all again,” he said with a nervous grin.
“Yeah, me either,” I grumbled as I ambled forward reluctantly. I couldn’t stand my uncle. He was my grandmother’s youngest child, and he was a no-good piece of shit. Miley and I had lived with his trifling ass after my mother died. That is, until I found out Darwin was collecting our Social Security check but we’d be starving and had old, too-small clothes and raggedy, tight shoes. Living with him was no better than being on the damn street. He hardly ever bought food for the house, and he never bought us clothes. Darwin would be fly—dressed in name-brand jeans and expensive sneakers—and had a bunch of hood jewelry, while Miley and I walked around with clothes so raggedy we looked like two homeless people. Our stay with him didn’t last long. I seriously preferred foster care over my own family.
“I came to see Granny Houston,” I chimed, trying my best to sound cheerful. Trust me, it was a hard act.
“Oh yeah? Who you got there with you?” Darwin asked suspiciously.
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I knew what my criminal-minded uncle thought about the police.
“They’re just dropping me off,” I said. “They’re not thinking about you, that’s for sure.”
I moved closer to the House. I figured I’d better get up on Darwin as fast as I could so he couldn’t run inside and lock me out. That’s the type of shit he was capable of... straight grimy.
“You in some kind of trouble?” Darwin pressed, darting his eyes between me and the detectives. “Because I can’t have no trouble around here.”
“I just came to see my granny, Darwin,” I snapped. Now I was annoyed. I mean, who the hell was he? The damn guard dog?
“Ms. Houston, we just need you to sign off on this paperwork saying we relocated you to a safe place,” Detective Castle said.
“Oh, y’all want to abdicate the responsibility, huh? Well, what about what you promised me about making sure my sister and Sidney get a proper burial and me being able to say goodbye to them?” I said, my tone going from slightly annoyed to weepy within seconds.
“As promised, I will arrange for you to say your last goodbyes to your sister and boyfriend. But understand, Ms. Houston, your safety comes first,” Detective Castle said seriously.
“Safe or not, I need to say goodbye to my sister.”
* * *
An ominous feeling crept over me as I walked into the house. I don’t know if it was the smell of mothballs and antiseptic that made it worse, but I wanted to lean over and retch up my last meal.
“Granny?” I said softly, pushing on her bedroom door gently. I heard my grandmother grunt from inside.
“Granny Houston? It’s me, Karlie. I came to see about you.”
“Who is it?” Granny Houston barked, her voice more feeble than I ever remembered it.
“Who is that coming in here, Darwin?” she shouted, sounding more panicked but also more forceful.
I jumped and stumbled back a few steps. Her loud, angry tone took me back to my childhood for a few seconds. My heart started pounding like I was a little kid in trouble again.
“It’s one of your ungrateful granddaughters,” Darwin announced from behind me.
I whirled around, off balance, and almost fell.
“Seems like she needs a place to stay. From what I can tell, she in some type of trouble. Had the police bring her here.”
I finally got my bearings and glared at him. My jaw rocked and my fists curled at my sides. I owed Darwin an ass kicking anyway. I swallowed hard and turned toward my grandmother.
“No, Granny Houston. I’m not in any trouble. I just wanted to come see about you. You know . . . let bygones be bygones once and for all,” I said in an innocent, soft baby voice. I stuck my tongue out at Darwin.
“Come on around here and let me see you, Karlie,” Granny Houston demanded in a tone that for her was friendly and soft. I stepped all the way in her room and finally got a good look at her. I almost fainted from shock.
The bottom half of my jaw went slack and caused my mouth to hang open. My grandmother—who was always a round woman with full, chubby cheeks, huge full breasts, and wide hips—was now reduced to a tiny, hunched-over old lady with barely any meat on her bones. Her right hand was curled in and the right side of her face was sagging, including her right eye.
A stroke, I thought. I had seen that same thing happen to my friend Tamra’s grandmother.
“Hi . . . hi, Granny Houston,” I managed, the shock probably still evident on my face.
“Girl, where have you and your sister been?” Granny Houston asked. It was the first time I had picked up on the slur in her words. I surely hadn’t heard that slur when she first screamed at me. I tilted my head sympathetically and fought back tears. I don’t care how mean she was to me as a child; nothing could’ve prepared me for seeing her reduced to this.
“Um . . . we . . . um . . . I been around,” I struggled to say. My eyes darted around Granny Houston’s junk-cramped room. I never remembered her being a pack rat like that. In fact, growing up, she was pretty meticulous about the House. Although her possessions were old and worthless even back then, everything had its place. Not now. Her bedroom was a mess, to say the least. It had to be a fire hazard to have that much trash, old newspaper, old magazines, old clothes, and just a bunch of useless bullshit strewn all over the room. I could barely see my grandmother’s bed. And forget her nightstand. There was a gang of foam-paper cups half-filled with moldy drinks, what looked like a hundred different-sized tan pharmacy bottles of medicines, and dirty tissues all over the chipped wood of her nightstand.
“Where’s that Miley?” Granny Houston asked, her sagging, medicine-dilated, jaundiced eyes roving over my shoulder as if she expected Miley to step from behind me. My heart sank and my knees buckled. I had to brace myself against the door to keep from crumpling to the floor. There would be no hiding the tears this time.
“She . . . she’s . . . Miley is . . .” I choked on the words. “She died, Granny.”
“Oh Lord. No, Jesus. What happened to that baby?”
I was surprised to hear Granny Houston sound so concerned about Miley, but it also made me sad that Miley and I had never come back and set things straight with our grandmother. My shoulders rocked with grief. I couldn’t keep it together. I ran out of my grandmother’s room and straight out of the House. I ran out into the empty fields and kept running until my legs finally gave out. I collapsed onto my knees in a thicket of tall reeds and sobbed until exhaustion overtook me. Finally, I sprawled out on the ground on my back and stared up at the sparkling dots twinkling in the sky like a weaved-together blanket of Christmas lights.
“God, only you know how this is all going to play out,” I whispered. “Only you know.”
It was the truth. I had no more answers or expectations for my life. I didn’t know what was coming next, and I damn sure didn’t know how I was going to survive it all without Miley.
CHAPTER 7
SECRETS WILL BE REVEALED
That first night, I had crept back into the house from the fields drenched in sweat and tears, longing for a hot shower and a clean bed. As soon as I came through the front door, Darwin stepped in my path and startled me.
“Shit,” I huffed, my eyebrows immediately dipping between my eyes. “Why the hell a
re you creeping around like a damn ghost or some shit?” I snapped, my hand still flattened over my chest.
Darwin parted a wicked smile. “A better question is, why are you so scary?” he replied sarcastically.
I sucked my teeth and shook my head. “Look. I don’t want to argue or fight with you. I want to see about Granny Houston and help out where I can. It damned sure looks like y’all need it around here,” I said. I figured when it came to my grease-ball uncle, I’d get more with sugar than I’d get with shit. Maybe if he figured he wouldn’t have to take all of the responsibility for my ailing grandmother, he’d get off my back.
“Oh yeah?” He moved a few inches to the side, dug in his pocket, pulled out a cigarette and lighter, and lit it. He leaned against the wall. “You? You came to help me wipe Mama’s shitty ass, deal with her outbursts, and have her throw food at you?” He chuckled.
Damn. I didn’t know he was dealing with all of that. I folded my arms across my chest and looked down at his feet.
“Yeah. Whatever needs to be done for her. I came to help.” I lied so easily the words felt like melted butter on my tongue.
Now Darwin laughed hard. A low, guttural laugh that felt so out of place it made the hairs on my arm prickle.
“Nah. Matter of fact, hell nah,” he said, his eyes hooding over before he blew a ring of pale gray smoke in my face. “I believe you came around for more than that, and I’ll find out why soon enough. There’s just something about the stink of that lie that reeks all over you,” Darwin said, another puff of smoke billowing from his mouth like the tip of a hot pistol after it’s been shot.
I squinted at him. I truly couldn’t stand his ass. “When you find out something different, you let me know,” I snapped and stomped away.
“Them other two rooms are mine,” he called after me. “And I ain’t giving them up for the likes of you.”
That first night in the House was miserable. I didn’t know being back there without Miley was going to make me so depressed.
The makeshift bedroom Darwin forced me to stay in was all the way up in the tiny, cramped attic. To get up there, I’d have to climb up a slim set of stairs that dropped down from the ceiling in the front room where Granny Houston kept all of her plants that I remembered she’d given all male names—Bobby, Johnny S., and Tommy. She’d said giving a plant a female name made them jealous of each other and they’d never grow. She also kept an old, threadbare recliner in that room, propped in front of the big bay window so she could always sit and watch anyone coming up the main road. The front room was exactly how I’d remembered it back then. It was also the place I remembered getting several beatings with that cow skin belt. I shuddered and tugged on the string to pull the attic stairs down.
As kids, Miley and I were always scared to go up in the attic. It was where Granny Houston would send us as punishment because she knew we were afraid, which meant we spent a whole bunch of time up there.
We had made up this whole story that a ghost lived up in Granny Houston’s attic, and the ghost ate kids. Now as I stepped on each of the tiny steps gingerly, an eerie feeling crept down my spine.
“You think the ghost lives in those boxes?” Miley had asked, clutching onto my arm as tight as a vise.
“Shh. If you talk, the ghost will come out,” I had whispered back, my heart thrumming against my chest wall.
Miley started to cry. I held her tight and told her to close her eyes and I would keep mine open to watch for the ghost. We fell asleep huddled together until Granny Houston stuck her head up through the floor and started screaming at us to wake up.
“Stop it, Karlie. There are no ghosts, and that is the past,” I whispered and shook my shoulders a little bit.
I wasn’t a kid anymore, but that didn’t change the fact that I was still scared as hell to go up in that attic. It took several starts and stops before I finally made it up the steps. I wanted to scream when I got up there. The air was heavy and smelled like mildew, leftover cigarette smoke, and old potpourri. I put my wrist up to my nose and coughed. There was a thick layer of dust on the floor that kicked up into little fuzzy balls as I tried to move around the cramped space. I could barely stand up straight. I inched over and tugged on the tiny string that hung from a shade-less lamp sitting in the corner on the floor. The light bulb was dull, but it illuminated the space enough for me to see. I exhaled and shook my head. I couldn’t believe that this was where my life had ended up—back at the very place I had always been trying to escape.
“How the fuck am I going to survive this?” I said out loud to myself. My little hood apartment would’ve been like a mansion compared to that attic. The ceiling was damn near touching the flat, shapeless feather bed that was on the floor in the center of the room. When I lay down I had to close my eyes to keep from feeling like I would suffocate because there was barely enough space between the ceiling and my head to sit upright.
Let’s not talk about how uncomfortable the temperature was in that mousetrap. It was sweltering hot up there, with only a tiny window a few inches from the bed for a breeze. Trust me, there was no breeze coming in either. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I knew under those horrendous conditions, it had to be sheer exhaustion that finally carried me off into a fitful sleep.
The force of the blow to my chest instantly took my breath. I made a loud sucking noise as I tried to keep air in my lungs. My eyes and mouth popped open in shock in response to the pain crashing into my chest. I felt like a ton of bricks had been dropped on me from the ceiling.
“Mmm,” I moaned. My mouth and nose were covered. “Mmmmm. ” I kicked and flailed, feverishly protesting. I tried to move my head from side to side in an attempt to loosen the grip that was holding me captive. I could smell and taste the leather from the glove suffocating me. Suddenly it registered in my brain that I was being attacked. I started kicking my legs even more wildly, but another blow to my midsection abruptly stopped that. I felt vomit leap up from my stomach into my throat. I was choking. I was dying. The next vicious punch to my gut gave me pause. It landed with so much force that it made a small bit of urine escape my bladder.
“Stop fucking fighting or I’ll blow your sister’s fucking brains out right in front of you,” the assailant hissed. I went stock-still at the mention of Miley. My heart was squeezing so hard it hurt. Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes.
I felt my body moving. I extended my arms, trying to find something to hold on to. The next thing I felt was my legs hitting the floor with a thud. My heels crashing to the floor sent small shock waves of pain up my legs, causing my thighs to tremble. The carpet burned the heels of my feet as I was dragged. I tried to twist my head in protest, but that caused pain too. It wasn’t until I finally was positioned in such a way that I could see my sister with a black cloth bag over her head that I started to fight with everything I had in me.
“Miley! Miley! I’m going to save you!”
“Miley. Miley.” I groaned. I tried to sit up abruptly and hit my head on the sloped walls hovering above me. The sharp pain in my head made me realize I had been dreaming. Nighttime was the worst for me. Every day I’d relive bits and pieces of my ordeal behind the EZ Cash robbery. It was starting to drive me crazy.
I flopped back down on the uncomfortable bed and looked around. This space was worse than those stupid little houses I’d seen on that television show Tiny House Hunters.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, touching my chest. I turned my head and looked over to the tiny attic window. Even through the thick layers of dirt on the small, square windowpanes, I could see the sun starting to rise. Thank goodness I had survived it. One day gone, only God knew how many more to go.
As soon as the sun came all the way up, I slid out of the bed and inched down that skinny-ass staircase. I needed to get the hell out of there. My oversized sleep T-shirt stuck to me from sweating all night, and my hair was plastered to my scalp like I’d been doused with water. Although it was early in the morning, my mind was
already racing with thoughts on how I would make a change to this living arrangement.
I made my way down the long, dark hallway that led to the kitchen, when I paused at the sound of voices. I flattened my back again the hallway wall so I could listen without being seen. I tried to slow my breathing so I could hear better, but for some reason my heart was racing and I was breathing hard. After a few seconds, I could finally make out what was being said.
“Please, Darwin. You can’t keep doing this to me. I need my money for my medicine and things,” Granny Houston cried.
“Shut up. I know what I’m doing. I’m the one here wiping your shitty ass every day. Nobody else even cares about you. If I take all the money, so what,” Darwin said cruelly.
“Them people said this money is for my care. They pay you already as the caregiver, so why you taking my little bit of money too,” Granny Houston whined.
“I said shut up. I’m telling you, Mama, I’m going to leave your ass here to rot one of these days if you keep on coming at me like this,” Darwin threatened. My grandmother was silent after that. That wasn’t the Granny Houston I remembered. In all of my life that lady had never been a pushover, not even for her kids.
I stood still listening with my insides boiling at how Darwin was talking to Granny Houston. But I was also feeling a bit conflicted. Was this karma coming back on her for how she’d treated my mother and Miley and me over the years?
Hearing Granny Houston being reduced to a sobbing, weak old lady kind of gave me a quick flash of satisfaction inside for how evil she had been toward us all of our lives; but hearing what Darwin was doing to her also made my insides churn with anger. Who does that to their own mother? I didn’t think he could get any lower than what he’d done to us when we lived with him, but treating his own mother like this had to be the lowest of the low. Darwin was one of those people that God could’ve skipped breathing life into and the world would’ve been better off without him.