Pushing Pause

by Celeste O. Norfleet

  “Mom told me that you two never got married,” I said as he drove. He didn’t answer. “Did you hear me, you never married Mom?”

  “No, we didn’t feel the need for a piece of paper.”

  “All these years and you never said anything?”

  “You were too young.”

  “I’m fifteen.”

  “You were young at the time. It would have been confusing, it was better to leave things as they were.”

  “Better for who? It’s the twenty-first century, not 1952. If you weren’t married, fine. But why didn’t you tell me? And what about all those anniversaries?”

  “Okay, fine, maybe it was a mistake not to tell you. I was trying to protect you.”

  “Protect me from what?”

  “Gossip.”

  “I repeat, it’s the twenty-first century.”

  “My family was broken up by gossip.”

  “There are a lot of couples that choose not to marry, so that’s not even the issue. Did you ever love her?”

  “Yes, I loved your mother very much, too much.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. He didn’t say anything. “Okay then, what about Courtney, if you loved Mom so much or as you said, too much, why did you do her?”

  “I didn’t do her, get that straight,” he said, changing his tone. “What Courtney and I have is different. The business isn’t doing well, and Courtney was there for me when your mother wasn’t. She was always too busy.”

  “So you love her, too, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you can’t have two wives, two families, so you tossed the old one out.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. It’s complicated.”

  I didn’t say anything after that. I didn’t see the need. So that was it for that conversation. We pulled up to my grandmother’s house for me to grab some clothes and a few things. A few minutes later, I walked out with two suitcases.

  As soon as we got to my old house, as soon as I walked in, I felt the bitterness rise up in my throat. The cheap stench of Courtney was all over the place. And I started to wonder what I was doing there.

  “Welcome home, dear,” Courtney said, her teeth gritted painfully as she smiled openly at my dad. Her pregnant belly protruding, she was dressed in a full-length black sequined gown, with her flawless makeup and sparkling paste jewelry, she looked at me victoriously as I just stared at her in disbelief.

  “Kenisha, I want this to work, I want us all to be a family. Do you think you can do this?” my father said to me, but before I could reply—

  “Daddy, Daddy, where’s my toy. You said that you were gonna bring me a toy when you got back, where’s my toy?”

  “My toy, too, Daddy,” another boy echoed, following the first. They ran up to my father and grabbed at his legs.

  I just stood there, my mouth wide open. “Did they just call you Daddy?”

  “Junior, Jason.” He reached down and picked up both small boys, holding each protectively in his arms and smiling as if the sun rose and set in their eyes. “There’s my boys, hey, buddies, I want you to meet somebody.” He looked at me and smiled weakly.

  “Kenisha, these are you baby brothers, James T. Lewis Junior, and Jason Mitchell Lewis. Hey, buddies, can you say hi to your big sister?”

  “No, I want my toy, you promised,” the older one said.

  “You promised,” the younger one repeated.

  My dad smiled weakly again. “Now, come on, be big boys. I told you that I was gonna to bring you a surprise, and here she is, Kenisha. Can you say ‘Kenisha’?”

  “No,” the older one insisted, then wiggled free until his feet touched the floor, then he ran to Courtney. “I want my toy, I want my toy. Mom…” The other followed exactly, both now holding on to Courtney with her protruding belly.

  “I want my toy, I want my toy,” they chanted over and over again. I just looked at the four of them, stunned into disbelief. Where was I when my father was starting a family all over again?

  “Don’t touch me,” Courtney said, holding the boys away from her at arm’s length. “James, I told you to bring them something, now how are we gonna be on time with them screaming like this? Come on and get dressed, I don’t want to be later than we already are.”

  My dad looked at me. “Kenisha, Courtney and I were wondering if you’d look after Junior and Jason for us. We have a formal dinner to attend and since you’re old enough to babysit, we thought this would be a way for you and our sons, your brothers, to get to know each other. Uh, I’ll pay you, of course.”

  The words kept tumbling out of his mouth, one right after the other in a succession of words with meanings that were completely foreign to me. I just stared at him as he turned and hurried upstairs.

  “Look, Kenisha,” Courtney said, “we’ve had our differences and I’m sorry about your mother, but your dad and I are in love, and we have been for a while. It was only a matter of time before this ended anyway. He never wanted you to leave. It was your mother that insisted you leave with her. And since you had wanted to stay here, it’s all set.”

  She reached down and straightened one of the little boys’ T-shirts and tied the other one’s sneaker. “So in the end everyone got exactly what they wanted, right? No harm done. You can babysit Junior and Jason from now on while we go out, and when our daughter is born, you can…”

  “My mother’s dead,” I heard myself saying.

  “What?” she asked, looking up at me after tying the sneaker.

  “Everybody didn’t get what they wanted. My mother’s dead,” I clarified.

  “You didn’t like her anyway, right?”

  Okay, I had a choice, slap her or walk away. Open palm, all in the wrist. At that moment I was my mother’s child. I slapped the hell out of the heifer and almost broke my watch in the process.

  She screamed, the two little boys took off, yelling, and my dad came running down the steps at top speed.

  “Courtney, Kenisha, what the hell happened?”

  “Your skanky little bitch hit me!” Courtney screamed, holding the side of her face as it turned bloodred and as her eye started to swell and a trickle of blood came from her nose and lip.

  I was so proud of myself, and I knew that my mom would have been proud of me, too.

  “Kenisha, what the hell is wrong with you? Go to your room!” he ordered, like that would mean something to me.

  I smiled and winked at Courtney and sashayed my ass to the front stairs with my suitcases. I heard her scream at my dad and I started to chuckle.

  “That was it, go to your room? Is that all you’re gonna do? That bitch hit me in the face and you send her to her room? What’s wrong with you, kick her ass out.”

  “Courtney, she’s my daughter and I need to—”

  “I don’t give a shit what she is, what you need to do is kick her little ass, and you better not just let her walk away with that or I’ll…” she threatened.

  I was midway up the stairs when I heard her threaten him. I stopped and smiled, waiting to hear her ultimatum.

  Typical Courtney, she had nothing.

  “Fine, whatever, you just better make damn sure that that hellion of yours keeps her damn hands to herself. If she puts her hand on me again I’m gonna kick her ass, pregnant or not.”

  “Don’t upset yourself. Why don’t you get an ice pack and a cold glass of water and calm down, I’ll handle this.”

  By that time I was upstairs, but I could hear every word they said. I went to my old bedroom. It was empty, same as the last time I saw it. I smiled some satisfaction for my mother. If Courtney thought I was a hellion now, she ain’t seen nothing yet.

  “Kenisha,” my dad said, knocking on my open door and coming in. I sat on the bare wood window seat, looking out. I didn’t turn when he came in and I didn’t answer him. “Kenisha, I know this is very difficult for you. And we will talk about this when I get back. If you could just babysit Junior and Jason tonight, I promise you I will…�
��

  “Will what?” I turned to him.

  “Kenisha, just babysit the boys, that’s all I ask.”

  “Do you really think that’s gonna happen?” I asked him fiercely.

  I guess the snide smile on my face and the look in my eyes made him nervous, ’cause he got right up and went downstairs to talk to Courtney.

  “…maybe this isn’t the right time…”

  “…oh, hell, no, I’m not changing my plans…”

  “…her mother just died, this is too much to ask…”

  “What, but it’s our anniversary!” I heard her scream. “Why the hell do we have to miss it because of her drama? You’re her father, make her babysit.”

  “Do you really want that?”

  I heard my dad’s low mumble, then more of Courtney’s shrieks of annoyance. I smiled. Same old, same old. It was a small victory but it felt good to screw up his drama for a change. Payback was going to seriously be a bitch named Kenisha.

  CHAPTER 17

  A New Home Again

  “How do you drown out reality when it’s falling down all around you? I guess you don’t. Drama comes down too hard, like boulders down a vertical landslide. You can’t rewind, you can’t fast forward, so you just push pause and wait for the end.”

  —myspace.com

  It had been five days since the funeral, almost a week. I was back at my old house, but it didn’t feel like home anymore, my mom wasn’t there, my real things weren’t there, so it wasn’t home for me. Out of necessity my dad pushed this tired, lumpy old bed into my room and expected that it was good enough. He was wrong. But I guess it showed me my new place around here.

  Every day was pretty much the same. I stayed in my room mostly, then sometimes when I did get dragged downstairs, it was to eat or to hear my dad lecture me about depression while Courtney rolled her eyes and sulked and complained about my attitude and what I didn’t do around there.

  What exactly did they expect?

  As far as I was concerned I was doing okay, considering. It still didn’t seem real and my heart was ripped knowing that I’d never see or talk to my mom again, but I knew that it was time to get my life back together, so last night I called LaVon for the first time since before the funeral. As usual he didn’t pick up, so I left a message, then two minutes later he called me back.

  “Hey, I was just thinking about you,” he said, as if the last seven days hadn’t happened and everything was all right.

  “Hi,” I said, hearing my voice still low and monotone.

  “Are you back now?” he asked.

  “Back from where?” I asked him.

  “D.C.”

  “Yeah, for the time being, I guess, why?”

  “Good ’cause I’m not about to be driving my car down there in that neighborhood anymore.”

  “What’s wrong with the neighborhood?”

  “Like you don’t know, the place is shit. I ain’t gonna front, that hood is whacked. One of my boys told me that this guy around there stabbed this other guy, then shot him like seven times, then went after dude’s whole family just because he wanted his ride.”

  “That doesn’t even sound right,” I said.

  “Yo, I’m just saying…”

  “That’s so lame, it’s not even worth being called an urban myth.”

  “Whatever, but those hoodrats play for real and I ain’t about to be getting all mixed up in that. My ride is too sweet and I don’t want to have to blow my scholarship for some mess like that. The place is whacked and the people are whacked, the end.”

  I didn’t say anything at first ’cause I realized that that was me a few weeks ago. He continued complaining about no place to park his precious car and the thugs hanging out scoping on him and his ride, but it was going in one ear and out the other ’cause I just wasn’t listening. I realized that whatever he was talking about just didn’t matter. “It’s not that bad,” I finally said in defense.

  “What, you drugging in the hood now, girl?” he joked. “Taking those pills.”

  That hit too close to the heart. “Why do you have to tear everything down?” I asked.

  “It was a joke, yo, can’t you take a joke anymore?” he said, getting all defensive. Then for a few minutes we both went silent, but he was still there, ’cause I could hear a sportscaster on television in the background.

  “What, you don’t feel like talking now?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know, maybe later,” he said.

  “Why don’t you come over and hang out?” I offered.

  “Nah, I gotta take care of some business,” he said, giving me the now standard answer.

  “A’ight, later.” I hung up.

  Yeah, I knew things between us were getting bad again and usually I tried to do something about it, but the truth was I just didn’t care. A few minutes later I called my friends, finally returning their dozen or so calls from the past five days. Jalisa was at work, Diamond was at Freeman and Chili was just someplace else.

  Anyway, I didn’t sleep again that night, but then I didn’t really expect to. I stayed up thinking mostly, about my mom and about my dad. I was still finding it hard to believe that nobody stepped up on that and told me the truth. But what was done was done. So now I was thinking, what else didn’t I know? There had to be more to all that.

  My dad had two kids and one on the way, somebody had to have known about that. If my mom knew, she didn’t tell me. So it didn’t make sense that my mom, who’d always preached about doing the right thing, living up to my potential and looking out for my future, would just decide that she didn’t want to be married. Yeah, there had to have been more.

  So now considering everything, I didn’t think my grandmother was gonna say much more, since her only advice was always that I needed to talk to Jade. So I thought maybe I’d take her advice. That is, if she’d talk to me.

  I knew what I had to do, I just wasn’t sure I was up to it, so I stayed in bed and finally fell asleep just before dawn. I woke up with the usual empty feeling. Every day I seemed to feel guiltier.

  I got up around ten, showered, got dressed and tried calling Jalisa, but she wasn’t around again, neither was Diamond. I didn’t know what the problem was, since at the funeral they were like serious milk carton missing.

  So I went downstairs and saw Courtney sitting in the living room folding laundry with her two boys at her feet crashing toy trucks on my mom’s once flawlessly polished hardwood floor. My mother was probably turning in her grave.

  “It’s about time you got up, Kenisha, I have some things I need you do this morning,” Courtney said, setting the laundry basket aside.

  “Where’s my dad?” I asked her.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he?” I asked more directly.

  “He’s at work, busy, so don’t disturb him like you usually do with one of your childish tantrums,” she said. “Now sit down, we need to talk.”

  “I have to go,” I said, figuring I would stop at my dad’s office before heading out to talk to Jade.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Out.”

  “No, not today, you have things to do around here.”

  “Really,” I said, then turned around and stood there, waiting for her to say something. But of course I knew she was gonna give me the whole “I’m the HNIC” speech, so why not, I was up for a little comic relief this morning.

  “Yes, really, and don’t give me that attitude. First of all, I need to get some furniture in here…”

  Oh, no, she wasn’t gonna tell me to move my mother’s stuff back in there.

  “…and your father wants me to get the stuff out of storage, so I need to know the name of the company your mother used when she moved everything out,” she said. Meanwhile one of her kids started hitting her leg and calling her over and over again.

  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…”

  I looked at her like she’d lost her mind. If she and my dad thought that it wa
s gonna be that easy, then they had another thing coming. “I don’t remember,” I said, giving her my innocent expression that had never worked with my mom, then I turned around to leave.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, standing and taking a step toward me. I stopped and turned around again, very obviously annoyed. “You were there, weren’t you?”

  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…” the youngest chanted.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Where, here, you were here when the truck moved everything out,” she said, clearly getting exasperated.

  “Oh,” I said, “uh, no, I mean, yeah, sometimes.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…”

  “I mean, I was here, then I left then I came back.”

  “So what was the name of the company?”

  I looked up at the ceiling, then shook my head and smiled. “I don’t remember.”

  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…” he continued.

  “Kenisha,” she said through gritting teeth, “I’m sick and tired of putting up with your princess candy-ass attitude around here…”

  “Ohhh, you said a bad word, princess candy-ass…”

  “…your father’s not here, it’s just you and me, and I’m tired of playing with you. I’m marrying your father and if you intend to keep living here, you’d better get one thing straight. I run this house now, not you.”

  “Princess candy-ass, princess-candy ass…” the oldest started chanting.

  Here comes the HNIC speech, I thought. I smiled innocently and waited. And to think I actually liked her at first.

  “Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…” the youngest whined.

  “You ran your mother into the grave, but don’t you even think about trying that shit with me. I’m not having it,” she said, and meanwhile, her youngest son, who’d been calling her all along, was now crying and screaming his head off as the oldest kept chanting, then rolling and hitting him on the leg with a toy truck.

  “Stop it, stop it, y’all shut up, you stop hitting him and you wipe your nose and stop crying,” she yelled to them.