Transcontinental

by Brad Cook

  Leroy pulled in a ragged breath. “I know I’m not small and cute anymore, but I thought… you might want me. You’re the only one who ever cared.”

  “Whoa, slow down, little man,” Jordan said, handing Leroy a water.

  She shot Jordan a hard glance as she released Leroy from her embrace. “Hey, that’s not true. Your dad loves you, your mom certainly did, and your brother adored you, God rest his soul.”

  Leroy knew who she was talking about. He’d always known Baron wasn’t imaginary, despite what they told him. He’d had no choice but to believe. The lie hurt more than the truth, in hindsight, and set off a new wave of silent tears.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned him.”

  He sipped the water.

  “Honey, how did you get here?” she asked. “Last I heard you were still living all the way out in Barstow. That’s quite a distance to travel alone.”

  “I … took a train.”

  “You must be starving! Why don’t you shower while I fix you some food.”

  Leroy nodded, keenly aware of what’d happened last time someone said that to him, but this was Rehema. And he needed to relax.

  “Down the hall, the room at the end. The bathroom is on the left.”

  “Why he gotta use our bathroom?”

  “Jordan, please.” She looked back to Leroy as he trudged off. “You take as long as you need, honey. Don’t listen to this good-for-nothing,” she smiled.

  Jordan didn’t look amused.

  * * *

  Steam clouded the mirror outside the shower door. The scalding water burned Leroy’s skin, but he didn’t care. He’d made it. Nothing could dim the light burning inside him, not Jordan or his scowl. He still couldn’t believe it. He had set a goal and pursued it successfully. Whether or not Rehema took him in, nobody could deny his capability, his potential. Not even him.

  At what cost, though? How many lives had he ruined along the way?

  He could deal with his guilt later. He wanted to revel a little longer.

  He turned the faucet hotter.

  * * *

  When he came out of the bathroom, Rehema was waiting at the table with a plate piled high with mashed potatoes, chicken, and broccoli. It was a sight straight out of a dream, something he had thought unattainable. Yet here he was.

  Jordan sat off to the side, playing a Nintendo 64 game about a squirrel that Leroy didn’t recognize, but looked fun. The graphics were impressive.

  Leroy hadn’t known how hungry he was until he smelled the food and his insides nearly imploded. His overwrought nerves must have quelled his appetite. He took a seat beside Rehema so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye as they spoke, which he assumed she would do a lot of. It was okay with him; she could talk as long as she wanted, as long as she wanted to.

  He clasped his hands and bowed his head without thinking.

  “Oh,” Rehema said, “would you like me to say grace?”

  “No, actually,” he replied, “I’m just so used to doing it.” He pulled his hands apart and grasped a fork, then cut off a chunk of chicken.

  “Really? The Adalynne I knew — God rest her soul — wasn’t a religious woman. Is that something you picked up on your own, or…”

  Leroy glanced at Jordan in the next room. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Rehema followed his gaze to her partner, then nodded at him.

  “So how old are you now, Leroy?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Old enough to get a job,” Jordan said over the clicks of his controller.

  “What does that make you?” Rehema retorted, and turned back to Leroy. “Fifteen would put you in… ninth grade? Or tenth grade?”

  “Ninth. Birthday was a few months ago.”

  “Wow, so you’re just going into high school.”

  “Better brace yourself, boy. High school ain’t no joke.”

  Rehema jumped to her feet. “That’s it! Go somewhere, Jordan!”

  “Go somewhere? Like where? My room?”

  “Yes. I’m putting you in time-out.”

  “I’ma split,” he said, and tossed the controller to the ground.

  “There’s a surprise,” Rehema muttered.

  Leroy kept his mouth full of food.

  Jordan grabbed a set of keys from a table by the door.

  “Fill the tank on your way—”

  Jordan slammed the door shut behind him.

  Rehema shook her head. “He’s usually a sweetheart.”

  Leroy nodded.

  After a meal marred by awkward silences and small talk, Rehema said “What would you like to do, Leroy? Get some sleep? You must be exhausted.”

  “Can I play that game?” he asked, pointing where Jordan once sat.

  “Sure, that’s one option.”

  “Will you sit with me?”

  Rehema smiled at him. “Of course.”

  After they’d relocated, Leroy grabbed the abandoned controller and picked up where Jordan had left off, swiftly taking out enemy bees.

  “So it’s just you and me. Can we talk now?” Rehema asked.

  “Guess we gotta.”

  “First of all, I’d like to address something you said earlier. If I understood correctly, you were asking if I — if Jordan and I — could take you in.”

  Silently, staring at the game on the TV, Leroy nodded.

  “The only answer I can give you at the moment is maybe. It’s not just my decision; Jordan and I are a team. We consult each other on everything.”

  That didn’t bode well. He kept at the game.

  “I’m not saying no, just that I don’t know. The thing is, I…” She covered her mouth for a moment. “I am unable to conceive. I have uterine polyps.”

  Leroy couldn’t imagine how she must’ve felt. It would be like him being born with his artistic desire, yet without the hands with which to create. He wondered if that was why she became a teacher. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. Anyway, because of my deficiency, Jordan and I had planned for a life without children.” She looked off. “At times, it almost seems like that’s what he wants. But who could want that?”

  Leroy gave an uncertain half-shrug. He could think of one woman.

  “I’m sorry. I’m getting way off topic. When Jordan gets back, I’ll talk to him. Now, enough about me. Tell me everything. Well, everything you’re willing to tell. I don’t want to make you upset.”

  Unable to take his eyes off the TV, he began. “Momma killed herself.”

  In his peripheral vision, he saw Rehema’s eyes go wide and watery.

  “Sorry, thought you knew.”

  “Poor Ada… what am I saying? Poor you.”

  “Got sent to foster care. Ms. Stacey’s. She cared about the money more than the kids she was supposed to spend it on. Felt like a farm animal, so I left. Decided to find you, then hopped a couple trains. Here I am.”

  “How did you find me? Isn’t there more to the story?”

  “Yeah.”

  Rehema waited for him to go on. He didn’t.

  “I know you’re not exactly used to spilling your guts to others. It runs in your family, on both sides. But you found me. You came to me, and I’m more than willing to listen. When you’re ready, you tell me.”

  He wanted to tell Rehema everything, but no words came out. He couldn’t summon a single thought. On screen, the squirrel character leapt to dodge an oncoming ball of mud, but fell off a cliff in the process.

  “I’ve got some homework to grade before bed, and I still have to try to get a hold of Jordan. We have more than a few things to talk about,” she sighed. “Come get me when you’re finished playing the game and I’ll get you settled into the guest room. Disregard the name.”

  He managed to meet her gaze and nod.

  Rehema rubbed his arm, then got to her feet.

  Leroy looked at the floor. “Rehema.”

  She turned back. “Yes?”

  “I’ll tell you soon. Promise.”

>   With a smile that set his soul at ease, Rehema headed toward the back of the house, her gray sun dress swishing around her legs as she walked.

  * * *

  Leroy was long asleep when Jordan came home, so he didn’t hear him slam the door, drop the keys, and stumble into the dinner table in the dark. He didn’t hear Jordan shuffle over to Rehema’s room, or the click of the lamp after she awoke. He didn’t hear the quaver in her voice as she asked him what he was doing with the bat.

  Leroy awoke to an unintelligible shout. It was a male voice. He could guess who it belonged to. It didn’t come as a surprise that Jordan was upset; he didn’t seem especially reasonable, or kind, or intelligent. Leroy couldn’t figure out why Rehema was with a man ostensibly her complete opposite.

  He laid in bed, half-asleep, hoping the two of them would work it out. He didn’t mean to be a hassle, or cause a rift. He just wanted a normal life.

  As he drifted off, he heard a crash, then a woman’s scream.

  He jolted awake, listening hard in the darkness.

  He heard Rehema.

  “Wait, wait! Please, calm down!”

  “We had a plan!” Jordan shouted.

  A loud crack reverberated through the walls, followed by a shriek.

  Fear held him hostage—fear of what Jordan would do to Rehema, to him, to his new life. In an awful instant, everything he had worked so hard for, the sum of all those hours and miles and jungles and injuries, could be gone. And, once again, it would be all his fault.

  That was when he decided to do something about it.

  He was done letting fear control him. His whole life he’d held himself back, avoided who he wanted to be, because he was afraid of what people would think, or the thousand different consequences any action could unleash. But the only thing he had left — the best thing he ever had — was at stake, and he wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.

  Leroy shot upright in bed, then crept out of the guest room.

  “How you gonna let some random kid tear us apart like this?”

  “Just wait until morning! When you’re sober, we’ll talk!”

  “NO!”

  The sound of glass shattering and Rehema sobbing echoed through the hall as shadows flickered through the light of the doorframe.

  “Ain’t no use in talkin’!”

  Another crash.

  Rehema’s cries and labored breathing angered Leroy like nothing ever had in his life. It was time to put an end to this Jordan business.

  The door was cracked open as he approached. He peered inside.

  Rehema cowered in bed, holes in the wall around the headboard from items Jordan had thrown at her. Thankfully, he didn’t have the best aim.

  “What I’m supposed to do?” Jordan shouted. “What about me?!”

  Leroy pushed the door open an inch, and the sight nearly made him cry out: Jordan stood inside the doorway, a wooden bat hanging from his hand.

  Tears streamed down Rehema’s face. “I love you. Why are you doing this?”

  Jordan smashed the bat into a wardrobe, splintering the wooden door. “I ain’t done nothin’! This all you! You and that boy tryin’a get rid of me!”

  “What? No!”

  It was hard to think in the thick of the situation, but Leroy had a plan: he’d slam into the door, which would then slam into Jordan, knocking him down and giving Leroy the chance to grab the weapon.

  Before he could, Jordan lunged forward and swung the bat.

  Rehema threw her hands up to protect herself. Leroy watched as the bat bounced off her forearm with a sharp crack. Rehema’s arm went limp halfway between her elbow and wrist as the room flooded with her screams.

  Leroy busted in through the door and tackled a confused Jordan to the ground, then ripped the bat from his hands. As he stood, the bat raised and ready to swing, he saw the same look in Jordan’s eyes that he’d seen in Rehema’s moments before, in Clayvon’s as he clutched his bleeding foot, in Ant’s as he laid helpless on the train track.

  As angry as he was, he wouldn’t be any better than Noah or Jordan if he acted on it. Leroy let his arms down as Jordan whimpered on the ground.

  “What are you waiting for? Hit him!” Rehema seethed from the bed, teeth gritted and right hand squeezing her left forearm in place.

  Well, if she insisted.

  He chopped the bat down onto Jordan’s knee and felt it give way. Jordan writhed on the ground, kicking and screaming.

  “Do it again! The bastard deserves worse!” Rehema yelled hoarsely.

  Leroy positioned the bat above Jordan’s other leg. “Get out!”

  “You busted my knee! How—”

  “GET OUT!” he bellowed, gripping the bat.

  “A’ight, just hold up,” Jordan cried as he crawled to the door, then got a hold of a desk and used his good leg to get to his feet. He looked back.

  “Go!” Leroy charged him, ready to hit a home run.

  Jordan groaned as he scrambled out of the room, with Leroy stalking from behind, bat in the air to keep the pressure on. As they reached the front door, Jordan looked back at Leroy with a sneer that could turn Medusa to stone.

  “You wrecked my life in a day, motherfucker.”

  “Happy to help. Don’t come back.”

  “How you gonna stop me?”

  “If I can’t, the cops will. They’re on their way,” he bluffed.

  Jordan didn’t react. “Lay low a few days. Gotcha.”

  “How about this? I see you here again, I’ll let Rehema take care of you.”

  The sneer faded.

  “She seemed much more eager than me to hurt you. Should be fun.”

  Jordan snarled before slinking through the door.

  Leroy closed and locked it, still clutching the bat. Looking down at it, he remembered Rehema’s arm, and sprinted back to her room. It was empty.

  His mind raced. Did she leave without him? Had Jordan brought an accomplice? Leroy’s temples pounded under the gravity of the situation.

  Then, he noticed the light under the bathroom door.

  Rehema emerged from the bathroom in a respectable dress, her hair done and her arm in a makeshift sling. “Ready to go?” she asked, calm as can be.

  “Where?” he asked, before figuring it out. “I’ll get my shoes.”

  * * *

  Rehema amazed Leroy. Here she was, one arm broken in a disastrous fight with her significant other, yet she was relaxed, well-dressed, and driving herself to the hospital. He had no idea how she did it, but he wanted to know.

  She used her right arm to turn the wheel.

  “Good thing I don’t drive manual anymore.”

  As the car rounded a wide turn, Leroy realized he wasn’t sliding on the leather seats. He was stuck perfectly in place, right where he sat. He smiled.

  “Well, Leroy, it’s just you and me, now.”

  “You mean…”

  “I do.”

  In that moment, he felt a happiness he’d never known. There was no overhanging dread, no sheen of guilt or mist of depression; it was just happiness, pure and simple. For the second time in a day, tears left his eyes.

  “There are some ground-rules to follow, though.”

  “Anything.”

  “First, school is your top priority. A good education is indispensable.”

  He nodded. “Definitely.”

  “Second, you have to deal with my awful cooking.”

  Leroy laughed through his tears. “I can do that.”

  “Third, you have to talk to me. We’ll never be on the same page if we can’t communicate. Look at what happened with Jordan and I. That’s the result.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “It might take time, but we’ll get there.”

  Leroy basked in his glee until Rehema spoke up again.

  “You know, your mother and I used to be inseparable. Then along came your father. He was a sweet man, but his temper burned that away in time. After a few years, I hardly recogni
zed Ada.” She pursed her lips. “The night Roy came home drunk, and Baron tried to protect your mother… After what happened, I just left. I couldn’t take it anymore. And it’s torn me up ever since.”

  Leroy stayed silent.

  “After all the grief I gave your mother about the man she was marrying, I end up making a life with one cut from the same cloth.”

  “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure how to feel about what she’d said.

  “I knew Jordan wasn’t a great man, but I didn’t know he was that low-down. I apologize for making you hurt him, honey. Violence is never the answer. But that man surely deserved what he got.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  As they speed-walked to the emergency room after parking, Rehema said “Thank you, Leroy. For finding me. For being there for me. Without you, I’d be stuck in a life I didn’t want with a man who didn’t respect me.”

  Leroy beamed, but tried not to show it.

  They stepped through the automatic doors, picked up the paperwork from the receptionist, then sat down so Leroy could fill it out.

  As he looked around, the room reminded him of the funeral home he’d visited his mother in, and for a moment he was uncomfortable. But Rehema was by his side this time, and she was alive. On the mend, but alive.

  “I’ve never seen an ER so empty,” she remarked.

  After Leroy turned in the paperwork, a nurse swept them down a few corridors and into a dark room. “Excuse me while I put this on you,” the nurse said as she slipped a lead vest over Rehema. “Now lay your palm flat on the table.” She turned to Leroy and said “You’ll want to wait outside.”

  He exited the room with the nurse. She pushed a button on the wall, and a brief mechanical whir hummed in and out of existence.

  “Now turn it sideways, on the outside of the forearm,” the nurse hollered.

  “Done,” Rehema responded.

  She pushed the button again, and the machine fired up.

  “You’re all set,” the nurse said as she joined Rehema and removed the vest. “Just follow me and the doctor will see you.”

  They were led to the office of a thin Indian man, lost in his medical gown. He took the manilla folder from the nurse. “Hello, I am Dr. Gupta. You are here for an amputation, correct?” He slipped on a latex glove.