How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616)

by Bryant Simmons, D.

“I wasn’t thinking.”

  “What that mean? Hmm? What, you decided to take a rest as you was walking up the stairs?”

  “No.”

  “No? Then what? Tell me. I gotta know.” Ricky stood over me, that crazy look in his eye, but this time he was damn close to crying. I had never seen Ricky cry. “You gonna tell me or what?”

  “It was...it was just an accident.”

  “Pecan—” His fist flexed in my face just as a nurse walked by the room. As angry and hurt as he was, he got it under control right then. Breathing all heavy, he tried to make his face look like a normal man’s. “Look, just tell me. I ain’t gonna get mad. Just tell me. I got a right to know. He...he my son, you know? He my boy.”

  “He my boy too.” The words ain’t sound right coming out my mouth but it was true. I’d finally gotten around to claiming him and he wasn’t there no more.

  “Fine. Have it your way.” Ricky’s eyes flinched a little then he backed away. “I be by tomorrow to pick you up.”

  My body relaxed inch by inch as Ricky walked out the room until I almost felt like me again. Thought about giving the girls a call but I ain’t know what to say. Figured I’d see them soon enough and by then I’d know what to say. Know how honest to be. Know if I should come up with some kinda fairy tale that’d make sense to the younger ones. Mya’s teachers were always sending notes home with her saying that the stories she made up and the pictures she drew weren't from the mind of a little girl. Ricky said it was because she was too smart for them other kids in her class, that she was mature. But that ain’t what her teachers were getting at. For four years her teachers’d been telling me I was a bad mama. That somehow I let my little girl grow up too soon. It wasn’t fair to her, they said. That a pretty girl like her should’ve been thinking about candy and fun and things like that. The nurse came around to check on me and I pretended to be asleep until all was quiet around me.

  “YO’ MAMA’S HOME!” The front door closed behind us and Ricky threw the lock.

  They came running from all sorts of directions and stopped to look at my arm, all except one. Jackie was nowhere to be seen.

  “Well? Y’all not gonna give me a hug?”

  “We don’t wanna hurt you.”

  “You ain’t gonna hurt me. Now get over here.”

  One by one they walked on over, all serious and careful like. Wasn’t natural. Nobody supposed to hug they mama that way. So I made sure to smile real big for them. Ain’t want them thinking I was nothing but fine.

  “Aight, Pecan, I’m gonna head back to the gym. Y’all be aright?”

  If we weren’t it wouldn’t have been because he wasn’t there. Ricky’s presence never fixed a thing. But I just nodded.

  Looking around my living room, the hallway, none of it fit any more. It was all old stuff. Most of it had cracks or rough edges that I’d spent ten years pretending ain’t exist. Up until then they hadn’t posed no kinda threat but suddenly I felt like a fool for letting them near me.

  “How about we get started on supper? Where’s Jackie?” They looked around at each other and nobody said a word. “What? Cat got your tongue?”

  “She upstairs.”

  “She sleeping,” Mya added.

  “Okay. Nikki, wanna help me in the kitchen?”

  “I’ll help too.”

  “Me too!”

  It was nice having Mya with me. Most of the time she was like her daddy about the kitchen, wasn’t no reason for her to be there unless she was getting food, but something about that day was different. The four of us mixed and grated and chopped up things then threw them all in the pot to cook. We were having what I called leftover stew.

  “How come I don’t have a apron like Nikki?”

  “I ain’t think you wanted one. I’ll get you one, baby. Next time we go shopping. Okay? Remind me.” Mya nodded and saw fit to give me a little smile. Sometimes my girls were a complete mystery to me. They just sorta sprung up outta the ground with no help from anybody it seemed. And I was left trying to keep up with who they were turning into.

  “Where baby?” Nat climbed up on a kitchen chair and leaned her head against my stomach like she’d started doing. “Huh?”

  The others just sorta froze. It was getting back to being flat so she was confused. Wasn’t her fault she ain’t know the game we were playing where we just pretended like things were normal. Natalie was a sweet peaceful chile, more than the others. She could ask the most painful questions with that bubbly damn grin of hers that was still full of baby teeth.

  “Mama, where baby?”

  “Baby gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yeah. Now let’s add some rice. What y’all think of that?”

  “Okay, Mama.”

  “Then we’ll go upstairs and wake Jackie up and the five of us go outside for a bit to get some fresh air. What you think?”

  They should’ve been excited but not one of them looked it. The lid on the pot snapped shut, started whistling right away, and I couldn’t help but wonder what I was missing.

  “Let’s go get Jackie.”

  “She sleeping,” Mya reminded me.

  “Well, how long she been sleeping?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? She been sleep since y’all got home from school? Well, she can’t sleep much longer or she not gonna wanna go to bed when it’s time. School day tomorrow. Why don’t y’all go get whatever toys or dolls or whatever you wanna take outside.” I meant to do the waking myself. Got all the way to the stairs and couldn’t go any further. Not one step.

  “Mama?”

  “Oh, y’all go on ahead. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  “Daddy fixed the banister.”

  “I know. I see it.”

  “You not gonna fall.”

  “Yes, Mya, I see it. I’m coming. You go on ahead.”

  Just pieces of wood, wasn’t no need to be scared of pieces of wood. They couldn’t hurt nobody. But I cursed them, threatening to do them some harm with every step I took. The girls were piled up in Jackie and Nat’s room, all of them giving me the same big-eyed look. Couldn’t even see Jackie, just Mya sitting on Jackie’s bed like she ain’t know she was in the way.

  “She up?”

  “She say she wanna keep on sleeping.”

  “Mya, go on and sit over there. Let me talk to her.” The two of them was inseparable but not so much that couldn’t nobody else be with them. And I was they mama. So I took Mya’s place on the edge of the bed. Jackie was stretched out on her stomach with her head resting on her hands. She blinked a few times. That was all, though, no words. “You feeling okay, baby? Hmm? You got a fever?”

  “She just wanna sleep. We could go down by ourselves...”

  “You don’t feel hot. Your tummy hurt? Hmm?”

  Jackie shook her head back and forth, shook it so dainty and gentle that I would’ve missed it if I had a blinked right then. “I’m okay.”

  “Well, it’s time to get up. Your daddy be home in a few hours and we’re gonna eat supper. So up-see daisy.”

  I should’ve seen it. Seen the look that passed between them. Should’ve seen how she swallowed nervous and all at the thought of moving. She probably hadn’t moved in hours. But she tried. For my sake, she tried. Her tiny little arms shaking under the pressure of holding her body up...But it wasn’t until she started to draw her knees in, rounding her back that I saw it. Saw it, heard it, felt it. My baby was in such pain that it shined bright and bold from all over her body. Lit up every corner of her bedroom, shining so hard that she couldn’t move no more.

  “What...what...” I couldn’t even get it out. Tears ran down her face, but still not a word. “What is it?”

  Nikki was already crying buckets on the other side of the room, rocking back and forth with Nat on her lap. If it wasn’t for the way she was moving I’d think it was her that was in real pain. She ain’t have the way that I did to hold things in. I was good at that. I could take damn nea
r any kinda pain and smother it so I ain’t even remember it was there. Nikki ain’t have that.

  “I’m okay, Mama.”

  It was a lie just like the one I’d told downstairs about being fine. “Mama?” She sniffled, panicking a bit as I tore the covers from her bed. She was still in her school clothes, except for her socks. They were nowhere to be seen.

  “I’m okay. I just sleepy.”

  “Come here.” I was standing over her but felt like we were miles apart. I watched her sit up because I couldn’t do nothing to help with just one arm, but once she was up it was easy to pull up her shirt and see. They stretched across her back, criss-crossing even, and they were damn near swelling before my eyes. “How...how your back get like this?”

  I HAD FALLEN ON my right arm, and wasn’t much I could do with the left, being right-handed and all, but I ain’t let that stop me. I’d talked myself into believing I could use my left hand just as good as if I’d been using it my whole life. I talked myself into it then I put myself on a bus headed for Ricky’s gym. Folks around me must have looked at me something strange because of how I was looking. I probably looked like any other woman except in the face. In the face I was different. Every other stop or so I had to put my hand in my purse to make sure it was still there. I wasn’t worried about it slicing off one of my fingers but I should’ve been. Clara had always got on me about keeping the knives sharp. She said if I was gonna use them I’d better respect them. I was real grateful at that moment that I’d followed Clara’s advice. I’d picked the longest, biggest, sharpest one I could find. I’d seen it slice through a twenty-pound turkey without breaking a sweat. It was gonna handle Ricky just fine.

  The gym got real busy after work. Lotta men came by for a few hours just to keep in shape or keep up for fights they had with other gyms, not like Ricky. Ricky was always there. Training was his job but none of his people knew me and I ain’t know them. I walked up in there and was covered in they sweat in about a minute. It just hung in the air, like raindrops waiting for the thunder to announce them.

  “Hey sweet thing, you looking for somebody?”

  “Ricky.”

  “What you want with him when you got me right here?” The black lips spread to show off two rows of messed up teeth. “Hmm? Ricky ain’t—”

  “I want Ricky.”

  “You ain’t even gonna give a brotha a chance?”

  “Where is he? He here?” We were starting to draw a crowd but my hand closed in on my friend anyway.

  “How about this? You tell me your name and I’ll take you to Ricky myself?”

  I kept moving. His lips kept on talking but I wasn’t trying to hear a word he had to say. I wanted my husband. The gym was nothing but a bunch of men sweating all over themselves while a few of them bounced off each other in the ring. I recognized his legs before I could make out his face. Ricky was one of the fools bouncing around the ring. Just made me mad, seeing him move like he did. He was free. He ain’t deserve it but his body went where he wanted, did what he wanted but not mine. Not my babies’. We were all paying for his freedom. And I was done.

  “RICKY!” My purse slipped from my shoulder to the floor and I snatched the knife outta it. The light made it look all shiny and new even though I’d had it for a decade. “RICKYYY!”

  He mumbled something and folks stopped what they were doing to look at me. I was crying by then but they weren’t sad pathetic tears, they were the kind I’d never had before. The kind that made me just as free as him.

  “Pecan?” He looked around at all his friends and sorta smiled. “What the...you done lost your mind?”

  “Shit man!”

  “N’all it’s okay.” Ricky tossed the mask he was wearing to the mat and spit something out his mouth before starting to work on his gloves. “She just...she just going through a tough time. Come on, baby, put the knife down. What you gonna do with that?”

  “I’m gonna kill you.”

  “Man, you want me to call the cops?”

  “N’all she okay. Right? Pecan? You don’t want folks to think you crazy, do you? Come on now...put it down.” He squeezed between the ropes and dropped to the floor, sweaty and taunt. “Pecan.”

  “No. I gotta Ricky. I gotta kill you because...because of what you did. You ain’t have to do that! She just a little girl. You ain’t have to do that. She my baby.”

  “Your baby killed my boy.”

  “Ain’t nobody—it was an accident!”

  “Let’s go in the back. Come on, we go on in the back and talk about this.”

  Don’t know what I thought was gonna happen or how I thought it was gonna happen. Guess I ain’t think about it too hard, just about making him disappear forever. But when Ricky started moving toward me something in me said to move back, so I did. And kept moving until I was right in the middle of folks, all of them staring at me like I was gonna explode at any minute.

  “Don’t…Don’t come no closer!”

  “I ain’t gonna let you come up in here embarrassing me in front of my friends.”

  “Your friends! Your friends know how you beat your kids?”

  “Pecan—”

  “How you beat me?”

  “I don’t know what you talking about. You the one come up in here waving around a knife.”

  “YOU BEAT ME!”

  “I ain’t...”

  “You...beat me. You know I ain’t have nobody...nowhere to go...you...”

  Something heavy clanged against the floor and I turned to see. Was a weight falling to the floor, sounded like it weighed a ton. That was all Ricky needed. I only had one good hand and before I knew it he had that. Squeezing it high above my head until the knife fell from my fingers. Even with all those men standing around I still felt raw, exposed. If he wanted to and I knew he did, he could’ve killed me. Just would’ve taken one good hit, just one and I’d have fallen on something hard and heavy and that would’ve been the end of me.

  “Ricky? Man, why don’t you back up a bit. Give the woman some space.”

  I don’t even think he heard his friend trying to talk some sense into him. His eyes ain’t waver from mine.

  “No! Let me go! Let me go. You ain’t no man! What kinda man gotta go beating up on little kids?”

  He yanked me forward and I fell to my knees with him basically dragging me across the floor. A breeze blew in from outside and I thought maybe he was just gonna put me out the gym but then I heard a door slam shut. The back, as he’d put it, wasn’t nothing but some lockers and a row of benches.

  “Woman, you done lost your mind.” The lockers were a dirty tan and one exploded with noise as Ricky’s fist slammed into it. “I been doing my best to be good to you but you don’t even care, do you? Huh? You see me trying? Huh? See me trying not to lose my temper with you? Now I could. After what you did...how stupid are you? Huh? All you had to do was be careful!”

  “I w-w-was!”

  “You think I wasn’t gonna find out how it happened? Nikki told me. And If I left it up to you that girl wouldn’t have no kind of punishment! And somebody gotta pay!”

  From the look on his face I knew he believed that. I sometimes found myself wondering what made Ricky like that. Was his step daddy like that? He never talked about the man so I ain’t know and I ain’t really care enough to ask. I just wanted out.

  “I’m done with you. You hear me? We done! You come near my kids again and I swear…it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  His and Hers

  I’D ALREADY CRIED SO much I was running on empty but I felt like crying some more. Cry to celebrate that there wasn’t gonna be more tears. And when they ain’t come I just smiled and went about the business of being a mama.

  I took Jackie to bed with me so I could watch her sleep. We laid there just looking at each other for the longest time before she drifted off. Mr. Silverman was real clear about the fact that Ricky couldn’t come around no more because of what he did to her. I wasn’t sure if I believed in what folks
said about heaven but I’d made up my mind that divorce must be something designed by God. After so many years living in hell, we were finally getting what we deserved. Happy.

  The next day I took them to school like Mr. Silverman told me. Explained things to the folks in the office and signed some papers so they’d know not to let Ricky get his hands on my girls. They were real sympathetic, looking at me with my arm in a sling and Nat hooked around my waist. Nat just pointed at them and whispered things in my ear. She thought they were weird. I wasn’t sure if she even realized what was going on. Soon enough, I figured she’d ask where Ricky was but so far she wasn’t interested. On the way out the school I had to stop by the sixth grade class. Just to look through the little square of a window to see what they were doing. Nikki wasn’t taking things so well. I thought it would’ve been Mya but it was Nikki. She was afraid of everything—of going outside, of staying in, afraid of her own damn shadow even. She was sitting in the back of the class, staring out the window. Wasn’t nothing to see but some weeds and a chain-link fence but she kept on staring.

  “What wrong with Nikki, Mama?”

  “Nothing, baby. She’ll be fine.”

  It wasn’t that cold but spring didn’t always mean that the weather couldn’t go back to bitter shivering cold. Nat and me hurried down the street, trying to beat the wind that was reminding us of the weather that was supposed to be gone. But when we got to the last block before our house I had to stop cold. His car. It was parked right at the curb.

  A man I’d never seen before walked out onto the porch with a box full of my clothes. I just stood there, a gaping hole where my mouth used to be, while he walked down the porch steps. Wasn’t long before two more men, one I recognized from Ricky’s gym, walked out onto the porch too. They were carrying my mattress.

  “Hey!”

  “Pecan,” a voice behind them said.

  “What is this, Ricky? You can’t just...just take my stuff!”

  “Your stuff?” He laughed. He was holding on to an old dusty box that held our china set. “When you pay for all this?”