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

by Bryant Simmons, D.

  Ruined

  FOR SOME REASON FOLKS got it into their heads that I had some dirt on Mr. Bryer and that meant I could make him do things other girls couldn’t. Girls that had only rolled their eyes at me before were now smiling and asking my advice about things. Technically, I’d been demoted but that ain’t seem to matter none. New girls were hired all the time and even though we worked side by side they looked to me to fix the cash register or even relations with customers. And on occasion I was the one that went to management with our concerns.

  Mr. Bryer was real careful when it came to me. He preferred to send me messages through his secretary but when that ain’t work he’d call me to his office and we’d talk right out in the open where everybody could see us. He’d call me missus Jenkins, never Belinda like he used to and that was fine by me.

  It was all fine until it became obvious that I was in the family way. Then folks started whispering again. Maybe I was having the boss man’s baby. Maybe I was cheating on Ricky with my new husband. Or maybe I’d cheated on my new husband with some man from electronics. For all the different rumors that was started none of them got close to the truth. I was thankful for that, even if it didn’t ease my stress any.

  “Ignore them,” Helen insisted as she scraped the bottom of her chocolate pudding cup.

  Helen knew the truth but she’d never mentioned it. I think she sensed I still couldn’t handle it.

  “I’m gonna go for a smoke. Come with me?”

  She agreed. Tossed her lunch into the trash and followed me to the elevator. “I thought you was quitting.”

  Heziah wanted me to quit cold turkey and I had, at least when I was around him.

  “I’m down to two a day.”

  “Mmhmm.” She smirked as we stepped outside. “Girl, you got more secrets than Victoria.”

  I felt a faint tug at my cheeks and realized I hadn’t smiled in a while. Helen must’ve known it too because she spent the next five minutes trying to make me laugh. She was just declaring victory when a delivery truck drove past us and onto the street. I glanced over my shoulder at the first rumble of its engine and suddenly I didn’t hear it or my best friend. Didn’t see them either. All I saw was the brick wall where it had happened.

  “Pecan. Pecan, you hear me?” Her fingers brushed against my arm and I gasped in fear. “What? You okay?”

  I nodded and let the cigarette butt fall to the ground before pulling a second from the pack.

  “You sure you don’t wanna look for a job some place else?”

  I loved that we were so close but it bothered me that she could read my mind.

  “I know it wouldn’t be easy but—”

  “No.”

  “I’m just saying it might be better—”

  “I ain’t leaving this job. It’s close to my house and I know everybody here. Ricky don’t get to take this from me.”

  “Okay Pecan. You win.”

  I hadn’t. Not yet anyway.

  “HOW LONG HAVE YOU had this firearm?” Mrs. Gibson waited less than patiently for my answer but I ain’t have one.

  Wondered if all social workers were always too busy to answer the damn phone or if it was just her. So, I was real glad she’d made time to see me. So, I jumped at the chance to have what she called a home visit. Ain’t tell me she was gonna be searching my house. Said she wanted to see how things were going for me. My pistol was the only thing she found that was halfway interesting. Sat right down at my kitchen table, looking at me all funny like.

  “It’s just—I mean...”

  “Well Mrs. Morrow? It looks to me like the serial number is filed off...”

  “What I know about guns and special numbers? I told you I didn’t even known it was there.”

  “In your dresser?”

  “That’s right.” I ain’t care if my lie wasn’t convincing. Only thing that mattered was that she couldn’t prove it.

  “You know that it is against the law to have a weapon without its serial number? If someone were to use this weapon to commit a crime, the police would have some trouble tracking this weapon down. I’ll need to see your permit for it.”

  “I ain’t got one. Because it ain’t mine.”

  “And whose is it?” She sighed in that special way she probably saved for me since I was always getting on her nerves.

  “Ricky’s. He left it.”

  She ain’t look too pleased. But then she ain’t never look too pleased with me. “I see. Will you have the firearm in the house if the children are returned to you?”

  Hell yes! Was what I thought but I just said, “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so? What about when this child is born? Do you plan to keep a loaded pistol in your dresser drawer with a baby crawling around?”

  “What you trying to get at? This here baby ain’t got nothing to do with you!”

  “What exactly did you think was going to happen, Mrs. Morrow?” Her questions always stung worse than any bee sting ever could. “Your children are in state custody. You have another one and we’ll be forced to consider taking that one too.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “It’s not me. It’s the system.” She sighed and flipped the page in her damn notebook, writing something else. “Have you spoken to the younger ones?”

  I’d had one visit with Jackie and Nat. Just one. That was reason enough to hate this woman. She made me make appointments to see my kids and she was never available for me to make those appointments. Then she got all high and mighty about how much I didn’t see them. As my daddy would say, I couldn’t win coming or going.

  She took a sip from the glass of water I’d given her half an hour before. I’d learned my lesson about offering her anything of value like coffee. She wasn’t even gonna get any of my ice.

  “Well, I suppose I should update you on their status. They’ve been relocated to a group home for troubled girls. It’s on the north side.”

  “The north side! You can’t just move my babies around and not tell me!”

  “Mrs. Jenkins your daughter threatened to kill her foster parents.”

  “Jackie? She...she just a little high-strung is all. She always been real sensitive. I’m sure she ain’t mean it...”

  “She pulled a knife on them! I have to put that in her file!”

  “Well what they do to her to make her—”

  “She thought that threatening violence would get her what she wanted. To go home to you.”

  At least one of my babies still loved me. But I couldn’t say that. Worked real hard not to let it show up on my face either. Mrs. Gibson ain’t notice anyway. Her lips kept right on moving even though I’d made up my mind to stop listening. She obviously thought what Jackie’d done was the worst thing and for the stupidest reason. Why in the world would she want to come home to me? She’d given her to a perfectly nice couple. The woman’s train of thought was so easy to follow.

  “—I can’t say that I’m surprised.” She sighed. “It happens with children like her that have experienced a traumatic life—”

  I just nodded, couldn’t find the words. They were jumbled around up in my mouth, making it all dry. “She really is a sweet girl...”

  But Mrs. Gibson ain’t wanna hear it. She was pissed. Flipping the pages in her notebook with that I-Knew-It-All-Along frown she’d had since the day we met.

  “You think we got an endless list of people just dying to take in these kids?” She sighed again, even harder this time. “I had to pull some strings to get her the help that she needs. Badly. Frankly, Mrs. Morrow I am doing the very best I can. For your children. Given what they’ve been through I’m surprised they’ve made it this far.”

  I’d had enough. Every time the woman came around all she did was bring bad news. Bring me down. Ain’t matter how close I already was to the ground she always brought me lower.

  I stood from my chair and watched joyfully as she flinched as the chair’s legs scraped against the linoleum floor. “That it?
You said what you came to say?”

  “Mrs. Morr—Mrs. Jenkins—”

  “That’s right! Mrs. Jenkins. Jenkins. You get out my house before I throw your ass out on the curb! You ain’t gonna come up in here talking about my girls like…like they anything less than perfect. Looking down your nose at me...”

  She got her stuff together in a great big huff but it ain’t move me none. I was ready. Ain’t matter about my physical state, I was sure I could’ve thrown her bony ass out if I needed to. She stood straight up like a scarecrow. Her curly short hair standing out on end because of the humidity that was running rampant through my house. Not that I felt bad for her in the least, wanted her to suffer and suffer good for the pain she’d caused.

  Crazy

  WAS A NICE ENOUGH day when it happened. Clouds were hanging in the sky looking all white and peaceful. I took my time going from the bus stop to the store. Enjoying the summer breeze as it tickled my bare legs and feeling warm as the sun shined all around me. On a day like that it’s easy to forget things that been troubling you. Or at least put them out your mind for a minute or two. Seem like that’s all I got. A minute or two to not worry about my girls or think too hard on the things I couldn’t control. One hundred and twenty seconds of freedom from life’s burden. Then I heard it. The giggles.

  A bunch of girls were huddled in a circle in the side parking lot, some of them coming off their shift and others were just starting like me. But they were good and distracted—chatting and giggling, crowded around some man. Not nearly as worried as they should’ve been about the time that was slipping away. A couple of them looked up and caught my eye as I got closer. They smiled and nudged each other and before long the whole crowd was looking at me. Didn’t make sense until the man they were making such a fuss over stepped out.

  “Hey pretty girl.”

  A bouquet of daisies waved in my direction and Ricky smiled like I hadn’t seem him do since before we’d left Mississippi. For a second I thought I’d lost my mind. It couldn’t be real. Him standing in front of all my co-workers grinning at me like he ain’t know what he’d done to me.

  “I brought you something.”

  I managed to say, “I don’t want it,” and keep moving to the employee door but Ricky always liked a challenge.

  “They pretty ain’t they? I got them just for you.”

  Folks were swooning and giggling behind me. And I just wanted to sock each one of them in their mouths. Then pull my pistol out my purse and point it at Ricky’s head. I hadn’t made up my mind yet whether I was gonna pull the trigger. I just wanted to see the look on his face when he realized his life was in my hands.

  “Pecan, I came all this way to see you. You ain’t gonna at least say hi?”

  I flashed my left hand at him and said, “I’m married. And I don’t wanna see you.” I expected the words would at least draw some blood but they didn’t. Ricky’s smile dimmed a bit but I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.

  “You looking real pretty there,” his eyes dropped to the ground and slowly climbed up my body.

  My hands started trembling.

  “Remind me of when you was carrying Jackie. Here. Take these.”

  “I don’t want them!” I was shaking all the way up to my ears.

  Ricky sighed rolled his eyes and made some comment about how he had no intention of begging me. That he had something more to show me. Shook the bouquet at me, holding it out for me to take. And once again I thought maybe I’d gone crazy. Standing there three feet from the door…from where it happened…holding flowers he said were meant for me.

  Ricky pulled out a thin roll of paper big enough to be a map and unrolled it so I could see. “It’s blueprints. I got it from an architect. It’s for the house. I’m gonna get you a room for you to do all the sewing you want. And the girls gonna get their own bedrooms…”

  It wasn’t me who was insane. It was him. All this time I’d thought there was something wrong with me. I stood there watching and listening as my ex-husband explained all the plans he had for us. The vacations he wanted to take and family moments he’d never thought twice about before. I watched him go on for a good five minutes until it was just the two of us in the parking lot and I was about to be late for work. The man I’d known my whole adult life suddenly looked different. He was smiling but somehow he still looked sad. And a piece of me felt pity for him.

  “Don’t worry about Connie. Me and her done. Soon as I saw you—saw your condition, I told her it was over.”

  “Ricky, we not together no more. I’m married. I gotta husband. And the girls…they gonna come back to live with us. Not you.”

  “You shouldn’t be working—standing on your feet all day. Not in your condition.”

  I shook my head more outta confusion than in response to what he was saying but Ricky ain’t take too kindly to it. Grabbed me by the arm before I could get my hand on the doorknob and turned me back around so I faced him.

  “Where you going Pecan?”

  I had to have been some kinda fool to pity him. Even for a second.

  “We got us a second chance here. We gonna have us a boy. We gonna get the girls back and be a family.”

  “Let me go, Ricky.”

  “You love me and I love you—”

  “Ricky, stop before I scream.”

  I didn’t want to shoot him. I wanted him to disappear sure enough but there had to be other ways to make that happen.

  “You tell him about us?” He grinned, lording it over me like some big juicy secret. “Hmm? He know you having my baby? What kinda weak mothafucka just gonna sit back…” his fingers stretched out against my waist and I immediately felt light-headed. “Mmm, look at my sexy wife.”

  “I AIN’T YOUR WIFE! AND YOU TOUCH ME AGAIN AND I’LL…”

  “Why you acting like this? Cause of him? Think about it Pecan. He can’t give you what I can. Can’t take care of you and the girls workin’ at some rinky dink little carpet shop.” Ricky’s grip tightened on my arm and his face inched closer to mine. “You know can’t nobody get between us. I ain’t gonna let them. You mine. Always was, always will be.”

  He looked at me sleepily, licking his lips, about to make a move to kiss me. No other man would’ve dared but Ricky was one of a kind. He ain’t see the writing on the wall. Ain’t see how much I didn’t want him. Hints ain’t work on my regular old man.

  The doorknob was cool to the touch and it turned easily. Before he knew what was happening I was in the doorway. Turned back because I didn’t want him to think he had the power to make me run or that I was playing hard to get. I had to be absolutely clear.

  “Ricky, I don’t love you. I never did. Now leave me be.”

  THAT NIGHT I GOT home and Heziah wasn’t anywhere in sight. His shift ended before mine but he sometimes got home a little after me because of the traffic downtown. So I waited. Kept watch from the bay window in the living room. Watching all over the neighborhood. Nothing. I made dinner. Set the table and poured myself some milk, thinking he couldn’t be too far away. An hour passed and I was a mess—working a groove in the floor, ignoring the growls of my hungry stomach, I was about to grab my coat and go down to State Street to see for myself if he was lying in the back alley or something. But then he walked through the door.

  “Belinda! Guess what I got!” He was in and then he was out again. Came back in dragging this big box and a smile that was a mile wide. “Look—whoa, what’s wrong?” We swayed a bit, me hugging him until I was sure it was real. All of it. He was alive. “Belinda? What is it?”

  I ain’t wanna tell him because I wanted to handle it myself. Wanted to be able to say I made it go away. That I ain’t let Ricky get to me. But just wanting something ain’t make it mine. I damn sure wasn’t about to risk Heziah over it. So, I told him what’d happened to me on the way to work. He listened real quiet like I knew he would then we called the police.

  Silver Lining

  "HOW DO YOU THINK the gir
ls are adjusting?”

  “They fine,” I said sniffling and wiping my runny nose.

  “Did they ask you to take them home? You mentioned that last week. They wanted to know why they couldn’t go home.”

  “No. That was Jackie. Nikki and Mya...n’all they ain’t ask me that.”

  She nodded like she understood. Couldn’t nobody know what it was like. Hurt every part of me to have my family torn apart. Seeing them cry and beg over and over again...seeing them smile and laugh like everything was how it should be. I couldn’t be happy either way. Everything had its own special kind of hurt. Her pen went right back to keeping track of whatever I’d said that she thought was important, gave me a few moments’ peace before the next question.

  “Have you talked to them about your marriage? About your pregnancy?”

  The doctor and Helen were the only ones I told the truth to. Heziah didn’t want to know and I’d take it to my grave before telling my girls what happened to me. They lived in a world where bodies were fragile. Couldn’t add this on top of it. Have one more thing for them to be scared of.

  “Well, they might have questions...might feel like they’re being replaced. You’ve been apart now for seven months.”

  “That’s just silly. Can’t replace one kid with another.”

  “Well, Belinda, sometimes children don’t fully understand that. Sometimes they have fears—”

  “Ain’t nobody afraid of that!”

  Shut her right up. I was proud too. For all her schooling she didn’t know my girls. They were too smart to think anything like that. And I wasn’t about to put that in their heads.

  “Have you and Heziah discussed it?”

  “What? The girls?”

  “No,” she blinked robotically and waited for me to follow her drift.