by Tom Franklin
* * *
Jada went on to church, but she’d already had her worship service, complete with prayer and praise, outside of Derek’s house. If anyone had asked her about why she did this every Sunday, she would have told them she was keeping tabs on her investment, but really she didn’t know why she did it. Sometimes it worried her, but she didn’t dwell on it long.
After church she drove to her grandmother’s house. Nana had been too ill to attend church for the past few months. Jada took her a CD of the day’s sermon.
Her grandmother had never been a big woman. Jada inherited her height and size from her grandfather, a man she had never really gotten to know since he died when she was five and her sister seven. By all accounts, he was a big, jovial man who worked hard for his family until the day he died. In fact, he was at work at the Pepsi bottling plant when he had his fatal heart attack.
But Nana was a thin woman who stood at five feet even. She had a big presence, always unafraid to stand her ground and make people acquiesce to her will. Now, however, Nana looked small, in her pink flowered nightgown, lying in the hospital bed they moved in when she came from the hospital. Her steel-gray hair, usually pulled back into a single thick braid, was loose and unkempt. A thin sheet covered her legs, but nothing else. Her eyes were closed when Jada came to the bed and sat in the chair that had been vacated by the home health care nurse when Jada entered the house. The chair was still warm.
“Hey, Nana,” Jada almost whispered. It was hard seeing the woman who raised her like this. She fought against the lump rising like dry yeast in her throat.
Nana opened her eyes, the color of watered-down coffee. She rolled her head over and looked at Jada with those eyes. “Hey, baby.” Her voice was scratchy and airy at the same time.
It is hardly a voice, Jada thought. “How you feeling today, lady?”
She smiled weakly. “Fair to middlin’.”
Jada smiled back. “Well, the nurse said you’ve had a pretty good day.”
“Humph. Did she have the day? How is she going to pronounce my day good?”
Jada laughed, glad to see Nana had not lost her spunk, even in her illness. It gave her a little hope; maybe she wouldn’t have to face losing her grandmother so soon. She knew it was selfish. Nana was over eighty years old and she was tired. She had been through sharecropping, Jim Crow, struggles to vote, struggles to work. Her home had been attacked by white racists and later by black gangbangers. She had raised two daughters and later two granddaughters. She bore witness to the devastation of losing a child and then, a few years later, a spouse. She had seen her brother and her sister as well as two parents move on to glory. Now, her body was old and shutting down, diabetes and hypertension demanding more of her than was their due. But they were claiming her nonetheless. Jada knew she deserved rest, but Nana was the core of her earth; without her she would spin hopelessly off her axis. The back of Jada’s throat stung. Her cheeks grew hot, and she knew if she didn’t stop it now, she would soon be a sobbing mess lying in Nana’s bed. She switched her thoughts to wondering what Derek was doing.
“How is she?” a whispered voice asked, rousing her from her pleasant thoughts. It was Regina.
“She’s fine,” Nana answered in a voice strong enough to convey a hint of annoyance.
“I’m glad to hear it, Nana.” Regina leaned over the bed and kissed their grandmother on the forehead. Then she hugged Jada. “How long have you been here?”
“Just a little while. I came from church.” Out of the corner of her eye, Jada saw her grandmother smile. She knew it would please her to hear that she went to church. Her sister rolled her eyes.
“Have you had anything to eat, Nana?” Regina asked, clearly trying to steer the conversation to some other topic.
“I ain’t hungry.”
“You have to eat, Nana,” Jada gently chastised, losing some of the hope she had before. If Nana didn’t eat, she would not have strength to stay around. It wasn’t a good sign that she didn’t want to eat. “At least drink one of your shakes.”
“Okay, baby, I’ll get one a little later. You girls sit down and tell me what’s going on with you.”
Jada sat back in her chair while Regina pulled up another chair beside her.
“I saw that new Tyler Perry movie,” Regina offered.
“I likes that Tyler Perry. Madea cracks me up,” Nana half-chuckled.
“Who did you go with?” Jada asked.
“Tayshun.”
“You two have been going out for like a month now. Is this serious?” Jada teased.
Her sister pushed her playfully in the arm. “Who knows, you might be a maid of honor soon instead of just an old maid.”
“Don’t worry about me; I get mine,” Jada boasted.
“I do worry about you, baby,” Nana interjected quietly. “I wish you would find a good man you can settle down with, have me some great-grands. I don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”
“She has me, Nana,” Regina said.
“You can’t do for her what a man can do, Gina.”
“Nana!”
“I’m sick and old, Gina, not stupid. I remember what your grandpa did for me.”
“Nana, I’m not old enough for this conversation,” Jada laughed.
“You too old to be by yourself.”
“She’s picky, Nana. She don’t like ’em too dark. Really, she likes ’em, you know . . .” Regina turned one of her palms faceup and rubbed her finger across it.
“White?” their grandmother shrieked. “Oh, Lawd Jesus, where did I go wrong?”
“It’s fine, Nana. I’ve dated black guys before.”
“Don’t let her fool you, Nana. She hasn’t dated a black man in years.”
“Jada, baby, tell me it ain’t true.” She raised up slightly, seeming to gain strength from what she had to say. “You know them white folks near ’bout ran me out of my house that time just ’cause I moved into their neighborhood. And they kept passing yo’ grandfather up for promotion at the plant even though he had the knowledge and experience. They don’t mean you no good, Jada.” She fell back, having spent all of her energy.
“That was then, Nana. I know there were some bad racists in the past, but this is the new millennium. White people aren’t all racists. And if they all hated all of us, would any of the men even consider dating me?”
“Yeah. They want some of that sweet brown sugar.”
“Regina, you are not helping,” Jada countered. “Take the guy I’m dating now. Yes, he told me his family would rather he be with someone white like them, but he doesn’t care. He prefers black women.”
“What’s this fella’s name?” Nana asked, still looking disappointed.
“Derek Ross. He’s a teacher at my school.”
“Humph.”
“I really like him, Nana. I like him more than anybody I’ve liked in a long time.” It felt good to talk about Derek to her grandmother. To finally be out in the open with her feelings for him, even if she couldn’t tell her everything. But even her sister didn’t know he was married or how much she actually cared about him.
“Humph. Regina, go get me a shake. I’m getting thirsty.”
They watched Regina leave the room before Jada spoke again.
“Nana, you would really like him, if—”
“Hush, child. I see the crazy way yo’ face is lightin’ up just talkin’ about this white boy. Get that anniversary necklace out my jewelry box.”
A little peeved that Nana had interrupted her and said she looked crazy on top of it, she went to the jewelry box and retrieved the necklace her grandmother used to wear only on special occasions—sterling silver with a medium-sized mother-of-pearl teardrop dangling at the end. Nana had polished it once a week ever since her husband had given it to her on their twentieth wedding anniversary. He saved a year to buy it. The chain was now dull, more evidence of her grandmother’s failing health.
“Take it.”
“Nana?”
“Don’t worry, Nana. I never let these men get in my head.”
“Humph. Put it on.” Nana watched as Jada clasped it behind her neck. “Don’t you give up too much for this white boy. Your grandfather worked that year, made that sacrifice because he loved me. Now, you wear it and remember, don’t settle for anything less than a love that will sacrifice for you. Don’t lose yourself.”
“Of course, Nana. You know Gina is going to be mad you gave me this necklace instead of her.”
“I’ll deal with Gina. Pull this cover up on me. I need to get some sleep.”
* * *
The visit with Nana lingered in her mind Monday morning when Jada entered the school building wearing the necklace. She was not as concerned about Nana’s health—she felt better about that—as she was about her grandmother’s advice to her. She knew she was in deeper with Derek than she had been with any man in a long time, but she certainly wasn’t in any danger of losing herself, whatever that meant. She knew Derek would never leave his wife. She didn’t expect him to, like silly mistresses did. Their arrangement was solid, secure. She enjoyed being with him, he enjoyed being with her. Except for the occasional annoying demands on his time, his marriage was a good insurance policy, Jada thought. It meant no surprises.
She refrained from her routine second-period visit to Derek’s classroom in an effort to prove something. She would wait and let him come to her. But by lunch he had not come by, so she went to his room. That’s when she discovered he had a substitute teacher; he hadn’t even come to work. She tried texting him, sending an innocuous message about school in case she read his messages, but he didn’t respond.
On Tuesday, he did come to her classroom between classes. Emerging from the wave of kids filing out of her room, he was like a merking—tall, powerful, and beautiful. His full, blond-streaked, light-brown hair flowed against the wind of people moving past him. It highlighted his strong cheekbones and square jawline underneath tanned skin.
Jada exhaled at his beauty. “Hey, stranger. Where were you yesterday?” She smiled as she silently willed her last student out of her classroom.
Derek glanced around, noticing the slow-moving girl. He looked back at Jada with a pensive expression. “I was, uh, at the doctor’s office.”
“Are you okay?” Jada asked, sounding too alarmed even to herself.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Um, I, uh, just came by to say hi. I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Derek nodded and walked out, leaving even before Jada’s student.
He was acting strangely. He seemed distracted and cagey. Jada didn’t like it, especially after not seeing him on Monday. Maybe he was really sick. He hadn’t said anything about feeling bad. Of course, he hadn’t told her he was going to see a doctor either. Maybe it was just a routine visit. He looked healthy enough, Jada thought, calling up the excitement of seeing him walk through her door.
By lunchtime, she was vacillating between worry and calm, finally deciding he was fine. She was on her way to meet him in the lounge when he appeared in her door.
“Are you walking me to the lounge? Did you want to carry my books?”
Derek did not return her smile. He closed the door. “We need to talk.”
“Something is wrong with you!” she gasped, and sat back down in her chair behind her desk.
“No, I’m fine. I went to the doctor yesterday with my wife. She’s pregnant.”
“What?”
He smiled. “Sixteen weeks.”
Jada felt like someone had dropped a lead baseball into the bottom of her stomach. She wondered if she were heavy enough to fall through the floor and if that was the meaning of “floored.”
“Aren’t you going to say something?” Derek prompted after a few moments of silence.
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks. I’ve been reluctant to go to her doctor visits with her because, you know, I wasn’t really ready for kids. I deal with these monsters all day; I didn’t want to go home to my own. I like my peace and quiet, you know.” He came over and sat in the student desk beside her desk. “But I went yesterday and Jada, it was amazing. I heard the heartbeat and then I saw him on the sonogram.”
“It’s a boy?” she managed to get out.
“It’s too soon to really tell, but I know we’re having a boy. I feel it.” His face was bright and excited. He looked like a little boy himself.
Jada loved him even more in this moment, which made that lead ball expand. It consumed the whole lower half of her body.
“Can you imagine me as a father?”
She had imagined it a hundred times—to her kids. “You’re good with the students. They like you.”
He nodded solemnly and reached for Jada’s hand. “I think, with the kid coming and all, that I need to do better by my family. We have to stop what we’re doing.”
Jada lost all feeling in her body. She slid forward out of her chair, unable to hold herself upright. Had Derek not been holding her hand, she would have been on the floor, hitting the back of her desk with her face on the way down.
“What?”
“You know I love being with you. What we do together . . .” He rubbed her arm, but Jada could not feel it. “And I really care about you, but I’m about to have a kid. I have to be more responsible.”
“What?”
“We both said this was just a hook-up in the first place. I’ll admit that it became a little more than that.” He lifted her hand and kissed the palm. She didn’t feel that either.
“So, we’re done, just like that?”
He looked at her longingly. “It has to be. I have a son.”
“Not yet,” she whispered. “It doesn’t have to end yet.”
Derek stood up, walked behind Jada, and kissed her neck. Gently, he lifted her from her chair. She let him. He wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned into him, feeling something like a tornado victim. Before her eyes, her home, her way of life, her being seemed to be uprooted, swirled in the air, and thrown somewhere she couldn’t see. She grabbed Derek and held on so she wouldn’t blow away too.
“Jada . . .” he whispered into her neck.
“No,” she interrupted him, trying to halt the inevitable. To keep him from talking, she kissed him, not caring that they were at school and there was no lock on the door. Anyone could walk in: a student, another faculty member, the principal. But she didn’t care. Jada needed to feel connected to Derek. She poured all of her emotions into him with her tongue. He kissed her back, communicating his own. Jada knew he didn’t want to end this; he just felt obligated. She could respect his obligation, respect him for feeling it. But what they had was good. It shouldn’t have to end because of a damn baby who wasn’t even here yet. A thousand things could happen between now and then. There was no reason they could not be together until the baby was born, and when they got to that bridge, they could decide how to cross it. She tried to say all of this in her kiss because she had been a speechless fool when he was talking to her.
“Mmm, I’m going to miss this,” he murmured, coming out of the kiss.
“You don’t have to. We can keep this relationship going.” She began unbuttoning his pants.
“Jada, I was serious. We have to end this.” He halfheartedly attempted to move her hands from his zipper.
“Derek, you know this is what you want.”
He shook his head as he silently watched her jerk down her pants and panties and pull his erect penis out of his boxers. Rolling his eyes upward in surrender,
he pushed Jada against the cinder blocks behind her desk and entered her hard. Jada wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him as he bounced her against the wall. She finally felt the connection. She closed her eyes and prayed that it would hold.
But it didn’t. After Derek pulled up his pants, he promised her that would be the last time; he thought it best if they didn’t even talk for a while.
The numb feeling reentered Jada’s body and she walked through the rest of the day like a zombie. She didn’t come alive again until Wednesday morning when Regina called her before work.
“The nurse just called. You better come over to Nana’s. She took a turn for the worse last night. The doctor’s out here. They don’t think she’ll make it.”
A flood of fear overran Jada’s body. Just when she thought she had made it through Derek’s tornado, a new disaster was aiming for her, threatening to drown her sanity if not her actual life. Nana could not die. What would she do without her?
* * *
At Nana’s, Gina and the nurse were talking quietly in the kitchen. Jada barely acknowledged them as she practically ran to Nana’s bedroom. She stopped at the doorway. Nana seemed even smaller than she had on Sunday. Thin, and transparent even, she looked like she was simply fading from existence. Her eyes were closed and the room was devoid of sound except the slow beeping of the heart monitor.
This can’t be real, Jada thought. It was almost a wish, a prayer. “Nana,” she called. She reached up and touched her necklace. Jada thought she saw the older woman’s jaw twitch, but there was no other movement. She moved closer to the bed and threw herself on Nana’s shoulder. “Nana, you have to stay here with us. You still have a lot to teach us hardheaded girls.” When no response came, not even the jaw twitch, Jada grabbed Nana’s hand and cried softly.