When Everything's Said & Done

by Snoe, Eboni

  She leaned inside and hugged her mother as Nebia walked to the back of the vehicle. “Bye, Mama.”

  “Bye, sugar,” Laura replied. “You take care of yourself and this baby. You hear? I’ll see you when you come back,” she added without conviction.

  “Yes, you will.” Cora looked into her eyes. “I love you, Mama.”

  “You know I’ve always loved you, Cora,” Laura replied.

  Cora wiped her eyes and reached for Faith. The child climbed into her arms. “Say goodbye to Grandma. Give her a hug,” she coaxed.

  “Bye, Gran’ma.”

  “Bye, baby. Bye.” Laura pulled Faith to her chest as Cora held on to her waist. Finally, Laura let go. Afterward, she sat staring at her lap.

  “Come with Mama,” Cora said as she put Faith down. She walked to the trunk of the car and removed two suitcases. “I guess this is it.” Cora inhaled. She hugged Nebia again. “Thank you.” Her voice broke. “Thank you for everything.”

  Nebia broke the hold. “You just get on inside that airport.”

  As dusk descended, Cora motioned for a skycap, and with Faith holding an old doll, she walked toward the entrance of the airport.

  “Take care of yourself,” Nebia yelled.

  Cora turned, waved, touched her heart, and they disappeared inside.

  Brenda was waiting when Nebia and Laura arrived home. “Michael is gone,” she said through soft tears. “I’m going to make all the arrangements tomorrow. That’s if I can.”

  Nebia patted Brenda’s back.

  “We’ll help you, child. Don’t you worry.” Laura took her hand.

  “You look so tired, Nebia,” Brenda said.

  “I am tired. Not just my body but my heart’s tired, too,” Nebia replied.

  “Is Cora gone?”

  “She will be in about an hour,” Laura said.

  Nebia rubbed her eyes. “Think I’ll go upstairs and lay down for a minute.”

  “It’s probably a good idea for both of you to rest,” Brenda said. I’ll stay up front here. Maybe I’ll look at T.V. or something. But right now—” she paused “““I just don’t want to be alone.”

  “There’s no need to be.” Laura patted her arm. “You stay here as long as you need to. This is your home.” “Mama,” Brenda said softly.

  “Mmm?”

  “I hate that Cora’s gone now that we could finally be together. I feel like I’ve missed the opportunity.” “They’ll be another,” Laura replied, but Nebia just looked down and left the room.

  “I think I will go to my room and lay down.” Laura struggled to turn the wheelchair around. “I’m feeling a little drained.”

  Brenda came over and began to push the chair. “No, that’s all right. I can make it.” Laura propelled herself forward. “I’ve made it through Annette’s death. I can make it through anything.”

  Brenda watched her mother leave the room. Then she turned and gazed at the odds and ends that she remembered from childhood. She touched things and opened drawers. It was in a drawer that Brenda came across the only photo album her mother owned. She took it to the couch and opened it.

  There were baby pictures, and snapshots from when they were little girls. The three of them together—she, Cora and Annette. Annette was always in the middle, and Cora always looked like she had something better to do. Brenda touched her own image, standing straight and tall. There was a photo of a shapely, statuesque Laura wearing a fancy hat and a pretty dress, taken right before church in her church days. Brenda shook her head at all the changes time had wrought.

  A soft click interrupted the memories and Brenda looked up. The sound came again, but this time the doorknob turned and three men wearing stocking cap masks burst inside.

  They stood and looked at her.

  “Where is your sister?” one of them demanded.

  “She’s not here.” Brenda got up.

  “Where is she?” he repeated.

  “She’s gone. She’s not here.”

  “You by yourself?”

  Brenda kept her eyes on his face. “Yes. I’m here alone. My mother’s at the grocery store with the woman upstairs. They’ll be back any minute, so you better leave.”

  “We not leaving here without getting some revenge for T-Mac.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your sister killed him. That’s what I’m talking about. The bitch poisoned him.”

  “That’s not true.” Brenda shook her head. “Cora wouldn’t do that.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me if you believe it or not.” He stuck his chin out. “Either way someone’s going to pay for my brother, T-Mac, dying.”

  “Pay for it?” Brenda started to cry. “Hasn’t enough damage been done already?” Angrily, she wiped her tears. “Somebody killed Warren, Cora’s husband. Somebody stabbed him and he died. Have you considered God may have gotten his payback with T-Mac’s death? ” “I don’t believe in no God, anyway. Yeah, T-Mac killed that policeman. I don’t know if your God had something to do with it or not, but I’m God tonight.” He made a fake lunge forward.

  Startled, Brenda knocked over one of Laura’s ceramic figurines.

  “And it looks like it’s going to be you that I play God on.” He went and stood in front of the kitchen door. Then he spread his arms wide.

  Brenda stiffened. “If you’re so determined to take another life...I don’t know what I can do to stop you. All I know is, there’s so much sadness in my heart I’m not going to fight you. I’m not going to fight you at all. And maybe you’ll remember what I’m about to say.” She shook her head. “I’m in no position to fight you. I don’t have the strength.” Brenda looked at each one of them. “My husband died today because of this. All of this—” her arm circled “—is tied together. All this death, sadness and grief. When will it end?”

  “Man, what you about to do?” One of the others spoke up. “This lady didn’t do nothin’ to us.”

  “No, she didn’t,” T-Mac’s brother replied. “But her sister’s not here and before I leave, somebody’s going to get what I came to give. Somebody’s going to die because my brother’s dead.”

  “But maybe she’s right. Maybe we just need to let it go, man. Three people are dead now. Death is everywhere.”

  “I ain’t lettin’ nothin’ go. If you a coward and you want to walk out of here, go!” T-Mac’s brother pointed to the other man. “You, too, for that matter. Y’all just go right ahead. But I got to take care of this. I got to take care of it for T-Mac.”

  Brenda turned her back and began to sing “His Eye Is On The Sparrow.”

  “This is for the T,” T-Mac’s brother declared.

  “Don’t you hurt my child!” Laura’s scream cut the air. She stood on one leg with her arm drawn back. A syringe was in her fist.

  “Mama!” Brenda turned just as the front door burst open and several policemen entered the house. Nebia was behind them.

  “Put your hands up. You three are under arrest,” one of the officers said.

  “Nebia!” Laura dropped the syringe and leaned against the wall. “Thank God.”

  Brenda rushed to her mother’s side.

  “I saw them snooping around the side of the house when I was about to go inside my place,” Nebia said. “I knew they were going to try to get in here, so I called the police.”

  “We had just received a phone call from Pastor Benson warning us that something like this might happen,” the head officer said.

  The police officers handcuffed the gang members. “And we heard the whole thing,” the officer in charge continued. “We know T-Mac killed Warren.” He jerked up on T-Mac’s brother’s handcuffs. “Now we got something that will keep you behind bars, and with you and your brother off the streets, maybe things will calm down in this neighborhood.”

  Laura was very unsteady. She had not stood in years. “Hold on. Mama.” Brenda went for the wheelchair. She positioned it behind Laura, who collapsed into the seat.

  “Take the
m out of here,” the main officer commanded. “Miss Nebia, we’ve got to take some police reports. You want to come outside? We’ll start with you.”

  “All right,” Nebia said. She looked at Brenda and Laura.

  “Thank you. All of you,” Brenda said as they started through the door.

  “Yes. We can’t thank you enough,” Laura added, out of breath.

  When the door closed behind them Brenda asked, “You okay, Mama?”

  “I’m fine. You?”

  “I’m all right.”

  They stared at each other.

  “You would have killed that man, wouldn’t you?” Brenda said.

  “Yes, I would have.” Laura’s eyes took on a distant look. “I would have killed him dead without a second thought.”

  Brenda’s face trembled. “All these years we’ve wasted.” She touched her mother’s shoulders. “I’m going to make it up to you, Mama.” Brenda paused. “You can move in with me if you like. But I don’t ever want us to be like we were again. ” She knelt down and placed her head in Laura’s lap.

  “You don’t have to worry about that, child. It was more my fault than it ever was yours.” Laura stroked Brenda’s hair.

  “Oh, Mama. Why does life have to be so hard? Why did we have to go through so much to come together?”

  “Who knows, other than God? And who says God thinks like us? He’s the one that’s got the big picture.” Laura sniffed. “He took little Annie so early. But she never seemed to be of this earth anyway. And Warren, who only tried to do good because he never felt he fit anywhere. And Michael. Poor Michael. He loved this family so much it consumed him.”

  “Now all of them are gone.” Brenda looked up at Laura. “Cora’s gone, too.”

  “Yes. Cora’s gone.” Laura sighed. “But when you and I look at each other, we know no matter where Cora is, we’ll always be a family.”

  Brenda nodded and laid her head in Laura’s lap again.

  Nebia’s Story

  There were sniffles all around the porch. Tears streamed down Erica’s face, and Cynthia wiped away the few that had fallen. Sheila simply sat with her eyes closed.

  Nebia stopped rocking and looked at her hands.

  “What happened to the Robinsons after that, Miss Nebia?” Sheila asked.

  “Laura died when Brenda’s baby was six months old. And eventually Brenda and her little boy moved to Washington, D.C. It’s her property management company that takes care of this building and the other houses she and Michael owned.” Nebia looked off into the distance. “I understand that just about every year, they go to Africa. ”

  “Brenda never asked you to go with them,” Erica said, looking disappointed, “as close as you were?”

  “Who said she didn’t?” Nebia gave Erica a sideways look. “Traveling like that is not for me. And now, at my age—I’m one hundred and one—I’m too old to travel. But I’m too young for a tomb.”

  Cynthia looked at Sheila, and Erica looked down.

  “Did Cora ever come back?” Cynthia asked.

  “No.” Nebia rose from her chair and walked to the door of her apartment.

  “You knew she wasn’t coming back, didn’t you?” Erica asked with respect.

  Nebia looked at her. “Yes, I knew. But after all these years there’s one thing that gives me comfort.”

  “What is that?” Erica asked.

  Nebia held up a solid fist. “When everything was said and done, in their hearts the Robinsons were like this. That’s what brings me peace.” She opened her door and disappeared inside.