“And how do you know he doesn’t just want to shtup you?”
“I’m sure he does but I don’t think that’s why he helped me.”
Now they’re looking at me. Oh, am I supposed to be answering why I helped her? Why did I help her? “Because I knew what was going on and she was asking for help.” And she’s beautiful.
She rolls her eyes and Mayyim smiles. Her aunt looks at her. “You’re so young. You have your whole life ahead of you. Move in with me. Take some time for yourself. Go to school.”
“Thank you, tante. Will you help me?” She’s looking at her so sweetly. “Ezra is going to be working in the mornings and going to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I thought you could help me figure things out, how to go to school myself and how to get there and stay with you on his schooldays?”
“Where do you go to school?” she asks me.
“Originally Pepperdine, but I transferred to USC last year. I took the fall session off and I start again in January.”
“What are you studying?”
“I’m pre-law with a double major in law and sociology. My father said he would pay for my college as long as I became a lawyer, like him, a doctor, or a good Baptist Minister. None of those are my dream, but I figured law and medical schools are the most expensive, and I don’t do gore, so I chose law. It’s not what I want to be when I grow up, but a costly education for free is a free education.”
She’s looking at me like she’s trying to decide whether I’m full of shit or not and how to react to her obviously silly niece who is too young to think she’s in love.
Fortunately for me I don’t care so much about the in love part as much as the love and trust and camaraderie, not the stomach flipping exhilaration of everything else. That’s just a bonus.
She looks at Mayyim and frowns. “I’d love it if you’d stay here. You don’t need to bring him here like a maidel mit a klaidel.”
“He’s not a new dress.”
“Metuke…” she chides.
“Auntie.” She looks at her seriously. “He’s my man.” Her tone is knowing and serious and her face is somber.
“Bist meshugeh?” Her eyes narrow before widening.
She’s just looking at her.
Now they’re talking back and forth, Mayyim defending herself, and me, and her aunt talking loud and with lots of hands and in Yiddish and I can’t listen anymore because it hurts my brain and they’re not talking to me anyway. I look around at all the classy decorating but mostly I’m thinking about how this visit will end and my nice comfy bed with my arms around my beautiful wife.
My mom is going to die soon. She’s in a coma and isn’t going to wake up. That’s real. And it’s terrifying to think she’s going to cease to exist soon. And more terrifying, I’m so angry at her for what she took away from me and my real father. I wish there was a hell so she could rot in it.
I’m super antsy to look at my house. We had a whole day planned without a police and hospital visit. I’ll have to go another day.
“And you? What have you to say?”
I look at her, confused for a second. “About what, ma’am?” I have no idea what they concluded.
She’s staring at me.
They look so much alike. “I guess I have to say I’m glad I met Mayyim and I’m glad I’m going to have her in my life forever.” Short and sweet and it makes sense no matter what she originally asked while I wasn’t listening. And it’s the truth.
“I can’t believe this. How are you going to provide for her?”
With my trust fund.
Wouldn’t that be hilarious?
Or drug money.
So funny. “I’m going to be working as a paralegal at a law firm in Century City. They just hired me this morning. They told me I could wait until I buried my mother to start working. I have a house in Playa Del Rey so that’s where we’ll live. I received my Associate’s degree in June, and my certificate in Paralegal Studies. I’m working on my next degree with a double major in Law and Sociology.” I look into her eyes so she knows that I’m not bullshitting her.
“What’s wrong with your mother?” She squints at me, trying to sniff out bullshit.
“She has terminal brain cancer. She’s on hospice care. The phone call I made was to my sister to check in.”
“Is everything okay?” She frowns.
“I guess she’s in a coma now.” I shrug, because I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t seem real or life-changing and I don’t want her to think I’m fishing for sympathy.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I shrug again. “It’s okay. She’s been sick for a long time.”
She looks at me for a second and now at her niece. Now back at me. “You’re obviously not stupid. Why would you marry her after knowing her for only a couple weeks?” she asks.
Sometimes I hate my temper. When people talk to me like this I want to spit on them. Or say something rude. It takes all the strength I have to muster the restraint I need to not say the first thing that comes to mind which right now is “it seemed like a good idea at the time” but that probably wouldn’t go over so well. “I don’t know. It felt right.”
“I’m sure it felt right,” she says suggestively.
I sit straight. I look at Mayyim. Does she think that way, too? Is that the only reason we went and signed those papers? I don’t think so. “If you’re saying it’s just because I wanted to have sex with her, why would I have married her? It doesn’t make sense. I married her because it felt like the right thing to do and I could keep her safe. And she could keep me safe.” I hope that’s enough.
She stares at me.
I guess I’m staring back.
I smile the most charming smile I can under the circumstances which is probably hideous but I don’t care. “I hope that’s enough.”
“I hope so, too. If you hurt her I will make sure you never hurt anyone else.”
That’s great. Where was she when every other perv in LA was hurting her?
“Tante, he is a good person and it hurts me you’re saying these things.”
“How do you know he’s a good person? You don’t know him. And why should it hurt you?”
I look at Mayyim. “It’s okay. We knew it would be like this. We can always go back to Palm Springs and say screw everyone.” I smile at her.
“No.” She smiles a tired smile and her poor bruised cheek makes me sad. She stands and I stand too. She hugs her aunt. “We have to go. His mother is sick and we have to get back. I’ll call you, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too, yakira.” She stands and hugs her hard, tears running down her face. She lets go and looks at me. “You need to be good to her.”
“Yes ma’am.” I nod and shake her hand, worried about driving home. I feel sick to my stomach.
Chapter 26
My mom died.
We were all sitting around the bed waiting for her to take her last breath, and she did. The nurse called for the people to come and pronounce her dead. Mayyim took Hannah and Micah, and I stayed to hold Abby’s hand. Zech and his father are talking about business. Ben is looking at our mother somberly. Abby is crying. She has one of my mother’s handkerchiefs.
I’m an orphan.
I never knew either of the people who made me. I know Caleb Jones better than I knew my mother, and I don’t know my real father’s name or where he was from. The deed to the house is in my name, not his. I’m sure it’s written somewhere in the stuff in the box. Like on the papers for the money. She said there were letters too, from him, not her, so I still won’t know her.
I look around at my brothers and sister. Do any of them know her? Does Ben? He’s the oldest. Zech has been studying his whole life. Maybe Abby did know her the best and that’s why she’s crying now and we’re all waiting for it to be done with.
Should I feel guilty for being angry at my mother for everything she held away from me even though she’s lying here, an empty body?
T
he people come and we gather in the great room.
I want to leave. I don’t want to listen and talk about lawyer stuff. I don’t want to listen to Abby cry when I can’t do anything to make her stop. What I want to do is find Jake and see what’s going on with him, and see what I need to do to get my house in shape. It’s been vacant for eleven years. There are probably bums living in it.
“Abby, I gotta go.” I can’t take this. I hate this house. It’s so stiflingly hot all the time. It’s like wearing a suit jacket you grew out of over the summer.
“Really? Right now? You’re leaving me again?” She looks close to annoyed panic.
“I’m not leaving you, I’m getting out of this place. Wanna jet?” Wouldn’t it be awesome if she said yes? That would make me so proud of her.
She gives me the dirtiest look I’ve ever seen. “I can’t leave.”
“Well, I can. So, until you can, too, you’ll always think I’m leaving you.” I kiss her cheek and get up. I take Hannah from Mayyim and she has a sad face. “It’s okay. I’ll get you your own.” I whisper and give the baby to Abby. I hug and kiss Micah and shake my brothers’ hands and now Mr. Caleb Jones. “I gotta go.”
“You always do.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for having us. I’ll keep in touch with Abby.”
“We’ll see you for services?”
“Yes sir.”
He man hugs me and walks us to the door.
We drive toward the ocean and I stop at a gas station for directions, and to make phone calls. I call Cece to tell her where we’re going so Jake can find us. She says she’ll pass on the message if she hears from him.
But I want to find him.
Now.
I should have used the phone at the Jones residence but I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It’s alright though. I have Mayyim sitting between my feet painting her fingernails while I make calls.
I try to find Israel, because she’s where Jake runs to when shit hits the fan. That’s worrisome to me because she’s a junkie and Jake is on the edge. I tell everyone I talk to I’m looking for Jake, and if they see him or Isri they should tell him to call his sister.
I hug Mayyim now, careful of her nails. “I’m sorry I left you at your parents’ house. I shouldn’t have,” I tell her.
“It’s okay. It worked okay.” She’s looking at me intently, touching a stray curl. “I would die if you had died.”
I kiss her lips and we get in the car to go to our house.
It’s a mess.
A serious mess.
This is the only thing I own, and it looks like shit.
The outside has some tagging on it but nothing serious. It looks like a little tagging crew, no gang stuff. But all of the windows are broken.
I put my key in the lock and it’s tight, but it turns.
God, please don’t let there be bums in my house, and also no typhoid mattresses for ladies of the night to make a profit on. Amen.
I pick Mayyim up and she’s smiling happily with her arms around my neck, and I carry her in. It may look like shit and the whole situation is bad, but it’s mine. My father wanted me to have it.
There’s a small foyer. To the left is a living room, and to the right is a smaller sitting room and kitchen with a breakfast nook, and on the other side is one of the bathrooms. Off the kitchen through a door is the dining room that leads to two of the bedrooms with a connected bathroom.
“What do you think?” I ask her.
“I think it’s perfect and gorgeous.” She grins, sparkles in her eyes. “And we need a broom. And I think we need to see the master bedroom.”
“And the nursery?” I rub her belly. She blushes and tries to get away, giggling. Her giggle is nice. She sounds happy.
We walk back through to the other side of the house where the other two rooms are. The master has a window seat and a sliver of the ocean is in view. I pull her into my arms and stand in front of the broken window with her. “We have an ocean view.”
She spins in my arms and kisses my neck until I submit and drip myself into a puddle of willingness and enthusiasm for everything her.
*****
I called the window guy and the water, gas, electricity and phone people. The movers with my stuff are already on the way. The water, gas, and electricity won’t be on until tomorrow.
We got cleaning supplies, too.
I sweep and she dusts.
“How long were you with that woman?” she asks, frowning at the dirt pile.
That’s completely out of the blue. “Helen? I met her after the accident.”
“Did you see her a lot?”
“More at the beginning than the end, I guess. Why?”
She shrugs. “I just wondered. She’s so much older and sexier than I think I’ll ever be.”
I frown. “Well, I’m pretty sure you’ll get older.”
She rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. Want me to tell you about it?”
“Just a little.”
“She’s not real. She’s a bag of tricks. It’s like something you like when you have a craving for it but it would get old and theatrical if you had it every day, you know? I never wanted to be with her forever. I never wanted her to leave her husband for me or anything. I liked her for one thing and she liked me because I was young and could keep up. I probably saw her once every two or three months for two years. After the accident I didn’t want to think about anything, so I partied a lot, and then I stopped. I’m not proud of it and I don’t remember too much of it, anyway.” Every time I think of her I think of her having my baby and I want to throw up. I’ve made a lot of mistakes.
“What made you stop?” She’s standing in front of me now, watching me sweep.
“Self-reflection? I started thinking again and I remembered when I was little I would be afraid of the dark, and I would cry before I went to sleep. Then I started praying to God to help me and protect me, and help me to not be afraid and it worked. So I started doing that again and I started trying to keep as clean as I could. I guess I started thinking of seeing my baby again and holding her, and I knew I wouldn’t make it to the afterlife screwing my brains out for nothing, you know? But I failed with trying to tell her how I felt and she made me feel stupid, so I went with it.” I shrug. “The sadness never went away. I’d been drinking and doing a lot of drugs whenever the sadness came back.”
She looks at me sadly. “I don’t want you to get bored of me.”
“Because of sex?” That’s absurd. “That’s crazy. I don’t think guys get bored of girls because of sex. It’s what happens when they’re not having sex. We have to expect ups and downs, and ride them out. Trust me, I’m a sociology major. I know statistics and social norms.”
She nods and looks at her feet. She looks lonely and this is the first time I’ve seen her look that way.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, coming to her, putting down my broom. I grab her hands to hold. “Why do you look sad?”
“Your mom died.” She’s crying and laying her head on my chest.
I wrap my arms around her and hold her head to me, feeling her warm, soft realness in my arms. “I believe she’s okay. She’s sleeping. And when God is ready, he’ll bring everyone we’ve lost back to life.”
“Are you sad?”
“Yes. I am sad. There’s an edgy part of me that’s trying to stay busy so I don’t have to think about it. Thinking about Hannah and Micah growing up without a mom makes me want to cry.”
“I’m sorry I’m sad. I’m just sad for you.” She looks up at me.
I pull her with me into the only clean spot on the floor to sit in my lap with her back against me. “You know, I remember this place. My mom brought me here when she cleaned out what must have been all of his stuff.” I mostly ran around messing with stuff. I do remember she was crying a lot. “Do you want to help me look at what’s in the box?”
She nods and runs off to get it and comes back to sit bet
ween my legs. She opens it and pulls everything out and my stomach is going crazy with nervousness. She separates the letters from the pictures, pulling her knees up to look at them. The first ones are of my mother lounging on a picnic blanket looking much like Abby but happier and less naive. I look more closely. “Is she pregnant?”
“It looks like it.” She looks at the back. There’s a date on there that would be before Ben. “Who’s Joseph?”
I shake my head, “I don’t know. Do you think that’s him?” She’s onto the next one which is me. Except, it’s not. He’s standing with his sleeves rolled and hands in pockets looking at the picture taker broodingly with zingy hair and light eyes that might be gold. No smile. He’s wearing a dress shirt and skinny tie and cowboy boots.
“Oh, my,” she whispers.
Incredible. He looks like me but harder. Like how Jake is tough. He has grit to his look. She flips to the next pictures. It looks like they were on a timer and the top of my mother’s head is cut off so all you can see is her smile. He’s on his elbow in one, staring at the camera with my orange eyes, and in another he’s touching her belly proprietarily. That baby is not me and couldn’t be Ben. Weird. “That baby is no one I know.”
“Maybe the letters have something about it.” She turns her attention to the letters.
I hear activity outside. I hope it’s the window guys. “We’ll look later. People are here.” I kiss her cheek and try to help but get in the way of her putting everything back.
I leave her to that and run.
Chapter 27
Hey, Easy, wake up!
It’s real life and not a dream but I’m so comfy I don’t want to open my eyes. I put my arms around this warm comfy woman.
But Jake calls me Easy.
I blink my eyes open. “I’m awake.” I reach for his hand. “Jake, you forgive me?” I scooch closer to Mayyim leaving space for him.
“I’m the one who needs to be forgiven. I’ve made some mistakes. Some big mistakes.” He shakes his head at the invitation to come into bed.
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