by Landis Lain
“Why can’t I just live with you?” asked Sasha.
“It’s against the rules, honey,” said Gail.
“The rules are stupid!” said Sasha, fiercely.
“You want some cheese with that whine?”
Sasha and Gail both laughed.
“Remember, make decisions. Own your own future. You have to do it for your baby, if not for yourself.”
“Okay,” said Sasha. “But I want somebody else to do my life for a while.”
Gail laughed. “We all do honey.” She patted Sasha on the shoulder, then walked to the door of the office.
“I’m going to stand outside in the hall while you make the call,” said Gail.
“Wait!”
“What is it honey?”
“Can you hold my hand?” asked Sasha, eyes pleading but dry for a change. She rocked back and forth in her chair. “I can do it if you hold my hand.”
Gail looked at her for a long moment. Then she smiled gently and came back into the office.
“Sure honey,” she said. “Whatever you need.”
Gail sat down next to Sasha. Sasha took her hand, looked at the phone and took a deep breath. She exhaled. She sat for a few minutes, just holding Gail’s hand.
“Miss Gail?”
“Yes, Sasha,” said Gail.
“Some stuff I gotta do by myself, right,” asked Sasha. She met Gail’s eyes.
“Yes,” said Gail. She squeezed Sasha’s hand.
“I gotta have this baby?” Sasha asked. “Nobody else can do it, right?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s going to be harder than calling mama.”
“Yes.”
Gail met her eyes. Sasha read no judgment in them, just the same understanding and support she’d been giving for the last couple of months. Gail was leaving the decision up to her.
“Somebody else needs my bed, right?” asked Sasha. “Somebody who is really battered? Who is really afraid for her life?”
“We’ll hold that off for as long as possible,” said Gail, but she did not deny Sasha’s allegation.
“I gotta own this decision, like you always say in group,” said Sasha. “So, I’m gonna call mama. And I’m gonna call the baby’s daddy.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then,” said Sasha, nodding her head. “You can go. I’ll do it.”
“I’m proud of you,” said Gail, rising for the second time. “Dial nine for an outside line.”
She left the room, closing the door behind her.
Sasha eyed the desk phone as though it was a large rodent. Fear and loathing for the uncertain future threatened to choke her. Then she took another deep breath, exhaled and picked up the receiver.
Damon
“Thanks, Mr. Tally,” said Damon. He had stayed after school for about four hours to fill out the on line application. Mr. Tally had also given him a packet of available scholarships and given Damon the assignment to report on at least two per week
“You’re welcome, Mr. Hamilton,” said Mr. Tally. “I’ve been hearing good things about you from your teachers.”
“Yeah, I should be getting all A’s in my classes as long as I don’t mess up on the final exams,” said Damon.
“Have you thought anymore about what you might like to major in?” asked Mr. Tally.
“I like political science but there is more money in medicine,” said Damon. “Also, I like the fact that I can help people; either law or medicine.”
Mr. Tally smiled. “Well, the law is good. I think you’d make a great lawyer. But medicine, that’s great too. And it has the added attraction of being a career that you can take anywhere. People always need doctors. Lawyers are not as essential,” said Mr. Tally.
“I never thought about it like that,” said Damon, much struck. “I’ll give it serious consideration.”
He turned to leave Mr. Tally’s office, clutching the papers to his chest.
“There is no real hurry,” said Mr. Tally. “How about we get you into a school first, huh?”
Damon flashed his smile and waved. He was taking the first step out of Lansing and into his future. He couldn’t wait to tell Brielle.
Sasha
“Mama, can I come home?”
“Sasha is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, mama.”
Sasha sat with the receiver to her ear and listened to her mother burst into tears. She waited stunned, until her mother got herself under control. The last thing she expected was for her mother to be relieved to hear from her. Eight weeks in a shelter had taught her caution and cynicism.
“Girl, I’ve been looking for you for two months,” said Evangeline. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I have been so worried.”
Sasha kept quiet.
“Where you been, girl? The police wouldn’t even look for you because you are over eighteen.”
Sasha started to get nasty, but thought the better of it.
“I’ve been staying in a shelter, mama.” There was a long pause.
“I thought your daddy was lying when he told me he hadn’t heard from you.”
“I talked to him,” said Sasha. “His wife wanted me gone so I got gone.”
“That is so trifling.”
“Whatever.”
“Excuse me?”
Sasha was exhausted. She reached down and rubbed her stomach. She was hungry and junior was doing gymnastics in her belly in protest. She had thirty dollars to her name and no place else to go.
“Nothing. Mama, look I’m calling from the shelter. They’ll give me a greyhound ticket.”
“Okay.”
“I got no place else to go,” admitted Sasha, hating the helpless defeated tone in her voice. “Mama, can I come home?”
“You still pregnant?”
“Yes, ma’am, almost seven months.”
“That’s nothing to be proud of.”
“I know, mama.”
“So, you got no place else to go, huh? Should have thought about that before you gapped your legs open for some boy.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s gonna be some rules.”
Sasha closed her eyes in relief.
“I know.”
“No,” said Evangeline. “These you are gonna follow.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The greyhound bus was designed to kill her. Or else was God’s way of trying to shake her into a thousand pieces, to punish her further. She could almost hear the tiny voice in the back of her head preaching in her mother’s strident self-righteous voice. Maybe she would not make it back into Lansing in one piece and the bus driver would find little pieces of Sasha confetti all over the back seat of the bus when he finally stopped. In addition to being flung about like a milkshake, Sasha was nauseous from the stench emanating from the miniscule bathroom that she was sitting across the aisle from. Earlier, she’d moved to the seat across from the bathroom because her almost seven months pregnant bladder was the size of a walnut, and so she wouldn’t have to sit next to the stinking derelicts in the first few rows who kept trying to talk to her.
“Hey little mama, can I talk to you,” the one with snaggled teeth had lisped at her. He had a greasy blue and white bandana wrapped around his even greasier shoulder length hair.
Sasha rolled her eyes at him. He persisted in his arrogance, taking silence for acceptance of his come on.
“If you was my woman, you wouldn’t be riding the iron pimp, mami,” he said. He kept on until Sasha, goaded by her nausea and ever-straining bladder finally clapped her hand over her mouth, jumped up and ran to the back of the bus. After a few moments of trying to hold her breath while trying to pee without touching anything, she was lightheaded. She held down the bile with only the most strenuous effort. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, she stomped up to the front and grabbed her backpack off the seat.
“Hey, mami, you want a mint or something?”
“Leave me alon
e,” she said to bandana, glaring at him with hatred.
“What?” Bandana looked slightly wounded.
The bus driver finally intervened.
“You want to get off and wait for the next bus?”
Bandana held up his hands, palms out to indicate surrender.
Finally, the bus pulled into the downtown Lansing Greyhound station. She looked the around bustling terminal for her mother, but seeing no one she sighed heavily and stepped outside into the frigid November air.
“Sasha?”
She whirled around at the tentative voice and came face to face with her mother. She drank in the tired eyes and beautiful face that looked so much like her own. Sasha had a fleeting second to acknowledge that she was going to look exactly like her mother in twenty years. Then the fear took over and the knot in her throat threatened to choke her. She clutched her backpack to her belly to keep from throwing herself in her mother’s arms. She wasn’t too certain of her welcome. Her mother might be glad that Sasha was alive but was probably not glad to see her. Evangeline might let her drop to the ground.
Evangeline’s eyes flickered to Sasha’s stomach. She winced visibly and then her eyes snapped back up. Defiance and anger etched across Sasha’s face, but her tight, white knuckled grasp on the ratty backpack gave away her agitation and uncertainty.
“The car is over here,” said Evangeline, gesturing with her right arm.
Sasha’s shoulders and she stifled a huge sigh of relief. They rode together in silence to her mother’s home.
“You been to the doctor?”
Sasha, almost grey with fatigue, nodded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You look tired,” said Evangeline, after they’d stood and looked at each other for an endless moment.
“You said you had some rules, mama.”
They stood for a long moment, engaged in stare down of the strongest will. Sasha defiant, Evangeline angry. Evangeline took a deep breath. Sasha braced for the blast of recriminations.
“Go lay down,” said her mother, awkward and unfriendly, but concerned. She reached out and patted her daughter on the shoulder.
Sasha stumbled to her old room. When she walked in, she didn’t notice anything but the bed. Dropping her book bag and coat on the floor she collapsed onto the bed and fell into the first real sleep she’d had in over two months.
Brielle
Brielle was admiring her birthday necklace in the mirror. She turned one way and then the other. She smoothed the charm into the hollow in her throat. It was a very delicate gold chain and the charm was half of a heart. Damon had the other half on a bigger gold chain that he wore around his neck. Damon had bought it with his own money, not money that he had gotten from his mother or father. That made the birthday gift even more special to Brielle, because Jada always teased Damon about being stingy.
“My mom calls him a stingy rascal,” Jada had said. “She said he was going to have the first dime he ever made in his pocket when he dies.”
Plus, he’d somehow prevailed upon Chauncey to issue a sheepish apology for his crass statement at the homecoming dance. In Brielle’s eyes he was taking on heroic proportions.
Damon met her after swim practice. He had to go to work after school but he’d text messaged her that he had something for her and to meet him outside the locker room doors before practice. When she arrived, somewhat breathless from rushing around so she wouldn’t be late to meet him, he leaned down and gave her a quick kiss that stole her breath even further. Damon had handed her a small box wrapped in bright purple paper with a purple and silver bow on top.
“I want to give you this, Brielle,” he said. “For your birthday.”
“My birthday was in August,” she said, frowning at the box.
“I know,” he said. “But I wasn’t into you then. I didn’t really know you. But now, well, it’s a birthday gift anyway. Besides, my birthday is in two weeks. You have to get me something now.” Damon smiled down at her.
“Thank you,” she said softly. She stared at the package.
“Open it,” he said.
She opened it carefully so she wouldn’t tear the paper and lifted out the small red jewelry box. She flipped open the top and stared down at the half a heart nestled on the white satin of the box.
“It’s beautiful,” said Brielle and looked up and smiled.
He reached over and took the necklace out of the box.
“Turn around,” he said and she obediently turned around and lifted her braids so that he could fasten the clasp. He fumbled with it at first because his hands were so big, causing the hairs on Brielle’s neck to stand up with awareness, but he was patient and finally got it clasped.
His hands dropped onto her shoulders and he gently turned her to face him. He reached inside the neck of his shirt and pulled out a chain with the other half of the heart hanging on it.
“I want you to know that you have my heart,” he said. “Even if we don’t have sex.” Brielle’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Really?” she asked.
“Don’t act all stunned,” he said. “You know that you’re my baby.”
“You’ve got mine, too,” said Brielle.
“I know,” he said, and caressed her face gently with the back of one of his hands.
“How’d you know?” she asked, teasing. He had to know how much she was into him. She’d never been able to keep it a secret. He reached over and tugged gently on one of her braids.
“I can see it in your beautiful eyes,” he said. “They speak to me every time I look into them.”
He leaned down and kissed her softly. Brielle sighed when he broke the kiss.
“I’ve got to go to work,” he said and took a step back. “I’ll call you tonight if I don’t get off too late. Swim hard, boo-boo.”
“Okay,” said Brielle. He turned and walked away without looking back and she watched until he disappeared around the corner before she headed into the locker room for swim practice.
Brielle hadn’t shown it to her mother yet, because she wanted to keep it to herself just for a little while longer. She hoped that her mother would let her keep the charm because mommy said that some gifts weren’t appropriate between young men and young women. Brielle zipped up her swim warm up. She didn’t want to take the necklace off. Damon Hamilton loved her. He’d said so, first, not in response to anything she’d said. They hadn’t had sex. That must make it so.
Damon
Damon was watching Brielle. She was walking around in her hooded sweatshirt, mumbling to herself. He was wearing a brand new Wimberley Swim hoodie that Brielle had given him for his birthday. He was biting the inside of his cheek. This swimming stuff was nerve-wracking. She’d taken second in the fifty and hundred freestyle and fourth in the fifty butterfly. Her team was in second place behind Clarkston, a team that looked like they had a height and weight requirement because every single one of the girls on the team was at least five ten, blond and beefy. Damon wondered if they were all cousins. There was one other black girl swimming, from a Catholic all-girls school called Mercy. Mercy had on the wickedest swim warm ups he’d ever seen. Wimberley looked like vagabonds in comparison. Damon had heard one of the parents say that the first fundraiser of the year was to get new warm ups next year. Brielle and the other black girl had embraced before the meet and cheered each other on in every race, even if someone on their team was swimming against them.
“Yo, Dave,” he said to his brother. “It’s freaky that there’s only two black girls swimming in the whole state championships.”
David rolled his eyes.
“Sisters ain’t trying to get their hair wet,” said David.
“That’s true,” said Damon. “But they’ve got swim caps.”
“Access to pools is probably limited, too,” said David. “Inner City schools cut out athletics and stuff in school and just kept the moneymakers like football and basketball. Where is some Detroit girl even going to learn how to swim, if not at s
chool?” Damon nodded. That was always the way things were. If your parents didn’t have money, you didn’t get to do anything. Damon had resolved to himself long ago that if he was going to have a lot of money before he thought about having kids.
It was down to this last race, the freestyle relay. Brielle was swimming the anchor, since she’d had the fastest qualifying time. The first swimmers climbed up on the blocks. The pool area was deathly quiet, waiting for the start tone
“So, you really like this girl, huh?” asked David in a whisper. David was his closest brother in age and temperament. They had always been extremely tight.
“I love her,” murmured Damon without thinking. David looked at him stunned. The start tones sounded and Damon jumped to his feet along with the rest of the crowd. David stared at him for a few seconds before turning his attention to the race.
Damon and Brielle’s contingent yelled themselves hoarse. Kyzie was so overcome with excitement she had to sit down with her head between her knees. The first three legs of the relay went by in a screaming blur. When Brielle jumped into the pool, they raised such a raucous thunder that Damon was almost afraid they were going to bring down the walls around them.
“Come on, come on,” begged Damon when the Clarkston swimmer pulled even with Brielle on the first length of the 50 meter pool. They flipped at precisely the same moment and began the back to the finish. The girls on Brielle’s team were jumping up and down wildly. Both girls seemingly touched the finish at the same time and the crowd fell back to deathly silence, awaiting the posted results.
“This has been a wild and woolly day,” said the announcer, hoarse from excitement. “The freestyle relay set a new meet record and we had a photo finish which will decide the meet winner.”
“Wild and woolly?” snapped Kyzie, having recovered from her near swoon. She had her hands on her slim hips, staring indignantly at the announcer’s booth. “What does he mean by that? Is he talking about Brielle’s hair?” David laughed long and hard.
“Her sister is a nut,” he said to Damon.
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Damon.
The scoreboard lit up. At the top it read Wimberley with Clarkston a hundredth of a second behind them in second place. Brielle and her team went wild. Kyzie screamed and grabbed Damon in a hard hug. Then she realized who she was hugging and let him go abruptly, grinning sheepishly.