Sporty was the only one who had the extra space. He had refused to sell his four-bedroom house after she and Glynn moved out. The house was really underused. Sporty used his bedroom; his den, which was once the dining room; and the kitchen. He said his house was one of the few things he had to show for thirty years of hard work as a telephone lineman. She could only take him at his word that he worked hard. He came home most days smelling of alcohol, though he was always cognizant enough to get on her about not keeping the house clean. While Glynn never lifted a finger to help her, it was he who messed up the house. Glynn was a brat. He was three years older and instead of taking care of her, she had to take care of him, the house, and Sporty. Like she told Jared, the men in her life used her all of her life and here she was out in the cold, dark night with a little boy to take care of.
Why did she have to walk out tonight? Why hadn’t she waited until morning? Living with Glynn “Sporty” Belson wasn’t easy when she was a child. Sporty had been a tyrant. She had been so afraid of him, she trembled whenever he called her name. The handful of times she dared talk back to Sporty, his vicious backhand soon taught her to keep her mouth shut and do whatever he told her to do, and that was a lot.
Sporty treated her like his own personal handmaiden and Glynn, he treated like his heir apparent. Glynn could do no wrong, while all she did was wrong. If there was a compliment for Glynn, there was a criticism for her. And she took it, absorbed it, and hated Sporty for every single word. She dreamed constantly about one day leaving Sporty and Glynn behind. That hadn’t happened. She was still in the same borough—Queens—only minutes away from Sporty who still treated her about the same, but she didn’t keep her mouth shut anymore. She bitched right back at him and dared him to touch her. However, nothing Tandi ever said stopped Sporty’s vicious tongue, but tonight he was going to have to be civil. She was not going to put up with his ugliness in front of her son. She might have to stay in Sporty’s house more than a week until she found an apartment, which was a day longer than Michael Jared had ever been around his grandfather continuously. She wasn’t about to let Sporty scare him as he had done her.
“Mommy, I have to go to the bathroom.”
Tandi wasn’t ready to go inside yet. “Baby, can you hold it a minute?”
Michael Jared answered sleepily, “No, I gotta go, and I wanna go home.”
“I know you do, baby, but we can’t.” She opened the car door.
“Why not?”
“We have to stay here tonight.”
Michael Jared looked out the car window. Even in the dark, he recognized Sporty’s house. His eyes widened. “I don’t wanna stay here.”
“Neither do I, but we have to.”
“No we don’t. We could go home.”
Getting out of the car, Tandi felt like a traitor. “Michael Jared, please, can we talk about this tomorrow?”
“But, Mommy—”
“Michael Jared, it’s late. Get your backpack.” Tandi took both her and Michael Jared’s suitcases and started up the dark walkway. She didn’t look back at Michael Jared; she knew he would follow. At the door, she set the suitcases on the porch. Her hands froze at her sides as she prayed that Sporty wouldn’t be so obnoxiously critical of her for leaving Jared. He would know immediately she had left Jared because she was not going to be able to lie and say she was just visiting when Sporty knew she had not been there that late ever—other than for an emergency for him.
“Mommy, I don’t wanna stay here.”
Tandi willed her hand to rise. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” She rang the doorbell. She had her own key, but thought it best she not use it. No telling what Sporty would do if she walked in on him at this hour. She looked down at Michael Jared. With the hood on his head, in the darkness, she couldn’t clearly see his expression, but she could imagine that he looked like he’d sucked on a lemon.
“Maybe Granddad ain’t home.”
Tandi rang the bell again. “He’s home,” she said, knocking at the door. Already Sporty was messing with her. She’d bet her last dollar he was standing in the dark living room behind the blinds peeking out at her and taking in the fact that she had Michael Jared with her. Even during the day he peeked out at people on the street through half-open blinds. He knew something about everything that was going on on the block even without Miss Iona’s gossipy confirmation.
“I wanna go home,” Michael Jared whined.
The porch light suddenly came on.
Tandi could hear the clicking of the cylinder as Sporty unlocked the door. Lord, give me strength.
The door opened. Michael Jared stepped back. Tandi stood her ground although Sporty’s six-foot frame dwarfed her. Dressed in a faded red-and-white plaid bathrobe over his pajamas, Sporty stood ramrod straight in the doorway, the scour on his face said what his mouth didn’t.
Tandi challenged Sporty’s scour with a hard stare. His unyielding black eyes never endeared her to him, and they always made her want to look away. This time she refused. She felt Michael Jared lean against her side.
“What’re you doing here this time of night?” Sporty asked gruffly.
“I need to stay here for a few days.”
“Why?”
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” Michael Jared said urgently behind Tandi. He started to step from one foot to the other.
Sporty squinted at Michael Jared. “I know that’s not why you’re here.”
Michael Jared pushed in front of Tandi. “Granddad, I gotta go to the bathroom.”
If he heard Michael Jared, Sporty didn’t act like it. He didn’t move or invite his grandson in.
“Daddy, are you going to let us in or not?”
“I got company.”
“So. We have no intention of going into your bedroom.”
Stepping quickly from foot to foot, Michael Jared began pulling his arms out of his backpack loaded with all of his schoolbooks. “I gotta go!”
“Daddy!”
“I ain’t stopping him.” Sporty stepped aside and let Michael Jared race past him. He dropped his backpack in the middle of the living room floor.
“Boy, don’t go near my bedroom!”
“Daddy, please.” Tandi carried the suitcases into the house. “Michael Jared is no more interested in what’s going on in your bedroom than I am.”
“That’s what you say now because you wanna get your foot in the door”—Sporty closed and locked the door—“but you know you always got something to say about my business.”
Tandi dropped the suitcases to the floor. “I’m tired. I can’t—no, I won’t—get into a debate with you about your business or whom you’re sleeping with. My son—your grandson—and I will sleep upstairs, way out of your way.”
“Just don’t say nothing about me having company. This is my house, I do what I want.”
“Believe me, we won’t be staying long in your house.” She picked up the suitcases again and started toward the stairs in the back of the house.
“What are you doing here anyhow? Where’s your husband?” Tandi glimpsed Michael Jared coming back from the bathroom. “I have to put my son to bed. Michael Jared, pick up your backpack. We’re sleeping upstairs.”
“Mommy, I—”
“Honey, it’s late. Please, just pick up your bag.”
“I wanna know how long you’re planning to stay,” Sporty said.
Michael Jared waited for Tandi to answer. He held on to the strap of his bag, but the bag itself still sat on the floor.
Tandi fixed her eyes on Sporty but said to Michael Jared, “Honey, why don’t you go on upstairs. I’ll be right up.”
Michael Jared started dragging his bag behind him. Stopping, he turned around. “Are the lights on up there?”
“You scared of the dark, boy?”
“No, I just wanna know if the lights are on.”
“I’m coming with you,” Tandi said, changing her mind. “Daddy, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
“See th
at you do. I don’t like people just showing up on my doorstep.”
“I’m not people, Daddy. I’m your daughter.”
Tandi stomped off toward the back of the house with Michael Jared close on her heels. They passed Sporty’s bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. Someone was in his bed, but Tandi couldn’t tell who it was, though she figured it couldn’t be anyone but Miss Iona. Who else would sleep with such a crotchety old bastard?
“And don’t make any noise over my head!”
Tandi smirked. She should probably be telling him to not make any noise period. How she hated Jared at this moment. It was his fault she was here at all. If he had lived up to his promise of being the best husband in the world, she would not have to close her eyes in this God-awful house. She would not have to subject her son to an old man with a lifelong thorn stuck in his foot.
8
By the time Michael Jared blacked out from sheer frustration in Glynn’s dusty childhood bed, it was well past midnight. Until Michael Jared closed his eyes, he whined about wanting to sleep in his own bed in his own house. He didn’t like Glynn’s bed, he didn’t like Glynn’s room, he didn’t like Sporty’s house, and mostly, he didn’t like Sporty, the only grandfather he had, but Tandi couldn’t fault him for that. She didn’t like him either. When Michael Jared finally fell asleep, he at least slept through the night—unlike Tandi. The mustiness of her old room from being closed up so long bothered her, clogging up her sinuses. Not even the slightly open window letting in cold air, freezing her to the bone, made her breathing any easier. She had opened one of the windows about an inch in Glynn’s room and could only hope that Michael Jared wasn’t freezing and was breathing okay. Tandi lay awake in her narrow single bed, listening to decades old settling wood creaking and popping throughout the house, wondering whether Jared was the least bit worried about where she was, and worrying herself about how long she’d have to stay in Sporty’s house.
She dozed on and off, waking every time the house made another eerie sound. She was restless to the point of feeling achy from laying down. She was anxious for it to be six o’clock in the morning so that she could be up and about settling her business. Besides it still being dark out, the only other thing that kept her in bed was the bare wooden floor and the fact that her bedroom was right above Sporty’s. If she walked around, he would surely hear her. When she was a teenager, he used to shout up the stairs, “What you doing up there? You trying to come through the ceiling?” Back then, she was barefooted or had on socks. She wouldn’t dare walk around that way now, the dust balls on the floor were so big they could have been tumbleweed rolling down an old deserted dusty town in a western movie. Over the years, she never considered it her job to clean Sporty’s house, certainly not upstairs where no one ventured. What little she did, she did in the kitchen, and that was only because she cooked in there.
At the first light of dawn, Tandi got up and tried to take a quick shower but had to wait ten minutes until the rusty water ran clear through the pipes. Once dressed, she then cajoled a bad-tempered, slow-moving Michael Jared up and dressed for school and, together, they both tiptoed gingerly down the back stairs to the kitchen.
“I don’t want nothin’ to eat,” Michael Jared said.
Tandi was disheartened by the bags under her child’s sad eyes. She didn’t want him hurt by her decision to leave Jared, but leaving him behind was not an option, not when she felt he would be hurt either way and neglected to boot with Jared.
“Honey, I’m sorry you had a bad night, but we’ll be in our own home real soon.”
He perked up. “We’re going home?”
Tandi realized her blunder. As much as she hated to dash her child’s hopes, she had to. “We’re not going back to your father’s house. We’re going to get our own place, an apartment.”
“I don’t wanna go to no apartment, I wanna go home.”
“We can’t.”
“How come?”
Tandi busied herself with looking for oatmeal.
“Mommy, isn’t Dad’s house our house?”
“Not anymore.”
“But he didn’t say it wasn’t our house. He said he wasn’t leaving because he had worked hard to get it.”
Michael Jared had overheard much more than she thought he had. Surely he heard Jared tell her to get the fuck out. No matter what Jared had said that night, he had made it impossible for her to call it her home ever again. And at his tender age, that was something Michael Jared would not understand.
“Mommy, how come we can’t go home?”
“Because,” she said, taking the round container of oatmeal down off the shelf, “your father and I haven’t been getting along very well. It’s best that you and I live apart from him for a while.”
“I get along with my dad. I shouldn’t have to live apart from him.”
Michael Jared was right about that, but was he saying he’d rather be with Jared than her? “Honey, let’s sit down,” she said, leaving the oatmeal on the counter. They sat at the kitchen table. “I will never keep you from your father. You can see him as often as you like, but you know how busy he is. He may not have time to see you other than on Saturdays.”
“I could see him every night if we went back home.”
“Yes, but if you remember, he’s always so tired when he gets in from work. He needs his rest, and if we’re not there to disturb him, he’ll get plenty of rest.”
“He got his rest with us there. Y’all just mad at each other, but y’all can make up if we go back home.”
“Honey, it’s not that simple. Look, try not to worry about your dad and me. We’ll work something out. You’ll still see him, and you and I will have a nice new apartment. You’ll have your old friends, and you’ll make lots of new friends.”
Teary-eyed, Michael Jared’s chin began to quiver.
The last thing Tandi wanted to do was hurt her child, but she just couldn’t go back, not even for his sake. “Honey, I’m so sorry you’re upset,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You know I wouldn’t want to see you hurt for anything in the world. It’s just that mothers and fathers don’t always get along. Sometimes when they can’t agree to get along, they have to live apart. Sometimes they have to—”
Michael Jared shot up out of his chair. “Y’all can’t divorce!”
“Honey, I didn’t say—”
“Mommy, Dad’s real good to us. He pays all the bills, he gives you money to buy your clothes and my clothes, he buys me computer games. I don’t want y’all to divorce.”
Tandi didn’t think she could feel any worse. By omission she had forgotten how much Michael Jared loved Jared. No matter how little time Jared spent with him, Michael Jared didn’t care as long as he saw him.
“What’ll happen to me? Where will I live?”
She eased Michael Jared back into his chair. “Honey, listen to me. I’m not saying your dad and I are getting a divorce, I’m just saying sometimes that happens. For now, we just need some space, some time out. If your father has time, you can spend weekends with him. I promise. I’ll never keep you from being with him.”
“Then let me go back home.”
Tandi choked back her urge to cry. “You don’t wanna be with me?”
“Yes, but I wanna be with Dad, too. I want to be with both of you.”
Tandi quickly wiped at the tears that rolled freely down her cheeks.
“Mommy, if we go home,” Michael Jared said, “I’ll clean up my room without you telling me to ever again. I’ll take out the garbage, I’ll do all of my homework, I won’t make noise—”
“Honey, nothing you did or didn’t do has anything to do with this. This is between me and your father.”
A stream of tears rolled down Michael Jared’s cheeks. “And me, too. We’re a family, all of us.”
Oh, God. “Honey, that’s true, we are a family, and we always will be. Your father and I both love you, and we know you love us, too. I don’t want you to think for one minu
te that you are the cause of us breaking up. If it should happen that we do divorce, we’re not divorcing you. Your father is still going to love you the same, if not more, and so am I.”
Michael Jared folded his arms on top of the table and dropped his head onto them.
Crouching next to Michael Jared, Tandi put her arm around his shoulders and whispered pleadingly in his ear, “Honey, please, please don’t cry. I promise you, I’ll make sure your dad spends more time with you, and I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy.”
“Is he all right?” a woman’s voice asked behind Tandi.
Tandi looked back and was aghast. A middle-aged woman she had never seen before was standing in the doorway in a sheer pink negligee showing everything that might have been easier on the eyes decades ago. Her hanging breasts and flabby stomach were not a pretty sight. Tandi glanced down at Michael Jared. He was still absorbed in his despair. Grateful for that, she glared at the woman.
“Oh! Does my attire bother you?”
Michael Jared started to raise his head. Quickly standing, Tandi held his head against her stomach. “What do you think?”
“I don’t see why it should, I have nothing to hide. My body is beautiful.”
Michael Jared stopped sobbing altogether. He tried to pull free of Tandi’s hold.
“One woman’s opinion,” Tandi said, holding Michael Jared’s head. With her free hand, she shielded his eyes.
“Your father likes my body.”
Distant Lover Page 6