Young Wives

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Her only rationale was that once the lawyer got this into family court, once she’d seen her kids, she would have issues she could face and share. Once she had the children back, she’d truly be delighted to change the locks, to get Clinton out forever, to mentally adjust and go on as a single mom. And her mother wouldn’t judge her harshly, though none of the islanders or any member of their church approved of divorce. Jada knew her mother wouldn’t even mention that she’d always known exactly how trashy and low Clinton was. Though last night Jada had been grateful that she’d had some human contact, someone to talk to while she waited for her chance with the children, the call had had a very painful backlash.

  The water felt good. She was, after all, an Aquarius; it was an air sign, but she always felt it should have been a water sign. She raised her knees a little bit so she could settle the back of her neck against the tub. Exposed above the water, her knees looked like two dark islands in a sea of foam. They reminded her of the Caribbean, where Nevis and a few other places rose straight and dark out of the aqua sea. Jada suddenly wished she could be with her parents, home again. Not this place, but their home in Barbados, where she actually had never lived but had only visited. Home there, safe with her mama and her babies.

  Last night had been the longest in her life. She’d walked from room to empty room, turning lights on, shutting them off, and moving on. The empty children’s rooms frightened her, the kitchen seemed abandoned, and the living and dining rooms too big to sit in alone. Her bedroom was worst of all. She could never get back into the bed she’d shared with Clinton. She’d slept fitfully on the sofa, woke up at five, and then this morning had stretched out endlessly. But at noon today, she reminded herself, she would see her children.

  The Romazzano-Wakefield woman over at the legal clinic had managed somehow to get through to the family court judge and had set up temporary visitation. Jada had stopped the check to Bruzeman and closed the loan file. It seemed that a free lawyer was as effective—and certainly more comforting—than a cold, expensive one. It was hard to say with an attorney, but Jada felt that Angie’s NUP was a good one. When she’d gotten the call that she could see Shavonne, Kevon, and Sherrilee—if only for two hours today and another two on Sunday—she had been so grateful. Angie Romazzano had done it speedily, and although Jada didn’t like the limits—two hours was an extra insult and ridiculous—it had been heaven to know for certain she’d see her babies.

  She soaked in the hot water and it occurred to her that she still hadn’t cried all of her pain out. She wasn’t a weeper. But then she wondered whether her need for the constant drip of hot water into the tub was some externalized form of tears. She’d been dry-eyed and awake all last night and this morning—except for the brief catnap she’d managed on the sofa. The only sounds all that time had been the drip of hot water.

  Well, that and the phone; once the lawyer with the news, and then two calls from Michelle to check up on her. Michelle, bless her heart, had called twice, inviting her over for dinner and then later, past eleven, just to check in on her. Michelle had sounded more upset than Jada was, but then she was more emotional. She’d even suggested she stay with Jada in her place for the night.

  “Frank can watch the kids. Just so the silence doesn’t get to you. You know me, I’m never silent,” Michelle had tried to joke.

  But though Jada had truly, deeply, appreciated the invitations, she didn’t have the strength for company. She had to get through this part alone. After all, alone might be the state she was in for her entire future.

  She glanced now at her wristwatch, languidly curled over the side of the tub, and realized she’d better get ready. She rose from the water with a shiver and wrapped herself in the still-damp towel she’d used from her last bath. Jada walked into the bedroom, avoided looking at her bed, and opened her closet door. What do you wear when you get to visit your legally abducted children? she wondered. She pulled down a pair of Gap khakis and went for one of her Equadorian sweaters. Both were easy to shrug into but looked cheerful, as if she’d made an effort. She was about to try and tame her hair when the phone rang for the first time that morning.

  She rushed to it, with every unspeakable horror running through her head: Clinton refusing to let her see the kids; her lawyer calling to say the judge had changed his mind; one of the babies sick and in the hospital. Her hands started to tremble again, but she managed to lift the phone off the hook, then fumbled to get it to her ear.

  “Hello,” she said, and her voice was raspy. She realized she hadn’t spoken aloud in hours and hours.

  “Jada?” Michelle’s voice asked. “Are you sick?”

  “Only mentally,” Jada told her.

  “Do you want me to drive you over?”

  “No. I can make it to my mother-in-law’s on my own,” Jada said. “But if you want to, you could follow to make sure that I don’t shoot Clinton or his mother.”

  “Have you got a gun?” Michelle asked.

  Even in her pain, Jada felt her heart expand toward Michelle, sometimes so gullible, but always so kind. She thought of the bitches who had sent back Michelle’s brownies and decided that if she was going to go postal, Jada would take them out, as well. “No, I don’t have a gun. How many female suburban bank branch managers do you know who pack a weapon?” She didn’t even get a giggle from Michelle, but she knew Michelle was taking this almost as hard as she was. “So while I’m asking questions, what do I say to the kids? I don’t know what Clinton’s told them. And what do I do with them? I don’t even have time to bring them back here if I have to return them to Yonkers. I mean, the round trip would use up my two hours.”

  “Jada, what you do is you tell them you love them. That this will be over soon,” Michelle said. “Just like I told my kids. You tell them that this fight that Daddy and you are having will be over soon. And it wouldn’t hurt to find out about their daily routine. Has he taken them to a new school? Who’s cooking? You know.”

  “Right,” Jada agreed.

  “Did you pack some extra things for them for the meantime?” Michelle asked. “You know, favorite T-shirts or slippers or like that?” Jada nodded, then cleared her throat and managed to tell Michelle she already had done that during her night wanderings.

  “But I hate to take even one more of their things out of here,” Jada admitted. “It makes this even less their home and that place—wherever they are—more.”

  “Oh, Jada, that place must be so empty for them without you. And your house must be … hell. You must be so scared.”

  “You have no idea,” Jada said. “To be in danger of—”

  “I do, Jada. I really do.”

  “Oh, Lord, it’s almost noon. I gotta go.” Jada hung up, put on her Reeboks, and checked in her purse for the car keys, the house keys, Kleenex, her lipstick, change for parking meters, money for lunch, gloves, and lip balm. She picked up the bag of things she’d packed for the children, then, armed with everything but an actual revolver in her old Coach bag, she went out to the garage and got in the car.

  Clinton made her wait almost twenty minutes before he came out into the cold, ushering Shavonne and Kevon, and holding Sherrilee. For some reason Jada was unwilling to get out of the car and stand beside him, perhaps because she might do him violence if she did. Instead she leaned across the passenger seat in the front, threw open that door, and twisted to unlock and open the door behind her. She was unrolling her window an inch as Shavonne rushed into the front seat, slamming the door behind her, while Kevon scrambled into the back over the baby’s carseat.

  “You’re late,” she said to Clinton. “I’m not going to bring them back until twenty after four.” As she spoke, she saw his mother, a hulking dark shape descending the rickety stairs. Clinton didn’t say a word. She tried to read his face to see if there was guilt or shame written on it, but it was as blank as a brown paper bag. He put Sherrilee into the baby seat and closed the door. Meanwhile, Shavonne had climbed across the front seat and had her
arms around Jada’s neck Shavonne, who had disdained PDAs—public displays of affection—for the last year or more. Jada cupped her daughter’s head with her hand and kissed her hard on the cheek. “Hey, kids, I’m taking you for a treat,” she said.

  “Two hours and they’re back,” Clinton said, and as if to emphasize what he was doing, he looked at his watch. Jada said nothing at all. She just hit the accelerator and tried to burn rubber as she pulled the Volvo away from the man who was ruining her life.

  “I want nuddets! I want nuddets! I want nuddets!” Kevon chanted for the sixtieth time.

  Jada turned into the parking lot and pulled into a space. She took a deep breath.

  “But do you want sauce, do you want sauce, do you want sauce?” Jada sang back. Might as well join them, she figured. Sometimes go with their flow.

  Kevon smiled, delighted. “No, I do not. No, I do not. No, I do not!” he sang back at her, then giggled.

  “I ain’t eating no McDonald’s,” Shavonne said.

  “I’m not eating any McDonald’s,” Jada corrected. “And yes, you’re going to.” Jada was amazed at Shavonne’s language. She’d begun speaking Ebonics overnight. Tonya’s influence?

  “Ha! You’re eating McDonald’s,” Kevon crowed.

  “You’re a poop with a fart for a brain.”

  “So? So … you’re a doody mouth. Mama, she’s a doody mouth.”

  “Tattletale. Fart brain.”

  “Okay, now. That’s enough of all that. Calm it right down,” Jada said, shocked at their vocabulary and the intensity of their bickering.

  “Oh, Mom. Will you get some honey sauce? Then I can have some of Kevon’s.”

  “They’re my nuddets,” Kevon said.

  “They’re not even nuddets, stupid,” his sister informed him. “They’re nuggets.”

  “No, they’re not, no, they’re not. And they are mine. Aren’t they mine, Mom?”

  Jada, who was struggling to get Sherrilee into the McDonald’s high chair, assured her son that when she got the food, it would be his. Poor Kevon: his sister always knew more, always corrected him, and was almost always right. Is that where men’s resentment of smart women, of powerful women, began? Jada wondered. But they didn’t all have sisters who were six years older. Clinton didn’t. “Sit down, honey,” Jada told her son and he clambered onto the yellow laminated chair beside her.

  “I want to sit next to Mommy,” Shavonne said, raising her voice. Annoying as their bickering was, Jada was grateful for the small indication of affection.

  “You can both sit next to me,” Jada declared before there was war, “but then Sherilee has to sit across from me and we all have to help her.”

  “Oh, she don’t eat nothing. She just throws it on the floor,” Kevon said.

  “She doesn’t eat anything,” Jada corrected firmly. Since when was Kevon using double negatives, talking street talk? Was that what a few days in funky Yonkers had done to his speech? If her boy started speaking Ebonics, Jada decided she would have to kill Clinton and her mother-in-law. “Shavonne, you watch the baby while I get your Happy Meals.”

  “Okay, Mom,” Shavonne said, self-satisfied.

  “Kevon, you watch our bags and see that no one takes them.” She glanced over at the line and pulled a Sesame Street coloring book and some Crayolas out of her bag, just to be sure to keep them busy. “And there’s also a contest, with a prize, to see who can fill in their picture best. Now I’m going to get lunch and I’ll be right back.” She kissed Kevon on his head as she passed him.

  “Kiss me, too,” Shavonne said, and Jada had to smile. She did it, of course, though she noticed Shavonne’s hair didn’t smell fresh. When had it last been washed? she wondered. Sherrilee was still drowsy from the car, but for good luck, Jada kissed the top of her head, as well. It, too, smelled … well, not exactly bad, but certainly not fresh. She was more uncomfortable than ever. Couldn’t Clinton even keep the children clean?

  She joined the short line at the fast food counter. The kisses and fight over seating were unusual. The kids were bothered by all this—they usually, especially Shavonne, avoided affection.

  She looked around and sighed. She hated feeding her kids this stuff, but it was a big treat to them. They loved it. And they seemed hungry. What was Clinton, or her mother-in-law, serving them?

  Thank God the restaurant wasn’t too crowded. It was an off-peak time. Actually, Jada had planned all of this badly. She had been a little lost about what to do with them. It had been too cold to take them to a park and Jada also knew she couldn’t bear the screaming at one of the indoor kids’ gyms, so she’d just walked them through part of the Cross County Mall and shown them the Santa’s Village already on display, though it wasn’t even Thanksgiving. The kids had been excited by it, but all Jada wanted was to get them home and crawl into bed with the three of them, read them a story or tickle them, or just watch some television holding them tight. But there was the time limit, so it was the mall and McDonald’s—such public places. She still hadn’t had a chance to really talk with them; she didn’t know how to start, and still wasn’t sure what Clinton had said about this abduction.

  “Next,” the older woman behind the counter barked, peering through thick bifocals. Jada rattled off her order, then after a pause, added a decaf coffee for herself. She couldn’t eat. She hadn’t eaten anything in two days. No wonder she was so exhausted. “Are ya sure you’re done now?” the woman in her McDonald’s uniform asked nastily, and Jada felt as if she almost was.

  She turned to make sure the children were all right. Sherrilee was awake now, tearing up her coloring book page, at least one piece already in her mouth. Kevon was standing on his chair, getting the most leverage he could out of a crayon he was pressing onto his picture, while Shavonne, of course, was daintily working on a page still in the book. Jada watched them until her order came. Then she brought the bag full of saturated fats and starch and sugar to her waiting babies.

  “Okay,” she said, summoning the energy to try to keep it cheerful. “Let’s see what you got done. Remember, there’s a prize for the best job.”

  “Mine. Mine!” cried Kevon. “Look at this!” He had colored Big Bird—and most of the rest of the page—in Caribbean turquoise.

  “Great,” she said. Jada put down the brown collapsible boxes of food. “Let’s take the crayons and the coloring off the table for now. Let’s eat.” She handed round the food and cut one plain burger into bite-size bits for Sherrilee while the other two tore into their boxes and bags. They ate, thankfully, in silence, and Jada, too sick to her stomach to even watch them eat, sipped her decaf and checked her watch. Only twenty-eight minutes left. She couldn’t believe that she was not savoring this time with them. When they went back to coloring, she was ashamed to find herself relieved.

  “That’s stupid,” said Shavonne. “Big Bird should be yellow.” Even though she had recently turned twelve, she still—secretly—liked to color. Just like Jada, Shavonne was a good girl and didn’t go out of the lines. Jada looked over at Shavonne’s neat rendering of Bert and Ernie.

  “It ain’t no Big Bird,” Kevon answered. “It’s Aunt Tonya.”

  Aunt Tonya? Aunt Tonya? Forget the “ain’t.” Now Jada had to deal with “aunt”? For a moment she felt she might lose control, tear the page of the coloring book off the table, and scream at the top of her lungs. Instead she clenched her fists in her lap, then laid three more french fries out for Sherrilee, and calmly turned to Kevon. “You don’t have an Aunt Tonya, Kevon, honey,” she said, and at least in her own ears her voice sounded close to normal.

  Kevon continued mashing the crayon into the paper. “She’s our baby-sitter,” Kevon replied, still coloring. “Daddy said so.”

  “I’m not no baby,” Shavonne said. “I don’t need a baby-sitter. Do I win the prize, Mom?” Shavonne looked at her mother and Jada thought there may have been a flicker of pain or doubt in her daughter’s eyes. The pain went straight to Jada’s heart. “Mrs. Green,�
� Shavonne said. “I call her Mrs. Green. You know, from church. She baby-sat.” Shavonne looked away.

  In a bid to secure the prize, her daughter looked with contempt at her little brother’s page. “Isn’t it Big Bird, Mom?” Shavonne asked, looking back at Kevon’s paper. “Anyway, Mrs. Green isn’t that color, she’s dark. She’s real dark brown.”

  “Her dress was this color,” Kevon said. “And she gave me two Matchbox cars. Wanna see?” He shoved his hand in his pocket. Sherrilee chose that moment to choke on a french fry and Jada was up, around the table, and at her side in a moment. She lifted the baby’s little arms to the ceiling and Sherrilee coughed and swallowed, then pulled one hand away from her mother’s and directly went for another fry. No Heimlich needed. Jada gratefully bent down and inhaled the slightly stale bread scent that came from her daughter’s hair and kissed the top of her head. She slowly walked back to her seat.

  “Who’s taking care of Sherrilee?” she asked as neutrally as she could. She knew it was wrong to pump the kids for information, but felt almost desperate.

  “Aunt Big Bird did,” Kevon said and laughed, giving her the look he gave her when he was naughty.

  “I miss my stuff,” Shavonne said. “My blue sweater, and the knapsack with the cats on it. But I can get it when we go home.”

  “Yeah, let’s go home now,” Kevon agreed. Sherrilee, finished with her lunch, reached her arms out to her mother and Jada smiled, rounded the table again and picked her up, putting her on her lap. Kevon, feeling left out, got up from his swivel chair and rubbed his head against his mother’s shoulder.

  “I brought you some things,” she said. She opened the bag and took out Shavonne’s slippers. Her daughter looked up; the little V between her eyebrows, one that exactly replicated Jada’s own, appeared.