Life's A Cappella

by Smith, Yessi

  “I need disgustingly greasy food,” I told him, not believing him. Based on previous experience, I knew life had a way of not working out for me.

  Nate took us to one of the greasiest, most delicious diners in all of Alabama. Just walking into the place brought back memories of my youth, reminding me it hadn’t been all bad. I once had friends who had made my life tolerable. We had spent many hours at this diner, tormenting the owner who occasionally rewarded our horrible manners with free food.

  “Is Dan still here?” I asked with a big smile on my face.

  Nate returned my smile and dragged me to the back where Dan was hidden away in his office. Dan looked up at us and shook his head.

  “Can’t you see I’m busy, boy?” he demanded with a twinkle in his eye. And I was so happy to see Dan hadn’t changed a bit, I almost hugged him.

  “Aw, Pop, I brought you a visitor,” Nate told him.

  Pop? I looked at Nate confused.

  “And a pretty one at that. I’ll give you that,” Dan replied.

  I stared at Nate, willing him from my memory. Was Dan’s last name Miller? I wasn’t sure. But Nate wasn’t Dan’s son. Dan’s son’s name was Nathaniel. Nathaniel. Nate. Shit, I’m stupid, I thought.

  “Remember me now, do ya?” Nate asked me.

  Remember him? I had spent most of my childhood trying to forget him. Even as a kid, he was a self-righteous, obnoxious know-it-all. Who had threatened my mother with one of his dad’s kitchen knives when we were eleven years old and he had seen the bruises on my face and arms.

  “You’ve changed,” I told him nonchalantly, although I could feel my heart struggling to beat out of my chest. Damn nerves.

  “I’ve changed?” he laughed and I smiled at him. We had both changed.

  “What are ya’ll goin’ on about?” Dan demanded. “Who’s this girl?”

  “You’ve gone and broken my heart, Dan.” I shook my head at him sadly. “After I gave you my heart and made you my first boyfriend.”

  “Shit, girl,” he smiled, fully acknowledging who I was. “I ain’t had a girl after me since Jordy up and lef’ us.”

  I outwardly winced at the sound of my name but pushed it aside so I could give Dan a decent hug. I’d missed him. I hadn’t realized that I would, or even that I had.

  “She calls herself Erin Lewis now,” Nate told him while pulling my hair the way he had done when we were younger. I reminded myself he was a cop now and stopped myself from punching him in the gut the way I had in the past.

  “Well, Erin Lewis, you got any money to pay for your bacon double cheeseburger and fries?”

  “Not a dime,” I joked.

  “Then go set yourself at one of them tables and let our local law enforcement take the bill,” he suggested, and I happily complied.

  “You’re such a shit,” I hissed at Nate, trying to hide my smile.

  “So you’ve told me,” he replied, sitting down next to me, playing with my hair.

  “Will you stop that?” I asked, only slightly annoyed.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he joked, but suddenly sobered. “Ya know, I didn’t know about Shayna. Not till your momma passed. Once you left, I had no reason to go ‘round there,” he explained.

  “It’s fine, Nate.” I shook my head at him.

  “No, it ain’t,” he said seriously. “I shoulda taken her away from there sooner.”

  “But you didn’t know,” I said gently.

  “I should’ve.”

  “I should’ve too,” I said quietly, realizing I meant it. I should have kept some sort of tabs on my mother so I could have saved Shayna earlier.

  “You left,” he told me. It didn’t sound like an accusation though. More like he was excusing me for not having known.

  I left, but the shit storms continued. A baby was born without anyone to protect her.

  “She has us now,” I said as a way of easing both of our pain and guilt.

  “She has you,” he corrected me, reminding me I would eventually go back to Miami.

  I had my life in Miami that I couldn’t wait to go back to, or could I? So much had changed since Camilla had died.

  “So no visits from her obnoxious Uncle Nate?”

  “Obnoxious?” Nate retorted. “I’ve been very hospitable.”

  “And polite,” I agreed. “Which is why I didn’t recognize you.”

  “You’ve always been a mean girl,” he told me while balling up a napkin and tossing it in my face.

  Had Nate and I been this friendly with each other when we were younger? I couldn’t remember. We hung out with the same crowd, but he had been more boisterous, while I had been quiet. He had teased me several times, but being the angry self-conscious type, I hadn’t seen it as friendly banter. No, I had been offended and punched him, hard. Until that day he had threatened my mother. I knew then that he was safe and had never punched him again. In fact, I had apologized for my aggression, which he had brushed off, telling me I hit like a girl anyway.

  Yeah, I guessed, we had been friends. And now? We were friends now, right? Yeah, I concluded. This time, we were brought together by a special little girl who had stolen both of our hearts. And I knew it’d be hard for both of them when Shayna and I left. But I couldn’t stay in Alabama. There were too many unresolved memories. And Nate could visit, I hoped. Not just for their sake, but for mine too. In such a short time, I had come to trust him. Again.

  After our food arrived, we ate in silence I only broke the silence to sing along to Alan Jackson’s Itty Bitty.

  “Trent was wrong,” Nate told me as I stared at him in shock. “You still got some country in you.”

  I sang the chorus louder, ignoring him and the idea that him and Trent spoke to each other or existed in the same realm as one another. Because after all, life is short, so we might as well enjoy it while we still could.

  Chapter 22

  Erin

  A week after my court date, Shayna was allowed to stay the night with me in my hotel room. One night turned into two, and two had somehow turned into a month. While I had reassured my job I would return, my boss had been forced to find a temporary replacement. And Dan being Dan, had given me a few hours of work during the morning shift so I could have some sort of cash flow. It wasn’t much, but I made it work.

  After a month and two weeks in Alabama, I finally had temporary custody of Shayna and could return to Miami. I’d have to return to Alabama to finalize the adoption, but the dread of my hometown no longer haunted me. With my mother in the ground, I felt safe. Content even.

  Shayna and I had said our goodbye’s to Emily and Dan the previous night at the diner where Dan had prepared Shayna’s and my favorite: the world’s best bacon double cheeseburgers and fries. Nate had promised to take us to the airport so I knew it was him at the door when I heard knocking.

  “You keep packing,” I told Shayna, who was stuffing her dolls in the princess suitcase Nate had bought her. “I’ll get the door.”

  I let him in and quickly took away the box of doughnuts he had brought with him.

  “How do you stay so skinny?” he asked.

  “Good metabolism,” I told him between bites. “And I envision myself running every morning as I peel myself off the bed.”

  “It’ll catch up to you,” he said far too happily. “Then you’ll have a gigantic butt,” he said, spreading his arms apart.

  “Great! I’ll finally have curves,” I laughed.

  “What’s that?” Shayna came out of the room we had been sharing carrying my pack of tampons.

  I turned to Nate who was bent over laughing and felt myself turn red until I remembered the good looking man I had met at the airport no longer existed. He had been replaced by an old friend who had turned into family. So I thoroughly explained what the tampons were for and watched Nate squirm as I explained what happened to the female body once a month.

  “Cool!” Shayna exclaimed and then skipped back to our room to continue packing.

  “Great parenti
ng skills,” he told me and I agreed.

  So far, Shayna had been easy to take care of. I had worried the first week she stayed with me because I didn’t want to have to call Emily or Nate with questions. I wanted to do it on my own, without screwing up too badly.

  But she had made the transition from my old life to my new one so easy, and I couldn’t bare the idea of going back to my old life. She was such a naturally happy girl and rarely complained that she actually made me happier just by being near her. I had been reading about how to best parent a four year old and found myself exceptionally lucky that she seemed to be skipping the fearsome four’s. She’d probably make up for it in her teens, I thought, and balked at the idea of her becoming a teenager. Statistically speaking, she’d wind up a smart ass that hated me regardless of any well intentioned efforts on my part.

  Nate drove us to the airport quietly, allowing Shayna to keep up her nonstop chatter. I grinned at her and responded whenever she stopped for a quick breath of air. I couldn’t wait to be back in Miami where Sofia would be picking us up at the airport. I only hoped my car still worked so I could take Shayna to the beach.

  There was a rinky-dink little diner in Ft. Lauderdale within walking distance to the beach, right off the Intracoastal with the most amazing pizza. My mind was already there, salivating over their marinara sauce. After today we would eat healthier, I promised myself. But today we were going to gorge on pizza and soda.

  As we got closer to the airport I realized I had been lying to myself. Our departure wasn’t going to be hard on just Shayna and Nate, but on me as well. I was going to miss Nate and hoped we would keep in touch as we had promised.

  Last time I left Alabama, I hadn’t told anyone I was leaving and never allowed myself to think about anyone, thus never allowing myself to miss anyone. But this time my ties ran deeper. Nate and Dan had been there for Shayna and me. And I could never repay them. Especially Nate.

  I looked at Nate and wanted so badly to say something profound. Something to let him know how much he meant to me and how much I appreciated him. Instead he tugged my hair hard so I stuck my tongue out at him. I would have flicked him off, but Shayna was in the back seat. Look at me, I thought, being all mature and shit.

  We arrived at the airport too quickly, and I found myself playing with the seatbelt, afraid about the moment I’d have to take it off and say goodbye to Nate.

  “I don’t care if I am a cop,” Nate told me quietly. “If you cry, I’m gonna have to hurt ya.”

  “Cry?” I asked, automatically stiffening my shoulders. “Over you? Pfft, I’m glad to be rid of you,” I smiled at him.

  Nate smiled back at me and unbuckled my seatbelt for me. I climbed out and held onto Shayna’s hand while we waited for Nate to take our suitcases out of the trunk. Nate walked to us with sad eyes and a big smile. Crouching down next to Shayna, she launched herself into his arms and held him so tightly I was afraid she’d never let go.

  I watched him slowly, painfully, pull her off of him and said, “I’ll visit, Shayna. I promise.”

  “Soon?” she asked with big tears spilling out of her eyes.

  “Very soon,” he told her.

  He stood up and wrapped his arms around me so I wrapped mine around him, just as tightly as Shayna had. “Don’t fall off the radar again,” he told me.

  “I won’t,” I whispered into his neck.

  “Okay, then,” he said awkwardly.

  “Okay, then,” I mimicked him and smiled. “Call you when we get to Miami?” I asked, and he nodded.

  Shayna and I watched as he waved to us one last time before he got in his car and drove away.

  “Okay, Little Miss,” I told Shayna. “Time to get our tickets.”

  “And fly on a plane?” she asked.

  “Yep,” I agreed, and with our suitcases sitting next to us on the ground, I picked her up by her belly and twirled us in a circle as she spread her arms like wings and flew.

  ***

  Shortly after Sofia, or Tia Sofie as she insisted Shayna call her, dropped us off in my apartment, we were ready to go to the beach. It took us forty minutes to get to my favorite diner, but it didn’t feel like a long drive. Rather than the loud music that normally accompanied any drive, we played cloud games where we guessed what a cloud looked like and sang silly songs I had long forgotten from elementary school. Typical Miami, traffic stood still at times, without any reason in sight, but it was well worth the drive.

  The food was great, but I mostly enjoyed sitting outdoors with the water just below the deck we sat on. Shayna watched the seagulls and pelicans dive for their food while I silently hoped a manatee or dolphin would make one of their unexpected appearances. None did, but their no-show didn’t put a damper in our mood. By the end of our meal, Shayna’s face was full of spaghetti sauce and raw eagerness to see the beach.

  I remembered the first time I had seen the beach and the quiet calm it had brought me. Since then I had returned countless times, searching and usually finding that peace and tranquility. But for Shayna, the beach wouldn’t bring calm. No, it would be a gigantic playground to explore. I couldn’t wait.

  After we ate, I guided us the short blocks to the beach and instructed Shayna to take off her sandals as I did so she could feel the sand between her toes. My fearless little sister didn’t disappoint and flung her sandals to the side and did an enthusiastic belly flop into the sand.

  “Your toes, silly. Not your face,” I giggled when I saw the sand stick to the sauce on her face I hadn’t been able to remove.

  I hadn’t thought about buying toys for the sand when we were on the strip before the beach but made a mental note to buy some next time I brought her. We did okay though, with just our hands and built sand mounds instead of castles. I watched Shayna as she chased seagulls and splashed in the shore. I took photos with my phone and honestly couldn’t remember a single moment in my life that I had been happier. Here, with Shayna, I had found what I didn’t realize was missing. I had thought that by bringing her to Miami, I would selflessly be giving her a home. I had never imagined that she would do the same for me. Who could have imagined I would find my home in a four year old girl?

  A few feet away from me I saw girls my age tanning on their stomachs with open bottles of beer by their side. They talked and giggled about their life with such exuberance, it reminded me of Camilla and our many talks. How could it be that less than two months ago that was my life? Even stranger, how could it be that aside from missing Camilla, I wanted no part of that life? I looked at the girls and felt neither jealousy nor apprehension about my future. From one of their phones, I could hear Bruno Mars sing about how he loved his girl just the way she was and he could have been singing about how I felt about Shayna. Her eyes, her laugh, everything about her was perfect, thereby making my world a little less un-perfect.

  Chapter 23

  Shayna

  She didn’t like being in the air, but hadn’t wanted to say anything. Instead she looked up at her big sister, smiling at her, hoping her sister couldn’t see the terror she wanted to hide. Erin had played with her and made her laugh a few times and eventually the knots in her belly had loosened and eventually subsided altogether.

  The beach had been everything Nate had promised her. It smelled a bit funny, but it was a smell she had started to like before they even left. She liked playing in the sand, especially with Erin. And she loved looking up at her big sister to find her smiling down at her. She had almost crawled into Erin’s lap, but she was afraid Erin would turn her away, push her away for being the nuisance that she was.

  Her favorite part had come that night. After a bath and short story, Erin had lain down next to her on the big bed they were going to share and wriggled her way to her until she was firmly snuggled against her big sister’s chest. She had slept a dreamless night and awoke feeling protected.

  Chapter 24

  Erin

  While I knew I had to go back to work, I hated leaving Shayna. I had alrea
dy missed so much of her life; I didn’t want to miss another moment. I was also scared she’d think I was abandoning her the way our mother would leave me for days at a time. Completely unannounced, but eventually something I expected.

  But Shayna didn’t share in my apprehension. She had taken an immediate liking to her Tia Sofie and pranced around the small ballet school in a pink tutu Sofia had given her. Watching her, I couldn’t help compare the brave little girl ready to take on the world to the scared, timid girl I had been that still shied away from an outreached hand and kindness.

  Had my mother been kinder, gentler to her? I remembered Nate telling me how quiet she had been in the beginning and how difficult it had been for her to trust anyone. Maybe it was just a matter of youth. Maybe she was young enough that she was able to put it behind her once she realized she was finally safe. Or a matter of resilience. Maybe Shayna didn’t know how to give up or not be happy.

  Either way, she was the epitome of everything I’d wanted to be since I left Alabama. She was happy and free.

  I hugged my sister and spoke to myself when I told her I’d be back to pick her up soon. Sofia smiled at me, a knowing smile with a hundred secrets and I found myself smiling back at her.

  “She’s already forgotten me,” I told her.

  “That means you have nothing to worry about, mi niña,” she answered. And although she continued to smile at me, I saw the sadness that had crept into her eyes so suddenly I felt the pang in my own gut. I wanted to hug her, to give her the same comfort she had given me, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t know how to comfort myself, let alone someone else. What a poor excuse, I chastised myself.

  “We’ll be fine,” she reassured me as I left.

  I didn’t bother looking back, but heard Shayna’s squeals of laughter as I closed the door behind me. I already knew she’d fare much better than me on our first day apart from each other. But in all honesty, I was eager to go back to work. A good 80% of the time I enjoyed being a nurse. The other 20% I tried to avoid the hateful glares from children who were not above biting me when they saw me holding a needle. Little hellions.