by Andrea Cheng
We’re passing the fried-chicken place with a smell that makes my stomach queasy. Aunt Geneva takes some papers out of her purse. I see Mama’s name on the top.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It shows the date that Sy—that your mama passed,” she says.
“May twenty-eighth,” I say.
“I know,” Aunt Geneva says. “But they need an official record.” She clicks the purse shut.
“Official record to know that Mama died?”
Aunt Geneva takes a deep breath. “We need it so that Uncle James and I can officially adopt you.”
Adopt like at the animal shelter. Adopt a kitten. Adopt a puppy. Give it a home. Everything is going by so fast out the window, the White Castle and the Quik Stop and the playground. The bus jerks to a stop, then starts again, making my stomach come up to my throat. What if I throw up on this bus?
I push myself against the window where the air conditioning is coming out. “What if I don’t want to be adopted?” I ask.
Aunt Geneva pushes back against the seat. I know she’s thinking I can’t believe Jerome said that. “It’s what your mama wanted,” she says.
I close my eyes. Did anybody ever ask me? Just put on this shirt, Jerome. Hurry. We have an appointment with a lawyer. “Mama never said a thing about anybody adopting me,” I say.
“Shhh, Jerome. Your mother and I talked about it way back before she ever got sick. Before we had children even.” Aunt Geneva takes a tissue out of her purse. “We promised to look after each other. And that includes you kids.”
Tears are running down my face and snot too. Aunt Geneva offers me a tissue but I don’t want it. I want to get off this bus and find Mr. Willie wherever he is. We’ll play duets, that’s what we’ll do, in the front room of the big mansion. We’ll play for money and sandwiches and peaches. Mr. Willie listens when I talk and says I see your point, Jerome, like Mama used to.
“If it’s not legal, somebody could come along—you never know, Jerome,” Aunt Geneva says. She is opening and shutting her purse, fiddling with the papers. I look out the dirty window. We are passing the City Garden Center. Me and Mama went there to get plants for our garden, some perennials for along the side of the house. Year after year they came back, getting so big we had to divide them. I start moving my fingers on the bus window. The right hand crosses over the left, back and forth, moving faster and faster. The bus stops at the corner and an old man gets on.
“I want Mr. Willie to adopt me,” I say so loud that the lady in front of us turns around.
Aunt Geneva acts like she doesn’t hear. “Your mother was my sister,” she whispers. She dabs at the tears on her cheeks.
I want Mama to be sitting here beside me. We could be heading downtown to the main library like we used to every Sunday. We could be picking out books and music and movies for the week. “I want a piano,” I say finally.
“Someday, Jerome.” Aunt Geneva takes another tissue out of her purse.
The bus pulls into the last stop at Government Square. We get off and cross the street to the courthouse. Inside are two marble staircases. We take the one on the left up to the second floor. “Room 201,” Aunt Geneva says.
We have to wait a long time for our turn. People are coming and going. I could run fast down these stairs and out the door. But where would I go? Aunt Geneva asks me if I’m hungry.
“No, ma’am.”
She hands me a peppermint anyway. “Helps the time pass,” she says, unwrapping one and putting it into her mouth.
Mama liked mints too, the real hot ones that take your breath away.
When we finally see the lawyer, he says Aunt Geneva needs some other papers like her birth certificate and her marriage certificate to Uncle James. “Nobody told me to bring all that,” Aunt Geneva says.
“Getting adopted is a process,” the lawyer says. “We have to make sure everything is in order.”
She makes another appointment for next week. The lawyer smiles at me with his big white teeth. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’ll all work out. We just have to take it step by step.”
I want to tell him I’m not worried at all. It’s not me that started this whole thing in the first place.
Aunt Geneva stands. “Thank you,” she says, ushering me out into the hallway.
On the way home on the bus, Aunt Geneva falls asleep. With her eyes closed like that she looks a little like Mama. Same tall forehead and broad nose. But her mouth and chin are different.
Mama talked things over with me, big things and small things and everything in between. Jerome, should I take that other job over in the nursing home or stick with what I have? Should we plant purple hostas on the side of the house or white ones? You’re the one with the good eye, Jerome. Thank you, Jerome, you are a big help, you know that?
The bus stops suddenly. Aunt Geneva opens her eyes for a minute, then closes them again. She never tells me a thing.
22
Monte is up by the carriage house. “Where were you?” he asks.
“Downtown.”
“Doing what?”
“Visiting a lawyer.”
“What for?”
I don’t answer.
“That lady was here looking for you,” Monte says.
“Ginny?”
“Skinny white lady,” he says.
Maybe she came to tell me she found the piano in there, or the sculptures or something. I start running up toward the mansion.
“Can I go with you?” Monte asks. “No.” My voice is sharp.
“Why not?”
Monte is always following me everywhere, talking the whole time. What’s he doing up here at Mr. Willie’s place anyway? He’s got his own mom and dad and his own brother.
I stop to catch my breath in the doorway. Ginny is there with a mask on. She pulls it off her mouth. “Good afternoon, Jerome,” she says. “I was looking for you earlier.”
“My cousin said.” I stand there, waiting. “Did you find it?”
She pulls her eyebrows together. “Find what?”
“The piano.”
“Oh, the piano. No. I doubt there’s anything as big as that in the back room. Tom is still trying to find the keys.”
“Did you check the basement?”
“No piano down there,” Ginny says. “I was wondering if you’d like to help me sand the front room.”
My back is tired and I have a blister on the palm of my hand. But it’s my only way to get inside the mansion. And if I don’t find Sharon’s piano, I’m going to have to buy my own.
“Sure. I can help,” I say.
She hands me the wooden block, sandpaper, and a mask. “Tom says we should start in the middle and work out.”
Ginny pulls her mask back over her mouth and nose. I put mine on and crouch down next to her. I take short strokes with the sanding block because the grain is going in all different directions. The floor is made out of small pieces of wood in a pattern, dark, light, dark, light. This must be the mosaic Mr. Willie was telling me about. I clean off the wood with my sleeve so I can see what I’m doing. Small flowers, that’s what it is, like dogwood blossoms all over the floor. Me and Mama planted a dogwood tree in the back corner of our yard, the white kind she liked so much because the blossoms look like they’re floating.
Tom is in the hallway talking on the phone. “Yes, we need a dumpster. The biggest one you have. Make that two. One needs to go right next to the mansion. The other one goes next to the shack near the street.”
I stop sanding for a minute. What shack is he talking about? He is discussing the price with the man. Finally they settle and Tom hangs up.
“When are they coming?” Ginny asks.
“Next week or the week after that.”
Ginny is sanding away. “This floor is gorgeous,” she tells Tom.
He whistles through his teeth. “Must’ve been a lot of work to cut all these small pieces.”
Tom goes out to work on the front porch. But I need to
know about the shack. “What shack did he mean?” I ask Ginny.
She can’t understand me, so I take the mask off my mouth.
“Where is the shack?” I ask.
“Why, over there by your vegetable garden.” She smiles behind the mask. “I’ll make sure nobody tramples on your plants.”
“Are you going to fix up the shack?” I ask. But Ginny can’t hear me with all the banging. I shout, “Are you going to fix up the shack?”
“It’s too far gone,” Ginny says.
•
I sit by the door of the carriage house and wait for Mr. Willie. I have to tell him about the dumpster. I have to let him know. And I have to tell him about the lawyer, too. I’ll ask him if he would be so kind as to adopt me.
Heat waves are rising off the blacktop, making everything all wavy. A mirage. That’s what Mama called it when we looked down the road on a hot day and it looked like water but there wasn’t any. A mirage can make you see anything, like now I see Mama in our garden with a scarf on her head and I say It’s too hot, so she takes it off for all the world to see her baldness. A policeman stops and says Is everything all right, and I say Yes, we’re fine. Just fine.
I lean back against Mr. Willie’s wall. Shack. Put the dumpster by the shack. That way when they tear it down, they won’t have far to carry the rubble. Two dumpsters, biggest ones they have. I close my eyes and then my fingers start moving, fast, up and down, a mazurka by Chopin, dance music, Mama said. Fast and crisp.
I wait for a long time, but Mr. Willie does not come home. The sun’s so hot. I stand up and get the hose and water the four o’clocks and the vegetable garden. I spray water on my face and take a long cold drink.
The bag of cement is leaning against the front door. I dump some cement mix into the bucket, add a little water, and stir it around with the trowel. Then I start putting stones on the wall the way I’ve seen Mr. Willie do it, bigger ones near the bottom. You have to work fast before the cement sets. My part doesn’t look as good as Mr. Willie’s, but it’s standing pretty solid. If we can get this wall done, they’ll see the beauty in it. Nobody would tear down a wall like that.
23
After dinner I’m washing the dishes and Monte’s drying when the doorbell rings. Aunt Geneva’s talking real low, Uncle James too. “Yes, I understand. We’ll be there. Yes, sir, in a few minutes.” There’s a police car parked in front of the house.
Monte drops the towel on the floor. “I told you,” he whispers.
“Stay here with Monte,” Aunt Geneva says to me, taking off her apron.
“Where are you going?” I ask, but they are already out the door.
Monte’s doing his shaking thing again like he does when he’s scared, so I get him a blanket even though it’s summer and he wraps all up in it like a cocoon.
“Damon’s in jail,” he says.
“He’s probably just at the police station.”
“How-how-how do you know?”
I want Monte to stop his trembling. “Listen, Monte, we’re starting your piano lessons,” I say.
“Without a piano?”
“You’ll see.”
Mama said when she was small they didn’t have enough money for a piano, so they made one out of paper and she practiced like that. But there was no sound. Sure there was, Jerome. The music’s in your heart and in your hands.
I get four pieces of paper and tape them together. Then I take a black marker and a ruler and I draw a whole row of piano keys. I give Monte a marker too and show him which notes to color in to make the black keys between the white ones.
“Okay, this one here is middle C,” I show him, humming the note. “So you put your thumb on there and start your scale. One, two three, thumb under, four, five, six, seven, eight.”
Monte puts his hand on the paper just the way I show him and plays the notes. I sing the scale as he moves his fingers. Then I show him how to come back down, putting his third finger over on the E.
“Okay, now we’re playing a duet,” I tell him. We play the scales together, Monte singing high and me singing low. His voice is quiet but it’s right on pitch. We go on playing all different scales and singing so loud we don’t even hear the door open.
Damon’s shirt is ripped under the arm. He’s just standing there, not going upstairs or into the kitchen or anywhere, staring at our paper piano like that is about the dumbest thing he’s ever seen.
“Go get cleaned up,” Uncle James says.
Damon starts to say something, then turns and heads up the stairs.
“Jerome’s giving me piano lessons,” Monte says in a small voice.
Aunt Geneva’s eyes are all swollen up. She kneels down on the floor. “Let me see, Baby.”
Monte plays the scale.
“Very good.” She turns to me. “I haven’t forgotten about your piano, Jerome,” she whispers. “I hope you know that.”
I stare at the paper piano on the floor.
Aunt Geneva sits on the sofa and Uncle James is beside her. She is crying without making any noise, but we can see the tears running down her cheeks. “It’s okay now,” Uncle James says. “He got good and scared now.”
Aunt Geneva nods.
“You heard what they said. He’s young yet. First time in trouble. He’ll come around.”
Aunt Geneva covers her face with her hands. “I tried my best,” she says. “I tried to raise these boys the right way.”
Uncle James is rubbing her back. “You did a fine job,” he says. “There’s just lots of trouble out there, that’s all.”
“I tried,” she repeats.
Then all we hear is sobs.
If Mama was here, she’d tell me what happened. You can’t make a plan without the information first, Mama said. You have to know the facts. Suddenly I have to know.
“What’d he do?” I ask.
“Steal,” Uncle James says.
“Steal what?”
“DVDs.”
“What are they going to do to him?” Monte asks.
“There’s a court date,” Uncle James says.
Monte is crying. “Damon’s going to jail,” he says.
Aunt Geneva pulls Monte to her lap and then they’re both crying. “Shhh,” Uncle James says. “They won’t send him to jail for a first offense.” He looks at me. “Jerome, take Monte to bed. Best thing for him to do now is get some rest.”
I look down at Monte. He’s doing his shaking and shivering, but still we have to know the facts. “How did he get caught?” I ask.
“The cashier saw him put a DVD under his shirt. Caught it on film.” Uncle James looks at Aunt Geneva. “We’ll talk to Ms. Jackson. Her son’s a lawyer and he can guide us through this process.”
Monte reaches for my hand like a little boy and we head up the stairs.
24
Monte comes into my bed like he’s been doing.
“What if they do put him in jail?” he whispers.
“They won’t.”
“He could die in jail,” Monte says.
“He’s right there on the bed,” I say, “so stop worrying. He wasn’t even in jail, just at the police station. And your dad’s getting help from a lawyer.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what he said.”
Suddenly Monte sits up. “He’s not all bad,” he says, grabbing my arm. “You know that, Jerome?”
I nod.
Monte has his eyes squeezed shut. “I see colors with my eyes closed,” he says. “What about you?”
I shut my eyes. “I see black and white,” I whisper.
“I see purple and orange and blue. I see Damon’s purple T-shirt and he’s playing basketball and laughing.”
I keep looking with my eyes closed. “No colors. Just black and white. Like piano keys.”
“Are you going to stay here a long time?” Monte asks.
“You already asked me that.”
“So you aren’t going anywhere?”
“Like where?
”
“Like New York. I heard Aunt Melinda saying she’d be happy to have you.”
“I’m not going to New York,” I say.
“But if you do, can I come?”
“I told you, I’m not.”
Monte won’t give up. “But if you go—”
“Your mom and dad are adopting me.”
I said it. I let the words out of my mouth without thinking, like water out of a hose. Monte looks at me in the dark, afraid to move. Finally he grabs my arm. “I’ve wanted you to be my brother for forever.”
I’m quiet then. Want has nothing to do with it. There’s lots of things that happen that a person doesn’t want. “I want to keep my name the way it is,” I whisper.
“Because your name is something you’re born with,” Monte says.
“Yup.”
“But if you don’t change your name, can you still be adopted?”
“If you follow the process.”
“What do you mean, process?”
“There’s all this paperwork.”
Monte is squeezing my arm so hard it hurts. “And after the process, you’ll be my real brother, right?”
“If you stop digging your fingernails into my arm.”
Monte relaxes his grip and looks down. Then he gets up and unfolds the paper keyboard on the floor. “I’m practicing my scales,” he says, moving his fingers across the keys.
“Don’t flop your wrists,” I tell him. “A pianist is not a floppy rag doll.”
He tries again.
“Better,” I say.
He finishes the scale and looks up. “If I want, can I change my last name to match yours?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?”
“You just can’t.”
“But we’ll still be brothers. Just with different last names, right?”
I never really wanted a brother or a sister. I had David across the street to play with and then I had Mama waiting for me at home.
“How come you’re not answering, Jerome?”
I look down at Monte with his fingers still on the paper keyboard. “What did you ask?”
“Can we still be brothers even if our last names are different.”