She forgot about Marcus. She forgot about her injury and the track meet against Mizzou that she wasn’t running in. She forgot about Mama with bags under her eyes because no woman should have to work as much as she did. She forgot about the medical bills and Darius getting into trouble. She forgot about how much she missed her daddy.
And then she just forgot.
The night went black, with nothing but flickering bits of memory that wouldn’t come until later.
The next thing she knew, she was waking up in a strange bed to the sound of a bird chirping outside a window, her tongue swollen, her head splitting, confusion grabbing hold. Panicked confusion. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know how she got there.
Until she saw the REO Speedwagon poster on the closed, wooden door.
“Shh,” someone whispered behind it. “You’re gonna wake her up.”
She pulled the covers to her body.
Kyle’s covers.
“Are you kidding me, dude? You have your student teacher in there?”
“Shh,” he whispered again.
There was laughter—soft, but distinct. “How was she?”
Pause.
“Come on, man. You gotta give me something.”
Another pause.
And then more laughter, louder this time. “A girl like her? No way! I thought black girls were supposed to be way better than that.”
“Guess not.”
Anaya lurched out of Kyle’s bed. She scrambled into his bathroom and clutched the toilet. There was dried urine on the back of the seat, and dirty grout between the tiles. Her stomach emptied itself. She threw up in Kyle’s bathroom. Demoralized. Degraded. Disgusted.
Disgusting.
The filth on her hands would never go away. It was there like a stain as she put on her clothes and grabbed her shoes and snuck out of Kyle’s house. It was there still, no matter how often she begged forgiveness. It was there, and her wings were gone.
She lied.
Renatta West asked her if Mr. Davis ever made her uncomfortable, and she said no.
But he had. He’d made her feel worse than uncomfortable. He made her feel like she wasn’t even human.
A light turned on in his kitchen.
A silhouetted shape moved around inside.
The Kyles of the world were multiplying, and the corpse was out now. It was awake. Resurrected. No longer buried. And its nails were sharp like talons.
The first time she heard the word—that awful no-good word. You dirty little…
Scratch.
Every racial slur she’d ever read on a bathroom stall.
Scratch.
All those angry parents at the town meeting.
Scratch.
The disparity between South Fork schools and Crystal Ridge.
Scratch.
Leif Royce at Unpack Your Backpack night and his carrying, awful voice.
Scratch.
The Confederate flag on Gavin’s shirt.
Scratch.
Principal Kelly, sitting placidly behind his desk after Paige said that awful, no-good word to Jubilee.
Scratch.
Darius, with his hands raised in Camille’s yard.
Scratch.
Jan McCormick talking about the South Fork moms.
Scratch.
Cody Malone.
Scratch.
Kyle Davis.
Scratch.
A girl like her…
A girl like her…
A girl like her…
Scratch. Scratch. SCRATCH.
Anaya picked up the gun with trembling hands, her heart howling in pain. At some point, the scratch had become a gaping, bleeding wound. And all the rubbing in the world would not make it better.
Sixty-Two
The house oozed with anxiety. Anaya could feel it like impending rain as soon as she walked through the door. She could feel the stillness too, as Mama, Granny, and Darius stood in the kitchen. Anaya walked inside with her hands stuffed inside the pockets of her hoodie, her heart detached from her body.
“Was that Latrell and Darnell I heard outside a second ago?” Granny said, taking Darius by the elbow. “Walk me next door so I can see if them boys have any Tabasco sauce. I’m fixing to fry me up some eggs, and I ain’t eating no eggs without Tabasco sauce.”
Granny might be old and frail, but she hardly needed Darius to escort her next door in search of Tabasco sauce. Their sudden departure had nothing to do with a hankering for fried eggs at ten at night and everything to do with the fact that for the past six hours, Anaya had dropped off the face of the earth. She left Shanice and Darius out to dry. She left Mama to sit in a pool of worry, and there was nothing that got Mama hotter under the collar than that.
“Where in the world have you been?”
Anaya pulled the gun out from her front hoodie pocket and set it on the table.
The house ticked with silence.
“Where did you get that?” Mama asked in a hushed voice that quavered.
“Uncle Jemar’s glove box.”
Mama winced. A sharp intake of breath, like Anaya had physically wounded her. It was a painful déjà vu. The first time Mama and Uncle Jemar got into a yelling match so loud, the whole neighborhood took cover.
It wasn’t really Uncle Jemar’s fault. He had every right to carry a gun in his glove box. Mama knew that. Just like she knew Darius wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t even irresponsible. He was just a fourteen-year-old kid in the middle of his overwhelming grief who got caught up with the wrong crowd and made the stupid, irresponsible decision to put that gun in his backpack and take it to school. It was a decision that came without grace. One that would follow him indefinitely.
Anaya sank into a chair at the table. She had never gotten out of her car. She was never actually going to do anything with the gun. She just wanted to hold it in her hand. She wanted to imagine for a moment that she held the power to make Kyle Davis and his roommate feel as small and worthless as they made her feel that day.
“Why?” Mama asked.
The story came tumbling out. So did the bitterness that came with it. Anaya told her mother the truth. She told her the truth about it all. The foolish thing she did. The horrible thing Kyle and his roommate said. Everything that happened afterward. She confessed it, and when she was finished and shame ravaged her body and tears of disgrace tumbled fast down her cheeks, Mama walked around the table and gathered Anaya up in her arms.
“You are not the sum of one bad decision, do you hear me?”
But it was such a big, bad decision. And Marcus didn’t know. And she lied to Renatta West. Anaya wiped her nose. “I hate him. I hate him so much. Sometimes I start to feel like I hate all of them.”
All of them.
Her mother didn’t have to ask who she meant.
The confession hovered there above the table. It hovered above Uncle Jemar’s gun.
“Hatred is a tasty morsel,” Mama said, her face a mask of compassion—because maybe at one point, or several points, she hated them also. “It’s poisonous too.”
Anaya knew that for herself.
She was currently choking on its poison.
“It’ll eat you from the inside, until all that’s left of you is a husk of bitterness.” She pulled out the chair beside Anaya. The legs scraped against the linoleum. She sat down and let out a long, loud sigh that filled the kitchen. “It ain’t easy. Choosing to see the image of God in people who don’t see the image of God in us? I think it’s one of the bitterest pills I’ll ever have to swallow. But, baby, those people? They aren’t the real enemy. The minute we start believing they are, the real enemy wins, and our hearts turn hard.”
Anaya’s heart already felt hard—callused from a life’s worth of scratches. But then, Mama h
ad endured those same scratches too. And Granny before her. Two women with skin like steel but hearts that still bled.
“I know it’s difficult. But every day, you gotta make the choice.”
“The choice to what?”
“Forgive.”
Anaya went silent. She sat back in the chair.
“Listen to me. You can’t live your one life angry. Living angry means living caged, and I won’t have that for my daughter. Not when so many people before you fought hard to set us free.”
“But nobody’s asking for forgiveness, Mama. They don’t even know anything’s wrong. We’re supposed to just let them off the hook?”
“That hook don’t belong to you, baby. It never did; it never will.”
Anaya sniffed.
“And forgiveness isn’t pardon for them. It’s freedom for you. ‘Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.’ That don’t mean we’re silent for justice. That don’t mean we aren’t called to fight against all forms of oppression. But sin has a death grip on this world, Anaya. It is broken, with broken systems and broken people. And Jesus died for it all. The oppressor and the oppressed.”
Mama reached into Anaya’s lap and squeezed her hand. “Someday, somehow, He’s gonna make all things new. Every chain gone and we’ll dance on streets of gold. That’s where I fix my eyes. But until then, I’ll keep on forgiving. I’ll forgive and I’ll forgive and I’ll forgive even when they don’t ask, holding fast to a Jesus who didn’t just put on flesh—He put on flesh and resided with the least of these, and He died for me when I was yet His enemy. He turned the world upside down. He made the last first. He blesses the weak. He made the despised Samaritan the hero of the story. Oh baby, He’s a good God, and He don’t want you walking around with your heart in a fist. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”
Her heart pulled tight inside her chest.
Freedom.
Anaya.
Her name.
Her birthright.
And a verse from Galatians that hung above the television in their living room, cross-stitched by Granny before her arthritis got bad. It was the verse Hettie Horton taught Granny to hide in her heart when she was six years old. A verse Hettie Horton would have held on to fiercely because of what came next.
Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Sixty-Three
Facebook statement from Ellie Sorrenson:
Up until last week, I was a student teacher at Lewis and Clark Elementary School in Kyle Davis’s third grade classroom. At first, Mr. Davis was really nice and friendly. But then he started paying me compliments that seemed inappropriate. Several times, his body would brush against mine in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, but he would quickly apologize, like it was an accident, so I let it go.
What happened last week was not an accident. It wasn’t funny, either. It was demoralizing. He ran his hand up my thigh beneath a table when he was supposed to be giving me feedback for my afternoon lesson plan. Afterward, he tried to act like it was a joke. I immediately went to my supervisor and reported the incident. Now Mr. Davis is saying it didn’t happen at all.
It’s not okay to put your hands on someone without their consent. I don’t care if everyone thinks he’s a nice guy or a good teacher. What he did was sexual harassment, and it was wrong.
* * *
Anaya’s heart pounded in her ears. She sat in the same seat she sat in eleven months ago, before her interview for a second grade teaching position at Kate Richards O’Hare Elementary. Only now, she wasn’t there to impress. She was there to confess.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the cross-stitched verse hanging above the television in her living room or the meaning of her name.
Anaya.
Completely free.
According to her mother, freedom came with forgiveness. According to the Bible, it came with truth. Anaya hadn’t been telling it. She wasn’t truthful when Ellie Sorrenson called her on the phone two weeks ago, asking if Kyle Davis ever made her uncomfortable. And she wasn’t truthful two days ago, when Renatta West asked the same question.
Maybe if she told the truth, the administration would be more inclined to believe Ellie’s testimony.
Renatta walked out to the front desk with a small, perplexed furrow etched between her eyebrows. “Hello, Anaya,” she said. It was more of a question than a greeting. “Is there something I can do for you this morning?
“I was wondering if you had a minute to talk.”
“Of course. Come on back.” She led the way past a row of cubicles that didn’t lend themselves to much privacy. “We can talk in here.”
It was the conference room where she’d had her interview. Her palms were just as sweaty as she sat in one of the chairs across from Renatta. This time, there wasn’t a recorder.
“You asked me if Kyle Davis ever behaved inappropriately.”
“And you said no.”
“I was lying.”
Renatta closed her eyes—barely longer than a blink. “Go on.”
Anaya told her about Kyle’s invitation to happy hour. She told her about the tequila shots and waking up in his bed. Renatta sat there listening, twisting one of her pearl earrings around and around and around.
“Was it consensual?” she asked.
It was a question without an answer at first. When Anaya woke up that awful morning, the entire night had been wiped from her memory. She remembered saying yes to happy hour. She remembered waking up in Kyle’s bed. She remembered the things she overheard in Kyle’s hallway. The rest was black. A blank slate, like Marcus wanted them to have. But slowly and intrusively, bits and pieces returned.
Laughing on the dance floor while Kyle did the robot.
Stumbling to his front door while he fumbled with his keys.
Standing in front of that REO Speedwagon poster while he kissed her neck, his stubble sharp and alien against her skin.
Not in one of the bits and pieces could she remember saying no.
The heat in her cheeks grew hotter. “I think so.”
“Unfortunately, Anaya, if it was consensual, there’s really not much we can do.”
“But—”
“That’s not to say he isn’t a jerk. It’s just to say that he’s not in breach of contract. He wasn’t in a supervisory role. You weren’t one of his students.”
“So he’s going to get away with it all?”
Renatta frowned. “The only certain thing at this point is that he will no longer be getting student teachers.”
It felt like another scratch.
“But he wrote me a letter of recommendation.”
“Most cooperating teachers do.”
“He implied he would as long as I didn’t say anything.” His exact words had been, This wouldn’t be good for either of us if anyone found out what happened. It’s probably best to pretend it didn’t. Oh, and don’t let me forget. You need a letter of recommendation for your portfolio, right? Then he winked. Anaya wasn’t sure what was worse—that wink or the fact that she took his letter a week later. “He said I was the best student teacher he’d ever had.”
How well she remembered those typed words.
Had the innuendo been intentional? Did he laugh with his roommate when he read them out loud? Did he know how they would make her feel when she read them? Like there wasn’t enough hand sanitizer in the world to make her clean.
Renatta pursed her lips; then she folded her hands on the table. “I’m sorry you had to go through this, Anaya. By all accounts, you are a wonderful teacher. I appreciate your honesty, and we’ll take this into consideration as we continue our investigation.”
That was it.
Anaya’s big confession was over.
It didn’t make a difference in the end. Kyle Davis wouldn’t pay for what he d
id. But Ellie was paying. And Anaya would, because now she had to tell the truth again. This time, she had to tell it to Marcus.
* * *
Marcus sat on the front stoop, laughing at something Granny said while she swung back and forth on the porch swing, one hand on her cane, the other wrapped around the rusty chain.
Anaya’s tires rolled over the curb, up onto the driveway.
When Darius got out, Marcus stood and slapped him some skin. “What’s up, bruh? You hanging in there?”
“I’ll be better once I know where I’m going next year.”
“Yeah. I hear you, man.”
“Help an old woman to her feet,” Granny said, reaching her hand out to Darius. She patted his arm. “Let me whip you up something good to eat. I’ll have you forgetting next year in no time. Marcus, you stayin’ too. And bring your appetite to my table. If you’re gonna marry my great-granddaughter, then you best know how to eat.”
The screen door squealed open, then thwacked shut, leaving Marcus and Anaya alone with the heat and chirping birds.
Marcus grinned. “Was that her way of giving me her blessing?”
A knot tied itself in Anaya’s throat. She felt like she was waking up in Kyle’s bed all over again, a feeling of doom sinking through her body. She knew this was going to happen. Ever since he took her to the homecoming game, she’d known. The other shoe was bound to drop. They couldn’t keep pretending the past didn’t exist. It went against everything she taught her second graders all year long. The past echoed into the present, and that echo could not be ignored.
Marcus looked at her, really looked at her. “You okay?”
She didn’t deserve him. This man who had the same heart for youth as she did, the same heart for this community as her father did. He stuck by her side when she was at her worst. He apologized for things he never should have.
Anaya took his hand and sat on the stoop, pulling him down with her. A car without a muffler drove past, temporarily drowning out the sound of Mr. Johansen mowing his lawn five houses away.
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