One Way or Another

by Rhonda Bowen

  Toni looked away from him, tears of anger burning her eyes.

  “Toni, talk to me, please,” Trey said, clasping her hand between both of his. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m thinking that you should have known better,” Toni said, turning toward him again. “I’m thinking that even if you thought it was okay, you should have at least told me about it before you announced it to the world. I know I can’t tell you and Jasmine how to live your lives. I don’t want to. But I never did anything that was going to affect you without telling you,” Toni said. “When it came time to decide what happened to the house, I asked you if you cared if we sold it—”

  “... And you took care of me through all of it,” Trey finished. “I haven’t forgotten what you did for me, Toni. How you sacrificed everything so that I could have what I needed.

  “I want to make sure that you have what you need, as well. But I can’t if you never tell me. If you act like you’re fine and you got it handled all the time, how am I supposed to know when something’s wrong? Most of the time ...” He paused and looked down.

  “Most of the time I feel like you don’t need me at all,” he said heavily. “Like your life would be just fine whether or not I was in it. Which sucks, ’cause I really need you.”

  “Trey, that’s about the dumbest thing I ever heard you say,” Toni said, as she pulled her brother into an embrace. “There’s never going to be a time when I don’t need you. You’re pretty much stuck with me for life, buddy.”

  He laughed as he returned her embrace. When they both finally stopped hugging, Trey took her hands in his.

  “You gotta talk to me, baby sis. You can’t be Miss Independent all the time. Let me know what’s going on with you. Can you do that?”

  Toni nodded. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure? Do you promise?”

  She laughed. “I promise”

  “I love you, little sister,” he said. “I don’t tell you all the time ’cause it’s weird. But don’t ever forget it. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Good,” Trey said, sitting back with a satisfied sigh. “Now let’s talk about Jasmine.”

  “Trey, no,” Toni said firmly, the smile disappearing from her face.

  “Come on, Toni. You both are the most important women in my life,” he said tiredly. “How am I supposed to survive if the two of you are always at war?”

  Toni pouted but said nothing. How come she was always the one who got the lecture about getting along with Jasmine, like it was all on her? Jasmine was always the one making waves. Toni was always the one who would have to deal with it. But whenever Toni had something to say, she would get the lecture.

  “Whose idea was it to buy the house, Trey?” Toni asked.

  He grimaced. “It was a mutual decision. Jasmine and I came to it together.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Toni replied stubbornly, her eyes narrowed. “Whose idea was it?”

  Trey sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “It was my idea.”

  Toni and Trey both looked up to see Jasmine standing at the door. Toni felt every muscle in her body tighten. She turned her eyes back on Trey and said, “That’s what I thought.”

  “Toni—”

  “Trey, forget about it,” Toni said, sighing. “Like I told you both before, do what you want to do.”

  “Toni, I’m sorry,” Jasmine said, taking a step into the room. Toni could hear her sister-in-law’s voice wavering but she kept her eyes on her brother.

  “I never thought that you would be so upset about this. I just thought it would be great if Trey’s children could be raised in the same house he grew up in.”

  She took a step further in. “If they’ll never get a chance to meet their grandparents, at least they could be in the place where they once lived.”

  Toni’s chest tightened as Jasmine’s words sunk in. Trey’s unborn child would never get the chance to meet her grandparents. Toni’s own children would never get the chance to meet their grandparents. Though she had never thought of children of her own until this point, the idea that she would never be able to share them with her mother brought a crushing pain to her chest. She turned toward the window as fresh tears sprang to her eyes.

  “Toni—”

  “I’m tired. I think you should go,” Toni said, trying hard to keep her voice in check. “Both of you.”

  She felt Trey’s hand on her shoulder but she didn’t dare turn around to face him. “You sure?” she heard him ask from behind her.

  Not trusting her voice, she just nodded. There was a pause before she felt Trey stand up. A few moments later, she heard their footsteps fade away as they left the room. Then, when she was sure she was alone, she let herself cry.

  Toni opened her eyes to blinding light streaming through her bedroom window. She groaned and pulled the sheet over her head.

  “Well, it’s about time,” Camille said from somewhere over her head. “I was beginning to think we’d have to bury you in here.”

  “Who opened the curtains?” Toni moaned from under the blanket. “Too much light.”

  Camille snorted. “Not enough, if you ask me,” she muttered, pulling the curtains together slightly.

  Toni was grateful that Camille had been around to help her since she got out of the hospital. But the early mornings she could do without. She peeked out with one eye before pulling the whole blanket down to her chin. Camille was standing at the foot of the bed, hands on her hips.

  “What?” Toni asked, stretching her arms above her head lazily.

  “You’ve been out for almost ten hours, that’s what,” Camille said dryly. “When did you get so lazy? The Toni I know used to run on five hours a night.”

  “Guess I’m catching up then,” Toni yawned. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  Camille looked like she wanted to argue but when she saw the strain on Toni’s face as she tried to pull herself into a sitting position, her features softened. “Oh, honey, I didn’t know it was like that,” she said, coming over to the side of the bed. “Let me help you.”

  Toni slid to the edge of the bed, then put her arm around Camille, and with her help finally made it onto her feet. Still leaning against her friend, Toni made the slow trek from the bedroom to the living room. As soon as they got to the couch she called time.

  “This is as far as I go today,” she said, collapsing in one corner of the couch. The small bit of exertion had completely worn her out, leaving her feeling like age seventy-seven instead of twenty-seven. Camille sank down in the couch on her other side.

  Out of nowhere Toni let out a loud laugh. Camille turned to look at her as if she had lost her mind. It only made Toni laugh louder.

  “Remember when we were fifteen, and we decided that we were going to buy a beach house in Florida?” she asked between laughs.

  Camille slapped her hand on her forehead. “Oh, geez. I can’t believe you remembered that.”

  “Oh yes,” Toni said, nodding. “You had broken up with Gary... .”

  “... For like the fiftieth time,” Camille added, rolling her eyes.

  “Uh-huh. And you swore you were done with guys. You said you would never ever get married. And that you were going to move to Florida, buy a condo, and live on the beach.”

  “And you promised to go with me,” Camille said, wagging her finger at Toni. “I was going to be a fashion designer and you were going to be a celebrity publicist. Your first client was going to be ...”

  “... Destiny’s Child,” finished Toni, rolling her eyes. “I was gonna get them to stop wearing Tina Knowles’s basement creations. You know they were too fly for that mess.”

  “Girl, you ain’t never lied.”

  They both laughed as the memories of their childhood flashed up before them like scenes from an old movie.

  Camille sighed. “What ever happened to all those dreams?”

  They both sat back on the sofa. The silence of the moment seemed to give gre
ater life to the luminous rays of sun that charted a path through the living room curtains and found their aim on Church in Port, an original Herbie Rose. The painting, which was previously owned by Toni’s parents, was worth far more to Toni than its unimpressive resale value. It hung on her living room wall, reminding Toni of Florida, and all the other plans she had that had died the day her parents had.

  Camille sighed. “We should have stayed friends,” she said quietly after a long moment. “I really missed you, Toni.”

  Toni turned her head to the side to look at the woman she had spent most of her early years with. “I missed you too,” she said sincerely. She reached across and grabbed her friend’s pinky finger.

  Camille squeezed her hand. “At least we’re here now. It’s no condo in Florida, but it’s something.”

  “Yeah, something like a shoe box apartment in Grove Park,” Toni joked.

  “Hey,” Camille said. “Better than a room in your grandmother’s retirement village. ’Cause that’s where Gary lives.”

  Toni’s eyes widened as she burst into laughter. “No way!”

  Camille nodded, barely controlling her laughter. “I went with the Women’s Ministry at church to visit some retired members. Guess who I ran into.”

  Toni doubled over in laughter, tears streaming down her face as she pictured a slightly older version of Gary on some old woman’s porch wearing a wife-beater, shorts, and socks with slippers. She didn’t know if Camille was picturing the same thing, but whatever it was, it had her friend rolling on the sofa with her too.

  They were both laughing so hard that they almost didn’t hear the buzzer.

  “Looks like someone got her energy back,” Camille said as she got up to answer the door.

  “Hey, you ever let me see you with that crazy Texan again and you’ll see some energy.”

  Toni was about to stretch and attempt a more comfortable position on the couch when Camille came back into the room, a strange expression on her face.

  “You’ve got a visitor.”

  Toni stopped trying to move when Adam came around the corner into the living room. She stuck both her hands between her knees, resisting the urge to reach up and fix her hair, which she knew looked like a bird’s nest atop her head.

  “Hey.” He stuck his hands in his pockets with all the ease of a teenager meeting his prom date’s parents.

  “Hey.”

  The three of them stood awkwardly in Toni’s living room until Toni saw Camille motioning wildly behind Adam. Noticing the puzzled look on Toni’s face, Adam turned to look back at Camille. She blinked her wide eyes at him innocently.

  “Uh, let me get you guys something to drink,” she said before disappearing into the kitchen.

  Very smooth, Camille. If she was strong enough, Toni would have wrung her neck. But there were more pressing things at hand now. She forced herself to meet his eyes.

  Adam.

  He leaned against the entranceway to the living room, peering at her as if she was some strange new object he’d discovered in one of his boys’ room.

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s still me, Adam,” she said. “I still think you’re an uptight control freak, and you still think I’m Jezebel reincarnated.”

  He cracked a smile. “I never called you that,” he said. “Not to your face.”

  Toni tossed a cushion at him. He dodged it easily and chuckled.

  “Come,” she said, motioning to the space on the couch beside her. He accepted the invitation and she suddenly wished she hadn’t extended it. He was too close for her to make jokes anymore. He would be able to see right through her.

  The silence seemed endless as she watched him watch her. She wished she knew what he was thinking. But Adam’s mind was a mystery to her, and even her best investigative skills got her nowhere.

  She cleared her throat. “Thanks for, uh ... visiting me in the hospital,” she said. “I think it really helped Trey to have you there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  There would be no small talk with this one.

  She dropped her gaze and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “In Biloxi, when I asked you if you were okay,” he began, “you said you were fine.”

  She sighed. But he wasn’t done.

  “On the bus back, you told me about your parents dying, but you never said that you were there,” he continued. “You never said that you ...”

  He looked away for a moment, and Toni was almost sure she heard his voice catch. “You never told me you almost died too.”

  She could see the hurt in his eyes. She had hurt him. He thought she couldn’t trust him. But he didn’t understand. It wasn’t even about that—wasn’t about him. It was her.

  Her eyes started to moisten. There was that annoying crying thing again. She looked away. “I don’t like talking about it,” she said. “Because I can’t talk about it without ...”

  She blinked rapidly as inevitably, tears began to build behind her eyes. “I can’t talk about it and not be emotional.”

  He shrugged. “So be emotional. I don’t care.”

  “But I do,” Toni said forcefully.

  Adam didn’t even flinch. “Why?” he countered.

  His eyes watched her patiently. Expectantly. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to tell him, though. To be that honest with him. She wanted to. But not like this. Not weeping all over the place like a twelve-year-old girl.

  “Because,” she said, her voice still steady, even though tears had already begun to slip down her cheeks, “I don’t want to be that person who falls apart because of something that happened years ago.”

  Toni refused to sob. She refused to crumble. She was done with her parents’ deaths controlling her and she had been done with it for a while. She was in control of her life. But that determination didn’t seem to stem the flow of tears or even still her shaking hands.

  Adam’s eyes searched her face in concern. She could feel his empathy as if it was a tangible thing.

  “I’m fine,” she said unsteadily, swiping at her face. “Really, I’m okay.”

  “Okay,” he said quietly, taking her shaking hands into his. “Okay, I believe you. It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t okay. And at that moment she knew it for sure. She didn’t resist as he gently pulled her toward him, but gladly buried her face in his chest, till her tears soaked his sweatshirt.

  The wound was opened. It had never really healed anyway, but now it was wide and gaping. And all the meaningless things she had used to fill it were dissolving away, leaving only a shell of a person.

  Let Me help you.

  The words she had heard that day before she passed out came back to her. But she pushed them out of her head.

  She didn’t need anyone’s help.

  She didn’t want anyone’s help. But as Adam held her, she realized she missed having someone there who wanted to help. Someone like her mother. She hadn’t let herself think about her in a long time and real sobs began to slip from her as she realized she was starting to forget. She couldn’t remember the exact feel of her mother’s touch, or the warmth of her eyes. Sometimes she would try to remember her and her face would be a blur. It was in those moments that Toni felt the most afraid—the most alone. Toni wanted to know what it felt like to be loved like that again. To have a family. To be in a place where she felt safe. At peace. Despite everything that had happened, she hadn’t given up hope on having that.

  She took a deep, shaky breath and inhaled Adam’s fresh scent. It was like clean sun-dried laundry and autumn.

  “He told me and Mom to go into the kitchen,” she said quietly, still resting against him. “Daddy, he knew what was going on.”

  The words spilled out of her involuntarily, as if they were controlled by someone else. With her eyes closed she told him everything. From the moment they dragged her and her mother out of the kitchen, to the hollow sound of the explosions as they shot them, her mother first, then her father. The searing pa
in that pierced through her body when she was shot, and again when she fell down the stairs into the basement. She didn’t die, but sometimes she thought she should have.

  When she was done, Adam was the one who was shaking. She rested a hand on top of his.

  “Don’t,” she said, without looking up at him.

  “Don’t what?” She felt his voice rumble in his chest.

  “Don’t be angry,” she said, sighing.

  After a moment he seemed to relax. Then he let out a heavy sigh. “Thank you for telling me.”

  She shrugged. “I think I needed to. For me.”

  He paused. “T, you know you gotta talk to someone about this, right?”

  “I’m talking to you.”

  “You know what I mean,” Adam said, his fingers gently smoothing a few strands of hair out of her face.

  She sat up, untangling herself from him. “I don’t want to do all that again,” she said, looking away. “There’s no point. People don’t really understand. And after a while they get tired of trying. And then I’ll just be back here trying to work it out on my own again.”

  “It won’t be that way this time.”

  “You can’t know that,” she said, still not looking at him.

  “Yes, I can. You’re not doing it alone,” he said, taking one of her hands. “You’ve got all of us here to support you, and we’re not going anywhere. And even if we fail you, God will never fail you. But you have to let us in.”

  Toni shook her head. “No thanks.”

  Adam’s eyes widened and he bent his head to get a better look at her face. “What?”

  “I don’t need a bunch of people up in my business,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll be fine. I can handle this.”

  Adam’s brows furrowed. “You mean like you were handling it several days ago when you were hooked up to machines in the hospital?” He frowned. “The woman I saw lying in a hospital bed barely conscious was not handling it.”

  Toni stiffened and drew away from him to the other end of the couch. “I’m fine, Adam,” she said dryly. “Besides, I’m not your concern.”