by Janay Harden
Ms. Arletha’s words stuck in my head: I had to take care of my mom when she got sick, and I wasn’t able to go to college. That wouldn’t be my story.
Dad spent the next few hours washing dishes at the kitchen sink and bumping butts with Ms. Arletha. He laughed out loud and asked if we wanted to grab ice cream in a few.
He was happy. I couldn’t tell him about the voices right now, I just couldn’t.
CHAPTER 19
Word on the street was someone had pictures from Spring Fling. Some of them had me, and some of them had Mila. I haven’t seen them yet, but from what I remembered, nothing happened.
Don’t be stupid, Mom hissed.
I sighed.
Will and Malachi were left unscathed. They both left early and didn’t return; but Mila, Joya and I were there for the whole shebang. The editor’s room today looked like a cold war. Mila sat with her arms crossed, Malachi watched Junior Chef episodes on his phone, Will aimlessly looked around and scrolled on his phone, even Jaxon was present if only to torture me. He wanted to see his video—that’s why he was here. I glanced at everyone wondering what the heck was going on. I was the one hearing voices, but they all seemed preoccupied today.
“I don’t know about anyone else,” Nico blurted. “But I had the time of my life.”
For once, Shantiel and Trish-Ann nodded their heads in agreement. I didn’t even see them at the party, but apparently, they were there too.
“And you, Jaxon?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Hey, it was lit for me. Only thing I’m waiting for now is my grand debut,” Jaxon made eyes with me.
Mila rolled her eyes at him.
“You’ll have it today,” I nodded. “Malachi and Trish-Ann, are all the articles lined up for the last print run?”
“Sure are. I’m just waiting on Malachi’s article and then we’re done,” Trish-Ann reported.
Malachi was writing an article about school lunches and how they could be improved. The lunch ladies let him taste test their arsenal of soups and salads, all right up his alley. “It’s coming, it’s coming,” Malachi sat his phone on the table. Will said nothing to anyone. He and Mila still weren’t talking because of Mila’s outburst from the party. Will and I avoided each other’s eyes and still hadn’t talked either.
Once the room cleared out, Jaxon and I sat down to look at his video. I used the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme music and opened the video with Jaxon’s house. From the front entrance, not the back where I had to come in. His eyes lit up.
The next two minutes of the video explored Jaxon’s family and school day. It highlighted the fun Jaxon and the strong Jaxon. It mentioned nothing of his reading incapability. Jaxon’s blue eyes gleamed through the video, and it closed with a family portrait of him, his parents, and brothers sitting in front of their house, smiling. Mr. Green’s hand was on the shoulders of Mrs. Green, and she sat in front of the boys. They looked like the picture-perfect family—at least on video. But then again, isn’t that what most people want anyway, to look the part on social media? It’s one thing to struggle behind closed doors, but no one wanted other people to actually see it.
“This is great,” Jaxon grinned. “My parents will love it.”
“I’m glad you liked it,” I gritted my teeth and hushed Mom away. She was fighting to be heard again and wanted to discuss payment for the video and my still broken camera. I searched FAQs on the library’s website for information on damaged equipment. It said in bold white letters all loaned items that are damaged will be charged the full liability insurance deductible. I didn’t know exactly what that meant but I know it didn’t sound good. It was getting harder to distinguish between my actual thoughts and Mom’s voice. These days they were the same.
“I’ll get your letter of recommendation from my mom—she’ll love this,” Jaxon put on his jacket. “Thanks Indigo,” Jaxon looked me in my eyes, and it made me pause to be seen that way, by him.
I cleared my throat and started. “And about payment, I know you said $100 but I was thinking $200 is fair. Being as though your friend did break my camera, and I had to take off from work, and I had to find my own ride home, and… ”
“Indy, I get it,” Jaxon interrupted. “I’ll ask my mom, but I can’t make any promises.” Jaxon was back to scrolling through his phone, and his gaze held mine no more.
I smiled back through pursed lips. In my mind, Mom whispered, “don’t trust him… ”
“Hey, am I too late?”
Jaxon and I turned around, and Joya stood before us.
“Well, what do we have here?” Jaxon gave a devious smile.
I cringed. Every part of my body reacted to him. I took all of his words personally.
“Hey, we’re just finishing up,” I smiled at Joya.
“Oh okay, can I talk to you for a second?”
“Girls talking? On that note, I’m out,” Jaxon gathered his things and gave us a peace sign.
“Sit down,” I pointed to an open seat.
“I finished my poetry pieces, and I brought a hardcopy for you to check out. Also, Malachi asked me to help him with his article, I forgot to tell you. I have that one done too.” Joya shifted her weight and bit her lip. I checked out her nails, and they were also bitten and chewed. Joya wasn’t even a part of the newspaper club, and yet Malachi had her writing articles. Sigh. His laziness once again would screw us.
“Joya, you didn’t have to do this. If I had known he was getting other people to write his stuff, I would’ve never authorized this.”
“No-no, I don’t mind, really. I enjoy writing. I was thinking about joining the team next year myself.”
“Really?”
“Yea. I started journaling, and it’s not half bad.”
“How are you feeling?” I reached out to Joya a few times after her procedure, but she never responded. This was the first time I saw her in a few weeks. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt connected to Joya. Even though she was only one year younger than me, she reminded me of Sidney, and I wanted to look after her.
“My dad says we should just put the whole thing behind us. I’m fine, and I even got a car out of the deal,” she chuckled. It wasn’t a funny chuckle; I don’t think she found anything funny. It was a sarcastic chuckle, like she couldn’t believe where her life was taking her. I couldn’t place her humor, and I thought about each of her words. Was she laughing or serious?
“What have your parents said? I know you got the car—but how do they feel?”
“They act like everything has been a nuisance to them. I dared to disrupt their plan for my life by being pregnant. They act like everything’s okay, but at night,—at night—I hear them arguing about it. They don’t know that I hear—but I do.” Joya wiped a tear from her face and dug in her bag. She retrieved her article and placed it on the table in front of me. “Like I said, here is the article. I hope we can keep this conversation between us,” she gave me blank eyes.
Like Jaxon and his reading… like Joya and her… whatever this was… I didn’t spill the beans about her bean.
“Of course.” I nodded. “Of course.”
Part Three
Descent
CHAPTER 20
“And who are you, Big Face?” Ez yelled.
“I’m Arletha. I’m dating Benjamin.”
Ez looked Ms. Arletha up and down. “Humph. Do you know my daughter? Looks to me, you date him, but he don’t date you.”
Ms. Arletha inhaled and turned to Dad. Another Saturday morning at Ez’s house. Dad was with us today with Ms. Arletha in tow; and this was his first mistake, bringing a stranger along. Ez was in a mood.
Ms. Arletha visited Dad at our house at least four times per week. Some days they would be in the kitchen cooking, and they would jump away from each other when Sidney or I walked into the room. Other days they sat on the couch side by side watc
hing movies. When we walked into the room, Dad placed the big popcorn container between the two of them.
Ms. Arletha was decent, and I wouldn’t throw her under the bus. Dad was smiling again, and he and Ms. Arletha searched for new jobs for Dad, so he didn’t have to work so many hours. She also cooked dinner and made the meanest pound cake I’ve had since Mama Jackie’s. But she wasn’t my mom.
I wrote Mom three letters since Ms. Arletha showed up, but Ms. Arletha didn’t show up in my letters to Mom. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what she already knew. So, I didn’t. Dad thought it a good idea for Ms. Arletha and Ez to meet today, and he didn’t call to warn him. In Dad’s defense—Ez didn’t have a phone anyway. Ez said, “If I need anything I’ll come looking for it. And if I don’t come looking for it. You come looking for me.”
Dad’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “Ez,” he said with a stern face. “This is my lady… ” Dad’s voice trailed off.
Ms. Arletha nudged him.
“This is my lady, Arletha Wilson.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ezra. I’ve heard so much about you,” Ms. Arletha pursed her lips.
We already went through this part, but Arletha introduced herself again. I cringed. Ez. was not the ‘meet new people’ kind of person.
“What’s that thing on your head?” Ez demanded.
I winced.
Ms. Arletha had a rather large, darkened birthmark on the side of her head. It covered her left forehead down to her temple and eyebrow.
“It’s a birthmark, Mr. Ezra,” Ms. Arletha explained. She didn’t flinch under Ez’s word assault. She must get that question a lot. Sidney stood next to me, her eyes fixed between Ez and Ms. Arletha. Sidney was team Arletha since she cooked and helped her with homework, but Ez would always be her first love. She was between a rock and a hard place, and it positioned her between her love for her grandfather and her need for a mom.
“Ez, it’s cold. Can we go in?” Sidney begged.
Ez’s shoulders relaxed. “I’m not in the mood for his shit today,” Ez erupted at Dad.
“I’m not in the mood for you either, Ez. But you know what we have to do today. If you’d get a phone, I could call, and we could’ve planned this better. The city says you have to clean up the house or they will deem it unfit to live in.”
Sidney cut her eyes at Dad. His voice echoed off the nearby trees, filled with exasperation. His brief show of strength must’ve been because Ms. Arletha was there. It surprised even me.
Ez hopped around his porch, and the floorboards creaked under him. “I don’t care what that city says. Tunica River got my daddy blood on it,” he spewed. “You let them try to come take this house here. It’ll be an old-fashioned hangin’! Only it won’t be me,’’ Ez gave an evil cackle. He threw his head back, exposing many missing teeth in the back of his mouth.
Ms. Arletha gasped.
Ez was off the hook today. I haven’t seen him this escalated in months. And Ms. Arletha wasn’t seeing the best out of him. No… no, we had to stop this.
“Do something, Indy, do something!” Mom screamed in my head. Mom’s voices were coming through loud and clear the past few days. I didn’t fight them anymore, and I let her lead when I didn’t know what to do.
“Ez… it’s okay, we can come back another day,” I offered. I retreated from the front step, and Ms. Arletha took a step back with me.
“No, we’re staying,” Dad insisted. He was blunt.
“You get out of here, boy,” Ez sneered at Dad.
“Ez, we are coming in today. And do not call me boy.” Ez and Dad stood almost nose to nose. Ez had white spit forming in the corner of his mouth, and he was sweating. His hands were balled into a fist at his side.
Sidney slid between the two and whispered, “Ez.” He looked down at Sidney and let out a low growl before he turned around and stomped into the house. The rest of us sighed, Dad included. Ms. Arletha and I peered at each other as we walked into the house.
An enormous pile of shoes sat in the room’s corner, covering the great window Mama Jackie used to open and gaze out of. Ez had newspapers taped to the windows, and as I looked closer, they were all from the sports section. Cats licked into open cans of food, and the refrigerator door hung off the hinges. Ez must have tried to secure it because grey duct tape flapped on the side where the door had fallen. Old pizza boxes littered the floor, and cats, so many cats, roamed the house, with cat food and droppings everywhere.
Ez enjoyed those pre-moistened toilet wipes, and he gave us money to purchase them for him when we went food shopping. Ez had his own stockpile of wipes, and they covered the foyer, stacked up against the wall. The mound was almost the same height as Sidney. I looked on incredulously. Ez refused to drive most days and lived his life out of a small cabin on the lake, but he was stashing wipes like it was nobody’s business. In a matter of months, Ez had accumulated triple the amount of items he normally collected.
“Mind your business, nosy girl,” Ez eyed me, staring at his arsenal of wipes. “An old man likes to be clean too.”
“Grandpa Ez… ” I whispered and looked around “… and this is clean?”
“Oh, my!” Ms. Arletha put a hand over her mouth, stifling a cough.
The smell burned my eyes too, but I didn’t cough. I was almost used to the smell but not my eyes.
“Don’t be doing all that coughing in here woman,” Ez yelled.
“Ez!” Sidney shrieked.
Turning around with wide eyes, Ez raised an eyebrow at Sidney. Ez stomped ahead and let us further into the house from the closed-in porch. The living room wasn’t much better; Ms. Arletha grabbed a trash bag and a pair of gloves out of her pocket. She also dug out four masks, and she handed them to us.
“Thank you,” I took mine. We never had masks before when we cleaned. That was smart and probably thanks to a heads-up from Sidney.
Ms. Arletha began sweeping the floor when Ez stormed across the room at her.
“Stop it, Ez! You have to stop this Grandpa Ez!” Sidney cried. “Stop treating Ms. Arletha badly, and Dad too. Stop treating Dad like this!”
Sidney said Dad. Sidney had called Dad, Dad.
The room was quiet except for the cats purring around us. One meowed around my leg. I kicked it as hard as I could and thought about burning it later, if I had time.
“This is my house!” Ez yelled. “You can’t just come in here and do what you want.”
“This was Sonia’s house too. And Mama Jackie’s. You can’t keep living like this, Ez,” Dad said. “I could see if the house was always like this, but this behavior is new since Mama Jackie passed away. You can’t do this, Ez. You’ll lose the house if you keep this up.”
I saw tears in Ez’s eyes, and my chest heaved. The last time I saw him cry was after the very first time we visited Mom at Trochesse. He sat in the passenger seat and cried all the way home. Dad had to drive home that day.
Wiping my eyes, Sidney grabbed my hand. I glanced down at my baby sister, and she had tears pooling in hers too. On my right, Ms. Arletha stood with one hand to her chest and palm at her mouth. She also had tears in her eyes.
“This is me and my wife’s home, and ya’ll dare come in here every month and tell us what to do. I do the best I can. I tried to cook the food on the stove like them people ya’ll sent over here showed me. I can’t figure out how to get one of them stove things on and the other stove thing on, and I have to stir the pot at the same time, and if I use the oven… I just forget! I can’t do it all at the same time. I don’t know how to do none of that stuff. So, I eat out of them cans over there. Is it the cleanest? No, I guess it ain’t. But these cats—these are my new family. Y’all are here, but sometimes, y’all be talking too much. The cats talk back in their own way, and I listen. My Jackie is here with me, right there.” Ez pointed to the far wall and a large picture of Mama J
ackie sat perched over top of the dusty fireplace. “My Jackie don’t say nothing about this here house. And believe you-me, she would. She be coming in my dreams.”
Dreams, Ez had dreams… I wondered if his dreams were like mine. Ez didn’t talk about Mama Jackie; I guess the memories were too painful for him, like memories of Mom were too painful for me. Or maybe both memories were too painful for him. Both of his ladies, gone in one way or another. They took care of the life things so he could live the way he wanted. I wondered if it was partly Mama Jackie and Mom’s fault Ez was the way he was.
“I don’t drive that car because it’s too many buttons and knobs and things to worry about. Matter-of-fact, before you stormed in here with your punk squad, I was fixin’ to say Indy should just take the car because I’m okay with my canoe.”
What? Ez was giving me his car? My heart beat faster.
“But now I change my mind,” Ez sneered.
Sidney took a step forward and peered up at Ez. He was so much taller than she was, and his shadow loomed far behind her, even in the house.
“That’s Indy’s car, Ez. That’s The Bus.” Sidney furrowed her eyebrows.
“I know it, I know it, SidRock. Get out my face, girl.”
The floor under my feet creaked, and I noticed the boards were sagging in the area I was standing. I moved Ms. Arletha and Sidney to another area of the room, but that side wasn’t much better. The floor was giving out, and I wasn’t sure how much longer it had.
“Grandpa Ez,” I said. “This floor… ” I looked down at my feet.
“Move from over there, Indy. Me and Mama Jackie don’t go over there. It’s on the way out.”
“Are you going to let us clean?” I asked him.
“I’m not staying here for this tomfoolery! You do what you got to do, and I’ll be back.” With that, Grandpa Ez stormed outside.
Ms. Arletha glanced around the room. “Oh my, oh my,” she breathed.
Dammit, man… how could I broach the subject of me seeing someone about my mental health with Ez like this? No time seemed like a good one. Dad and Sidney couldn’t take it if something was going on with me too. I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted coppery blood pooling in my mouth. I grabbed a trash bag and positioned my mask over my face ready to clean.