“Then I guess I passed out because the last thing I remembered is being here at this hospital.” Then tears appeared in her eyes. “I also remember, when I saw that car door open, that I was gonna die right in that pile of trash and nobody would . . .”
She couldn’t finish her sentence and Harrison understood why. He removed his handkerchief and handed it to her. Then he placed his arm around her and she leaned against him. “You’re going to be just fine,” he said as the burden of his responsibility to her began to weigh on him heavily again. Where was her family, he wondered. Who took care of her? Shecalled him because she had nobody else? Was that true??? And in that moment he realized how little he knew about her.
She wiped her tear-stained eyes and leaned up from him.
“Did you see who was driving that car?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “It was a white guy, but that’s all I know. I don’t even know what kind of car it was or even the color of that car. It all happened so fast. I’m still kind of shaky.”
Harrison pulled her closer. “Do you have any family, Jayda?”
“I have my mother and three half-siblings on my mother’s side, but they all live in Kentucky and we aren’t close at all.”
“Why not?” His phone began ringing.
Jayda noticed how he looked at his Caller ID but didn’t answer it. She also noticed that a woman’s name,Marilynshe believed, was on his phone screen.
“Why aren’t you and your family close?” he asked her again as he turned his phone downward in his hand.
“It’s just not the life I want for myself. They’re hardworking people, don’t get me wrong. But after work all they wanna do is drink and party and always have a lot of drama going on. Not my mama so much, but my half-siblings, although my mama can party with the best of’em too. I remember how every single weekend it seemed as if everything was on the verge of collapse in our household, and how somebody was going to fight somebody else and it was always a big mess. But somehow they always survived to live another day. But that’s how they rolled. It was as if they lived for drama. It was like the highlight of life to them. I wanted more out of life than that.”
“So you left home?”
“My Dad left and took me with him. He said they weren’t corrupting me, whatever he meant by that. But he divorced my mama because he wanted a better life too. The court gave himfull custody because I was his only child in that household and mama had her hands full with my half-siblings. I was ten when we left Kentucky and he brought me to Harlem to live.”
“Did it turn out to be a better life?”
“With him it was. We were like best friends. It was great. But he had a stroke and died when I was sixteen.”
“Ah. Sorry to hear that.”
She felt he meant it, as his phone rang again. He glanced at the Caller ID again. But because he turned it back over quickly, Jayda couldn’t see who was calling that time.
So she kept on talking. “Thankfully I was old enough to work and take care of myself by the time he passed away,” she said. “But I haven’t seen my mama or my half-siblings since I was ten years old, which was eighteen years ago. And whenever I talk to them on the phone they don’t be all that thrilled about talking to me or seeing me either. I think I was dead to them,” she said with a smile. Then her look turned serious again. “But they were always in some mess every time we spoke.”
He considered her. “You’ve been on your own since you were sixteen, and came out on the other side a wonderful young lady. That’s impressive, Jayda.”
Jayda looked at him. Nobody had ever given her a compliment like that before. “Thank you.”
He smiled and pulled her closer against him. “What about now,” he asked her. “Is it a better life now?”
She had to think about that. “It’s a different life. That’s for sure. The jury’s still out on better.”
She and Harrison glanced at each other, as if they both understood what she meant, and then his phone rang again. He looked at the Caller ID and turned it back over quickly again, without answering it. “Sorry about that,” he said.
“Who keeps calling you?” Jayda decided to ask.That same Marilyn person? she wanted to add. “Who’s blowing up your phone like that?” she added instead.
“I stopped by the office for a last-minute meeting a Canadian group requested. And then I got the message and came here. Now I’m late for a date,” he said before he realized he had let it slip. Or was it a slip? He looked at Jayda.
Jayda was astounded that he would have a date after what they did last night, but she realized she shouldn’t have been astounded at all. She was nothing more than a business proposition to him. A piece of meat just like Kenny said. “You don’t have to stay around here,” she said to him, trying hard not to show her true feelings. “Thank you for coming, but I’m okay. You can go on your date now.”
He could hear her saying the words, but he could see that her eyes weren’t saying the same thing. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said to her.
But then a depressed look appeared in her eyes that bordered on sadness. And she laid back on the bed with her feet clinging down off the bed. He looked back at her. She had all ten of her fingers together in a tent formation and seemed as if she was inwardly holding a heavy conversation with herself. She looked so young and so beautiful and so innocent to Harrison. His heart was just aching to be with her. But why?Why???
But she also looked very disappointed to him. And he knew the reason why. Maybe that was why he blurted out that he had a date. Maybe their connection was so strong that it was alarming him as deeply as it might have been encouraging her.
He turned to his side and leaned back, too. Resting on his elbow with his face in his hand, he stared at her body first, which brought back memories from last night, and then he looked into her eyes. This time he didn’t see depression, or even sadness. He saw pain. And that look worried him more than any of theprevious expressions on her highly expressive face. “What’s the matter?” he asked her in a low, tender voice. He realized she was the only human being he knew that always brought out the softer side of him.
