“Nah. I’m…I’m good.”
I make a beeline for the hallway and power-walk down it, passing Calvin’s room before she can come out and ask me why I don’t want her cooking. She’s fed and fucked me so many times that Slim’s lil’ jealous ass would probably lose her shit if she ever found out just how many.
Faye’s soft, raspy hum flows out of Senior’s room, and I follow it. It clashes with the blues sneaking out of Calvin’s room, and for the first time since Faye came back into our lives, her humming doesn’t make me feel warm.
I poke my head inside Senior’s doorway.
If I ain’t know any better, I’d think he’d gone to glory with the way he’s got his hands clasped together and his legs stretched out in his bed, but he just sleeps the best when Faye gives him his dose of trazodone. He said Beatrice didn’t do it like she did it.
Arnez sits at the foot of his bed, staring at Faye’s back.
She looks like she did when we had our first and only family meeting in our living room back on Joliet. She had just turned six and wanted to know why Faye was still in our house and sleeping in her spot in Senior’s bed six months after she showed up on our porch.
Twenty-four years later, her arms are crossed just as tight as she sits at the end of Senior’s bed and stares at Faye writing out the important dates on the Harley-Davidson calendar Smitty tacked on the wall.
She rolls her eyes. “He goes to see Lucky on Thursdays—not Wednesdays.”
Faye stops humming and glances over her shoulder. “Well, it’s a permanent marker, Toots. I can’t erase it.”
Arnez huffs.
There’s not much to keep up with since Senior stopped his medications and physical therapy. Now, it’s just all the shit he hates—birthdays, deaths, and the occasional check-up with Dr. Borrowitz to make sure he ain’t withering away any faster than they first predicted.
I tap my knuckles against the doorframe. “I can take him tomorrow. Ain’t no problem.”
They whip their heads toward me at the same time.
Arnez sucks her teeth. “Or she can just follow the previous months like she’s been doing and stop trying to fill it out from memory. You’re supposed to change my oil tomorrow—not drive Daddy way out to Cypress to shoot the shit with Lucky for however long. If you do that, my oil most likely won’t get changed and the whole day will be all messed up.”
Faye folds her lips under her teeth, letting out a strained laugh. “I doubt your engine will explode if Rich gets to it a day later than usual.”
“How do you know that? Your husband’s a boxer, not a mechanic.”
“Arnez…” I walk inside.
“What?”
“You being disrespectful.”
“I’m telling her that what she’s writing on Daddy’s calendar ain’t right. That’s not being disrespectful—it’s speaking up.” Her leg jumps up and down against her purse that’s resting next to the bed.
It’s some expensive purse Jamari bought her when they first started talking that somehow hasn’t made it into the trash despite all the shit he put her through.
“You always told me I should speak up when something isn’t right,” she says.
“I meant about serious stuff—not about a silly date on a calendar. I just paid the school a thousand dollars so they wouldn’t drop you for non-payment. Why you ain’t on campus?”
“It’s college. We don’t sit in a classroom for eight hours a day, genius. And I’m thirty years old. I don’t wanna hang on campus with a bunch of kids. So I come and sit with Daddy on Tuesdays before my 12:30 class starts. It used to just be him and me, but ever since you started training with Kenny, we can never seem to get any alone time.”
Faye narrows her eyes at her before turning back to the calendar.
It’s Jamari again.
Sometimes it still feels like he never left our lives, and today is one of those days. He stole all of Arnez’s tears this week and left her with a hot anger that bubbled inside her. It hangs onto her words as they fly out of her mouth. She didn’t even cry thispast Sunday at Lucky’s—just cursed me out every time I threw a punch that didn’t land as hard as she thought it should’ve.
I pull a folding chair from under the TV, drag it next to her, and sit down. A loud silence settles between us while Faye fills in the boxes for November even though we’re still in October.
“You still clean Ms. Farris’ place, Faye?” Arnez asks, leaning forward and smoothing a wrinkle out of the blanket wrapped around Senior.
