“Me and Ken fought for years because he wanted to sell the house and move us to Humble to be closer to his parents, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t break my promise to your daddy.” She runs her hands down the length of her jeans, looking back at me. “I didn’t expect Lovie to blow into town during all this chaos. One minute I’m cooking dinner trying to figure out how to convince your daddy to see that neurologist and get Melo to talk to me, and the next thing I know she’s getting dropped off outside the house with nothing but the clothes on her back after being away for two years.”
She eases into the chair closest to Senior’s bed and scoots it over until the arm touches the bed frame.
When she first came back around, she only showed up at Beatrice’s when I was here, like she didn’t trust herself alone with Senior. She always kept her distance—staying exactly six feet away from him until one day he woke up from a nap and croaked out a “C’mere.” That chair ain’t moved from his bedside since.
“So once you finished worrying yourself over us and our problems, did you ask Lovie why she showed up back at home like that?” I ask. “You ever known her to show up like that?”
“What are you insinuating, Rich?”
“I ain’t insinuating nothing. I’m asking you a question.”
Her nostrils flare. “Don’t do that. Ididask. But Lovie is as delicate as she is difficult. If you keep poking and hit the wrong spot, she’ll take off like a bat outta hell. She’s just like her mama was. You’ve known her for a few weeks, but I’ve known her her whole life, so don’t come at me that way. You and her obviously been doing some talking.”
I lean back, crossing my arms and staring at her. “It was just a question.”
“AJ told Kenny he’d take care of Lovie in New York. It ain’t like we wanted her to go, but football is his job and they said they were in it for the long haul. He proposed to her.”
I huff out a laugh. “And you believed him when he said he’d take care of her? You trusted his word?”
“We met his people. Kenny loved them. Hell, he loved AJ—still does. He seemed like a decent kid besides the typical stuff me and Lovie had already discussed. But she told me she could deal with his odd ways and that lifestyle.”
“Didn’t you just say she was delicate? You actually thought a delicate girl like her could survive that life? Do you hear yourself right now?”
“She wanted that life. She wantedhim. If I wouldn’t have let her have him, she would’ve run off and done it, anyway. Ilearned with her mama that if I pushed too hard, I’d just push her away.”
“But she ain’t her mama.”
“I’m not saying she is.”
“I’m trying. You know that, right?”
“What you mean? Trying what?”
“I’m tryna be reasonable. Tryna understand you and Kenny’s brains.” I stab my finger to the side of my head. “I’m tryna understand why everything is so much more goddamn important than Lovie—Senior’s health, a Family Fun Day, a cleaning business, a boxing gym, my shit with Melo. Y’all always been this motherfuckin neglectful?”
“Neglectful?” she hisses. “You don’t understand what life was like with her mama. If I pushed, Sonia pulled. If I asked about the busted lip, I was the bad guy—not Tony. If I suggested she leave because he was fucking his co-worker, I was jealous.”
She stabs herself in the chest. “Iwas the jealous one living over in the Bottoms with my man who fought to bring home the bill money every Sunday but couldn’t even raise his voice at me when he got mad. She saidIwas jealous. So you tell me what I’m supposed to do with her baby who had the nerve to look at me like I had two goddamn heads when I asked why she wouldn’t leave a boy who couldn’t stop cheating on her? Huh? He apologized to her, then he came and sat in our living room and promised us she wouldn’t want for anything, and ever since then she hasn’t. So what was I supposed to do? Keep fighting her on it and pushing her closer to him?”
“So when he sat his lyin ass in your living room that day, did he even look you in your eyes when he made that promise? Huh?” I ask. “Because every time Jamari came around me, that motherfucka was looking at my goddamn feet.”
“I wasn’t thinking like that. I…I just saw a boy who made a mistake by letting his temptations get the best of him.”
I shake my head, letting out a sarcastic laugh. “You said Lovie came home from New York with nothing, but she came back with something, alright. You just ain’t try hard enough to find it.”
Her eyebrows furrow. “What you mean?”
I swipe my nose, sitting back.
If I believed in ghosts, I’d think Jamari was haunting us all the way from Dallas and making me relive all those nasty emotions that came out when he was still here—back before I knew anything about tact.
“Man, do you know what the fuck I’ll do to AJ Boyd?” I ask.
“Junior…” she hisses.
“Do you, Faye?” My voice climbs into an ugly shrill.
She sits forward, pushing my chest. “Don’t talk like tha?—”
