Her top lip quivers in that same way Slim’s did back when I first saw through her, and my stomach twists into a tight knot as Arnez’s words make that night come alive in my head for the first time since it happened.
The sticky humidity clung to my body in a way that made me miss the summers I experienced as a little boy. The six-pack of beer I shared with Smitty had dwindled down to two, and Smitty’s raspy laugh echoed throughout the backyard.
We played dominoes on the rickety card table he pulled from his garage, and Beatrice said Senior had put his right shoe on by himself that morning when I stopped by to finish painting her kitchen. For the first time in a long time, life felt decent, but then Arnez power-walked through the side gate with a black eye and busted lip that made me drop the domino I held in my hand.
“I need to talk to you, Pup!” she yelled. “Don’t overreact or go calling Daddy. I just…I just need you to listen to me.”
I couldn’t.
I didn’t hear anything past the words she hurled at me after I asked her who had bloodied her pretty face.
“Tact, Pup—learn it! Don’t fuckin run up on me and ask me questions in a way that makes me feel like trash! Especially when deep down you already know the answer to your stupid ass question!”
Deep down, Idid.
The suspicion sat in the back of my head like a quiet afterthought while I went through the motions and she fell in love with a boy that could never look me in my eyes anytime we were in the same room. That suspicion grew like an uncontrollable weed when she stopped grabbing the Laffy Taffys from the cashier’s counter at Lucky’s, when her visits with Senior got shorter, and when her clothes got baggier.
Deep down Ididknow.
More words fell out of her swollen, bloody lips that night, but I ain’t wanna hear them. I wanted to hear Jamari. I wanted him to look me in my eyes and explain to me how he could ball his fist up and pound it into Arnez’s face. I wanted him to tell me why he thought he would get away with it, but all I heard wereher bloodcurdling screams and the desperate rattling in Jamari’s chest while I tried to make him a man in the same way Senior and Smitty made me one.
“Pup?” Arnez squeaks. “Why’re you looking like that? Why are you looking like you’re gonna throw up?”
I open my mouth to tell her that Slim asked me the same thing once, but instead of sputtering it out, I choke.
“I…”
“You what?” She sniffles.
Jamari is in her eyes now. He stares at me through her, and I see that boulder of anger, resentment, and love sitting on her shoulders.
“I…I see you. I see how bad I hurt you,” I reply.
She scoffs, swiping her hand across her wet face and cutting her eyes at me.
“I’m sorry.”
The words feel like they weigh a ton as they fall out of my mouth, but I hear Slim’s soft voice in my ear—telling me to keep going—to keep practicing until I can lift them up and hold them on my own.
“I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for…for taking Jamari away from you.”
Arnez closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as another round of lightning whips through the sky, making the hair on my arms stand up.
“But you still don’t regret it, do you?” she whispers, opening her eyes and staring at the roof of my truck.
“I remember the first time Senior tried to whoop you. You remember that day?” I ask.
She nods, swiping away another tear. “I hurt Faye’s feelings. I told her she wasn’t my mama, so I didn’t have to listen to her.”
“And when Senior held that belt over you, I?—”
“You went ballistic. You snatched it out of his hand like he was some random man on the street. Then he brought you in the backyard and y’all fought so hard that I thought he was gonna kill you.”
“But did he touch you?”
“No,” she rasps.
“Did he ever try to touch you after that?”
