“You tryna help him get away with killing that boy, huh?” he asks. “That’s why you been rippin and runnin through here like a chicken with its head cut off? He ain’t innocent like you been saying, huh? What was that you said when I asked you about what happened—‘he was wrongfully accused?’”
A deep croak crawls from the back of her throat, and I feel it in my chest.
There’s a hardness underneath Kenny’s words that makes it seem as if I did what I did for nothing—as if Arnez wasn’t that precious girl Senior still doted on that deserved to be protected by her brother.
Faye drops her head and looks over at me.
“I want out of whatever this is, and I want out of it now. I want my life back!” Kenny hollers. “I’m tired of the secrecy and half-truths. I ain’t as stupid as you think I am! You think I don’t feel the distance between us, Faye? Ever since Vera called you up in the middle of the night to tell you what happened between him and that boy down on Joliet, you ain’t been the same! You woke up the next morning and left me in this house alone, and when you came back, I knew you’d been down there! I saw it on you. I sawhimon you.”
He curls his top lip and looks over at me like he sees Senior in me. “It took me a year to get him off you when we first got together, and all it took was one phone call for you to get tangled back in his web. He broke your fuckin heart, and I put it back together! But it’s clear that don’t matter!”
His voice cracks at the same time the sky does, and she breathes hard while the rain falls harder behind us.
They’re falling apart right in front of my eyes, and for the second time in my life, I see how wrong Senior is. He has Faye just as upset as Kenny does, despite what he convinced himself while he withered away at Beatrice’s. He was tearing the love of his life apart for the second time, and she was letting him.
“Rich?”
That soft voice I’ve been replaying on my phone kisses my ears. We all turn and look inside the house where Slim stands in the living room in my wife beater and sweatpants.
She scratches at the bonnet on her head and walks toward the front door with a frown. I hold my breath until she gets closer to the door and the yellow porch light shines on her heavy eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she murmurs, pushing between Faye and Kenny. “Did…did something happen, Rich? I can hear y’all yelling all the way in the back.”
She studies my face and upper body like I might’ve fallen and hurt myself on the way here, and in a way I had. I tripped over fear and let self-doubt nick me in my chest while God picked me up and dragged me the rest of the way here.
Faye holds her arm out to stop her from coming closer. “We’re good, Loveb?—”
“But I heard yelling.”
“Go get your stuff, Lovie,” I blurt.
Faye sighs. “Rich?—”
“Now, Lovie.”
Her eyes bounce from me to Faye and then back to me. She swallows hard, and her fingers twitch like she wants to drag me inside with her just in case I’m bluffing.
My stomach cramps.
This is the damage I caused in five days.
I pull my keys out of my pocket and push them toward her. “I can’t go nowhere if you have these.”
She lifts her shaky hand and grabs them while studying my face. “I’m…I’m going home?”
“That’s what you said you wanted, right? Don’t I always tell you I’ll give you whatever you want?”
“But is this whatyouwant?” She wrinkles her eyebrows. “AmIwhat you want, Rich? I need to know, because I wasn’t lying when I said I’ll never leave you. Once you have me…that’s…that’s it. You’re it for me.”
I step forward and reach out, swiping my fingers against her swollen eyes. “What you mean? It’s me, mama. How you gonna ask me something like that?”
“Because I know there’s a part of you I fight against every single day. It’s the part that holds onto the violence, the pressure, and the beliefs that were beaten into you as a baby. It all keeps you terrified and running from me because I’m asking you to do something no other woman has ever asked.”
A sharp crack of thunder shakes the porch, making my chest tighten.
“I just wanna know if this is what normalcy is for us? Will I spend the rest of my life chasing after you, fighting that part of you, and begging you to let us do life together? Begging you to let me have all of you?”
My hand falls to her lips that blurted those words I couldn’t get out of my head:“I love you, Mr. Lovelace.”
