Nevaeh's Hope

by Thereasa Black

  Nevaeh

  My stomach ached. An emptiness filled me and the absence of his movement was an ever-present reminder of what had happened. Junior was sitting in the chair beside my bed when I awoke. This scene almost a repeat of the last time that we saw each other that dreadful night months ago. They told me that I’d be fine, I just needed to be monitored for a day or two. How did they know whether or not I would be alright? I’d been forced into a horrible situation and then had everything ripped from me again. Did these doctors know what the cure for an uncontrollable life was? I had no power, it seemed as though life had been happening to me. Why did God do this to me?

  After about thirty minutes they brought the baby to me. He was still in the plastic crib, but they had replaced the bloodied blanket with one that was unsoiled. The blanket was still completely covering him though. I asked everyone to leave the room, I made sure to tell Junior not to walk out on me again before he left. There he was in his plastic coffin with only a veil separating us. I reached for him, I only wanted to see him, just once. The doctor told me that the bullets had pierced his chest, that’s what took him. He stopped the bullets from killing me, he protected me from certain death. The doctor made sure to mention that had the bullets not hit my son and punctured me instead that we’d both be dead. In a way he was my superman.

  I pondered over the doctor’s comments for a while, about who the hero of this story was. I concluded that it wasn’t the doctors that resuscitated me but allowed my child to die. It wasn’t Junior, who would’ve likely been dead and my baby alive had he not clumsily tripped on the sidewalk. It wasn’t the baby. He simply escaped before the world had a chance to destroy him, as it did most young men of color. It was the murderous men that decided to spray bullets on a busy street. They saved me from following the same steps as my mother, gave Junior back to me, and kept my baby from ever having to wear a veil voluntarily to shield himself from the pain of this world. We were all saved today, in a way.

  I was unable to remove the blanket, I didn’t want the image of my dead child etched into my memory. It was better that I remembered him from the only photographs that I had while he was alive, his ultrasound pictures. I already knew that I loved him, no good could come from me seeing him the way that so many mothers out here last saw their children, riddled with bullets. For some reason at that very moment I wanted to talk to Sasha.

  The phone rang for what seemed like eternity. It was after 2 AM so I guess the time delay is understandable. Finally, Sasha picked up the phone. I made a failed attempt to sound upbeat. I failed miserably but she didn’t notice, she never did. Sasha was always lost in her little world that reality had no place in. That was good though. The longer that she was able to be a child the better. We weren’t all so lucky. Most of us are ripped from our childhood way too young. We’re then thrown into the deep pool of adulthood where we either drown or swim. You can find those who drowned down on the street corners, in prison, or at the cemetery. As for the rest of us, we’re continuously fighting the urge to stop treading water.

  I was lost in my thoughts until I heard Sasha scream in terror, then the phone went dead. I screamed her name hysterically but there was no response. I hung up and called again and again, but my calls were in vain, they were only rewarded with a never ending ring.

  I screamed for Junior. As he came through the door, a look of horror came across his face. I followed his eyes to my stomach. My sheet was soaked in blood.

  “Junior, something happened to Sasha!” Those were the only words that I got out before the room began to spin.

  Junior

  I sat in the waiting room hours. So much relief came over me when Nevaeh got out of the operating room and the doctor told me that she was going to live. I needed to find a way to protect her from now on. It wouldn’t be that difficult to get my hands on a gun. I’m sure that Shawn would hook me up. I can’t let stuff like this keep happening to them. It is my job to protect my sisters just like it was my job to protect my mom, I was the man of the house. So why was it that under my watch the world kept attacking them? It’s because the world isn’t afraid of me, but I’ll change that soon.

  Nevaeh broke down when they brought the baby into the room. The nurse said that seeing the body usually gave parents the closure that they needed. I know that I didn’t want to see it. Especially knowing that I was the reason that it would never cry, never have its diaper changed, never take a first step, and never say a first word. I took that all away. Some uncle I was. That’s why I had no problem with Nevaeh asking us all to leave her room. I’d wait in the hall, away from the niece or nephew that would never have a chance to be loved.

  Nevaeh frantically called me into her room after about fifteen minutes alone. Tears were streaming down her face, she gripped the phone in her hand, and her white sheet was colored red. I called for the nurse. She said something to me but the only word that I could make out was Sasha. Nevaeh passed out after that. The nurse kicked me out of the room again, too much stress too soon they said. She would be alright, they just needed to stop the bleeding. I needed to find Sasha, whatever had happened, she was more important to my big sister than what was going on in this hospital.

  It took me about fifteen minutes to get to the house. I wasn’t sure what Nevaeh was trying to say but I got the most important part of her message. I figured that they were still staying at the house based on where I saw Nevaeh the day before. When I reached the front door, I was nervous. I didn’t know what I was walking into. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. After a few minutes I finally got the key into the lock and walked in to find Sasha on the floor crying over a limp body.

  She froze while she staring into my eyes. Almost like he believed that blinking would make me vanish. Finally, she blurted out, “There’s something wrong with mom, she’s not moving!’

  “Mom?”

  Sasha

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. After all of the times that Nevaeh went looking for him, he just walked through the door like he had never been gone. This couldn’t be real, I had seen him many times since he’d left and each time, he was gone seconds later. But this time it was different. I just kept looking but he didn’t go away. It was him! He really came back. Junior just stood in front of us without saying a word, then he burst into tears, got down on his knees, and took mom into his arms.

  “We have to get her to a hospital! Sasha call 911.”

  But I knew that I couldn’t. Nevaeh would be furious if we did. She wouldn’t want us to call the cops. They might take us, she always told me that. Then I would never see them again, so I refused him.

  “Junior, we can’t. Let’s just wait for Nevaeh to get back.”

  “What are you talking about? Call them now!”

  I held the cordless phone and the battery in my hand. I didn’t know what to do. Mom was going to be alright, this wasn’t like last time. She wasn’t bleeding or anything.

  “She’ll be back really soon I know it. She just called and…”

  “She’s not coming back Sasha, call 911!”

  What did he mean she wasn’t coming back? How would he know? He’s been gone for all of this time then walks in like he never left telling me what to do. No, he didn’t know. Nevaeh would always come back, she wasn’t like everyone else.

  “Yes, she is. She wouldn’t leave me here. She’s not like you Junior. She would never…”

  “She’s in the hospital. We’ll see her when we get there.”

  “Hospital, what are you…”

  “The baby’s dead Sasha and mom will be too if you don’t just fucking call!”

  Nevaeh

  “This kind of thing doesn’t happen here. This isn’t one of those towns!”

  I woke up to the woman speaking on the news about her child being killed in a mall shooting. My hand unconsciously moved to my stomach, then I remembered where I was. My deflated abdomen reminded me of the day’s tragic events. Unfortunately, I couldn’t mimic the words of the woman on telev
ision. A murdered child was an image that the mother’s of Newton, Nickel Mines, and Columbine never expected to see and one that mother’s in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Chicago pray every night that they won’t see.

  I was groggy, my vision was slightly blurred, and I was alone in a room. There was an empty patient bed beside me, sheets disheveled, defibrillator on the side furthest from me. I wondered how that story ended. Did the patient walk out of her on their own or were they rolled out of here a cold, stiff body veiled by a sheet? Would I get out of here head held high under my own power or would my mind be forever zipped away in my child’s black bag?

  Sasha’s name flashed in my mind. I had almost forgotten. The phone call, the scream, Junior all of it came rushing back. I reached for the phone. Still no answer, just that maddening sound. The one that you anticipate hearing once you finish dialing the final number but that aggravates the shit out of you after hearing it more than twice. It kept going and I didn’t drop the phone out of fear that I’d hang up just as she answered. After five minutes of listening and yearning I hung up the phone. Just as I did my room door burst open.

  “Please tell me that he’s lying! Tell me the baby’s okay,” my little sister exclaimed!

  I felt my heart beat again after what felt like a lifetime.

  Junior

  An overdose, that’s what the doctors said caused her to be unresponsive. I drove her to drugs. This was the second time that I almost caused my mother to die. I almost didn’t recognize her anymore. As I stared, I realized that my lack of recognition wasn’t due to the setting, she had changed. Her perfectly defined face had lost its sharpness and was replaced with soft round edges. Crow’s feet had formed at the creases of her eyes making her appear to have aged ten years since I’d last seen her instead of a few months.

  I stayed until I knew that she would make it. I wasn’t going to abandon her again, not when she needed me. I would never have guessed that my absence would cause so much chaos in all of their lives. Sasha seemed to be the only one that hadn’t changed. All and all, I guess we were kind of like a team. A four-man team can’t function when one of the players is missing. I wasn’t going to let them down again. They needed me, they needed protection.

  I decided that when I left the hospital I was going to go hunting. The person that murdered my nephew would be my prey. I was going to honor him by allowing that baby killer to join him in death. My first stop would be Breeze’s, for now on my family will be safe.

  Chapter III

  Darkness

  Junior

  The bullet ripped through his chest. I thought that this was what I wanted, but as he fell to the ground and the pull of blood spread around his body, I knew that it wasn’t. I screamed for him, I called out for the boy that would never take a breath again, “I’m sorry!”

  I heard Sasha moving around below me, the sweat poured like a fountain down my forehead. It’d been six months and I still couldn’t keep it from my dreams. It all happened so fast that it was as though it didn’t happen at all, but I knew that it had. I thought that he was doing it for me, I soon realized the truth, but either way, I was now in his debt. It took a few days to find out who was responsible for shooting my sister, but it only took one second to kill him.

  We drove down their street, he was walking down the cracked and crooked sidewalk. My gun was hanging out of the window pointing at a guy that couldn’t have been more than a year older than me. All of the rage of my murdered nephew still ran through me, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get over the nagging feeling that it wasn’t him. Yes, he may have been the one to pull the trigger, but he wasn’t the one that gave the order. Why should I kill a worker ant when the head of the colony is the one that wanted me dead? He was just following orders, his death wouldn’t guarantee me another day, it wouldn’t keep my family safe.

  Breeze interrupted my thoughts. “A king sends one of his subjects to another world in an attempt to expand his control of the universe. He doesn’t send a knight or a trusted advisor, he sends a peasant with a mission to take out another of his same class. He hopes that this will prevent his subject from being slaughtered, but knows that the peasant can be easily replaced if he is killed.”

  I pulled my gun back into the car and lowered my head in defeat. “Let’s just g…”

  A gun exploded an inch from my face. We sped off as the kid bled out on the street alone. No one ran outside to help him, after the gun went off, all that I heard was a deafening ringing in my ear, all that I saw were doors closing.

  “Junior, don’t pull out a gun unless you goin’ use it.”

  It was at that moment that I realized how insignificant I was. Breeze wasn’t doing this for me. I was a meager insect, I could be smashed at any moment and no one would skip a beat. The shooting was about him. He was there to ensure that his message was received. It was his motto, the question that guided all of his actions, taken right from a Jay-Z lyric, “What’s a king to a god?”

  Sasha

  There wasn’t a funeral for the baby. Nevaeh said that she never wanted to see him, but I did. Just once. I wanted to believe that something beautiful could come out of all of this. I knew that it could, but my proof died with the baby.

  Junior moved in the bed above me distracting me from my thought. He came back home after the shooting, but something is different about him. He wakes up screaming almost every night and is not around as much as he used to be, but being here sometimes is better than not at all. It’s funny, it seems like he came back and my mom took his place in the abyss. Sure, she’s here a lot, however, she’s gone in other ways. I thought that she’d be normal again with Junior back, I was wrong again. Things only got worse. At least she and Nevaeh stopped fighting though. It was like they had some unspoken treaty after the whole thing at the hospital. We’ve been spending more time at Grandma’s lately. Nevaeh took us over there on the weekends and sometimes during the week just to hang out. She always asked how mom was doing. My answer was always the same, but each time she would take Nevaeh back into her room to talk. They never invited me.

  Marsha

  I heard Junior yelling in the into the darkness again. I want to know what happened to him while he was wondering in the dark for all of those months, but I can’t find the courage to look him in the eye. For fear that he will see what I’ve become. I’m just happy that my baby boy came back home, but sadly it was just as Nevaeh’s went home to Jesus.

  Everything happens for a reason, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. I still can’t look her in the eyes. She blames me for it all and I know that her logic is completely justified. I try not to think about all of the horrors that have happened to her. Unfortunately, every waking moment it’s all that runs through my mind. There’s only one way to escape the guilt. I tried to stop a few times, I know that my babies need me. I’m the only one that they have to provide for them, I just can’t live without it anymore. I cry when I’m in a room with Sasha and I hear her stomach growing and know that there’s no food in the house because of me. Then I’ll go to my room and sit for hours staring at the clear bag of white powder. I tell myself over and over not to use it, for them. Then I start to see flashes of Jamal climbing on top of Nevaeh, I see her struggling and screaming, and then I see myself in the room looking away, eyes focusing on the ground. I can’t help but believe that I knew that something was wrong. I just didn’t want to know what it was. Then I can’t fight it anymore.

  My mind keeps telling me that I don’t deserve to live and my heart agrees. I use because it’s the only thing that keeps me alive. I think about ending my life every day. When I come down from my high, sometimes there are cuts on my wrist. I know that when I’m flying, I don’t have the balls to go through with it, but when I’m back on Earth, I’m constantly fighting the urge.

  Since the money stopped coming in, I don’t have much to bargain with. I’m down to groceries, most of the time my body is enough to get a little bit. I feel horrible taking m
y children’s food, but not worse than I feel when I’m without it.

  Nevaeh

  I opened the twins room door to make sure that Junior was alright. So many nights since he’s been home, I’ve woken up to the sound of his terrified voice. I imagine that his nightmares are similar to mine and in those moments, I don’t want him to be alone. In my dreams. I see the darkness reaching for me, attempting to pull me to it. I fight and struggle but can never get away, until consciousness reunites me with reality and I wake with tears in my eyes. It’s in the darkest of the night that I awake alone, fearing the solitude. It’s this feeling that I try to shield Junior from when I come to his beside after hearing his shrieks. I cannot protect him from his nightmares, but I can let him know that he is not alone. When I do come to him, I see in his eyes that something is different. I recognize the look, it is only too familiar. He is lost. Everything that made him a child is gone from him and he sees a bleak future. I remember the day that I lost the endless possibilities, the day that the spark went out. I was sure I could protect them from the extinguishment of hope, now I only prayed that Sasha would be spared.

  After the overdose my mom didn’t get any better. I followed her when she left one day. I thought that if I knew where she was getting the drugs from, I would be able to stop her from getting it somehow. When I saw her stop outside of that house and stand in the line that wrapped around the corner my powerlessness hit me. It was as if seeing all of those people showed me what I was really up against. I was attempting to wage war on a system that had already won. My eyes opened that day. I saw things for what they really were. This country loves to wage wars on things; drugs, terrorist, but it isn’t out to stop these atrocities. The goal is to curb them just enough to help out the government. Just like the U.S. provides weapons to rebel forces to help them overthrow their government in exchange for a promise to be American friendly, they give leniency to the heads of the crime world in exchange for the small timers that fill our jails and prisons. This compromise keeps jobs available and disqualifies just enough people for welfare to keep the money coming in. There was no way that the cops didn’t know about this house, but blind eyes keep pockets lined.