Pieces of Why

by K L Going

  When it landed, the pictures I’d just put back spilled out and one of them slid under the refrigerator. I grabbed the yardstick, got down on my hands and knees, and guided it out, and that’s when I saw the second photo. It was a three-by-five color snapshot of my parents sitting on the steps of their high school. My father, his dark hair trimmed short, was laughing, one arm around my freckle-faced mother, pulling her close. Ma was looking up at him, smiling so big, I hardly recognized her. And he was looking back, grinning as if he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

  I stared at the photo.

  Where was the evil? This person had ended up committing murder and had gone to jail for life. Shouldn’t badness be something you could see coming?

  Yet, here he was.

  My father.

  Happy.

  Dwelling has a way of muddling time. One minute it’s early and you have the whole day ahead of you, and the next, that day is drifting away. I stared at the photograph of my father, trying to decide what I should do with it. I decided to go to Keisha’s house, figuring maybe I’d show her the picture. But when I walked out, instead of turning toward her place, I went left, toward the baby’s house.

  I thought about the Raven woman’s face in the window, and I couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever feel happy again. Maybe she’d smile and laugh, but wouldn’t there always be something missing? Years from now, when she looked through her photos, would she ache for the ones that weren’t there?

  When I got to the house, it was quiet and still, and I guessed right away that it was empty. I supposed that made sense. There were probably all sorts of baby things inside. Reminders of how unlivable life could be.

  I thought about turning around, but I didn’t.

  Sweat dripped down my back, and the soft blue T-shirt and shorts I’d pulled on that morning clung to my skin. I realized my hands were clenched tight, and the imprints of my fingers made deep red grooves in my palms. They stung as I unclasped them. I sat down beside the memorial fence, pulling my bare knees into my chest. After a long while, I took the photo of my father out of the pocket of my shorts.

  All that happiness, ruined.

  I remembered Danielle Morton’s huge smile. She’d had no idea that she would end up murdered. Did her family and friends still miss her every day, even after eight years had gone by?

  I wanted to rip the photo to shreds, but I couldn’t do it.

  This was the only picture I had. Even if Ma had kept another one, it wasn’t like I could ask her for it. Then again, maybe my father didn’t deserve to be remembered.

  I studied the memorial fence. The candles had been knocked over, and some of the teddy bears had fallen down, so I set my father’s photo on the sidewalk and walked over. I straightened each item, then retied a sagging ribbon closer to the iron filigree. A section of chain link had been set up to hold messages and photographs, but it had slumped, so I stood it upright and plugged some of the cards, handwritten prayers, and small crosses deeper into the holes where people had wedged them.

  Trash was scattered in the yard—small bits of wrapping and debris. I gathered each piece, slowly and meticulously, and set them in the trash can by the side of the house. Then I swept the sidewalk with a broken broom that had been sitting beside the door. The handle was cracked in the middle, so it took me a long time. All the while, the sun was hot on my back and my hair loosed itself from my elastic and fell into my face.

  A soft hitching noise made me look up, and that’s when I saw the Raven woman standing in her doorway. A long black skirt billowed around her legs, blowing in the breeze.

  Our eyes met and my heart skipped a beat.

  At first I thought she might turn around and go back inside, but instead she walked down the few steps to the sidewalk and opened her front gate. It creaked on rusty hinges, the sound piercing the humid air. She came over and crouched beside me, reaching for a stuffed elephant that had gotten ground into the mud at the bottom of the fence. Ever so carefully, she brushed the dirt off its soft gray surface. Then she touched her finger to her tongue, rubbing the elephant’s tiny glass eyes.

  “There,” she said, in an accent so thick, I could hardly make out the word. “Now it will be . . .” She seemed to search her mind. “Best?”

  I nodded blankly.

  I might have said a million different things, but the woman reached out and touched my hair, her fingers trailing a long, unruly strand.

  “Pretty,” she said, smiling sadly.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  Her eyes were red-rimmed and she looked tired. I wondered how she’d managed to get out of bed, and I was about to say something about being sorry for what had happened, but then she did something I didn’t expect.

  She reached out and picked up the photo of my father.

  “No,” I sputtered. “Don’t.”

  My hand grabbed for hers, but she brushed me aside. Carefully, she hung my father’s picture on the fence between a photo of her son and a hand-painted sign that read LOVE NEVER DIES.

  “Please,” I pleaded. “He shouldn’t be up there.”

  I reached out, but the woman stopped my hand.

  “Stay,” she said firmly.

  She patted my hand twice as if to ensure that I wouldn’t remove my father’s photo, and then she turned and walked up the steps. I watched her pause at her door and look back at me with a knowing, exhausted look. She thought I was grieving, like her. I couldn’t let her think that, but how could I tell her the truth?

  At last, she disappeared inside, leaving me to stare at my father’s picture, knowing he was looking back at me from the last place he belonged.

  CHAPTER 13

  MONDAY MORNING, I sat at the kitchen table stealing glances at the Sunday paper, which Ma had brought home a day late. She could take papers for free if there were leftovers, and she always brought a stack for wrapping stuff.

  There was an article about the baby. POLICE ANNOUNCE LEADS. Above the article was a picture of the baby’s mother at the funeral, sagging into the arms of the people supporting her on either side. Her face was turned up to the sky as if she were sending God an ocean of fury.

  Maybe God deserved her anger. Or maybe the person who did the carjacking deserved it and God was getting a raw deal. I didn’t know.

  I closed my eyes and breathed deep, but Ma interrupted, her voice stern.

  “Tia, your toast is getting cold.” Ma came over and shut the paper with a slap. Then she threw it into an empty box, and carried the box to her bedroom.

  “I was reading that,” I called after her, but she didn’t answer, just came back and sat down across from me. I thought for sure she was going to say something about my father. She was finally going to tell me everything. I took a deep breath, my chest tightening, willing it to happen.

  “Want to play Scrabble?”

  What?

  “Uh, I-I,” I stammered. “I guess so?”

  “Great.”

  Ma got up and took the game out of the hall closet, then set up the worn board I’d picked up at a yard sale. Ma drew the tile with the most points, so she went first. She took her time studying the letters, then placed them on the board.

  M-U-T-E

  I drew in my breath. Had she done that on purpose or was it a coincidence?

  My hand hesitated above my tiles. I had a blank one, which I used as a V to make E-V-A-D-E. The word had been on my vocabulary list last year in English.

  Ma pursed her lips, taking a long time before putting her next word down on a double letter score. E-A-R-N

  Earn? What the heck did that mean? A surge of fury washed over me. Didn’t make any sense to be angry about a Scrabble word, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have good letters, so all I could do was place an O next to her N to make N-O.

  Ma made a huffing noise. “That’s not much of
a word,” she chided. “You can’t do any better than that? Doesn’t leave me much to work with.”

  “This is a game,” I snapped. “Why should I help you win?”

  Ma’s eyes shot up, and she raised an eyebrow at me. For a long moment, the two of us sat there with our eyes locked, and then Ma scowled and made M-A-D.

  To which I added N-E-S-S.

  M-A-D-N-E-S-S. “Double word score,” I said.

  Ma shook her head. I couldn’t decide if she was angry or not, but then she used my S to make Y-I-P-E-S

  “Yipes?”

  “It’s in the Scrabble dictionary,” Ma said. “You can check if you want to.”

  I stood up. “I don’t want to play after all.”

  “Okay,” Ma said, frowning. For a long time, neither of us said anything, but finally Ma sighed. “Maybe we could do something else.”

  “Like what?” I asked, sinking into our living room couch and crossing my arms over my chest. Right then, I didn’t want to do anything with Ma ever again, but then she said the one thing I couldn’t resist.

  “Like . . . maybe we could bake that woman some bread.”

  I looked up quick, sure that I must have heard her wrong.

  “What did you say?”

  “The woman in the newspaper,” Ma said. “She and her husband live around here. Sometimes when people are grieving, other people bring them meals.” Ma paused. “I suppose it’s awkward, but—”

  “Please,” I interrupted. “Let’s do it.”

  Ma sat still, like she was already regretting her offer. “Bread takes time,” she warned. “It’s not quick and easy the way cakes and cookies are . . . not if you make it from scratch. You have to mix the dough, then knead it and punch it down, then let it rise, knead it and punch it down again. It’ll take us all day, and you know I’ve got to nap since I’m working the night shift tonight.”

  “You can nap while the dough is rising,” I said, trying not to sound too eager.

  Ma walked into the kitchen, opening cupboards, searching for ingredients.

  “I don’t even know if they’ll want something from—well, if they’ll want it. But we could leave it in their mailbox if it would help you to stop dwelling.”

  I nodded. “It would.”

  Ma pulled items out, one by one. Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder.

  I walked over and hugged Ma tight.

  “Thanks,” I said, but Ma just shook her head.

  “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve still got all the work to do.”

  Ma was right about baking bread. It really did take all day, but by evening our house smelled so good, I thought I might burst. We’d made three braided loaves: one for the baby’s family, one for us, and one for Ms. Evette. Plus, we’d made a dozen clover leaf rolls from the extra dough. Ma and I had eaten ours hot out of the oven with melted butter and a dusting of cinnamon, and I had more rolls wrapped in a dishtowel next to the braided bread we were taking to Keisha’s. I held the whole package in my arms and it warmed me straight through.

  Every Monday night I slept over at Keisha’s while Ma worked the overnight shift. Ma walked me there before she went to work, and then on Tuesday morning, Ms. Evette walked me to my lesson with Ms. Marion before she caught the streetcar. It was a perfectly coordinated schedule that we’d kept every summer for years, but now all I could think about was dropping off that warm, crusty bread.

  “Can we bring it over right now?” I asked.

  Ma paused a moment too long.

  “There isn’t time,” she said. “I’ll drop it off on my way home.”

  “But couldn’t we just . . .”

  Ma’s eyes flashed. “No back-talk, young lady.”

  I wanted to argue that I hadn’t been back-talking, but we’d had a fun day baking, so I didn’t want to ruin things with a fight.

  “Sorry,” I said at last. “It’s just . . . you won’t forget, will you?”

  Ma’s face relaxed. She took the bread off the counter and placed it inside the big canvas bag she carried to and from work. “I won’t forget.” Then she leaned over and kissed me on top of the head. “You did something real nice today, Tia girl. Now you’ve got to let the adults handle the rest, you hear?”

  I felt the warm rolls pressed up against my body. Slowly, I nodded.

  “Promise?”

  Could it be that easy?

  “I promise.”

  Ma let out a long, loud breath. Louder, I bet, than she’d intended.

  “Good,” she said. “That’s real good.”

  That night, me and Keisha, Ms. Evette, Dwayne, and Jerome ate fresh clover leaf rolls with our pork chops and greens. Jerome said, “Mo, mo, mo,” and pointed at the bread, and we cut into it even though Ms. Evette had said we were going to save the loaf for breakfast. Everyone mmmm’ed until I blushed, and Dwayne said I could cook for him anytime.

  After dinner me and Keisha watched The Next American Superstar. We draped ourselves over the couch and plotted how we’d convince people that we were old enough to audition when the show came back to New Orleans. Dwayne was giving Jerome his bath in the next room and I could hear the sound of splashing.

  Keisha was hanging upside down off the side of the couch, but she sat up when the commercials came on. “You know,” she said to her mother, “we need to enter all sorts of contests if we’re going to make it big. How else will we get discovered? Khalil and his friends are putting together a band and they’re going to audition when The Next American Superstar comes back to town.”

  Ms. Evette was sitting in the beige easy chair, under the tall lamp, carving a baby bird for a necklace. She barely looked up. “Mmm-hmm.”

  Dwayne came out carrying a soaking wet Jerome, bundled in a thick towel, and Keisha and I both kissed his sopping brown curls.

  “Night-night,” we said, and Jerome waved.

  Dwayne handed him over to Ms. Evette, who reluctantly put down her whittling to get him into his pj’s and read him books before bed.

  “Dad,” Keisha said when her mother was gone, “do you think Tia and I could enter some contests? We’ve got to become famous while we’re still young and cute.”

  Dwayne’s face went blank.

  “What are you talking about?” he said. “You mean you’re not superstars already? Not a one of you is famous yet?”

  Keisha giggled and I grinned.

  Dwayne shook his head. “Because I thought you were. I mean, I hear you two doing your top secret handshake all the time, and—”

  “Dad!”

  “—I hear you all singing away upstairs.”

  Dwayne twirled around with one hand in the air, jutting his hips from side to side. “Like a pyramid, oh, I’m a pyramid,” he sang in a crazy high falsetto. “Got my pretty bow in my hair, and my tight jeans on—”

  Keisha tackled him around the waist and the two of them fell laughing into a heap on the floor. I laughed too, and for one crazy moment I imagined it was my father there, laughing and tickling, singing in falsetto and dishing up the love.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NEXT MORNING the apartment was quiet. Dwayne wasn’t up yet, Keisha was still in her pajamas, and Ms. Evette, Jerome, and I were sitting around the kitchen table eating thick slabs of toasted bread with strawberry jam. Jerome had jam all over him—even in his ear. Ms. Evette was reading the morning paper and she didn’t look happy.

  “Says here they’ve arrested two young men for that carjacking,” she grumbled. “’Course it’s two black men, so who knows if they’ve got the right people or they’ve just got the most convenient people.”

  She set the paper down with a shove and sipped her coffee. I was burning to look at the article, wondering if there might be pictures of the men and whether I’d see the bad in their eyes. But I forced myself to sit still and wait until she was done. When I fi
nally got a look at the paper, there weren’t any pictures at all. Just two names: Tarik Miller, 29, and Rondo Waters, 24. Who were they? Did they have families? Kids?

  “Do you know how many African American men are falsely imprisoned each year?” Ms. Evette was saying. “Too many. Precious young men, stolen from this community. It’s a shame.”

  From the living room, I heard Keisha groan. “Ma,” she complained, “it’s too early for this lecture. I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

  “That’s not my fault,” Ms. Evette scolded. “Get dressed, get your butt in the kitchen, and eat something.”

  Keisha shuffled in, rubbing her eyes. Jerome tossed a bit of toast onto the floor and she leaned over to pick it up, tickling him under his chin.

  “You’re such a stinker,” she said as Jerome tossed more toast.

  Ms. Evette watched them, and at first her face was still hard and grumbly, but then she smiled as Jerome put a bit of soggy toast in Keisha’s mouth and Keisha sputtered, spitting it out real fast. Ms. Evette chuckled, and it was as if I could see the exact moment she’d moved on from the news.

  “Come on,” she said, cleaning Jerome off with a washcloth and then lifting him up from his high chair. “Time to catch the streetcar.” She nodded to me. “Let’s get moving, hon. Keisha, you eat something healthy. And don’t play your music too loud. Your dad’s sleeping.”

  Dwayne had been out of work for a long time, but sometimes he was able to pick up a night shift at the Autocenter. They paid him cash under the table so he wouldn’t lose his unemployment.

  Keisha nodded and I sighed, thinking about my lesson with Ms. Marion. Normally, I couldn’t wait, but I was dreading this one. I knew she’d have something to say about me handing my lead over to Mary-Kate at June Fest.

  I said good-bye to Keisha as Ms. Evette put on Jerome’s tiny sneakers and grabbed her briefcase. Then I followed them out of the apartment and down the steps. It was bright and sunny, and a cool breeze made the banana trees wave. We walked real quiet for a couple blocks before Ms. Evette glanced my way.