Allegedly

by Tiffany D. Jackson

  “You’re going to leave me,” she says.

  “They’re . . . sending me away.”

  “But are YOU going to leave me?”

  The girl I once referred to as mousy feels larger than life, her anger filling the entire room like smoke. She glances down at Bean. A chill rips through my chest and my mouth goes dry. I’ve been living with the most dangerous person in the house and didn’t even know it.

  “Sarah . . . you’re scaring me.”

  She smirks and walks back to the door, stopping to look over her shoulder.

  “Good.”

  “You ready?” Ted asks.

  “No. Not really.”

  Ted and I pick over Salisbury steak and potatoes in the cafeteria, for what may be the last time.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Virginia. Gonna stay with my cousin’s family.”

  He reaches under the table and rubs my belly.

  “What’ll we do when we get there?”

  “My cousin got a friend who’s a cable guy,” he says. “He’s gonna hook me up with a job. And you, you’re gonna take the SATs and take care of Bean. My cousin’s girl works at the university down there, so we’ll get you into school easy.”

  Sounds like a good plan. A very thought-out plan.

  “What about money?” I ask.

  “How much you got?”

  “Six hundred. You?”

  He gulps. “I got thirty-three hundred.”

  “What! How did you . . .”

  Oh. The girls. Right. I poke at my potatoes and stay quiet. He slides an extra juice on my tray.

  “You should go upstairs and get some sleep,” he suggests. “We got a long night.”

  “You sure your boy can cut these off?”

  I swing my ankle out and the tracker clanks against the table leg.

  “Yeah, we’ll be straight, babe. Don’t worry.”

  I shrug.

  “At least there won’t be a storm this time,” I say.

  He snickers. “Yeah, we good on money too.”

  A nurse wheels out the woman from 408. Eyes wide, pupils dilated, hunched over in her chair, drool slipping down her chin. They found out. I tried to protect her as long as I could. And this is what they do to her, make her a vegetable, taking away her dignity.

  “Did you tell your . . . friends, you were leaving?”

  His face turns cold and serious.

  “No. I haven’t spoken to them in weeks. I told you, I’m all about you now. Us, I mean.” He rubs my stomach under the table. I close my eyes, relishing the comfort he brings.

  “You tell any of your friends?” he asks.

  “I have no friends to tell.”

  “Maybe the lawyer lady?”

  I thought about telling Ms. Cora. Even if she could get me out of the house like she said, I still may lose Bean. He could end up in a place with people worse than Ms. Stein. If I tell her where I’m going, she’ll only try to stop me. This is the only way.

  I walk over to 408 and wipe the drool off her chin. She looks at me with no recognition. It’s a thankless job, taking care of the crazy.

  Kelly and New Girl, sitting next to each other at dinner, never take their eyes off me. Like they know what I’m up to or something. Never have I been more anxious to leave anywhere in my entire life. Not even baby jail. The two of them together is like rival gangs teaming up, all to kill me.

  “Mary! Eat your damn spaghetti!” Ms. Stein snaps.

  My cup of water tastes like the kitchen sponge, old wet food and dish soap. I won’t miss Ms. Stein or anyone else in this house. I won’t miss the food, the lumpy beds, the scratchy sheets, or the dirty bathroom. This place is a dead body that the flies, roaches, and mice swarm to feed on.

  “Mary, clean up your plate!”

  Now or never.

  I pick up the plate and launch it across the room at Tara. For someone with slow reflexes, she ducks quick, enough for it to miss her head.

  “You crazy bitch!”

  Her big bones couldn’t move fast enough to charge after me. She has to get out of her seat first, and that takes time. Ms. Reba jumps up to save the day while the table cheers.

  “Get her, Tara! Get her!”

  Tara slips out of Ms. Reba’s hold and rushes for me. I run past China, who just stares with a raised eyebrow, and head straight for Ms. Stein’s office, Tara a few paces behind me.

  “Stop her, Reba, she’s gonna kill her!” Ms. Stein screams, not because she is worried about me, but because she is worried about getting in trouble again.

  Tara huffs behind me, her fat hand reaching for my shirt. And in one quick move I make a hard left into the bathroom, leaving Tara charging full speed into Ms. Stein’s office door. The door cracks under the pressure. She screams, riding the door down like a falling tree into the office.

  “Goddamn it, Mary! What the hell is wrong with you!”

  Tara jumps up but Ms. Reba ropes her into a hold, calming her down.

  And that’s when I slip behind Ms. Reba, run into the office, and grab the extra set of keys to the front door off Ms. Stein’s desk.

  There isn’t much of a punishment they can give a pregnant girl other than sending her to bed without dinner. And I went willingly, all so I could pack without New Girl lurking over my shoulder.

  The only thing worth taking is my SAT book. Everything else would just remind me of the life I want to leave behind. Maybe when I get down to Virginia and take the test, I can send Ms. Claire my score, so she can be proud of me. Maybe send her a picture of Bean, when he is nice and big. I won’t send Momma nothing.

  Outside, it’s snowing. A thin layer coats the cars like Joi’s dandruff. Hope it stops; it would suck to walk through snow in my condition. I pack the two dresses Ms. Cora gave me, my favorite pair of jeans, my hoodie, a T-shirt, and my calculator. I tear the picture of Alyssa out of the book about us and fold it in my pocket with my savings, taking in the room once more. This is the end of my life here. I may never see Ms. Cora or Ms. Claire again and they’re the nicest adults I’ve met since Mrs. Richardson. Maybe Ted’s right, maybe I should tell Ms. Cora something. She shouldn’t be left in the dark after everything she has done for me. I sit and write a quick note, thanking her for fighting for me, explaining that this is my only way out, hoping I’m right.

  The door flies open, cracking against the wall as New Girl storms in. She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even look at me. She changes into her pajamas and slips into bed with her back to me. I exhale, tucking my knife under my pillow. I’m, no lie, more afraid of her than anyone in the world. She has more opportunity to kill me in my sleep than Kelly ever did.

  Stay awake, Mary. Stay awake.

  But all that running from Tara wore me out. Weights are pulling on my eyelids. I all but blink and wake up to the dark stillness of the house. Oh God, what time is it? Two in the morning? Damn, I’ve overslept and only have an hour to meet Ted at the station! I sit up quick and glance across the room. New Girl’s bed is empty.

  Shit.

  I throw my blanket back and slip on my sneakers, listening to the house breathe. The heat is off and the snow hasn’t slowed. The house smells like the crispness of it. Maybe she just went to the bathroom or to go get some water.

  Ted. I should call Ted. But if I don’t move now, she may be back soon to kill me. The longer I stay here the more likely I am to die. I shrug on my backpack and slip a hand under my pillow. Gone. My knife is gone.

  I’ve got to get out of here.

  The door creaks like an air horn as I peer into the hallway. Nothing but blackness, an eerie graveyard, the stairs a million miles away. The keys in my pocket dig into my fingertips as I tiptoe into the hall. Tara snores through the walls, the fridge rumbles in the kitchen, and the wind slaps against the storm door. No New Girl. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was alone. But she’s still in the house, somewhere. I can feel her, a ghost as thick as fog surrounding me.

  Another
step and my sneaker squeaks. No longer light as a feather, Bean makes me a heavy moving rock, each step causing the floor to buckle beneath me. My hand sweats around the keys as I pass Tara’s room. A small sliver of streetlight beams through the bathroom window into the hallway. I can see the stairs now. Still no New Girl.

  The prickling nerves creeping up my spine are now radiating over my entire body.

  Go back! Go back! Call Ted!

  But I can see the door. Freedom is so close I can almost smell the air . . . before it mixes with her lemongrass shampoo.

  “Where are you going, Mary?”

  New Girl comes out of Kelly’s room just like a ghost, snow-white skin glowing. My breath hitches and I stumble back.

  “You can’t leave me, I won’t let you,” she breathes.

  Run! Go back!

  I spin around but Kelly is there, standing with a knife pointed at Bean.

  My knife.

  That is the last thought I have before taking two steps back in the wrong direction. And all it takes is one simple push from New Girl’s wimpy little hand before I go flying down the stairs.

  chapter sixteen

  When I wake up groggy in my nice soft fluffy hospital bed, I find my throat still sore from the screaming. I’ve been in and out of sleep for the past two days but that’s always the pain I notice first, the burning, like I ate hot peppers for dinner. Then I take in all my other injuries: sprained ankle, busted knee, broken wrist, and stitches over my eyebrow. The knot on the back of my head is the size of Jupiter.

  Bean is still okay.

  How did I survive that fall? Well, that’s a good question. I know when I started falling I immediately thought to protect Bean, so I fell backward but still tumbled down the stairs like a Slinky, my backpack protecting my spine from splitting in two.

  Knocked out cold at the bottom of the stairs, when I first came to, the pain surrounded me like water, drowning me. Hands working on me, lights of the ambulance blinding, Ms. Stein yelling while I begged them to kill me. Because if Bean was dead, then I was dead too. I couldn’t take the guilt of killing another baby.

  But Bean is still inside me. Bean is okay, for now.

  My room is bright white and spotless. Hospitals clean better than Momma, so I feel safe here. It’s a lot like the hospital I stayed in before I went to baby jail, back when I wasn’t talking.

  A nurse rolls in with my lunch and Winters wakes up. He’s been snoring in the corner for the past two days.

  “You’re up. Good,” he grumbles.

  He walks over to my bed, appraising me like a car. I must look pretty bad, because he winces like he got a paper cut every time he takes a good look at me.

  “You’re having a boy, they say. Congrats.”

  I want to smile, but it hurts my face when I do.

  “I have five girls. Ages fifteen to twenty-four,” he says, sitting in a chair closer to the bed.

  “Latoya, my youngest baby girl, is turning sixteen next week. We’re throwing one of those big sweet sixteen parties. Expensive as all hell. My wife’s going overboard, as usual. The hall, the decorations . . . eight hundred dollars for a damn deejay, can you believe it?” He shakes his head. “You’re about sixteen, right?”

  I nod.

  “I didn’t have a party,” I say, sounding like a smoker, voice aged by nicotine.

  He winces again, rolling the newspaper in his hands.

  “Right, right,” he mumbles. “Well, I’ve always wanted a boy, but after five girls, we figure it wasn’t in the cards. And even after all these years, I still can’t understand you females and the way y’all think. Y’all be coming up with stuff, never saying exactly what’s on your mind.”

  He sets the paper on my bed, pushing my lunch tray closer. Broth with a white roll and red Jell-O. He opens up my juice cup and slides in a straw.

  “Y’all expect us men to be mind readers and shit,” he grumbles like the miserable old man he is. “You know, my wife got angry at me the other night for God knows what now, and when I ask her ‘Baby, what do you want from me?’ she says ‘You should know.’ I mean, this woman can drive me to drink!”

  Maybe it’s because I’m not laughing, or that I’m just laying here like a dead slug, but he stops babbling and meets my gaze.

  “But . . . I should’ve listened to you, Addison. You were trying to tell me something without saying it, and I didn’t listen.”

  The softness in his tone makes him sound guilty. But I don’t blame Winters for what happened. Who could’ve known New Girl would turn out to be exactly what her parents feared.

  “I contacted that lawyer of yours. And . . . whew . . . she’s something, that one. I ain’t ashamed to admit she tore me in two. She’ll be here in the morning. You got anyone else you need me to call?”

  Ted. Momma. I think of them together, then apart. Ted would come here and risk getting caught. But would Momma come?

  I’m hurt, Momma. Please come take care of me!

  “Ms. Claire, at the Learning Center.”

  Winters looks at me funny, then nods.

  “Well, I’m going to get some coffee. You should eat, get your strength up.”

  He stands and stretches.

  “Social services will be here to question you . . . about the house . . . and Ms. Stein. I take it you’ll be fair?”

  He struggles with that last sentence and heads toward the door.

  “And no need to worry about Sarah or Kelly. They’ve been taken care of.”

  “Winters?”

  He stops at the door.

  “Yup.”

  “You got a pen?”

  He frowns, then takes one out his coat pocket. I claw at the newspaper beside me, opening to the first page. Winters watches like he wants to stop me, but doesn’t. I circle the word fastidious.

  “There’s another test in May,” I say, but he still seems confused while nothing could be clearer to me. “He’s my baby. Mine.”

  Winters’s face drops a little, and for the first time he seems to understand. Like he fully grasps what I am up against.

  “Yup. I know.”

  Ms. Cora was a blue flame. That’s how mad she was. The hottest part of fire, blue from the ends of her wavy hair to the tips of her heels. She stormed into the hospital, took one look at me, and said, “Start talking.”

  And that is when I told her everything. About the house. About Kelly. About New Girl killing her mom. About Ms. Carmen and Ms. Stein. Everything except the part about me trying to run away with my older boyfriend. I figured I might as well keep that to myself. She was already turning blue enough, and when Ms. Cora turns blue, the world gets quiet.

  She cursed out Winters in the hallway outside my room. He couldn’t even get two words in. I never heard anyone talk so fast in my life. And he just stood there and took it. Then she cussed out Ms. Carmen and that one was my favorite part. Ms. Carmen tried to put up a good fight, but then I heard Ms. Cora say something about getting her fired and she shut right up.

  Then she was on the phone with friends, calling in favors from all over. Ms. Stein’s name was mentioned a couple of times. An hour later, two real police officers were in my room, taking a statement. And if that wasn’t enough, when Ms. Claire came, she told off the nurses for not changing my gown when I peed on myself and demanded real food. Kings County Hospital was under Ms. Claire and Ms. Cora’s control.

  “Chile, what is dis? Why yuh circle dis word ’ere? Fastidious? Yuh know dis one!”

  “I do?”

  “Lawd, they box yuh head in good. Can’t remember simple words. Chuh!”

  Ms. Claire sits in Winters’s spot in the corner, sucking her teeth. She turns the page, looking up the next word in her pocket dictionary.

  “Boy, lemme tell yuh, dis country has di worst education system in di entire world! Don’t teach basic words, don’t teach nuthin’ at t’all! No wonder everyone so blasted stupid around ’ere. Do yuh know I graduated from high school at yuh age and was already takin
g classes at the university? Come to dis country, land of opportunity, and find yuh three years behind everyone. Had to tutor grown men and women, older than me, in subjects I learned in secondary. Jesus blessed my soul wit the patience to be an educator cause dis country definitely needed some intelligence. Chuh!”

  I can’t believe she’s staying with me, even after everything . . .

  “How much do you know?”

  She pauses for a moment, then puts her pen down to look at me.

  “As much as yuh told me,” she says plainly, face smooth and nonchalant.

  “Do you know who I am? What I . . . did?”

  She takes a deep breath, staring through me.

  “What yuh may or may not’ve done is not di definition of who yuh really are.”

  That was all she had to say to make my soul calm, to ease some pain. Slowly, I swing my leg out from under the covers, feeling for the floor for the first time in days. I’m tired of using this pee pan. Every time, it just goes all over the place. Ms. Claire hops out of her chair.

  “Aye, what yuh do? Yuh need the bathroom? Come, let me help yuh before yuh catch cold.”

  She bends and slips some blue socks on my feet that have little rubber tracks on the bottom.

  “Oh boy, gyal!” She reaches up and smiles as her warm hands cuff around my belly. “Yuh popped!”

  I wince a smile and for a change, I don’t pull away. I let someone other than Ted touch Bean, because I know Ms. Claire wouldn’t hurt him. She’d protect him as much as I would. She helps me off the bed and I limp into the bathroom, dragging along my IV. I lean against the door frame as she switches on the light.

  “Someone’s in here already,” I mumble, turning away.

  She must be my roommate, but damn she looks terrible. A bruised cheek, cracked lips, and a blackened eye. She looks like Momma the day after Junior died. Ray did a number on her that day.

  “Huh? What yuh talking ’bout?”

  “Someone—”

  My knees give in. WHOOSH and the IV stand clatters. I fall forward, catching myself on the sink, hitting the mirror with the tip of my nose. A gasp fogs the glass. I freeze and the woman stares.

  “Mary?”

  There is no one else in here but me. I don’t have a roommate. That face, it’s mine. The battered woman . . . she is me. And my eye. My damn eye has blood in it. Not one drop of brown, just thick red blood.