She glanced at the green digital numbers on her clock and noticed it was once again 4:17. Not again, Betty thought as the heels of her palms pressed firmly into her satin-covered mattress, with her chin touching her chest. In frustration she kicked her comforter off her feet. She wanted to cry so badly it felt as though her lungs would burst, but she could not. If only the silent grief of her heart could manifest itself in her eyes, she knew she would feel better. Maybe I could finally get over it, she thought as she looked at her white antique rocker in the comer. The rocker she had sat in so many nights when she feared sleep itself. But on this night, just like many nights before, her tears flowed inside.
For over a decade, two dreams had haunted her. One was of a dark figure who handed her a piece of paper, while she stood naked and unashamed before it. She could never tell if the figure was a man or woman, or someone from her past or present, and she would always awaken before she could read the words on the paper. She always wondered why she was disrobed and yet felt no sense of shame. But while one dream remained a mystery, she clearly understood the other. It was based on reality, which was why it gave her the shivers. And it was always the same vision. She was lying in bed as a child, with a pillow secured over her head by her elbow, sucking her thumb and trying to block out her parents’ voices. Her stepfather was screaming so loud it seemed her Foster Sylvers poster would shake off the wall. Betty’s mother responded in kind with an embittered roar.
With the images of her parents’ fight freshly inscribed in her mind, Betty got out of bed and maneuvered her hands in front of her, attempting to find the bathroom. As she sat on the porcelain chair to relieve herself, she clasped her fingers around both arms and bent until her chin and knees met, thinking, Why can’t I shake this? Why is it, the more I accomplish, the more I think about it? Those thoughts had bounced in Betty’s mind like a Ping-Pong ball since she was a teenager and started having the dream. There had been no answers for her then, nor were there any tonight.
With her return to bed, Betty lost the battle to sleep, and the movie that played in her mind took over. She was twelve years old again, preparing to go with her parents on a vacation to visit relatives in Massapequa Park, New York. The morning of their drive, she lay in bed, flinching with every scream that radiated throughout the house. Her stepfather seemed more enraged than usual that morning. He and her mother fought about anything. A lost receipt, a cold supper, a wrinkled shirt. Anything was sure to cause an eruption in the Ryans’ household.
It was hard for Betty to figure out what her stepfather said that morning because he talked so fast. Whatever it was, it made him madder than usual. When he was calm, he was genteel, noble, one might even say charming. But when he was mad, he became barbaric.
First there would be the thud of her stepfather’s oversized feet double-stepping down the hallway as his voice diminished in volume. Then came her mother’s voice like a siren in hot pursuit screaming, “Don’t you turn your back on me, gaddammit!”
With his large fist he would pound the wall from time to time, which made Betty cringe beneath her comforter. She could hear her mother scream back with equal intensity. While she was a small woman, she could stare men down with eyes that pierced like fire, and she never gave an inch in an argument.
As the arguments esclated, Betty sucked her thumb harder. She’d sucked a pacifier until she was of school age, but sucked her thumb whenever she was afraid. She sucked it for safety. To feel secure. Betty sucked it so she would not cry, and it seemed to dampen her fears.
There were mornings when Betty would awaken before the sun, tiptoe downstairs, and sneak a breakfast of cake and Kool-Aid before her parents got up. But such mornings were rare. In their little town of Langston, Oklahoma, most kids could depend on their alarm clock before school. Betty could often depend on a fight. They were more predictable than any alarm clock or rooster on their small midwestern farm. Every now and then, alarm clocks lost power in the middle of the night. Sometimes even roosters would sleep in. But Betty rarely had cake and Kool-Aid for breakfast and the fights rarely slept in, not in the Ryans’ household.
“Gaddamn you, woman! I ain’t telling you no more!”
“Bring yo ass right back here! You ain’t no man. Won’t you act like a real fucking man for a change!”
All the words Betty felt wrong to even think of were being yelled loud enough for the neighbors to hear. I can’t wait till I grow up, she thought. I ain’t never getting married. Never!
It didn’t matter to Betty who was right or wrong. She just wanted it to stop like it would on TV. James and Florida Evans argued, but never like this. George and Wheezy Jefferson always had differences, but with time they would subside. Yet the fights in her home seemed to go on and on and on as Betty squeezed her pillow closer to her ear and pressed her thumb against the roof of her mouth.
In her dream, Betty got out of bed in her high-water pajamas and began to play with her toys. She tried to play with Barbie and Ken, but for some reason they had no appeal on that morning. They looked so beautiful. So white. So blond. They looked like they were headed to a Malibu beach party or another ball and not to the screams she would face when she walked down the hallway for her cereal and milk.
Betty’s biological father had lost contact with her mother long ago. He’d moved to Detroit with thousands of other Negroes with processed hair in the late sixties to stake his claim in the world of soul music. For some reason, he’d felt if he walked the streets of Detroit, he would hit the notes he could never touch in their bathroom. The plan was for him to move to Michigan for six months with the family’s savings, and if the music did not work out, he would return to Betty and her mother. The plan did not include getting a backup singer pregnant and starting another family. After two years of continuous lies, Betty and her mother never heard from him again.
In her dream, Betty watched herself put on her seat belt and look for her crossword puzzle for the long trip to New York. After she helped her mother prepare for the trip, the little Afro-puff-wearing girl felt better because the screams had stopped—for now. But Betty was still upset. Although her parents were speaking to each other for the time being, the fight that morning had been especially scary.
Reaching back, her mother handed Betty her favorite snack. She could eat bologna and cheese sandwiches every day of the week and never get enough. She liked the way the mustard and mayonnaise smelled spread evenly on the pink, thick-sliced meat. The way her fingers would leave prints in the soft bread. How the cellophane crackled when her mother let her take it off the individual slices of cheese. Betty Anne simply loved everything about a bologna and cheese sandwich. “No, ma’am,” she said to the offer of the snack as her mother eyed her suspiciously.
Betty’s eyes opened as her nightmare ended with a thump of the morning newspaper on her door. It was now 5:33; maybe she could just stay up. At least she would get a jump on her day’s work. Breathing heavily, she wiped the small beads of sweat from her brow and got out of bed. As she walked into her kitchen she found the box marked “Pots and Pans Only.” Opening it, she took out her kettle and filled it with water for a cup of Earl Grey.
This was Betty’s first home. No more first and last month’s rent and no pet rules, so she could finally get a cat. No more noisy neighbors to keep her awake at night banging on the walls while they engaged in loud sex. This was a place where Betty could start the herb garden she saw in Southern Living magazine. This was home. In this neighborhood, every family had a dogwood tree in the yard, a basketball net over the two-car garage, and a dog named Spot or King.
Betty poured herself a half cup of tea and leaned against a wall, staring outside through her bay window. As she cradled the warm, smooth, porcelain mug in her hands, she brought it to her nose and allowed the aroma to soothe her.
What a beautiful morning, she thought. It seemed the stars themselves spelled words, as a yellow and orange ball cast shards of light against the horizon. On this morning everything it
graced turned into shades of crimson as Betty cracked a window and was welcomed by a wisp of warm air greeting her exposed midriff. And then the feathery pink clouds above began to turn white, and a despondent smile formed on her lips.
She sat in the breakfast nook and noticed a faded, yellowed picture on the floor. Ironically, it was the last picture taken of her with her mom and stepfather outside of Deliverance Temple. Her mother wore a bright yellow hat which she held in place with her lace-gloved hand that Sunday while her stepfather wore the only suit he owned. As always, he looked spectacular. Their child looked somewhat distant in the photograph. While her face did not look sad, it did not resemble Betty. She looked like what she was in many ways, a child caught in the cross fire.
As Betty looked at the photo, she thought of Mrs. Lopez, because every nightmare brought with it a small taste of death. She vividly remembered the highway that day twenty years ago, when her mother and stepfather joked nonstop, although the weather was horrific. It was strange to Betty how they could be at each other’s throats one minute and laughing the next.
The rain fell thick that afternoon and landed with rhythm on the car, like the beat of a snare drum playing taps.
In spite of the elements, the couple in the front seat seemed cheerful. At least for now they were civil. Despite the storms in their relationship, there were times when they would act like two teenagers on a date.
The rest of what happened on the trip was carved in Betty’s mind. She’d just awakened to the lighthearted melodies of the Fifth Dimension on the radio and looked out her window in an attempt to see if they were there yet when it happened. She had no idea by the time the last note of “Beautiful Balloon” was played that her life would be changed forever. Crash! A truck had careened across the median of the interstate and broadsided the Ryans’ Lincoln on the driver’s side. Betty’s first thought as she woke up was, Why is the car spinning like the teacup ride? The car whirled so fast she was pinned to the seat, yet it felt everything moved in slow motion. Then she heard her mother scream, “Henry, watch out!” but to no avail, as the automobile was hit again by an oncoming truck that tossed it into the grassy median as if it were litter. And then it was quiet. From the angle at which his head was lying, Betty could tell immediately that her stepfather was dead. She looked at her mother and knew she was still alive because of her moans and faint gasps for air. She made a gurgling sound, and Betty knew she was in pain.
“Momma, Momma!” Betty cried out. “You okay, Ma? Are you okay?” As she tried to release her seat belt, she felt blood dripping from her forehead and then she looked up to see the window was cracked where her head had made contact. Secured in the seat, she could not move due to the damage done to her side of the car. Betty screamed, “Momma, Momma,” again at the top of her lungs, but her cries were met with no response. In time she no longer heard the moans, the gurgles, or the fight for another breath of air. Soon all she heard was silence, and the silence was numbing.
Out in the marshy median on Interstate 71, in the cool of the night, with the blood on her face and the rain continuing to fall, lightning struck, and Betty sat trapped in the car with her thumb pressed against the roof of her mouth, crying, all alone.
Within the hour a highway patrolman pulled apart the door with a crowbar after he called for medical assistance. As Betty got into the patrol car, soaked to the skin, he gave her a towel and a hot cup of cocoa.
Betty sat in her canary yellow dinette chair and returned the photo to the album from which it had dropped. She had mentioned how it had felt to watch car after car pass, with the blood of her parents on her, to only one other person. Jacqui. She had told her best friend how it had felt to have the other officers make jokes about a card game the previous night as the paramedics loaded the bodies into the ambulance as if it were just another day at the office. As an adult, her analytical side begged her to get counseling. But the emotional side of her did not wish to relive the pain. With a gaze at the newly applied wallpaper, she lightly touched her bergamot-scented tea with the tip of her ring finger, and pensively reviewed all of the whys that trampled her mind like a lost herd of elephants. What do you do when it hurts too much to cry? she wondered as she took a small sip of the hot brew.
Years later she could pinpoint the moment she shed her last tear. It was at the burial when her uncle, thinking it would bring her closure, made her sit and watch as they lowered and put dirt on her mother’s pink casket. As an adult, Betty realized that some wounds are never meant to heal. She rubbed the scar on her forehead as she thought about the conversation with Mrs. Lopez. Slouched in her dinette chair, she murmured, “No twelve-year-old should ever have to bury her mom.” With a look up at the ceiling, her eyes closed as the memories continued to play. After winning the case, buying the home, and having Evander in her life, she still could not sleep. And on this morning, unlike at the graveside, there would be no tears.
Chapter 4
Friday, three weeks later
“Hello,” he said. And then he changed the tone of his voice. “Hello,” he said again, this time with a softer smile than before. “Hi, Mr. Renfro,” he repeated with a courteous southern pitch. He tried it with a gentle, confident arch to his brow, while he gazed at his reflection in the mirror.
“My name is Andrew. No. Andrew Patrick Staley of Andrew Staley and Associates.” He rehearsed the lines as he had done for what felt like a million times before. His credo was simple. Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect, and he could ill afford to leave anything to chance. Again and again he repeated the introduction until it was perfect, or at least it felt as such.
“Andrew, will you ever come out of that bathroom?” Grace, fire office secretary, asked as she stood in front of the open door. “You’re going to do just fine.”
“I know, I just need to make sure everything is right,” he replied, never breaking eye contact with his reflection.
Grace smiled and shook her head. “Is that a new suit you’re wearing?”
“Yeah,” he said as he brushed invisible lint off fire forearm of the jacket with the back of his hand. “I bought it . . .” And then his smile blew away like a candle in fire wind. “I bought it for the funeral.”
Grace looked away and said, “Oh,” then walked back to her desk in the reception area. As she left, Drew shot the cuffs of his navy suit and adjusted the silver cuff links as he held up his chin, but it soon gave way to a quiet lean against the wall. It had been two weeks since the funeral, and the pain still throbbed like salt on an exposed wound.
After standing in the hallway momentarily, Peggy walked into the tiny unisex rest room, rubbed between Drew’s shoulders, and said in a soothing tone, “Are you okay, baby?”
With his eyes still closed, he attempted to relax the thump of the heart he could hear in his ear and said, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Peggy Randal was the only member of the firm over forty and the wife of a prosperous advertising executive twenty-two years her senior. Although she had been in the firm less than a year, she had a take-charge attitude that Drew admired.
“Look at me,” she said, forcing him to open his eyes. “We can always cancel the appointment. I mean Lisa is easy to work with and she’ll get you back on the schedule to see him. I’m not worried about that”
After he opened his eyes, he looked at Peggy and shook his head. “No. No, I need to do this one way or the other.”
“Are you sure?”
Drew stood to attention, nodded his head yes, and checked himself one last time in the mirror as Peggy nodded her head, too, and walked back into the reception area.
“Drew,” he whispered to himself. “We have got to do this. We’ve got too much riding on this one. We have to pull this off,” he said, looking at his clean-shaven face from both angles in the mirror. As he did, he asked aloud, “Hey, does anyone have any—”
“Visine?” Grace said, and stood in the doorway with the small clear bottle.
As he
took the solution, his smile thanked her. “I need everything I can to knock this good old boy off his feet today.”
“And you will. He’s gonna love that proposal. I saw one of the ladies who works there in the secretarial pool at church, and she said they have not had a decent employee benefits plan in years.”
“I know. I’ve been trying to get in the door about a year now,” Drew said as he rubbed the tension lines in his forehead. “Peggy and I worked on the proposal until midnight last night.”
“And don’t forget those three nights last week,” Peggy said as she walked rapidly past the door of the rest room.
“You’re gonna do fine, Drew,” Grace repeated. “But you better hurry up, it’s almost time.”
Handing her back the bottle, he gave a faint smile and asked, “Better?”
“Yeah, you look great,” she said as she looked in his weary bloodshot eyes.
Grabbing her briefcase and the folder for the appointment off Grace’s desk, Peggy said, “You wanna take my car or yours?”
“Ah, where are you going?” Drew asked as his eyes followed her to the door.
“Where else? You wanna take my car or yours?”
“But you got an appointment in an hour.”
“Canceled,” she said in a matter-of-fact manner as she folded her arms over her thick waist. “I asked you to cancel yours, but you were too stubborn, so I canceled mine. Now, let me try this again. You wanna—”
Until Page 3
