by Anne Schraff
“Oh. Hi,” Darcy said, beaming. “Grandma, this is Hakeem from school. ”
“Hello,” Hakeem said, gently taking Grandma’s small wrinkled hand in his strong hand.
“So nice to meet you,” Grandma said.
“What are you doing tomorrow, Darcy?” Hakeem asked.
“Nothing. I have to be home,” Darcy answered. “Mom has a lot of stuff to do, and then she has to go to work. ”
“So what if I rented a movie and came over with a pizza or something?”
“You’d wanna do that?” Darcy asked in surprise.
“Yeah,” Hakeem said.
“I’d have to leave the movie sometimes and check on Grandma. ”
Hakeem smiled. “But the rest of the time you could watch the movie with me and eat some pizza, right?”
“Sure,” Darcy said, smiling.
Hakeem looked at Darcy intently. “When my Dad was going through chemo, we had to work around some things too. Everybody had to pitch in. So, if you have to pop in and out of the room while the movie’s on, no sweat. That’s what they made the ‘Stop’ button for on the DVD player, right?”
A smile spread so wide across Darcy’s face that she could not even control it. Hakeem walked with Darcy as she pushed Grandma’s wheelchair home. They rode up in the elevator and had started towards Darcy’s apartment when loud, angry voices coming from the closed door stopped them. Darcy’s parents were in there shouting at each other!
Darcy froze, not sure what to do. Hakeem suggested, “Let me take your grandmother down the hall. We’ll go out on that little balcony and catch some air, okay?”
Grandma was dozing, so Darcy nodded. Alone, she drew closer to the apartment door. Voices came crashing through the thin wood.
“You lied and cheated, and I don’t trust you!” Mom yelled.
“I admitted I done wrong, Mattie, and I swear it won’t happen again. I love you and the girls. Let me make it up to you for what I did,” Dad pleaded.
“Carl Wills, you are no good. No man who runs out on his family is any good. I don’t want to take a chance again. I don’t want to put my heart in your hands again, just so you can stomp on it any time you please. I’m too old, Carl, too old to take risks . . . ” Mom’s voice was breaking.
“You’re not old, Mattie. You’re as beautiful now as you were the first time I saw you at Lincoln High. Baby, you walked in like a queen at the prom . . . ”
“Don’t try to scam me with sweet talk, Carl. Don’t you be trying that phony charm, you hear? It worked when I was a teenager, but it won’t work now. ”
“Baby, I’ll spend the rest of my natural life making it up to you and the girls. I swear before God, Mattie. Don’t take away my last chance to be a decent man. Don’t turn me away. I swear you won’t ever regret giving me another chance. ” Dad’s voice shook with emotion.
Darcy’s legs grew weak as she stood at the door. She leaned against the wall. It all hung on these moments. It would happen now, she thought, or it would never happen at all.
Darcy heard her mother weeping, then loud sobs. Then they trailed off. Darcy could not see her parents through the locked door, but she knew what was happening. It was her father’s big round chest that had gently muffled her mother’s sobs.
Darcy turned and ran down the hall to where Hakeem waited with Grandma. Grandma was half awake now on the balcony. “I hear the birds singing,” Grandma whispered.
Hakeem looked at Darcy. “Bad?” he asked her.
“I think it might be good,” Darcy said.
Hakeem gave Darcy a hug that made her catch her breath. Then Darcy leaned down and kissed Grandma’s cheek. “I hear the birds too, Grandma,” she said. And even though there were no birds near the little balcony, Darcy did somehow hear them, throwing their voices and their hearts to an uncertain wind, flying on faith.
Like all of us, Darcy thought.
