Disappearing Acts
Page 40
“Why not?”
“Because I’m tired, Franklin, and I want to slow down.”
“When you doing all this moving?”
“In August.”
“And you was just gon’ take my son and leave without telling me?”
“I didn’t know where to find you. I thought you’d forgotten about us. You never come by, and I—”
“What if I asked you not to leave?” Go ahead and tell me your mind is already made up. Go ahead, make me beg.
“I have to go.”
“You don’t have to do nothing but die.”
“I quit my job already, Franklin.”
“So you can get another one.”
“It’s more to it than that. I want to raise our son so he’ll know what it’s like to play in the grass and roll in the dirt without me having to take him to a damn park to do it. I want him to grow up where he can be a child.”
“You can do that in Queens,” I said.
She just looked at me like I was crazy.
“And I’m going back to church and sing where it’s always made me feel the best. And I’ll write music. Besides, I got another teaching job.”
“I thought you was tired of teaching.”
“Like you said, you get to learn a lot of things when you’re by yourself.”
Was this room spinning, or was it just me? Was I about to lose Zora and my son forever? I felt helpless, like nothing I said was gon’ get her to understand that I still wanted her, but I also wanted her to do whatever she thought was gon’ be best for her and our son. You can’t ask a woman to put her love on hold, though, can you? You can’t ask her to wait until you finish growing up.
“Franklin?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re not leaving you; we’re just relocating. You’ve already been gone long enough for me to have a change of heart, but understand this: I love you just as much now as I did three years ago. We’ve had some rough times, and maybe time might help us both; I don’t know. But you see that little boy over there? He’s ours. We made him. And if you ever get your divorce and you feel like you’re ready, come get us.”
I was just about to tell her about my divorce, but something told me not to. Not yet. “You can’t promise me you gon’ be sitting around waiting for me, baby.”
“I didn’t say we were going to be waiting. Our lives need to keep going, Franklin. That’s been a big part of our problem. I think we both kind of disappeared somewhere along the way and just stopped moving altogether.”
“You always was big on taking risks. You let that boy play in the toilet like that?” Before she could answer, I got up and lifted Jeremiah up in the air. “Do I smell something burning?”
She sniffed the air. “Nope.” Then she started grinning. “Would you like to have dinner with us?”
“What you got?”
“Meat loaf, scalloped potatoes…”
“Yeah, since you insist. Is it ready?”
“Yes, it’s ready. Jeremiah’s already eaten, and I was just about to give him his bath when you got here.”
“You mind if I give it to him?” I asked.
She looked surprised. “Do you know how?”
I took Jeremiah’s clothes off, went upstairs, and put the boy in the bathtub. I rubbed him down with them baby bubbles, splashed water on him, dried his little ass off, wrapped a towel around him, went back downstairs, held him up in the air and said, “Where you want him?”
“In his crib,” she said, and took him back upstairs. I followed her and watched her put his pajamas on.
“Where’s his bottle?”
“I don’t give him one at night.”
“Well, won’t he start crying?”
“Nope.”
“No shit.” I bent down and kissed him, and that was that. When we got back downstairs, I knew which plate was mine, ’cause it was a pile of food on it.
“Franklin, did you ever talk to your father?”
“About what?”
“You never called him or anything?”
“No, why should I? I ain’t talked to nobody.” I knew this had something to do with my sister. “It’s Darlene, ain’t it? Go on, tell me.”
“First of all, she’s okay.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve talked to your father since he came over here to tell me what happened.”
“Which was what?”
“That she tried to shoot herself. But she’s okay now.”
“She did what?”
“Back in February. But we didn’t know how to find you, so your father left his number. He really wanted to see you, Franklin.”
“What you mean, he left his number?”
“He moved out.”
“Get the fuck outta here. You mean to tell me that my Pops, the chump, done left my Moms, the bitch?”
“Yes, he did.”
I felt myself smiling. So finally you decided to be a man, huh?
“Darlene’s living with him,” I said.
“No shit.”
“No shit.”
“You still got that number handy?”
“Of course I do.”
She opened a drawer and handed this piece of paper to me. I looked at it, then put it in my pocket. When we finished eating, we went back into the living room, and I sat down on the couch. Zora sat in a chair on the other side of the room.
“Why don’t you come sit next to me?” I asked.
“Because I’m afraid of what I might do.”
“Show me what you scared you might do,” I said. She pressed both hands on the arms of the chair, pushed herself up, and pranced over to me. Then she bent down and kissed me. I closed my eyes, and just when I was getting used to her lips again, she stopped. “Is that it?”
Zora was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, even though I was laughing now too. She stood up, stepped back, and unzipped her blue jeans. Then she pulled her Saratoga T-shirt over her head and took off her bra. Goddamn. Part of my problem in life is that I want everything now, so I persuaded Tarzan to chill out for the time being and decided to stretch this night out. “Can I ask you a big favor, baby?”
“It depends,” she said.
“You feel like a quick game of Scrabble?”
She walked over and got the game, handed it to me, then looked me dead in the eyes. “Set ’em up,” she said.