by L. J. Taylor
Luke smiled. “Good night, Omari.” He shook Omari’s little hand then stood up and looked Ivy in the eye.
“See you in church tomorrow.” He kissed her on the cheek.
She felt her pulse quicken. “See you tomorrow.”
She locked up after him, then stood there for a second, smiling. She had the feeling she might have a few unholy thoughts about him in church the next day.
***
Later that week, Ivy pulled up to her apartment building, got out of the car and headed to the rear passenger side to free Omari from his car seat. He had just finished his first day at the neighborhood nursery school and was talking about it non-stop. Ivy unhooked him from the car seat, pulled him out and set him onto the sidewalk.
“Now, you stay right there. Mommy has to get the shopping bags out of the trunk. Don’t move,” she said.
“Okay, Mommy. Mommy, are we having spaghetti for dinner? I want spaghetti,” Omari said.
Ivy opened the trunk and pulled two shopping bags out. “No, we had spaghetti for dinner last night. Tonight, we’re having chicken and rice.”
“But I don’t want chicken. I want spaghetti.” He stomped his little foot.
“You can have spaghetti for dinner tomorrow. Tonight, we’re having chicken and that’s that.” Ivy shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was arguing with a two year old. While she pulled the grocery bags from the trunk, she heard Omari talking to someone. She looked up to see who he was talking to and froze. Zeke was standing there, on the sidewalk, staring at Omari. The saliva dried up in her mouth. She swallowed.
“Zeke. What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“I came here to see you. My people told me you lived here,” he said.
They said that the best defense is a good offense. She’d give it a try – anything to keep Zeke off balance. “Your people? What do you mean your people told you where I live? Are you having them spy on me?”
“Mister,” Omari said, “I went to school today.”
“Yeah kid. That’s nice,” Zeke said. He turned back to Ivy. “Look baby, you don’t need to be hostile. I just came here to ask you a question.”
“You don’t need to be asking me any questions. The only thing you need to do is leave me alone. I thought we decided to go our separate ways. I don’t need this madness in my life anymore,” Ivy said. “Please don’t come around here again. I have three years of probation and I’m not about to get mixed up with you again and mess that up.”
“Alright.” He held up his hands. “But I have to ask you one thing. Whose kid is that?” He inclined his head in Omari’s direction.
“Mine.” She picked up the bags, told Omari to follow her and left Zeke standing on the sidewalk staring after them. He looked like he wanted to come after her, but one of her neighbors exited the apartment building as she approached the door. He was a North Miami Beach police officer and he was wearing his uniform. She entered the apartment building and turned back to see if Zeke had followed her. He was gone.
Ivy hurried into her apartment, locked the door, and sagged against it. She blew out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She couldn’t believe Zeke had come here to ask about Omari. He wasn’t likely to accept her flippant answer for long.
“Mommy, can I watch cartoons?” Omari asked.
Ivy looked down at Omari and realized where she was and what she was doing. She didn’t want to scare him. She set the grocery bags down and tweaked his nose. He laughed. “Yes, baby.”
She headed into the living room and turned on the television. The cartoons would keep him occupied while she fixed dinner and figured out how she was going to handle Zeke.
After making sure Omari was settled in, Ivy picked up the grocery bags and headed into the kitchen. She set them down on the counter and leaned her hands against it. She was shaking. She pushed away from the counter and covered her face with her hands.
Dear Lord. If Zeke found out that Omari was his, there was no telling what he’d do. He’d find out she’d hidden Omari from him all these years and would decide he couldn’t trust her. She knew too much about him, his organization, the heist. If he decided he couldn’t trust her, he’d kill her. She’d seen what he did to people who betrayed his trust. She couldn’t let that happen. She didn’t want to die and she had Omari to think of now. She needed to be there for him. The last thing she wanted was for him to grow up knowing that his father killed his mother.
No. Zeke must never find out that Omari was his child. She was better off lying to him. She’d tell him that Omari’s father was a guard in the halfway house. She’d tell him that she was transferred from the halfway house to the prison when the authorities found out about the affair. It was a plausible story.
The idea of lying to Zeke didn’t sit comfortably with her, but she had no choice. That was the problem with lies. Once you told one, you had to tell a million others to cover up the first lie or fess up and take the consequences. The consequences here, however, were way too high. It was a matter of survival. She would do whatever she needed to do to protect her son and keep him from having to grow up without a mother.
Her mouth set into a grim line, Ivy pulled her hands away from her face. She wiped away her tears, unpacked the groceries and pulled out a pot to start dinner. She knew what she had to do.
Chapter V
Ivy sat next to Karen in class and listened to the professor drone on about food safety. It was common sense to her mind. Didn’t everyone know you had to wash your hands after handling raw chicken and you shouldn’t leave cooked food out for too long if you didn’t want to make people sick?
She yawned. It had been a long day and it promised to get even longer. Her boss was going to trial in some case and had her working all hours of the day and night. She’d barely made it out of there on time to get to class.
Her head started to droop, but she snapped to attention when she felt something bang into her chair. She turned to glare at Karen who had apparently kicked it. Karen had the strangest expression on her face. Her eyes were wide and she sat rigidly in her chair. Ivy turned her head, and, for the first time, noticed Professor Johnson standing in front of her. She was a short, squat African American woman with braids in her hair and a haughty expression on her face.
“Are we keeping you awake Ms. Brooks?” she asked.
Ivy’s eyes widened. “Oh no, Mrs. Johnson. I find your class to be very interesting and informative. It’s just that my job has me working these crazy hours and my son’s been having nightmares lately and waking up in the middle of the night--.”
Mrs. Johnson held up a hand, cutting Ivy off. “No excuses, Ms. Brooks. If you want to be a chef one day, then you’d better drink some coffee, take a brisk walk, whatever, but you had better be awake and alert in my class. Are we clear?”
Ivy nodded her head vigorously. “Yes ma’am.”
She felt her ears warm as Professor Johnson stalked back to the front of class and resumed the lesson. She looked over at Karen who sat there with both hands clasped over her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking and she had an unholy glint in her eye. Ivy glared at her, then turned to face the professor.
After class, Karen teased Ivy mercilessly until finally, they got into their respective cars and drove off. Karen had the overnight shift at Supershuttle and Ivy had to pick Omari up from her sister’s house.
As she drove past the park and stopped at a red light, she watched a few of the neighborhood thugs on the basketball court playing ball. She noticed a familiar figure on the court with them. It was Luke. Ivy stared trying to get a better look. He was talking to Rico – a notorious drug dealer. She frowned. What was Luke doing talking to Rico? He’d said that his days of running the streets were over. If that was the case, then what was he doing out here, at night, taking to the neighborhood drug dealer? The only reason Rico wasn’t in jail was because he avoided getting his hands dirty by using kids to carry and sell his drugs.
Rico and Luke appe
ared to get into a heated argument. Rico pushed up off the fence he was leaning against and got up into Luke’s face. The two men squared off. Ivy held her breath. The sound of a car horn blaring made her jump. She looked up. The light had changed and she was holding up traffic. Heart pounding, she stepped on the gas and headed through the intersection.
***
Two weeks later, Ivy sat across from her probation officer. She waited while he studied her file.
“I see that you’ve been busy in the months since you’ve been released,” he said. “You’ve found employment and have been working steadily. You’ve enrolled in school at the community college and you’ve moved up from working at the Marriott as a maid. You’ve passed all your drug tests and stayed clean and you’ve made your restitution payments on time. That’s good.”
“Thank you,” Ivy said. “I told you that I was serious about turning my life around.”
“Yes. Yes,” he said. “I see that you’ve been making the minimum restitution payments. Now that your income has increased, your restitution payments can increase too. I’m going to increase them to 25% a month.”
“Twenty-five percent of my net monthly income?” Ivy asked.
“No,” he said, “twenty five percent of your gross monthly income.”
“But that’s too much,” Ivy said. “How am I going to be able to make my rent payments if you take twenty five percent of my gross monthly income?”
“Well, what about your child’s father? Aren’t you entitled to receive some child support?” he asked.
“My child’s father is not a source of income for me. He wants nothing to do with Omari and any help from him would bring more trouble than it’s worth. Trust me,” she said.
“Well, it would give you more income from which to pay your restitution. We have to seek that money from all sources,” he said.
“I know that, but you are really going to cause me problems if you take twenty five percent of my gross pay or force me to seek child support from a very dangerous man. How do other people in my situation make it under these circumstances?”
“They don’t,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “Ninety percent of ex-cons end up back in prison.”
“Well, you’re looking at one of the ten percent who don’t,” she said.
“Well, since you make the better income, you have to pay more restitution,” he said.
“I understand that, but can’t we make it fifteen percent of my gross monthly income instead of twenty five?” she asked.
“No, but I can defer putting the paperwork through until next month while you get your affairs in order,” he said.
“Get my affairs in order? I just signed a lease and I was barely making it before hearing this news. But thank you for the slight reprieve,” she said.
“If I were you, I’d seek child support from the child’s father. By the way, you didn’t list him on the birth records for your son. Who is he?” he asked.
“Do I have to tell you that?” Ivy asked. “What if I’m not sure?”
“Well, you wouldn’t be the first ex-con who wasn’t sure. That’s especially true of the junkies who come through here. But since you just mentioned that he’s a very dangerous man from whom you appear to be afraid to seek child support, it’s clear you do know who he is. So, if you were to say you weren’t sure, you’d be lying to me and that would be enough for me to send you back to jail. Any refusal to answer my questions is also grounds for me to send you back to jail. So, let’s try this again, shall we? What is the name of your son’s father?”
Ivy swallowed. “His name is Zeke Brown.”
“Thank you. That name sounds familiar.” He picked up her file and leafed through it. When he found what he was looking for, his eyebrows raised. “Would that be the same Zeke Brown the prosecutor on your case thought might be the person who orchestrated the burglary that was the source of the stolen property in your possession?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You and he were obviously quite close. Is that why you refused to give him up?”
“Look, I’m going to tell you what I told the prosecutor. I don’t know anything about Zeke Brown being part of any burglary.”
He stared at her suspiciously for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay. Well, that’s all for today. Keep your nose clean.”
“Goodbye.” Ivy left.
***
As soon as his parolee left, Brandt picked up the telephone and pressed the intercom button for his assistant.
“Jen,” he said, “get me everything you can on a Zeke Brown and bring me the forms for applying for child support. I have a parolee who won’t do it herself, so we’ll have to do it for her. Thanks.” He hung up and picked up Ivy’s file again.
***
“I don’t want any more food Mommy,” Omari said. “I want pudding.”
“Omari,” Ivy said, “you can’t have any dessert until you finish eating a few more bites of your dinner.”
“But I don’t want any more dinner.” Tears quivered on Omari’s long lashes and his mouth formed into a mutinous line.
“Fine then. No dessert for you. You’ll take a bath, put on your pajamas and go to bed. You have school tomorrow,” Ivy said.
Omari cried when she rose to clear away the dishes. Ivy pretended to ignore him although it broke her heart to have to discipline him by not giving him his beloved chocolate pudding. Having been away from him for several months, her tendency was to spoil him and give him everything he wanted, but she knew she’d be creating a monster if she continued to do that. By the time she’d rinsed the dishes and put them into the dishwasher, Omari had almost cried himself to sleep. She drew up a bubble bath for him and soon he was splashing happily in the tub with his toys. It was amazing how easy it was to distract children.
She’d just gotten Omari into bed when she heard a knock at the door. She went to the door and looked through the peephole. Her heart leapt into her throat. It was Zeke. For a moment, she stood there, paralyzed with fear.
She thought about calling the police, but what would she tell them? He hadn’t threatened her--yet. Besides, he’d just disappear when the cops arrived then come by and kill her later.
She thought about defending herself. She looked around for something she could use as a weapon. Maybe she could grab a knife from the kitchen. Who was she fooling? He’d take it away from her and carve her into bite-sized pieces.
He banged on the door again. “I know you’re in there Ivy. Your car’s outside. Come on. Open the door. I’m not going to ask you again.”
She swallowed. She couldn’t hide from him forever. She was going to have to talk her way out of this. It was her best bet. She unlocked the door and opened it a crack. “What do you want? I just got my son into bed and we both have to get up tomorrow.”
“Is this any way to treat an old friend? Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
She opened the door and stepped back. “I didn’t invite you here in the first place, and I don’t appreciate you showing up at my house late, on a school night. What do you want?”
He stepped into the apartment. “I need to talk to you. Is your son my child?”
“Why do you ask? Is taking responsibility for a son something you would be interested in?”
“Damn it! Answer me straight, woman. I need to know,” he said.
She was going to lie to him, but instinct made her tell him the truth. There was something in his eyes that told her he already knew. If she lied to him, she would never get him to trust her. And she needed for him to trust her. Her life depended on it.
“Do the math,” she said. “He’ll be three years old in two months. How long have I been away and who was I with when I went in?”
He stared at her, his eyes widening as realization dawned. “He is mine.” He grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt and yanked her toward him. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
She snatched away from his grip. “Get your hands off me and k
eep your voice down. Omari is sleeping.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew you didn’t want a kid, but I couldn’t get an abortion. I don’t believe in them. And I was so in love with you back then. So I decided to have the baby and raise him by myself.”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe you. I think this was your little plan all along. You don’t want any share of the heist because you plan to take me to court for child support instead.”
Ivy frowned. “What? I don’t understand.”
“If you decided to raise the kid on your own, why did you file a petition for child support?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.” He took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and thrust it at her. “I’m talking about this.”
Ivy took the paper from his hand and read it. It was a notice requiring him to appear in court for purposes of collecting child support. Where the hell had this come from? She looked up at him. “Zeke, I swear. I don’t know anything about this. I didn’t file any petition for child support. Why would I do that? I know better.”
He stared into her eyes then nodded. “You just might be telling the truth, but if you didn’t file it, who did?”
“It must have been my probation officer. He’s raising my restitution to 25% of my gross monthly income. When I told him that I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills if they take that much of my pay, he told me to seek child support from Omari’s father. I told him I didn’t want to do that. He forced me to tell him the name of the father. He must have filed the petition on my behalf. I had nothing to do with this.”
“That’s not entirely true, is it? You were the one who decided to have the kid instead of getting an abortion, and you were the one who told your probation officer that I was the father.” He stepped closer to her and grabbed her by the neck. “Are you sure you didn’t tell him anything else about me?”
He had her in a vise-like grip, making it hard for her to breathe. She struggled to wheeze in air. “Very sure.” Her voice came out in a croak.
