The Davis Years (Indigo)

by Green, Nicole

  “They rebuilt it,” Jemma said, breaking the heavy silence. What had she expected? That they would leave the unit a charred hole in the ground, some sort of morbid monument to all she’d lost?

  She stepped out of the car and closed the door. She heard Davis doing the same behind her. She hugged herself and leaned against him when his arm went around her.

  “She was worthless as a mother, but she was all we had.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Demonte loved her so much. He didn’t know any better. She might not have had an easy life, but . . .” She shook her head. “I’ve tried so hard to put myself in her shoes. Pregnant at sixteen. Running away from home. To live with some old man who should have been arrested for statutory rape? He ran out on her anyway. He left right after my sister was born.” She took a deep breath and pressed her fingers into her sides. “What I can never wrap my mind around is, why did she have to take it out on us?”

  Davis kissed the top of her head and drew her closer, but didn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t think she had it in her to care for us until Patrice ran away. Right after that happened, she spent most of her time on the couch, drinking. Then, she met Smooth and things got worse. She always had that crack pipe on the coffee table. Right where Demonte could see. Once I caught him playing with the thing and I lost it. I wanted to kill her. And then she did the deed for me. Only she took Demonte with her.”

  Jemma sank down to the sidewalk and rested her chin on her knees. Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound. Davis lowered himself next to her. She heard his knees pop as he did. He put his arms around her.

  “He died alone. Under his bed. Police said what probably happened was Lynette passed out, knocked the bottle of bourbon over. Lit cigarette fell from her hand. Demonte was probably so scared. What if he was trying to wake her up and nothing he did worked? Can you imagine how that must have been for him? He was only four. I hadn’t taught him to dial 9-1-1 yet. I should have done that. He probably thought he was safest crawling under his bed, waiting for it to all be over.” Jemma broke down into sobs and Davis held her tighter.

  She looked up at the sound of the front door opening and a woman with her light brown hair in curlers asking, “Who’s out here? You okay?”

  “I—I used to live here,” Jemma said shakily. Davis pushed himself to his feet with some effort and then helped her to hers.

  “Oh, my—are you—Jemma?” The woman stepped out onto the front stoop. She wore blue slippers and a pink house coat.

  Jemma nodded.

  “I’m Valencia. My daughter and I moved in right after they rebuilt this. I heard about what happened to your family. So sad.”

  “I’m Davis, a friend of Jemma’s. She’s in town for a few days and she wanted to stop by. I hope that’s okay. Being here is very important to her,” Davis said, rubbing Jemma’s shoulder and back as he spoke.

  “Of course it is. Would you two like to come inside?” Valencia said, gesturing toward the inside of the apartment.

  “No, thanks,” Jemma said. Seeing the outside was enough.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, you two stay out here as long as you like. And let me know if you change your mind.”

  “Thanks. Very much,” Jemma said. Valencia nodded and went back inside.

  A few moments later, Valencia came back out with two large paper cups filled with sweet tea and handed them to Jemma and Davis. They took them with smiles and thanked her.

  “No problem at all. Y’all hungry?”

  “No, ma’am,” Davis said.

  “Okay, you know where to find me.” Valencia patted Jemma’s cheek and smiled at her. “I’ll just be in there. And I want you to know you’re welcome back any time.”

  “Thanks,” Jemma said, taking a gulp of her tea. Just enough sugar.

  Once Valencia was back inside, Jemma leaned her head against Davis’s shoulder. “What if Lynette had been like that?”

  “Baby, you can’t torture yourself with ‘what if.’ Trust me. It gets you nowhere.”

  Jemma grinned up at him. “What did you call me?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s just that you’ve never called me anything but Jemma.”

  Davis’s face reddened. He bought some time with a sip of tea. Then, he grinned. “What, you don’t want me to do that? Is that against the rules of our non-committal time-sharing arrangement?”

  “It’s different. I wasn’t expecting it. That’s all,” Jemma said, hugging him close with one arm. She bit her lip, looking back toward apartment E. “He would have been ten now. Going on eleven.”

  “I know,” Davis said, kissing her forehead.

  “You’re going to tell me not to dwell on it, huh?”

  “I’m not going to tell you that. I’m here for you. That’s all. Here for you whatever you need, whenever. I will tell you that I don’t think you’ve taken time to grieve. Sometimes, we have to think about the things it hurts to think about. To get it out of our systems. And we have to remember to think about the good, too, and not just dwell on the bad.”

  “When did you become so insightful?”

  Davis kissed the top of her head. “Not me. Codie. That girl has been my rock more than once in life. Now if I could go full time on taking her advice, I’d probably fail at life less.”

  Jemma smiled up at him. “I don’t think you’re failing at life.”

  Davis raised an eyebrow.

  She laughed. “Well, not completely.”

  He joined her laughing. “No, I guess not. After all, I have you back in my life. At least for a little while. I must be doing something right.”

  She kissed him quickly on the lips.

  They stood there for a while longer, silently sipping their tea, each lost in their own thoughts.

  Eventually, Jemma said, “Let’s go.”

  “Where to?”

  She gave apartment E one more glance. “The cemetery.”

  Davis nodded, gave her shoulders another squeeze, and then they got back into the Acura. She stared out of the passenger side window as he drove, wondering what it would be like stepping into that place.

  She hadn’t been back since the funeral. The day she had broken down in front of Emily Rose and Wendell. That’d been the last day she’d allowed herself to lose it over what had happened. At least out loud. Then, after spending a few months at Mary’s house as a near-catatonic mess, she’d followed in Lynette’s footsteps and run away. Even though she’d always thought—and still did—that Lynette’s first and biggest mistake had been running away from home and her problems with her family. And, in some form, Lynette had spent the rest of her life running. Twenty years of running until she ran herself right into the ground. Jemma didn’t want to be anything like her, but she was scared there was no way of avoiding it.

  They walked into the cemetery. The grass was short, as if recently mown, and flowers lay against some of the headstones. The flowers added smatterings of color here and there to the green of the grass and the gray of the stones. They were the only two there and silence hung in the air just as heavily as the humidity did.

  Jemma found the graves without a problem—their location had become etched in her mind on that horrible day six years ago. A double funeral for baby and mother. Demonte and Lynette.

  She ran her fingers lightly over the craggy sides of the headstones Mary had helped her order with the money Smooth had given her for the funeral. That was one of the few decent things he’d ever done.

  “I love you so much. And I’m so sorry,” Jemma said to Demonte’s headstone. Tears leaked out of her eyes. She then turned to Lynette’s. “I hated everything you ever did to us. I worked forty-hour weeks and still went to school just to hold our family together. You were never a mother to us. I never complained because I thought things would get better someday. And then you took it all from me. You destroyed everything.”

  Davis put a hand on her shoulder.
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  “I got him ready for Head Start every morning he had to go.”

  His hand slid down between her shoulder blades.

  “If only I had taught him to dial those three stupid numbers.”

  “It’s not your fault.” He rubbed his thumb over the fabric of her shirt.

  “I keep thinking, what if I had just emancipated myself? What if I could have made social services and the court let me take him away from there? I looked into it. Researched everything I would have needed to do. I didn’t have the guts to do it, though.”

  He put his fingers on her cheek and turned her face to his. He looked into her eyes and said, “It’s not your fault.” He said it with more conviction that time.

  “I want to believe that. I do.”

  He moved closer so that his face was inches from hers. “I want you to believe it, too.”

  Davis wrapped his arms around her. She leaned against him and put her hands over his arms. She closed her eyes and the tears slipped down her cheeks.

  It was a while before Jemma could pull herself together. Then, she took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

  “But I’m not gonna hate you anymore. And I’m going to stop pretending I don’t hate you. I’m done with all of that. I’m not going to let you control the rest of my life.” Jemma looked up at Davis. “I want to let go. I really do.”

  She turned to Demonte’s grave. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. And I love you. I know you have a better life up there than you ever had down here. The life you always deserved.”

  Davis kissed her hand before pressing it to his chest. “He knows. He loves you, too. He’s smiling down on you right now.”

  Jemma nodded. They stood there for a while and Jemma let her mind go back to all the times she’d played video games with Demonte. Or let him “read” to her, which usually meant Demonte holding a picture book upside down and making up a story to go along with the pictures. His stories were often more entertaining than what was written on the page. The kind of stuff that only a three- and then four-year-old could come up with. Tucking him in at night. Just generally filling the spaces that Lynette hadn’t or wasn’t able to fill. Some of the best times in her life now that she looked back on them. Davis had been right back at apartment E.

  He pressed his chin to the top of her head.

  “Do you hate Tara?” Jemma took his hands in hers, looked down at them and then back into his face.

  Davis shook his head. “She has some ugly ways. So did Bill. But I like to think it’s not their fault. People have things happen to ’em that make ’em the way they are. I love Amanda to death, but I think she and Tara didn’t have the greatest relationship. I dunno. Tara didn’t talk about it too much. I think Tara felt like her mom wanted her to be something Tara felt like she could never measure up to. And Bill—that’s a whole package of things gone wrong.”

  Jemma grinned. “A package of things gone wrong. I think that could describe me, too.”

  Davis kissed her cheek. “No. It doesn’t.”

  Jemma turned back to the headstones. She couldn’t face the tender and open look in his eyes. It made her want to throw everything away—forget the world—and stay with him forever. “I should have brought some flowers. Or something.”

  “We could go get some right now.”

  “Let’s go.” Jemma took his hand and they walked back to the car. They went to a nearby grocery store and came back with two arrangements. One was full of vibrant yellows, pinks, and reds. And the other arrangement was solid blue—Demonte’s favorite color. Jemma left the flowers, Davis said a prayer with her, and then they left.

  Chapter 20

  Once they were back in the car, Jemma put her hand over Davis’s and looked up at him. “I’m worried I’ll be her, Davis. I wouldn’t be able to stand that.”

  “Jemma.” He put his arms around her.

  “I think I’m more afraid of that than I am of what I feel for you or anything else. That I’ll become just like her. It’s hard, dealing all of the things that have been running through my head since I got back here. I’m worried that if I stay, I’ll turn into her. Be mean and awful and . . . just. Like. Her. Maybe I already am her. But if I don’t leave Derring, there’ll be no way to avoid it or change it if it’s already happened.”

  “You’ll never be like her, okay? You can’t be like her. Is that why you’ve been avoiding everything all this time? Why you ran away from us?” He kissed her forehead. “She’s a completely different person from you. In every way. Just because she’s your mother doesn’t mean it’s your fate to be her. And you’re not. You’re successful, smart, wonderful. You’re Jemma, not Lynette.”

  Jemma let her head rest against his shoulder, thinking about his words, but not quite sure she believed them. She looked up at him. “You know what’s funny? Except it’s not? That I sort of fully realized today?”

  “What?”

  “We used to tell each other everything. Now it’s like we’re afraid to tell each other anything.”

  “Not true. I told you about my brothers and the house.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t talk about what happened in Pennsylvania. Or about what moving back in with Bill was like.”

  “Nothing really to tell,” he said flatly, staring out of the driver’s side window.

  That proved her right, but she knew that pushing him would get her nowhere. Instead, she sank deeper into his side. “I think I want to go back to Mary’s tonight.” She looked up.

  He looked down at her. His face crumpled, but he nodded.

  “Just for tonight.”

  “I understand.”

  “Hey, we’ll spend the whole day together tomorrow. It’s just that Mary has the night off tonight, and I really need to talk to her.”

  “Yeah. I really do understand.” He kissed her hand. She reached up and kissed him long and slow.

  Once Davis pulled onto the road, Jemma looked straight ahead, watching as he passed the low brick buildings housing offices and the few stores in town. They then passed a row of houses on their way out of town. Still looking out of the windshield, she said, “Smooth wants me to go see him in prison.”

  “Whoa, really?”

  “He has a parole hearing coming up. I have an interview with a parole board representative. He wants to talk to me before the interview.”

  “You’re not going to go see him, are you?”

  “I dunno. I thought I didn’t want to see him again, but maybe I need to. The way I needed to go to the apartment and the cemetery today. I can’t decide how I feel, if that makes any sense.”

  He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “You let me know if you need me. I mean it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you, Jemma. If it’s in my power, I’ll do it for you. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. Not as far as I can help it.”

  He’d said it again. She leaned over the seat and rested her head against his shoulder. For a brief and crazy moment, she thought that maybe she should stay. So what about the job? She could find another job. She’d never find another Davis. Maybe Davis really could be all she needed. Then she came to her senses as he drove up Mary’s driveway and stopped in front of the house. She knew all the reasons that trusting love was a bad idea.

  He hugged her before she slid back to her side of the car and opened the door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Jemma started regretting her decision not to spend the night with him.

  “I’ll call you before I come to get you in the morning. Around eight?”

  Jemma raised her eyebrows. “You’re going to get up that early?”

  He grinned. “Ha ha. So I’m not a morning person. I’m thinking of something I want us to do tomorrow. So yes. I’m going to get up that early.”

  She shut the car door and leaned in through the open window. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Bright and early.” He winked at her.

  She watched him drive off, thinking of how much she need
ed time away from him. She was growing too attached. She’d thought about staying way too much over the past few days. And after he’d been there for her that afternoon, not letting her come unglued, it was especially hard to turn away from her feelings for him. But she had to. She couldn’t risk everything for something so uncertain as the possibility that love could fix everything.

  ***

  Davis thought about Jemma’s words long after he was at work and forgetting to bring people water. He also got plenty of dirty looks from the other servers because he hid in the back most of the time so the people from his tables couldn’t ask him for things. That way, his co-workers got stuck bringing his cranky customers new salt shakers and ketchup bottles.

  Davis was more distracted than usual that night, and it didn’t take much to distract him from the job he didn’t want to do anyway. Ever since Jemma had brought up Bill, he couldn’t get the man off his mind. Some father. There was a long list of things Davis blamed him for, but one of the biggest was helping Davis ruin his chances with Jemma. On top of Davis’s own stupidity, there had been good old Bill.

  He thought back to one of the last times he’d gone to pick up Bill from the hospital before the car accident. Bill had chronic bronchitis, but still thought it was a good idea to smoke cigarettes. That time Bill had had an episode at work, hadn’t been able to breathe or find his inhaler, and he’d passed out. He ended up in the hospital again. The doctor had pleaded with him yet again to stop smoking. Told him he’d done more damage to his lungs. Bill said he would stop. Bill and those broken promises.

  Davis remembered sitting across from him, staring into those watery, red-rimmed eyes, hating him.

  His dad cleared his throat, but his voice still came out gravelly. “You ain’t have to come down here. I have friends. I coulda gotten somebody to pick me up.”