2. Grayson
A Year Later
“ G ET YO SHIT! GET YO SHIT AND GET OUT!” My mother’s voice joins with her sisters’, blending into a disharmonious chorus that has me and my cousins—Chantel, A’ja and Kendra—taking one look at each other and dissolving into a fit of laughter on the floor at our mothers’ feet.
We’re all huddled in the living room of the home we grew up in. The modest one-story ranch-style house built from bricks laid by our great-grandfather’s hands has been the site of many a core memory for myself and all the women in the room with me.
When I was little, it was my Grandma Belle’s house. A place where sleepovers happened every weekend and family dinners were a regular occurrence. I took my prom pictures in the corner of this very living room because Aunt Marcel had made Chantel, her only daughter, and the oldest of us four cousins, do so the year before, and I wanted to be just like her. When Aunt Nita brought A’ja home from the hospital, this was her first stop. I stood behind the same couch the matriarchs of my family are curled up on right now, watching as Kendra held her baby sister for the first time.
This place was, and has always been, home for me, which is why it was the only place I thought to go when I left Brian a year ago. Even though it was late and I hadn’t called ahead, my mom didn’t bat an eye when I climbed into her bed, still wearing that stupidly expensive dress and the uncomfortable heels, clutching my keys like at any moment I might get up and bolt, running back to him like he said I would. No, she just wrapped her arms around me, kissed the top of my head and said, “It’s about damn time,” like she’d been waiting for forever for me to leave him.
Apparently she had.
Apparently everybody had.
“I still think you need to go back to the house and do that to Brian’s shit,” A’ja says when we’ve all recovered, chucking her chin toward the television where Angela Basset is now setting her husband’s entire closet of designer shoes and clothing on fire inside his car.
“And get arrested?” Chantel asks at the same time Kendra claps her hands and says, “Ohh, yes, let’s do it.”
The wildly varying responses set us off again, and this time our mothers join in. We take a full minute to get it all out, and by the time we’re done, my sides hurt. They always seem to be cursed with this joyous kind of ache when I’m around my family, when I’m embraced in their love and acceptance.
“Seriously, though,” Kendra says, gripping her sides as a sly smile curves her lips. “We could do it if you wanted to. I mean, it’s not like he wouldn’t deserve it.”
“Don’t listen to her, Gray,” my mother chides, taking a long sip from the glass of blood red wine in her hand. “Nothing good will come from you going over to that man’s house.”
Even though I’m the one that left, the one that walked away and used every fiber of strength in my body not to look back, it still stings when I hear things that once belonged to Brian and I referred to as just his. Our home used to be Brian and Grayson’s house, and now it’s just his.
It’s been twelve months and a day since I stepped foot inside of the sprawling two story Craftsman where we planned to raise a family. Six since the last time I drove by, just to see if my old life missed me as much as I sometimes missed it. Well, not it exactly, but the illusion of it. The love built from a facade, and the lies I told myself to uphold it. The comfort of the familiar, even when familiar hurts, even when it makes you bleed as it breaks you.
“I know, Ma,” I assure her, solidifying it with a serious glance tossed over my shoulder. She smiles, proud of me, of my strength, of the resolve I can only hold on to because of her.
“It’s too late for her to act a fool on him anyway,” Aunt Nita announces to the room. “You should have played your crazy card the first time he played his. The first time your Uncle Nate tried to get buck with me, I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t.”
Kendra spins around, eyeing her mother with keen interest. It’s not often that Aunt Nita talks about her late husband and the father of both of her daughters, so when she mentions him—even when it sounds like it’s about to be a crazy story—we all tune in.
“What’d you do, Mommy?” A’ja asks, turning to rest her chin on Aunt Nita’s knee.
“Oh, Lord,” Aunt Marcel says through lips twisted with disapproval. It never ceases to amaze me how much she and Chantel look alike when they’re judging one of us. “Don’t tell me this is the story where?—”
“Shhh, Cel! Let Nita tell it,” my mom says, fighting back a giggle.
“Lottie loves this story,” Aunt Nita tells us, sharing a conspiratorial look with my mom who doesn’t bat an eye at the shortened, almost infantilizing version of her name. No one else in the world, not even my dad, would dare call her anything but Charlotte, but to my aunts she’s always been, and will always be, Lottie.
“I really do,” Mom agrees.
Kendra taps her mother’s leg impatiently. “Well, tell us so we can love it too!”
“And find a way to use it on one of the many men on your roster,” Chantel adds in the signature soft but cutting tone she uses when she’s judging one of us but trying really hard not to let it show.
A’ja and Kendra high five and laugh. “Damn right,” they say in unison, taking no offense to our uptight cousin’s expression of disapproval.
“Y’all gone listen, or you just gone keep talking among yourselves?” Aunt Nita asks, splitting an impatient look between her daughters, me and Chantel.
My lips part as I prepare to let her know I wasn’t the one talking, but Chantel places a hand on my knee and shakes her head, the cinnamon brown eyes we all inherited from our mothers pleading with me not to derail the conversation once more. I trap my pointless protest behind a smile that I pair with a nod of my head to let Aunt Nita know she can begin her story.
“Nate and I had just gotten married, and I was a few months pregnant with you, Kendra, when I found out he slept with some hussy who worked in the front office of the factory. He said it was a one-time thing and apologized, even offered to find a different job, but I wasn’t about to have his ass out of work when we were about to have another mouth to feed.” She pauses and holds her hand out, gesturing to her glass on the coffee table. “Grayson, hand me my wine, please.” I pluck the still full goblet up and place it in her outstretched hand. “Thank you, baby.”
“You’re welcome.”
After taking a few sips, Aunt Nita clutches the glass between her palms and continues. “Months went by, and Nate thought we were back to normal. Hell, I did too, but the closer I got to my due date, the more I started to think that I had to make sure he never pulled no shit like that on me again because I wasn’t gone raise my child in no dysfunctional family. So a few weeks before I had Kendra, I called Nate while he was at work and told him his mama had died.”
Every mouth in the room drops, except, of course, for the older women who’ve already heard this story. We’re all quiet for a moment while Aunt Nita lets us absorb the fact that she’d spoken death over a woman who, still to this day, is very much alive.
“Mommy!” Kendra shrieks, slapping her hand over mouth. “What in the world?”
“That’s some unhinged shit for real,” A’ja cackles.
Chantel and Aunt Marcel both hum their agreement while my mother falls over giggling. “Nate got a speeding ticket racing over to his mama’s house to meet you. He was so damn mad.”
“You had him meet you at her house?” I ask, voice laced with incredulity. I’ve always known my aunt was a hot mess, but I didn’t think her crazy ran this deep.
“Sure did,” Aunt Nita laughs. “I met him outside, though. He was crying like a baby, and I’m just standing there with my big ole belly trying to get him calm so he can listen to me. It took forever,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“You told him his mama was dead, Nita,” Aunt Marcel chides. “Of course, he was inconsolable.”
Aunt Nita waves her off. “Anyway, when I finally got him calm, I told him that his mama was very much alive, but I wanted him to remember this feeling, to hold on to that grief and sadness because if he ever stepped out on me again I was going to make that feeling permanent.”
“You threatened to kill Nana?!”
A’ja’s jaw is damn near on the floor, and her eyes are stretched wide, pupils dancing with a mix between horror and admiration.
“I sure did, and it worked too. Up until the day he died, your daddy never strayed from my bed again.”
The ending to the most unhinged story is punctuated by the ringing of the doorbell. Since I’m closest to the door, I hop up and walk the short distance to the front of the house. The front door is open, letting in the last bit of daylight through the glass screen door, and there’s a man I don’t know standing on the porch. He looks normal enough, dressed in dark jeans and a sweater with a heavy trench to keep out the cold, and leather gloves on his hands. However, he’s still a stranger, so I don’t open the screen door completely.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Grayson Hart?” he asks, looking me over with eyes that tell me he already knows the answer to that question.
“Yes.”
Upon my confirmation, he brings up his right hand and extends it, holding out the thin manila envelope I apparently missed on my cursory inspection of his person. On instinct, I reach out and take it.
“You’ve been served.”