CHAPTER 14 #4
We made it through '97 on a wing and a prayer. Thanksgiving arrived with zero fanfare and even less food. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins extended the invitation, a lifeline we grabbed with both hands. But Mama refused to budge, her stubbornness like a physical barrier she built with the help of a bottle.
Me and the boys occupied their guest chairs, the air thick with the smell of turkey and kindness.
We took a portion back for Mama, a peace offering for a war she was fighting alone.
Our hosts never breathed a word about the elephant in our living room.
They just let us be kids for a day, the way the world intended.
December hit us with the weight of a lead pipe. The holiday offered nothing but empty stockings and Mama’s drunken breathing. Mia’s moms provided the only warmth we had. She delivered the gifts under the cover of the night, a silent witness to our struggle.
“Don't you breathe a word to Mia,” she whispered, her voice a gentle command in the dark. Five presents for each of us. Our Christmas miracle.
‘98 marched through the front door with zero mercy.
I tried to convince myself the new date carried a new energy, a way out of the hole Shay and Daddy had left us in.
But I was wrong. Things didn't just get worse, they shattered.
The new year served as a catalyst for the ultimate collapse, a low point that made the previous months look like a vacation.
Late in the night long after the twins was asleep.
I entered the kitchen. Mama was splayed out on the floor, a casualty of the bottle.
Clear glass tipped over next to her, the liquid creating a toxic stain on the floor.
Her arms stiff, like awkward extensions of a body that had finally given up. She was a mess of herself.
“Mama!”
My voice cracked. I dropped to my knees beside her. My hands shaking. Her chest moved slowly. Up. Down. Up. Down. Relief hit me so hard it made me dizzy. Then fear came right behind it. I grabbed her shoulders gently.
“Mama… wake up.”
Her eyelids fluttered. Barely open.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered. Her fingers curled weakly around mine.
“I’m jus’… so… tired baby.” Her words broke every bone inside me.
I remained there on the kitchen floor all night.
Holding her. Whispering prayers I wasn’t even sure I believed in.
Begging God not to take her from us too.
When the sun finally crawled through the window, I was still sitting there.
Still holding her. During those few hours, I had grown up more than I wanted to.
That night, January 4th, Shay officially turned seventeen.
No cake, no candles, the only celebration was Mama’s total collapse on the kitchen tile.
I got Mama back to bed. Her arm slung across my shoulders while I helped her down the hallway.
Her body felt heavier than it should’ve.
More than the weight of bones and flesh.
Survival dwelled inside her too. Every tired night, every hard year had patiently stacked themselves inside her until the exhaustion settled into her bones like wet concrete.
Back in the kitchen, the bottle was still where it had fallen.
I stood over it for a long time. Clear glass with a cheap label peeling at the edges.
I picked it up and carried it to the sink.
The liquor rushed out in a brown stream, swirling down the drain.
The smell lifted sharp into the air, burning the back of my throat.
The twins stumbled down the stairs. Kids don’t read trauma the way grown people do. They notice empty stomachs. Missing toys. Whether the cereal box is full. Saiyd shuffled in first, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“Sum… where Mama at?”
“She sleepin’,” I said. He shrugged. For him that made perfect sense.
Sinceer came in behind him already dressed, shirt tucked in crooked but his hair neat like he was preparing for inspection. He needed things in order, even when the house wasn’t. His eyes moved slowly around the kitchen. The trash bag near the sink. The stain on the floor. Then they landed on me.
“Is everything okay?”
His voice careful, like he already knew the truth might be complicated.
“Yeah, everythin’ is fine.” I said too quickly.
He didn’t push it, but his eyes stayed on me longer than normal. Sinceer was always picking up the pieces other people walked past. And Saiyd paid attention to none of it. He dumped cereal into a bowl until flakes spilled over the sides, milk splashed across the table.
“Yo, you seen my basketball?” he wondered out loud.
“You left it outside again,” Sin answered without looking up. Sai shrugged,
“I’ma go get it.”
Before I could say anything, he was gone, running barefoot out the door. Sinceer sighed softly. He grabbed a paper towel and started wiping the milk off the table.
“Why is he always so messy?” he mumbled.
“Dat’s yo’ twin.”
I said laughing. He shook his head.
I let the boys take advantage of the day.
Sai lounged on the couch watching cartoons.
While Sin played chess against no one, the way he wanted it.
I immediately started trying to reach Shay.
At first it seemed simple. All I had to do was get a message to her and everything would shift back into place.
Only nothing about our life was simple anymore.
The one thing I had was Shay’s beeper number.
She rocked that Motorola clipped to her denim, her silent prop for a line of people that never actually called.
Now it was the only thread connecting me to her.
My fingers hovered over the phone. I punched in her number.
Then the message. 911. My heart pounded while I hung up.
I waited. Five minutes. Ten. Thirty. The phone never rang.
The next day I tried again. 911. Still nothing.
The third day my messages started feeling desperate.
I stayed glued to the landline. My frustration a desperate attempt to jumpstart the ringer.
Then, I remembered, Nico owned that piece of plastic. He owned the very air she breathed. I’m sure he intercepted every buzz, every digit, every plea. My messages probably deleted before she could even look. Shay was a prisoner in Nico’s kingdom.
I kept the Motorola buzzing anyway, sending my cries into the void until my fingers ached.
The house groaned in its sleep. At 2am, I punched the digits and waited for the high-pitched prompt.
I hammered the 1-2-1 into the keypad. I need you.
My fingers shaking when I typed them. Every message carried the same underlying question. Why ain’t you answering me?
It's like the block had a personal grudge against me that winter.
I was a child too, a technicality the streets ignored.
The universe never intended for kids to be the architects of their own survival.
We ain't supposed to witness the wreckage of a parent's soul.
But, I was the only person left to hold the line while the world around us splintered.
I was trying my best to keep things from collapsing. Trying to be strong enough but the unfairness of it sat in my ribs. It’s not fair. Shay got to leave. She got to run toward whatever life she thought was waiting for her. Why did the universe pick me to carry this weight?
Night after night, I sat on the edge of the couch, the phone receiver a weight against my ear.
I sent a steady stream of 121’s into the ether, a digital SOS for a sister who was a ghost.
The 121s wasn't working, so I upgraded the urgency to a triple 999 on her screen.
Life or death. My thumb hit the keys with a violent finality every time.
My family was being dismantled from the inside out.
The ice finally broke on the sidewalk, replaced by a humid, springtime grit.
Shay was a missing person report I filed every night in my head.
My days a repetitive loop of cereal bowls and laundry cycles.
Mama’s energy had bottomed out, leaving me to patrol the house and keep the PECO bill from the dark.
I was a child playing the role of the ‘leader of the house,’ my own youth a casualty of a war I never signed up for.
The walls been whispering the truth since the day Daddy left. Reality was now yelling in my face… the people you need the most are the same ones who never come back.