52. Corinthians #2
I closed my eyes, rested my head against the headrest, and took a deep breath.
Their knowing changed everything. I’d spent years thinking I protected them from the truth.
If what Tulane said was true, then they were no better than my parents.
Even though my eyes were closed, I felt tears roll down my face.
I quickly wiped them away. This wasn’t the time or place for them.
I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, then turned off my car and got out.
I rang the doorbell, then waited before using my key to unlock the door. I opened it and looked around. There was a light on in the living room. I walked in, then closed and locked the door behind me.
“Madea?” I called out, not moving from by the door. They didn’t know I was coming. Pissed or not, the last thing I wanted to do was walk in on them fucking.
“Living room,” she called out. I adjusted my purse on my shoulder then headed to the living room.
They were sitting on the couch, TV off. Madea was leaning against Granddaddy, her attention on her Kindle, while Granddaddy sat back on the couch, his attention on his word search book.
“Hey,” Madea greeted me. She set her Kindle down and got up, with her arms out for a hug.
I stepped back, shaking my head. “I came to talk to y’all about something,” I said, looking between the two of them.
“Something wrong?” she asked. Her eyes quickly swept over me. “What happened?” She turned to Granddaddy. “Call the boys, tell them to get over here.”
“Let her talk before you decide to do something, Mary,” Granddaddy chuckled and shook his head. He turned back to me. “What’s going on, Corinthians? Why you look like that?”
“Did you kill my parents?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I sat in the chair behind me. They didn’t hesitate—their answer, loud and clear with no remorse in it.
I stared into my grandmother’s eyes, ones so much like Cross’s, and waited.
I don’t know what I was waiting for. No, that was a lie; yes, I did.
I was waiting for a sign of remorse. But it never came.
She didn’t feel shit. I looked at my grandfather, and his eyes were the same.
“You want to know why?” she asked, and I nodded. “Because we figured out they were abusing you and your sister.”
I sat back in my seat and let out a deep breath. “When?”
“We had our suspicions for a while. Their stories weren’t adding up with that boxing shit.
Then how you and your sister would act when you were around,” Madea said.
“I mentioned it to your granddaddy to make sure I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there.
Especially after him and your Uncle JD found those boys. But I couldn’t.”
“What boys?” I asked. “My daddy had more kids?”
“Not that we know of,” Granddaddy answered, shaking his head. “They were abused; it was obvious. We took them to the hospital and had them checked out. I had to make a few calls; a social worker that I knew from the neighborhood helped get them safe.”
“You don’t know what happened to them?”
“We know,” Granddaddy said. “Now back to why you’re here. Yes, we killed your parents.”
“You were here when the police came to the house. I remember. I was standing right there.” I pointed to the corner of the hallway near my room and the door. “I remember them standing at the door telling you they were dead. That a drunk driver hit their car.”
“I knew the cop that came to the door,” Granddaddy said, shaking his head. “The official report says they died in an accident because it’s partially the truth.”
“Partially?” My head tilted to the side. “What does that mean?”
“We cut the brake line,” Madea said. “When we went to get pizza for y’all that night. We knew where they were going. We made a stop, cut their brake line, then went to get the pizza and came home.”
I rested my elbows on my thighs and covered my face with my hands. They were speaking as if they were telling me about a random day and not the day my parents died. I lifted my face. “Did you mean to kill them all?” I asked.
“No,” Granddaddy said. For the first time, they looked sad. “It was just supposed to be your parents. The others were supposed to ride with Mathew, but something happened. We don’t know what, but they all ended up in the same car.”
“That was our punishment,” Madea said, shaking her head.
“We killed innocent people. As a mother, I can never forgive myself for that, but I don’t regret it either.
I love my children. I won’t say loved because the love didn’t go away when they died.
It’s still very much so there, but what your parents and even Cross’ parents did was unacceptable.
They were supposed to be your protectors, not your abusers. ”
“Listen, Corinthians, we didn’t want you to find this out,” Granddaddy said.
“We planned to take this to our graves. We came to terms with what we did. We tried our hardest to make up for it. To empower you and your sister. We saw how what you’d been through took a toll on you. We did what we thought was right.”
“You killed your kids.”
“And I’d do it again if it meant protecting you all,” Granddaddy said unapologetically. “My only regret was not doing it sooner.”
“We tried talking to your parents,” Madea said.
“The day everything happened. When we told y’all to get in the car.
We told them we knew what was going on. That y’all weren’t their punching bags.
Ruben laughed in our face. Said we didn’t know shit and to enjoy our last night with y’all.
That y’all were moving. That he had a new job, one that paid well.
He was taking y’all away, and we’d never see you again.
I told your mama that she didn’t have to go.
She looked me dead in the face and said she would pick her husband over us every time, and that you girls were trained well to be good pets.
We didn’t know what that meant, but we knew it wasn’t good. ”
“We figured that they were going to sell you into child slavery or something; we didn’t know,” Granddaddy said. “All we knew was that you weren’t going anywhere.” He leaned forward; his eyes filled with tears. “You have to believe us. We did it to protect y’all.”
“When you were little, I would tell you something. What was it?” Madea asked.
“To point to who hurt me, that I didn’t have to say anything; all I had to do was point,” I replied.
“And what did you do?” she asked. “When I got in the car, I looked at you through the rearview mirror. You didn’t say anything, but you did something. What did you do?”
My lips suddenly felt dry, so I licked them and dropped my eyes to my feet. “I pointed to my parents,” I softly said.
“Right, and then I did as I promised,” she said. “No questions asked, no words needed.”
“I’m the reason you killed them?” I asked, looking up at her.
My eyes filled with tears at the look on their faces.
The strong, unaffected looks were gone, and now I was looking at a couple who’d lost their children.
I was looking at a woman who was responsible for the death of the same children she carried in her womb, birthed and raised.
She wasn’t as cold as she thought she was.
No, right now, Mary DeCorte was hurting.
This was the pain I never wanted her to experience.
When I pointed to my parents when she got in the car, I didn’t think; I was a kid.
One that was hurting mentally, physically, and emotionally.
I wanted someone to protect me, and Madea was the one who I knew would.
She’d told me enough that for a split second I believed her.
I didn’t even think she was watching me because her eyes were on me for a brief second before one of my cousins called her name.
“Yes,” Madea answered. “But we did it because you weren’t supposed to have to protect yourself from the very people who were supposed to protect you from the outside world.”
“I need to go,” I said, standing.
“Corinthians…”
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I quickly said, cutting off Madea. “I just need a minute to think. I-I-I-I-I…” I stopped talking, took a deep breath, then nodded. “I just need a moment to myself.”
“Where’s Uri?” Madea asked.
“Out of town; he’ll be back in a few days,” I said, looking around. I rubbed my hands over my thighs. “I’ll call y’all.” I walked away.
“We love you, Corinthians,” Madea called out.
I left their house, got into my car, started it, and pulled off. My vision blurred because of the tears I refused to let fall. I wiped my eyes, then reached across the seat to get my phone out of my purse. When I got to a stop light, I swiped the screen and pulled up Uri’s contact.
It rang twice, then went to voicemail. “Leave a message,” his deep voice said, then it beeped.
“Uri,” I cried, then dropped my head onto the steering wheel and cried.
My body shook, and I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The guilt and pain that I’d carried around for so long were finally released.
The burden I was carrying was too heavy and too much to bear.
I wasn’t as strong as I’d let on. I was drowning, and the only person that I could think of saving me was Uri, but he wasn’t here.
I sat there, crying for so long that cars started to honk.
Eventually they went around me. I couldn’t move.
I didn’t want to. I didn’t know where to go.
Finally, I pulled my car to the side of the road.
The call to Uri hung up a while ago. I sat there, holding it and waiting for him to call back.
When my phone finally did ring, it wasn’t Uri’s name on the display.
I licked my lips, tried to clear the hoarseness from my voice, then swiped the screen.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Mama?” Judah’s happy voice filled the car.
“Yes, baby?”
“You okay?” he quickly asked. “You sound funny.”
“Just got done working, is all, baby,” I lied. “What’s up?”