Chapter 13 #4
That was her name.
That was Tamryn’s mama’s name—Aisha.
The days after she died last year were a blur—I remember sending Arnez to the funeral home to pay the rest of the balance Beatrice told me she owed for her services, and I remember fucking Beatrice to sleep every Saturday after wind-down time because Tamryn told me she was staying up for days at a time.
“You know if I could fix it I would,” I reply.
“I know, Pup. You tell me all the time.”
I did—mostly while I had my dick inside her.
She rubs the back of her neck where she scratched it and glances at Slim again. “That was my baby—my oldest. She was supposed to outlive me.”
Slim sucks in a quiet breath, and her heel drags across the floor as she shuffles even closer to me.
“I…you know, I’m still tryna understand it all—death, dying, how to go on from here as a parent.
One day she was here in my living room and then the next day the cops are coming up to my door talking about she’s gone.
” Beatrice shakes her head. “And now Tamryn’s daddy says he wants to take her, but she won’t go.
She said she ain’t leaving me here alone. ”
I let out a breath as quiet as the one Slim sucked in.
“I don’t even know why she wants to stay here—some days I can’t even look at her without crying because she looks so much like Aisha.
Her daddy’s got that big ole’ house out in The Woodlands and he’s got his wife and kids so she’ll have some brothers and sisters, but… but she’s stuck to me… and this place.”
When I was little, I used to watch from the crack in our living room blinds while Senior listened to distraught mamas and praying grandmothers saying similar things on our porch.
There was always this weird strain in their voices that made me press my ear to the window to listen closer. That same strain clings to Beatrice’s.
“Kids like to stick with what’s familiar, B. What Tamryn know about The Woodlands?” I ask.
She sighs, looking down at the stained kitchen tile. “You’re right. It’s just, I promised Aisha I’d do right by her baby.”
“Who saying you ain’t?”
She gulps down a breath, and her eyes leap from the dark curtains hanging over the bay window to my bare chest.
“You know, if it wasn’t for your daddy, I wouldn’t have this house, Pup. And I owe him a lot, ya’ know? Mama owed twenty thousand in back property taxes, and I bet on your daddy every damn Sunday until I got that twenty. He used to tell me he wasn’t gonna let me lose my legacy.”
I nod.
If it wasn’t for Senior, a lot of folks wouldn’t have anything around here, but some of them seem to have forgotten that.
“And I know you got a lot on your plate already with…you know.” She cuts her eyes at Slim, then looks back at me. “And I really don’t want to get you caught up in anymore mess, but I…I don’t…”
One time Senior told me that asking somebody for help wasn’t an easy thing to do.
He called it “humbling.” He said folks probably changed their minds at least twenty times before they got the courage to step foot on our porch, and sometimes it was okay to nudge them along to let them know you don’t think nothing less of them for asking for what they need.
“What you need me to do for you, B? You know I don’t mind helping you out around here.”
Her red-rimmed eyes touch mine, and she reaches out, tapping the pendant on my necklace. The air in the room is even more moist than it was before. It clings to my skin, and I feel the tiniest brush against my pinky finger. I glance down at Slim’s tiny fingers circling it.
When I glance back up, I catch Beatrice’s eyes on our conjoined hands.
She drops her finger from my necklace. “You remember we talked about me tryna’ make things work with Wendell again? He said he’d move back in and help me with the guys and with Tamryn. Well, he finally started moving his stuff in last Sunday, but…”
She looks down, shaking her head.
“But what?” I ask.
She lets out another loud sigh, looking up at the ceiling this time.
“The other day I saw him out back, drinking with Tim and Sam while Tamryn pushed some of the guys around the gazebo in their wheelchairs, and I…” She points her thumb toward her backyard.
“I saw him looking at her, but he wasn’t looking at my grandbaby like a grandparent should and I feel sick about that shit. ”
A little croak comes out of Slim’s mouth.
I really should’ve sent her ass back home because if Kenny really had big nuts, he’d really kill me for letting Slim follow me around and hear all the bad news folks was always laying at my feet, but it’s too late now.
She tangles her little fingers through the rest of mine, squeezing my hand and making my heart stutter while Beatrice crosses her arms.
“I know the laws ain’t gon’ do nothing because of a suspicion I have and I asked Tamryn but she…
” She shakes her head. “If I try to get him to go he’s not gonna leave, Pup.
This probably the nicest place he’s got to lay his head since him and Melo fell out, but I can’t have Wendell here—not looking at my grandbaby like that. ”
If I was truly that nosy motherfucka I told Slim I was, I’d ask more, but I really ain’t that dude. I’m just Pup.
“‘Kay… I’ll take care of it.” I nod just as the front door slams.
“Beatrice! That chili done?” Wendell yells. “I went and got that damn Lovelace boy like you said! I told you I could do whatever it is you be having him do around here. You act like he the only motherfucka that can cut grass and fix shit.”
Beatrice takes a step back from us, and Slim squeezes my hand harder. I wrap my other hand around the back of her neck, brushing my thumb across her soft skin.
“C’mere, mama. I wanna show you something,” I utter to her.
“But…but your birthday ca—”
“Shhh,” I hum out, turning her around by the neck and marching her through the threshold of the kitchen. “I’ll get B to cut you a piece.”
“But what if I don’t get to come ba—”
“Hush,” I coo.
A softness coats my voice because I ain’t used to being responsible for another woman besides Arnez—especially not a woman that requires as much softness and tact as Slim does, because she really is just a baby bird.
She didn’t know that Wendell really couldn’t do anything I did at Beatrice’s unless I told Beatrice I was okay with it.
He couldn’t paint her kitchen evergreen fog then fuck her in it, and he almost didn’t get to move in because I ain’t know how I felt about him roaming around her house.
But Beatrice said she wanted him. Who was I to tell her she couldn’t have what she wanted? She wasn’t mine.
Running water purrs from the half bath behind the front door as we round the corner of the kitchen threshold.
“Beatrice! I know you hear me!” Wendell’s voice trails off as we walk down the hallway where pictures of Aisha stare down at us in a way that makes the hairs on my arm stand up.