12. JB
JB
Five years behind them damn walls, and now Lee was standing in the airport holding her first passport like somebody had handed her the world.
I’d made her apply for it almost as soon as she got home and paid to rush it, but I wouldn’t tell her why, so she knew we were going somewhere.
She just didn’t know where. I stood there with her suitcase beside me feeling guilty as hell, because she thought this trip was nothing but me loving on her.
“Baby, look at this,” she said, flipping through the pages for probably the third time in ten minutes. “I ain’t never even had one of these. Where are we going, JB? You still won’t tell me nothing.”
“It’s a surprise, Leona. Stop asking.”
“You crazy.” She pulled out her phone and held the passport up beside her face. “I gotta show Anika. Girl is gonna lose her mind.”
I shook my head as she took about five pictures before deciding she liked one enough to send.
I booked the trip because I wanted to get her teeth fixed so she could stop hiding her mouth every time she laughed, take her somewhere she’d never been, and let her see something besides Mobile for a few days.
But there was something in it for me too, because I had already decided I was telling her about Hannah while we were gone.
That shit had been eating at me since I booked the flights, and I promised myself I wasn’t bringing her back home without telling her everything.
By the time we landed in Medellín and made it outside the airport, Lee damn near stopped walking. Mountains surrounded the city, and she was looking around so hard I had to grab her arm and pull her out the way of some people trying to get past us.
“Baby, listen to everybody talking.” She grabbed my arm and squeezed. “Look at these mountains, JB! They right there. Like they hugging the whole city.”
I laughed and pulled her closer. “I knew you would like it.”
“Like it? I love it! This is unreal.”
Seeing her that happy fucked with me. I took damn near a hundred pictures of her that first night, pulling my phone out every time she stopped to look at something and even recording her trying to pronounce the Spanish words on the signs.
Maybe I was doing it because I knew once I told her about Hannah, I might never see Lee this happy with me again.
The hotel room in El Poblado was nice as hell, with big windows looking out over the city, a balcony that wrapped around the room, and an infinity pool outside with the mountains sitting behind it. Lee barely got through the door before she dropped her bags and ran straight across the room.
“JB!”
“What?”
“Come look at this shit!”
She snatched the balcony door open and stepped outside. Before I could even put my duffel down, she already had Anika on FaceTime.
“Girl, guess where I’m at!” she yelled into the phone.
I walked out behind her as she flipped the camera toward the view.
“No, seriously, guess. Look at this! Look at this pool, Anika! I feel like I’m in a movie.”
I leaned against the doorway watching her pace up and down the balcony, excited about every damn thing she saw.
How the fuck you break somebody’s heart while they this happy?
The next morning, all that excitement disappeared soon as we got to the dental clinic. Lee sat in the chair with her hands balled up in her lap, looking at every damn instrument they had laid out like one of them was about to jump off the tray and attack her.
“You alright?” I asked.
She nodded.
“You lying.”
“I’m nervous.”
I reached over and grabbed her hand. “I’m right here.”
When the dentist came in and asked what brought us in, Lee went quiet. She looked down at her lap for a second before finally answering.
“I hate smiling.”
The dentist looked at her. “Why is that?”
Lee lifted her hand to her mouth. “I got into a fight while I was locked up. Somebody caught me across the face and chipped my front tooth near the bottom. It started turning gray after that.”
After some X-rays and a couple tests, the dentist explained that the hit had damaged the nerve in that front tooth, which was why it had turned gray. That one needed a root canal before they could finish the rest of her smile.
I knew about the tooth. I’d seen it, and I knew she kept covering her mouth when she laughed and barely showed her teeth in pictures anymore. But hearing her sit there and explain how it happened did something to me.
Prison had already taken enough from her. Now even smiling had turned into something she had to think about.
The dentist pulled up a digital picture showing what her teeth could look like when everything was finished, and Lee stared at the screen.
“I always wanted my whole smile done anyway,” she said. “Even before I went in.”
Her eyes filled up before she could blink the tears away, and when she covered her mouth with both hands and shook her head, I had to look away for a second. That shit got to me more than I wanted her to know.
The clinic had its own lab, so her permanent veneers would be ready in a few days. Until then, they put her in temporaries. Shit, they looked good enough to me, and soon as Lee saw herself in the mirror, she couldn’t stop smiling.
For the next few days, we stayed our ass in them Medellín streets.
We rode that cable car thing over the city, hit some markets, ate everything we came across, and took more damn pictures than I had probably taken in my whole life.
Lee had me trying coffee, pastries, and all kinds of shit I couldn’t pronounce because she wanted to try everything.
I ain’t give a damn what we did. I was just happy seeing my baby enjoy herself.
Every time we passed a window, she’d catch herself in the reflection and smile. Not that little closed-mouth shit she’d been doing since she came home either. She was showing all her damn teeth now, and watching her slowly get comfortable smiling again made the whole trip worth it to me.
It also made telling her the truth damn near impossible.
I tried three different times. Every damn time, I’d get as far as, “Lee, I gotta tell you something,” and then she’d smile at me or grab my hand talking about some shit she wanted to see, and I’d bitch up.
That’s really what it was. I kept telling myself I didn’t wanna ruin her trip, but the truth was I ain’t wanna see that smile disappear knowing I was the reason.
By the fourth night, I knew I couldn’t keep putting that shit off.
I made us reservations at El Cielo, somewhere nice where we could sit down, eat, and actually talk.
Halfway through dinner, I looked across the table at her and decided I was just gonna say it before I could talk myself out of it again.
“Lee.”
She looked up at me. “What?”
“Baby, there’s something I need-”
“I got something too.”
Before I could finish, she reached across the table and grabbed my hand.
“I just… I wanted to say thank you.”
I frowned. “For what?”
“Not for the trip. Not for my teeth. For everything.”
“What you thanking me for?”
“For still being here.”
Fuck.
She squeezed my hand before she continued. “People kept telling me I was stupid. My mama, Anika, everybody. They thought I was throwing my life away doing federal time for a man.” She looked right at me. “But I knew if I could just make it home to you, it’d all be worth it.”
I ain’t say shit because I couldn’t.
I had sat my ass down at that table planning to tell her about Hannah, JJ, and the baby, and now Lee was sitting across from me telling me them five years had been worth it because she still had me.
How the fuck was I supposed to follow that?
Yeah, baby. Glad them five years was worth it. By the way, I got a three-year-old son and another baby on the way.
I couldn’t do it. So once again, I sat my lying ass right there and ain’t tell her shit.
Two days later, we were back at the clinic for her permanent veneers. When they handed Lee that little mirror, she ain’t say nothing for a minute. She looked at herself from one side, then the other, running her tongue across her teeth before she finally smiled.
Her whole face changed.
“Damn,” she whispered.
Her hand came up to cover her mouth out of habit, but she caught herself and slowly dropped it again.
“JB, look.”
I laughed. “Shit, I’m looking.”
She smiled even bigger, and there she was.
My Lee.
The one who used to stay in somebody’s camera and smile big as hell without giving a damn who was looking. Prison had took a lot of shit from her, but watching her stand there cheesing at herself in that mirror made me feel like she had got a little piece of herself back.
“You like ’em?” she asked.
“Hell yeah. But you know I thought you was fine before them motherfuckers.”
She rolled her eyes. “Boy, shut up.”
She kept smiling though, and I couldn’t stop looking at her.
After the clinic, Lee wanted to walk around Laureles and grab some shit for everybody back home. She ain’t care nothing about no designer stores either. She wanted coffee, magnets, and little handmade shit she couldn’t get back in Mobile.
She bought Anika a wooden jewelry box, found Mama Maisie a colorful woven pouch, and damn near argued this man down over the price of a blanket.
I just stood there shaking my head, because that was Lee.
She could be all the way in Colombia getting her own shit together and still be thinking about everybody else.
While she was busy going back and forth with the man over that damn blanket, I slipped inside a little jewelry spot down the street. Ten minutes later, I came back out with a black box in my pocket.
That night, Lee was in the hotel room trying to figure out how the hell she was gon’ fit all the shit she’d bought into her suitcase when I tossed the box on the bed beside her.
She looked at it, then at me. “What’s this?”
“Open it.”
“JB, you done spent enough money on me.”
“Lee. Open the damn box.”
She rolled her eyes but pulled the ribbon loose. Soon as she opened it, her whole face lit up.
“Awww, JB.”
She picked up the gold bracelet and ran her thumb across the little bar in the middle before reading what I had engraved on it.
Always.