Emory
You know what I resented? Everything. But especially peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They were supposed to be easy to make but they were a bitch to get right. Everybody wanted ’em a different way. How was I supposed to know to cut the crusts off? More jelly than peanut butter. Strawberry or raspberry jam. It was impossible, and I was doing it alone.
Me in the kitchen while Jay and Kai laughed in the living room. I could see them, having a jolly time while I smeared sticky peanut butter on white bread and hoped I was doing it right.
Jay placed Kai’s feet on the carpeted floor, held Kai’s hands from his place perched on the side of the sofa, his movement making the cheap leather squeak. Kai shrieked, giggled as he held on to his father’s hands, standing and bouncing at the knees. This was his new favorite thing, standing. I could see from the bubbles his mouth blew how badly he wanted to walk before he crawled.
“You could help out over here,” I mumbled. Maybe I was being whiny, but Jay had shown up with Lion this morning without any warning and now he wasn’t even gonna help me make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (without the bottom crust, but with the top crust, and lots of jelly but only if it’s grape) or answer Lion’s questions about his mother and sister.
It wasn’t fair that Jay got to sit there, making our baby laugh, and I had to take all the moments when he cried, when he found himself in the worst parts of the house and crammed pieces of years-old food into his mouth. Though I guess if Pawpaw let Jay, he’d be here for all of it. But he wouldn’t and he wasn’t, so I was rightfully mad.
Jay rolled his eyes and stood, picking up Kai and making his way to the kitchen, where Lion sat at the table drinking apple juice, and instead of helping me with the food, Jay sat down at the table with Lion, bouncing Kai on his knee.
I closed up Lion’s sandwich and cut it in half, brought him his plate.
Lion looked up at me, his brows knit, his eyes flooding. “Momma cuts it in four pieces.”
I sighed, went back to the counter and grabbed the knife, brought it back. Sliced the bread again.
My hands were smeared in peanut butter and I went to the sink to wash them. I knew I had no right to be mad that Lion was here. That he was scared. That Simone didn’t want my help yesterday. That Tooth was the one who’d called Jay this morning and asked him to watch Lion until Simone and Luck were out of the hospital. I couldn’t say I would’ve done nothing different from Simone if it’d been me and at least Lion was safe with us, even if only for the next hour.
I sat down across from Jay. “You sure Tooth’ll come get him by one?”
“That’s what he said. Luck should be discharged by one and then he’ll come grab Lion.”
“Pawpaw comes home for lunch at two, so you gotta be gone by then. And when Tooth comes, you can handle that. I’m not talking to him.”
“Why you not talking to him? I mean, I get why Money don’t wanna talk to him, but why you?” Jay’s voice dropped. “You didn’t fuck him, right?”
“Don’t cuss in front of them,” I hissed.
Lion giggled. “Momma say bad words are okay if you don’t say ’em to strangers.”
“Or people at school, right?” Jay raised his eyebrows at Lion. “When y’all go to kindergarten next year, you not gonna be cussin’ in front of the other kids or your teachers, huh? You don’t want them putting you on the naughty kid list.”
“There’s a naughty list?” Lion asked.
“Oh yeah. It’s how Santa makes his choices about presents.” Jay turned back to me. “Emmy, you on the naughty list?”
“No, Jay, I’m not. I haven’t done nothing with Tooth. I just don’t like him.”
I wished it came down to likes or dislikes. That would’ve made hating Tooth simpler, but really I’d never minded him. He didn’t do nothing to me and I rarely saw him anyway, but now when I pictured him, all I thought of was Adela. How he was the one she loved, how she’d chosen him and betrayed Simone all in one swoop. How could I cordially pass his child off to him like he hadn’t ruined the life I wanted? Like sitting here at this table with Jay, marsh grass braided on my finger, wasn’t all his fault.
“If you say so.” Jay shrugged.
“Whatever,” I said, reaching my hands out for Kai. Jay passed him off and I left the room with him, went into my bedroom, where I could nurse Kai alone in the dark and let my tears go. Where I could be a bucket under a leaky roof without letting Jay dump himself into me and leave me feeling guilty for overflowing.
I replayed the fight between the three of them in the hospital in my head and tried to figure out who to be angry with. Adela, for not loving me. Tooth, for manipulating Adela into loving him. Simone, for not seeing it coming. All of them, for their lies, for their vanishing, for their disregard of me in any of it. I knew I didn’t have no right to be the forefront of everyone’s thoughts, but how could Simone not have sensed something and warned me? How could Adela not think to tell me sooner?
Maybe I’d never loved Adela. Maybe all this was fate leading me back to Jay. To stay in Padua Beach even if I never got to swim with sea otters. Maybe all this was one big reminder that the only thing that mattered was the kids. I looked down at Kai in the dark and whispered, “You, my little melon, are the only thing that matters.”
Kai was just suckling for comfort, not drinking nothing, when I heard the door open and Pawpaw’s bellow rattle through the house. I pulled my bra back up and sprinted to the living room, where Lion was sitting on the couch watching cartoons and Jay was sitting beside him, his phone on his lap. Pawpaw had a plastic bag of groceries from the Winn-Dixie that he’d dropped to the floor and his face was bloating redder by the second. I looked at my phone. It was 2:03. We’d lost track of time and Tooth still wasn’t back to get Lion.
“Pawpaw, Jay and Lion were just leaving. They were supposed to go before you got home.”
He looked from the couch to me, his eyelids spread so wide I could see the blood vessels leading back into his skull.
“So you decided it was okay to…to…” Pawpaw seemed to catch himself before his tongue tipped off a ledge and the strangest thing happened. My pawpaw, who normally lectured at me till the sun went down, straightened his spine and pursed his lips and spoke slowly. “You decided it was okay to come into my house and trek in all this sand? You know how hard your grammy works to keep this house clean.”
“Sand?”
I looked around the room, an ocean of brown carpet, and sure there were grains of sand sprinkled into the foundation of the rug that’d been there for as long as I had, but nothing more than normal.
“Yes, Emory, sand. You and your…friend…came into my house with your shoes on and got sand everywhere and now how am I supposed to enjoy my home on my only break from a long day at a job that pays me next to nothing? I use my whole check on you, slave away all day, and this is how you repay me? You wanna have a child young as you are? Fine. You wanna forgo the natural way of things and do it out of wedlock? I can’t stop you. But you want to mess up the house I so graciously raised you in after your fool of a mother left you stranded? I won’t have it, Emory. I just won’t.”
Somehow this was worse than if he just came out and said he hated Jay, that finding him and Lion on his couch made him writhe deep beneath his skin where his veins snaked. Worse than if he just looked me in the eyes and said, I wish we’d never taken you in. Or better, I wish you’d never been born. Instead, he couldn’t even admit it, so how was I supposed to respond to his complaints about some sand?
“You want me to vacuum? Fine, buy a vacuum and I’ll do it.”
“I certainly won’t be buying no two-hundred-dollar vacuum to clean up your mess. You gonna get down on your hands and knees and pick each speck off that floor till I can take my shoes off and sink my tired feet into my soft, clean carpet.”
Something about that must’ve shocked Jay out of his stupor ’cause he stood, quick and unexpected.
“Sir, I’m sorry about the…the sand. I don’t got a vacuum but I’m sure I could rent one out from somewhere and bring it. I’ve got a truck, you know, and a job over in Panama City. You ever been out there, sir?”
Pawpaw glared at Jay wicked and I gulped.
“I lived ’round here my whole life, course I’ve been. I’ve been up and down this coast more times than you can imagine. In fact, I’ve been alive since long before you could buy a vacuum on the internet, so don’t go acting like you can teach me nothing. I know everything I need to know.”
“I’m sorry, sir, that’s not what I meant. I just wanted to fix the problem so Emmy doesn’t have to clean more than she already does.”
He’d said the wrong thing. We both knew he had, the moment he said it, but it was too late.
Pawpaw laughed. “Emory don’t clean any more than I’m sure you do. In fact, she don’t do much of nothing around here, hasn’t since she arrived on my doorstep, her mother getting it in her head she could have all she wanted without no work, like she’s better than the rest of us. Bet you think you’re better too, huh? Can’t stand people like you, walkin’ all over people like me and getting excused for it, not even having to marry a girl after you knock her up, then tracking sand into my house. You’ve got some nerve, boy.”
Jay straightened, looked proud. “Actually, sir, I am marrying her. And I intend to clean the house and respect you and Emmy’s grammy like you my own, I swear, and if you want me to get on my knees and clean, I—”
“Jayden, stop!” I yelled.
He’d said too much. He didn’t know Pawpaw like I did. He didn’t know that all he needed was a reason to storm.
Pawpaw’s face was redder than I’d ever seen it, like all the blood in his body was pooling in his head, poisoning him. Kai was silent for the first time all day, like he understood what was about to happen, Lion unsure if he should listen to the old man who walked in the door or keep watching his cartoons, so he stayed huddled on the couch, his eyes flitting between the two.
Pawpaw’s lips curled. His forehead wrinkled and then turned smooth. He looked at me, and I knew it was over. It’d been coming for a while, ever since Kai was born, ever since that hurricane, but now Pawpaw had reached his final straw, the moment when he decided Grammy couldn’t protect me no more, that their sweet granddaughter couldn’t be saved from the legacy her mother gave her. The moment his carefully crafted image of me rotted on the edges like a water-stained book.
“Married, is that right? Well, Emory, I guess it’s about time you moved outta here and started living with your husband the way any young lady’s got to.” Pawpaw picked his grocery bag back up and grinned wildly at me, his face still bright red. “In fact, let’s start now. How ’bout you go to your room and pack a bag and get goin’ before the sun sets. I’ll tell your grammy all about it and I’m sure she’ll be just delighted to go to the wedding. Maybe she’ll walk you down the aisle like your pecker of a daddy would’ve, if he hadn’t turned out to be a real motherfucker. Hope you fare better than that, angel. You can write me a letter sometime and tell me how it’s goin’. Send a picture of your wedding dress, why don’t you?”
Pawpaw ushered me out of the living room, toward my bedroom, swatting like I was a possum that somehow got in the house.
“Oh, and here’s a little wedding gift for you.” He rummaged around in his grocery bag and pulled out a long stick of beef jerky, tossed it at me. It hit the floor in the door of my bedroom. He kept coming at me and I was scared he was gonna go get the broom and start hitting me till I packed a bag and left, so through my tear-washed eyes, I started throwing clothes in my backpack, pacifiers and onesies in my diaper bag, whatever I saw.
“Please, Pawpaw, don’t do this,” I whimpered as he tormented.
“Shee-iitt, might be a while ’fore I see you, so how ’bout a baby shower gift too, huh? I’m sure you’ll have another one on the way in no time.” He threw a sponge at my feet. Then a bag of corn chips. A jar of mayonnaise. A loaf of white bread. “You know, Emory, I always knew it’d come to this. From the moment you came to live with us, I knew you’d be gone before you graduated. A girl who can’t clean up no sand don’t got no reason to be hanging around her pawpaw’s house or working some mindless job like us. No, you’ve always been so progressive, sweetheart, always doing the new hip thing, marrying a boy like that, having a baby that looks just like him. You always liked the monkeys at the zoo, remember? Just loved ’em. Ha! Look at you now.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I lifted the backpack and diaper bag over my shoulder and ran past Pawpaw into the living room, where Jay already had Lion in his arms, the door open. Lion burrowed into his neck but didn’t cry. Or if he did, I couldn’t hear it through my own sobs as I followed them out the door, turned around to see Pawpaw standing in the hallway, his face gone from red to near purple, and he didn’t look like the pawpaw who tucked me in at night or the pawpaw who lost everything he had in one quick swoop but got right back up and found a way to make sure I never had a worry in my head. He looked feral, villainous, plain mean. Not like the man who raised me at all.
I slammed the door shut and fought not to look back.