CHAPTER

35

I see fights in movies and on TV all the time. Kirk is always kicking somebody’s butt. Mr. Spock can do his Vulcan nerve pinch. And there’s sometimes a phaser or a lightsaber. But someone’s always the bad guy. Two good people could never get into a fight. Somebody’s gotta win.

The only real live fight I’ve ever seen was between Mrs. Turner and some other church lady from another part of town. I didn’t really know what they were fighting about, but it was at a church picnic and they knocked down a pan of cornbread. That fight was funny.

But Daddy and Uncle Richard’s fight was not. Everybody on the block was talking about it for days afterward.

They talked about what a shame it was to see brothers fighting over money. About how Daddy wouldn’t see that cash again after one of the police officers snatched it out of my hand to keep as evidence. About how they’d never seen a skinny little girl from Down South cause so much trouble.

I never thought that this was going to be the thing that forced Momma to get me back home to Granddaddy. This, and that other thing.

“Baby,” Momma says so softly that I don’t recognize her voice. “It’s time for you to come home now.”

Daddy is at the kitchen table eating a bowl of oatmeal. He’s been eating oatmeal for two weeks, since after the fight and spending the night in jail. The left side of his face is still swollen. I had to stay in Bianca’s room, where her abuela let us watch TV late into the night until the screen sizzled and fizzed like soda pop.

“I gotta stay and look after Daddy,” I tell her. I’m like Momma now. While she looks after her own daddy, I look after mine.

“Your father’s going to be all right, Ebony. He got his own self into that mess. You’re too young to get all caught up in his stuff.”

I watch as Daddy tries to chew with the bandage across his jaw. He broke it. He had a fat, busted lip, too, and a black eye from the fight with Uncle Richard, and from another fight while he was in jail.

“It’s my fault, Momma,” I say.

Daddy looks up at me and shakes his head. He didn’t tell Momma about my fib, which was really a straight-up lie. All he ever said to me was, “Broomstick, it’s my fault I didn’t do the right thing with that money in the first place.”

Momma says, “Nothing is your fault, Ebony. Now, I don’t want you coming down here with those thoughts in your head. Especially when you see your grandfather.”

I gasp. “Where is Granddaddy, Momma?”

“Ebony-Grace, your grandfather’s in the hospital now.”