Joanna hasn’t said more than a few words to me since we drove down Garfield Boulevard, barely acknowledged my existence since we left Roscoe Alman’s church an hour ago. Layla’s car is in front of the house, but she’s not here. I can’t find my pipe wrench. I know where the gun is though. The pipe under the kitchen faucet is leaking. Joanna asked me to fix it three weeks ago. Now is as good a time as any. A good time to get my mind off other pressing matters like murder and the disintegration of my family and jail time.
I really need to clean the basement, too. You can’t find anything down here; I can’t find my damn pipe wrench anywhere. It’s not in my tool box. I think I might have placed it upstairs, so I go back into the kitchen, and then the living room and Mom patiently waits.
Footsteps and a voice behind me. I hear Joanna say, “Violet, thank you so much for being here. I know it wasn’t the kind of trip you had in mind, but at least you’re here for another few days. We can do something nice. I can make you breakfast tomorrow. How does that sound?”
“Fine, baby, fine. Right now, I’m gonna sit here and talk to my son for a bit.”
Joanna hugs my mother. She turns to me. “I’m tired.” She leaves the living room.
That’s about four words now. Maybe five.
Mom turns to me. “Sit down, Jackson.”
The damn wrench has got to be up here, because I was supposed to fix something else, but Sister Austen called about her husband in the hospital, so I had to go to them and I didn’t get a chance to finish whatever it was I was doing.
I need to paint soon, too. I don’t like this brown color on the walls. Where is the damn wrench?
“Jackson! Sit down! You’re restless.”
“No, I’m not.”
My mom’s face is calm and not tense with argument because, as always, she knows she’s right. She needs no one else’s affirmation of what she knows to be true.
“Whenever you’re doing everything else but what you’re supposed to be doing, you have no peace.”
I just need to find my wrench. I need to fix that faucet. Joanna just needs me to do one thing. I just need to do this one thing.
Her hands, warm and firm, grip my wrist and barely encircle it. I see the difference in our tones, hers the color of ocean-kissed sand, and mine, darker like my father’s. She always said one of the things she liked most about Daddy was his color. She complained she was too light and though it was more popular and attractive, she believed the opposite—that her skin color dictated how black she really was.
I want to tell Mom everything, share with her who I thought I was and who I should be, but am not. I can’t speak and tears sting the backs of my pupils, their wet weight pressing forward and I try to take a deep breath. I try to think about something happy and there is only hot, blank white space where something happy should be.
“I’m fine.”
Chuckling, she replies, “You’re no more fine than I am white and rich and hell, that’s always been the best thing to be.”
My mom can see. She can see I’m hiding. She can’t see what it is, but she can see the pressure of it is breaking me. God, help me. I need to close these doors. I need to be free of secrets. I need to be free of guilt. I need to be free of Lebanon King, our hatred and my regret.
“Look, you’re not gonna get anything done like this. Take me to see Sara. I wanna sit with her for a bit.”
“I don’t know about the visiting hours.”
“Boy, I know you don’t like Sara, but we both know the visiting hours at that place. So just take me ’cause I’m not asking you again.”
I put on my coat and help Mom into hers. In the car, as I turn the ignition, I remember what is still in the trunk. I don’t turn to look Mom in her eyes. “I forgot my wallet,” I lie.
I pop the trunk and exit the car. Her stare burns a hole in my back. “I’ll be right back.”
Jogging to the trunk, I open it and dig behind the boring contents. My fingers find the paper bag tucked in the crevice behind the spare wheel hidden by the twenty-four pack of bottled water Joanna’s asked me three times now to bring into the house.
Mom rolls down the window and yells, “You forgot your wallet in the trunk, son?”
“I’ll be right back,” I repeat.
Grimly clutching the bag to my side, I walk to the garage. I worry about fingerprints, mine and Lebanon’s. Did he find out Alice wanted to leave him? That she was willing to put him in jail and possibly go to prison herself to be rid of him? Her eyes were wide when she begged me to help her, when she confessed her sins. And I did what I always did. I protected him to protect me, saved myself instead of someone else.
Scanning the shelves above my worktable, a large cookie jar sporting the title #1 Dad (And Cookie Eater) is the best temporary spot to hide this sin. I’m again covering for Lebanon like he did for me all those years go. Will this finally repay my debt to him? I send up a silent prayer that Joanna or J.P. or Layla don’t find this weapon.
Damn. There’s the wrench! Sitting plain as day on the work table. I grab it and move toward the car.
Before I take a few steps, I see Lebanon standing on my walkway in front me and he says, “We need to talk about Layla.”