I’m still in that house with Lebanon standing in front of me, a warped grin and green eyes. I’m still on the sidewalk standing in front of two white detectives with guns, badges and veiled threats. Physically, my body has just arrived back at home in the kitchen with Timothy, but my mind hasn’t caught up. Tim still holds this belief Dad will do the right thing. I’m not so sure. I know whatever this connection is between him and Lebanon, it will cause Dad to do the exact opposite of the right thing. Tim believes in the good of people. I’m more of the James Baldwin school: “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.”
Grandma Violet sits at the small table off to the side of the kitchen in her coat, a rare grimace creasing the edges of her soft face. When I asked her what’s wrong, all that came out of her mouth was “Grown folks’ business.” Code for: Mind your business, Layla.
But now this is something I can’t do. Minding our business got us in the mess we’re in, and I plan to clean it up: the secrets, lies, shame. It’s got to end if anyone in Ruby’s family or mine has a chance at some semblance of being free from whatever’s haunted our families generation after generation.
The back door of the house slams shut and within seconds my father’s hulking frame storms through the kitchen with a wrench in his hand. He stops short when he sees me. I’m expecting a lecture, some scripture, a why couldn’t you be a better daughter look in his eye, but instead his arms scoop me up and hold me. He just says “Layla” over and over again. My arms encircle his massive waist and I hug my dad back. The world melts away and we’re like we once were, when I was small and I’d run up to him after church and he’d pick me up and put me on his shoulders. I’d laugh and he’d laugh. I believed I could see the whole world when he did that and I knew, I knew my father loved me.
Dad lets me go and I want to hold him tighter, but I don’t.
“Where were you?”
I look at Tim and he nods. “I went to meet Ruby after church. I think something bad is gonna happen. I think Lebanon really killed Auntie Alice. I think Ruby is next. I don’t think she can take much more of him now that Auntie Alice isn’t here. I think she’d rather hurt herself than live with Lebanon.”
Dad’s light brown eyes darken and narrow. He shakes his head. “You don’t know that.”
“I know I found a bullet in his bedroom. I know there are two detectives who think he did it, too! Why are you still protecting him? He’s a monster, and if you keep taking up for him, you’re no better than he is!”
“Leave it alone, Layla.”
I turn to Tim and say the four words I knew I’d say when we left his apartment: “I told you so.”
The small patter of footsteps I hear behind me and Grandma Violet stands between me and Dad for the second time today.
“I told you both this fighting nonsense has got to stop.”
“We’re going to find Ruby, Grandma. I’ll let you know when we do.”
Dad grabs for my arm, but I snatch it away just before he manages to get me. “You will do no such thing, Layla.”
“Yes, because forbidding me to do things always works out so well for you.”
Mom opens her bedroom door and comes out to see, and possibly to play peacekeeper between me and my father. Tim touches my arm, a signal to calm down.
Grandma Violet takes my hands in hers. “Baby, there’s some more to this than you know, you and your dad. You can’t keep trying to fix what’s broken.”
“You do it all the time.” I look from Grandma Violet to my father.
“Child, be better than me! Be better than your daddy.”
“I’m trying to be, which is why I’m going to find Ruby.”
“I’ve had about enough of your insolent attitude, Layla. You will obey me!” I can’t remember a time he looked more angry.
“You can’t control me,” I shoot back. “You order me to obey, talk about God and love. You don’t do any of it. You’re a fraud! You’re not a pastor. You’re a fake.”
Grandma’s and Mom’s eyes sharply turn in my direction. I poured tons of gasoline on this situation and just lit the match. My father’s eyes grow wide.
“Reverend Potter, we just want to make sure—”
“I’m not asking for your permission,” I say cutting off Tim’s predictably diplomatic response. “I’m telling you we’re going so no one is wondering where I am.”
“Honey, let her go do this. Ruby needs help. Let Layla help her,” Momma pleads.
“I’m not debating this, Joanna. I’ve made my decision.”
“She doesn’t need your approval to make a decision, Jackson. She’s already made it. She just needs you to respect it. That’s all.”
“I’m not a child,” I add echoing my Mom’s sentiment. “I’m not under your thumb. I’m not going to let you hold me back from saving Ruby.”
His meaty hand curls into a fist. He might hit me. I might push him just that far. Yet while it’s all hot under my skin and I know I should be calm, I’m not because it feels good to let go of this anger, and to hurt my father while doing it.
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“You don’t want to protect me. You couldn’t give a damn about anyone but yourself—just like always.”
“I care about—”
“About your reputation, Pastor, but not about me or Ruby or what I’m trying to do!”
“So you’re just going to go off in the middle of the night with him?” He gestures at Tim. “You know people talk about the two of you already. Do you know how that looks to others in the congregation?”
“I don’t give a good damn how it looks to anybody!”
“You don’t care about how your actions affect this family,” he accuses.
“That’s all I care about. Everything I do, I wonder how it looks. What you’d do. What you’d think. I’m so mixed-up because I barely have time for my own thoughts. I’m done with it! I’m done with you!”
We are less than two feet apart and my eyes match his—our color, our stubbornness, our pride; all of it crackles and pops like cooking oil over a high fire.
Tim wedges himself between the two of us and says, “Reverend, Ruby and Layla grew up together. Layla just wants to be a good friend, a good person, like you raised her to be. Haven’t you needed to be a good friend before?”
Something snaps across those light brown eyes, but my father quickly regains his anger.
I haven’t lost mine.
“If you leave, Layla, you’re not welcome back in this house. The church. You’re not welcome with me. You’re a disgrace and no better than a whore if you leave.”
Momma yells, “Jackson!”
“He doesn’t mean that, baby. He’s just angry,” Grandma Violet consoles.
I laugh. I am mad as hell and I laugh. It is a weird and slightly unhinged sound. Tim looks at me with a measure of what I assume is concern as I cock my head and spout, “Better his whore than your daughter!”
I turn and stalk out of the kitchen. I don’t look at Grandma Violet’s face or Momma’s. I know they’re sad and hurt, for my father and me.
Timothy’s hard footsteps follow mine out the door, and into the night. The rotting pile of aluminum, metal and rubber that is the Black Stallion slumbers in front of the house.
“He’s not as bad as you make him out to be...Reverend Potter. There’s something to be said for protection,” Tim offered.
“He protected me by calling me a whore. That’s what passes for protection with you?” I fume.
“You said your words, too.”
Frigid gusts of wind chafe my lips and I believe it some appropriate penance by nature.
“My dad said a lot of messed-up stuff when he was drunk,” Tim confesses, “but none of it was to keep me from anything.” He doesn’t meet my eyes as he speaks, but peers through threadbare tree branches to a somber black sky. “His drinking never served a purpose, never covered up how broken he was.”
“Your dad used liquor. Mine uses God and self-righteousness.”
“I’m not thinking about whiskey or Bibles or God, Layla. I’m thinking about actions,” Tim says and, though his tone is sharper than I’ve heard, an earnest plea belies his frustration.
I grab Tim’s hand. He stops looking at the sky and his eyes bore into mine. “There’s something going on, and whatever it is, your dad’s afraid for you, for himself,” he cautions.
The rumbling of J.P.’s blue-and-white Mustang pulling up to the curb interrupts our conversation. I let go of Tim’s hand. Stepping out of his car, J.P. plants his legs on the grass and he stands, but he keeps going up and up and up.
“Lala!”
Holding a paper bag with light streaks of grease and the aroma of something deliciously grilled, he gives Tim a quick punch on the shoulder. J.P. goes to hug me, but stops short when he sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Dad.” All this word implies, all prior fights, history, the general knowledge of who Jackson Blaisdell Potter Sr. is and how who he is affects us, is wrapped up in our sibling understanding when I just say “Dad” to J.P.
“Alright then,” J.P. says. “So where you off to?”
“Going to find Ruby before Lebanon finds her.”
“You need my help?”
“The less people involved, J.P., the better.”
“You sure you got this, sis?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this. I want to, but so much can go wrong. So much has gone wrong already.”
“All this shit, with you, with Ruby, with Dad, you looking at your problems like they bigger than you. You looking at your situation like it’s a wall. It’s not. It’s a hurdle. Jump the hell over it.”
I hug J.P. I squeeze him for all it’s worth and he lets out this big whoosh of air when I let go.
“Thanks for the kick in the ass.”
He laughs, it’s more like a yuck-howl, then smiles.
“He’s in a bad mood so if you can, try and steer clear,” my last and only parting words of wisdom to my baby brother.
“Unlike you, sis, the old man can’t get to me. All that melancholy, spiritual bullshit he puts himself through, hell, that’s on him.”
I want to be like him in that moment. To give not one good damn.
I suddenly feel Tim’s hand grip mine. “We have to go to the church,” I say.
“The church? You wanna pray for Ruby?”
“No. Buy plane tickets.”
Tim looks at me puzzled, waiting for the punch line.
Grabbing his muscular arm, I lightly tug as my feet move through the grass toward his dark blue Ford F-150.
“If it makes you feel better, we can also pray for Ruby and cheap seats while I’m buying the tickets from Dad’s office.”
Go!