Jackson rummages in his garage looking lost on his own property. Turning off the light, he moves toward the driveway with a wrench in his hand and freezes soon as he sees me.
“We need to talk about Layla.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Layla was at my house.”
Jackson’s face is blank. The grip on the pipe wrench tightens. “Where is my daughter?”
“Why was she at my house?”
He searches my face for clues, my clothes, my nice suit for blood.
“Where is she?”
“I can’t be responsible for every little thing. If something happened to Layla, I’m not—”
His hand firms around the wrench and he swings it at my head. I duck low and swing my fist and miss him.
We’re both too old for this shit, but it doesn’t stop us from trying to fight like we’re twenty years younger than our bodies perform. He manages to grab the right lapel of my suit, raising the wrench.
“Where the hell is Layla? If you hurt her I’ll kill—”
“Calm the hell down! I didn’t do anything to her. She was fine when she left my house. Kinda fine,” I manage to choke out.
“What do you mean ‘kinda fine’?”
“Has everybody lost their damn mind!” a voice calls out from behind. Auntie Violet. She’s all of five feet, but about as big and bad as any man I’d met in prison. She’s the only woman I know that seems to carry no fear.
She marches up to Jackson and me. “Jackson Blaisdell Potter, let him go right now!”
His hands release me. I forgot how strong he is. Most of the time that strength is cloaked in some turn-the-other-cheek-type bullshit he can preach to other people who don’t know what I know about him.
“Hey, Auntie Vi. Me and Jackson was just messing around is all.”
She crosses her arms. Much like she did when me and Jackson were kids, before she was gonna let us have it for whatever rule we broke. “Lebanon, do you take me for a fool?”
“No, ma’am, I don’t. Tensions are running high is all. It was just a misunderstanding.”
“About what? I heard you talking about Layla when I got out the car. The whole neighborhood could probably hear the both of you.” She expects an honest answer, and that, though I love her, I can’t give her.
“Auntie, me and Jackson is gonna get it squared away. We’ll figure it out like we always do, right?”
I turn and look at Jackson, and hope he understands my look, that all I need him to do is agree and shut the hell up about what’s going on...about the girls and about us.
“Momma, really, things got heated. We weren’t going to do any harm. Not really. Can you go back in the house and wait for me? I’ll come back in a few minutes and we’ll go visit Sara.”
Auntie Violet uncrosses her arms and looks at me. I already know the question forming in her mind.
“Lebanon, baby, you want to come? See Sara, talk to her?”
“I already did.”
“Well, why don’t you come up with us again. I’m sure Sara still wants to see you no matter what time of day or night. Maybe she—”
“Just...just don’t. Please. She ain’t you, Auntie Vi. She’s always gonna be the way she is, so stop hoping for different. I did a long time ago.”
Auntie Violet comes up to me, takes my face in her hands. For a moment, I bask in that warmth, the same kind when I was a kid, it was like she could reach this deep part of me I didn’t even know existed. Her touch and those eyes were what I always expected love to feel and look like. And the only reason I don’t try to start back up with Jackson is because of this woman here. If there’s anything good in me, anything at all, it was Auntie Violet who planted that seed. It might have fallen on hard ground, but at least she saw something in me enough to try and nurture whatever it was.
Behind me Jackson pleads, “Momma, go inside. I’ll be there soon to take you to see Sara. Lebanon and I have to finish talking.”
“Y’all weren’t talking. Y’all were fighting.”
“Mom, we got that out of our system.”
“We’re good, Auntie Vi. I promise.”
She lets go of my face and steps back and proceeds into the house. She turns around one last time, and I see her face search mine and I plaster on the most peaceful look I can muster. “I love you, Auntie.”
“Love you, too,” she replies. “Love you both.” And she disappears into the house.
Turning to face Jackson, I resume the line of questioning before our fight. “Why the hell was your daughter at my house?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me what she was doing after church. She was probably looking for Ruby,” he mutters.
“You need to learn to keep her in check.”
“Yeah, I see how well that’s worked out for you.”
“Watch it before you find yourself having to explain for past sins. I could go right into that house and tell Auntie Violet everything. Remember, none of us ever gets away from what we do. We might get by, but we never get away.”
“Believe me. I don’t want Layla doing what she’s doing, but Ruby is like her sister. She’s concerned for her like I was for you. Like when you’d come to my house after Sara had a go at you.”
“I remember that, but I remember other things, too.” I think about Jackson and how he was my brother, how the girl thinks of his daughter as her sister. These thoughts and this night, it’s too much. Alice is gone and my girl has run away. I just need it all to stop. I need his daughter to mind her own business. I need the girl to come back and she won’t do that unless it’s me and her, and only me and her.
“Just tell your girl to stay away from mine.”
“You know she won’t do that.”
“Make her, Jackson! Find a way to get Layla to listen to you.”
“You can’t even get Ruby to listen to you!”
“My family. My business.”
“It’s your business when it’s convenient, but it’s my problem when you come to me with your hand out, asking for another check.”
Jackson has this air about him when he feels justified. Standing tall, chest all puffed out, arrogant as hell and it makes me want to take the wrench in his hand and smash in that self-righteous face. Just hit him over and over and—
“This is done, Lebanon, this protecting you. The money, the lies, the gun. All of it! It’s been too long, and I’m done.”
All I do is laugh. It hurts like hell to do it, but I laugh.
“You protecting me? How soon we forget.”
“That was a long time ago.” His voice is softer.
That grip on the wrench is still tight, but Jackson won’t do anything. He’s probably mad he doesn’t have the courage to follow through on what he really wants to do. Not like I do.
“A long time ago, huh? That was fucking yesterday for me! I protect you, Jackson. Remember that. Those years I spent in that damn cell. That was to protect you. As far as what’s on paper, I’m the one who killed Syrus Myllstone. I’m the one who spent five years in a fucking cell! I’m the one who cops beat on over and over, and I never said your name. I remember the smell of my flesh burning with their cigarettes. I remember you not being able to look at me in that courtroom. Auntie Violet crying. Sara not coming at all. I protected you from all of that. So for the fucking love of Almighty God, do what I ask and keep your girl away from mine. I got plans too. May not be as big as the pastor of a church who people think pisses ginger ale, but I can carve out my own little stretch of the world. And you or Layla or anyone better not get in my way again.”
His fingers loosen on that wrench and his dark face is all screwed up, wrinkled in the wrong places.
“That’s right. I’m your savior. You never were tough. Not like me, so I saved you. Remember that and we won’t have to have any more of these conversations.”
I straighten my suit and my tie. “I’m gonna go home and get some sleep, then get the girl. She thinks she’s gonna make some kinda life for herself in Tennessee, get her happily-ever-after.”
“You can leave her be. Give her a chance to—”
Holding up my hand to stop any more of this spouting off of nonsense, I continue, “Now you know I hate repeating myself, but, because we’re friends, I’ll do it for you. Tell Layla to stop minding business that ain’t hers. Stay away from my house. Stay away from Ruby.”
I turn around and stroll away. I hear nothing from him. All I hear is the wind, just the wind.