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THE DAY AFTER STORM’S funeral should’ve been my day. Mine. But Mom’s only mission was to remind me that nothing—not my life, my time, or what few possessions I owned—belonged to me. If not for Selena and basic common sense, I would’ve believed her.
“Joy, get up.”
“I’m too tired.” I snuggled deeper under the plush blankets.
“I told you last night we were goin’ to The Glen to pack up some things.”
“Can’t we—”
“This is not up for discussion. Get up, or I’ll get you up.”
Rolling over, I muffled her voice with my pillow until she left me in peace.
Tiptoeing back inside before I passed into unconsciousness again, Mom stole my pillow-shield and doused me with a tall glass of water.
I choked and gasped at the shock of sudden cold on my face and the water rushing up my nose. I hopped to my feet and roared at her.
“You had fair warning,” she said with a smirk. “You should’ve listened the first time.”
My hair and oversized T-shirt clung to my face and body. Water trickled onto the hardwood floor in a steady stream. I hugged myself tightly, holding back the beast inside that wanted to permanently break her smile. I wasn’t Dad. I never wanted to be anything like him. But she had a way of coaxing that demon out of me sometimes.
A BABY’S CRY ECHOED through the dank corridor. Mom marched on to our old apartment, and I lagged behind, the knots in my stomach trapping my heart in its tangles. Tears swelled in my eyes as I stared at the door and sank deeper into sorrow.
“Let’s hurry up and get this done,” Mom said coolly, unlocking the door. It squeaked open.
I couldn’t move.
“Get in so I can shut the door already!” she snapped.
The previous day we’d held a service for my best friend. I was gonna take all the time my broken heart needed me to, regardless of what other crap she had to say. I could find my own way to Selena’s without her.
I thought back to the night of Storm’s death and Selena’s advice: to grieve my dog however necessary. I drew in a shaky breath, resolved to go head-to-head with my mom to do just that.
I inched cautiously inside, breathing through every memory flitting through my mind.
Nearly a week ago, her body lay there by the door. Hours before that, we cuddled, and for the last time, I kissed the top of her fuzzy head.
Every painful reminder of Storm’s absence, her crate and toys, among other things, had gone with Lucy when she came to collect Storm’s body and clean up the blood. Nothing could stop my visions of her roaming around, gnawing on ham bones, and lounging on our old, lumpy, pea-green sofa while I danced for her. I laugh-cried at the memory of her dopey eyes and the way they’d follow me across the floor, thoroughly unimpressed with my quickstep.
I PICKED THROUGH THE mass grave of broken owl sculptures in the dustpan. Only one chunky piece was still recognizable—the face of an adorable baby owl—a gift from the grandmother I never met on Mom’s side, Grandma Yara.
She died a month before I was born, but I wished more than ever to have had a real memory of her. Pictures and a few videos were the only remnants left of the Brazilian-born lady with warm, ebony skin, Mom’s honey-colored eyes, and sassy attitude.
The woman was a legend. She carved a life in a country where she knew only two words of the language and hustled until she achieved everything she wanted—a fresh start for herself and her husband who reunited with her a year after she left him, a comfortable life, and a better prospect for their children.
I looked up to my grandmother, and every owl figurine I collected was my small tribute to her.
How different my life could’ve been had she been here to guide Mom in taking care of me the way a normal mother would have. Maybe then, my hatred for her daughter would never have surpassed her daughter’s hatred for me.
Setting the baby owl face aside, I organized my drawings. I thumbed through the pages seven times, more annoyed with each pass. Dad had stolen two of my drawings. He was a phenomenal artist. So, why’d he steal them when he could have made his own copies? He created some of his best work when he was high anyway.
I plunked onto what remained of the empty frame of my bed. I had drawn them the month before we got Storm, at a time when death was my only fascination, a time when I felt so painfully alone I thought it could be the remedy to everything wrong with me and my life.
One was of myself laid in a coffin with ravens pecking my eyes and the other of a child drowning in the sea.
Those drawings offered Dad intimate glimpses into my brokenness—the ugliest, festering wounds inside of me—and he was the last person on the planet I would want to see that part of me.
I hopped to my feet and launched my already-broken lampshade into the door in a fit of rage. I hated him. I hated that he could continue to steal from me, from us. Plunder and pillage our home, our hearts, and our lives. I hated that he could carry on with his wreck of a life completely unbothered by it, leaving us in ruins all over again.
Underneath it all, knowing he could relate to me and those hideous depths of my soul drew on my fear in a way I couldn’t understand. I always knew he had darkness dwelling within him. My artwork confirmed to him that I did too.
MOM AND I SPEED-WALKED down the shaded path scattered with cigarette butts and litter, leaving the apartment full of packed boxes. Our old neighbors loitered outside, smoking weed or cigarettes and enjoying the pleasant weather. All I could think of was my growling belly when some bone-crusher of a man tackled us. My knee, shin, and elbow scraped the unyielding surface while the rest of me pummeled the concrete like a sack of wet laundry. Stray bullets from a drive-by whizzed over our heads with definite fatal intentions. Thankfully, they found new targets in the brick wall behind us, missing us by inches.
Mom forced my head into the dirty concrete and held it there for a minute even after the gunfire had subsided. “We’re okay. We’re okay,” she repeated to herself with terror in her eyes.
I blinked rapidly through my tears and looked around. Were they trying to kill us?
That mystery man who had saved us scrambled to his feet and tore off before we could thank him. With my hair in my face and tears in my eyes, I could hardly make out the massive blur of black with caramel skin.
Mom pulled me to my feet and swiped the dirt off my cheek and clothes. “You’re okay,” she said forcefully, packing away her own fear. Leveling her eyes on mine, she added, “Let’s keep this between us, okay?”
I nodded slowly and forced my legs against their will to keep up with Mom’s hurried steps toward the bus.
Another typical day in the old neighborhood, a neighborhood I never wanted to call home again.
“IS GIOVANNI COMING over today?”
I glared at Selena from the foyer while she stirred creamer into her coffee, set her spoon in the sink, and smiled. Mom nudged me out of the way to get the door closed.
“No.” I limped to my temporary room.
“Yo, Freckles. How come you never told us Giovanni was a little hotty? No wonder you’ve been over his house nearly every day last week,” Selena shouted over her shoulder.
Abandoning her steaming beverage, she chased after me and settled onto the edge of the mattress with a self-assured grin plastered on her face.
“You know, that boy looks like a heartbreaker. You better watch yourself.”
“Can you please go away?”
“Have you guys kissed yet? Come on, Joy. You ain’t gotta be shy with me. I won’t tell your mom,” she fake-whispered, knowing Mom could hear from the other side of the wall.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I growled, taking my ball cap off and chucking it at her. I kicked off my old sneakers one-by-one, making them fly into the closet.
“We’ll see about that.” She sashayed out of the room and shoved my mom in to take her place.
“Not you too?” I slipped into a pair of plush otter slippers.
“Come on. All you gotta do is tell us what we want to know.” Mom smiled at Selena, who spied on us from the hall. Crossing her arms over her chest, Mom hardened her jaw and barricaded the doorway like a thug, thinking she could intimidate me into breaking my supposed resolve.
“Let me out.”
Once her eyes challenged me, I turned away and rummaged through the bag in the closet for a clean change of clothes and sat quietly on my bed.
“Jubilee, tell us.”
“I did. But you don’t believe me.”
Selena banged the door open. The knob hit Mom’s back. Grabbing the sore place, Mom breathed through the pain.
“Fai, I’m sorry.”
That’s what she got for being a jerk.
I stepped through the door without further interruption while Selena tended to my mother.
IF I THOUGHT THEIR little tag team was bad before, they increased their teasing to a whole other level as soon as I abandoned the steamy bathroom with my hair wrapped in a massive towel turban. I’d left my phone on the kitchen table like an idiot, and Mom and Selena were itching to see why the boy on everybody’s mind was messaging me like a madman.
“Ooh! He’s missin’ him some Joy. What did he say?” Selena said.
I snatched my phone off the table and buried it in the pocket of my gray fleece pajama pants.
“Maybe the real answer is in here!” Mom announced, dancing my diary around the room with eyes full of mischief.
There were answers in there, alright, hard truths she pleaded ignorance to over the past eight years. I trembled with rage. Storm was dead. Elijah had long forgotten me. All I had left was that diary and Giovanni. Yet still, she had to pick at me.
“Go ahead! Read about everything I’ve been through with you as my mother and your husband as my father because that’s all that’s in there!” I screamed at her. “Why can’t you pretend to be a decent human being for once? This is my life. Let me have the one person who actually likes me for me and leave us alone, all of you! We’re just friends, alright? God!”
I snatched the diary from her mitts and raced to my room. Locking the door, I pushed the bed in front of it for good measure.
“Jubilee!” Mom shouted. “Open this door now!”
“Hey, Selena,” I said through the door. “Since you’re so desperate for something to talk about, why don’t you ask Mom about us almost getting shot today and why she wanted me not to tell you?”
“What? Fai, you guys almost got shot?”
I slipped my earbuds in and blasted a Kiah Victoria song without waiting on Mom’s reply. While Selena’s old laptop booted up, I sketched flyers for dog walking and pet sitting services, setting in motion my grand plan toward independence. I was gonna leave home and Mom for good, but I needed money and fast.
The vintage travel postcards and posters Selena had decorated the bedroom with fed my craving to escape.
“Pick a place, any place,” I said as I closed my eyes, spun three times, and waved my finger. “So, Berlin, Germany it is.” It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but why not?
Ping. Ping.
Two new notifications flashed across the phone screen, interrupting the song and my search for travel information for Germany—more messages from Giovanni.
—Can we hang out today? I am so bored.
I sighed when I remembered my original suggestion to him yesterday.
—My mom said I can’t today. Sorry, I messaged back.
I didn’t lie. After yelling at her and starting trouble between her and Selena, there was no way Mom would have let me go. Plus, with all their teasing earlier, I dreaded giving them more ammunition to use against me.
I burrowed under my covers and landed my face in the damp spot from Mom’s morning water treatment. I could not stand that woman. I furiously rubbed my cheek with the underside of my blanket and sprawled across the foot of the bed, peering at the purple orchid-colored wall.
I struggled to imagine Giovanni’s parents prying into his private life the way Selena and Mom tried to. His parents were too perfect. I wished they were mine.
I sat up halfway with a goofy grin on my face as a crazy idea surfaced in my brain. Maybe the Vitali’s could adopt me too.