"HI MAMA, HOW WAS work?” Jackie was the first one to stomp up the porch steps, grinning from ear to ear. Don’t know why she had to walk so hard. Sounded like a grown ass man coming up in my house.
She’d gotten real good at acting grown but she was still a chile. So, I couldn’t answer most of her questions honestly.
“Work was fine.” Which was mostly true since I’d managed to stay away from Mr. Bryer for the whole day.
“Hi mama,” Nikki and Mya slipped past us and into the house, dropping their book bags near the front door. The two of them took off running. Not long after, somewhere in the back Nat squealed, welcoming her sisters back home.
Jackie stayed with me. Telling me all about her day while she unpacked her book bag.
“Y’all can take a rest, have a snack and then you gonna get started on your homework.”
“Okay, Mama. NIKKI, MAMA SAID FIX US A SNACK! AND MAKE IT SNAPPY!”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Like what?” Jackie shrugged, pretending to be innocent. “Not my fault she stay in the kitchen.”
Nikki was exactly where we thought she’d be. She’d laid out bread slices, jars of peanut butter and jelly, and was picking through the fruit basket. I was lucky she was so steady with all the domestic stuff. Just woke up one day and realized she could do everything I could and it ain’t seem to wear on her none. Like she was made for it. Pissed me off. I’d spent damn near my whole life in somebody’s kitchen and I wasn’t about to raise my girls to do the same. But before I could correct the situation Mya distracted me. She popped up in my peripherral vision, arms crossed over her chest. She had a big old band-aid slapped over her elbow.
“What happened to you?”
“She fell.” Jackie sat at the table and leaned down to tickle Nat as she explained. “She was racing the fifth grade boys during recess. All of them. She gotta race them because the boys in her grade won’t do it no more cause she always win. And then Jonathan Murphy had to go and say that boys are faster than girls so…you see mama, she had to. I woulda raced them too but these my favorite shoes. I didn’t wanna mess them up. If I woulda raced we both woulda won. Right Mya?” Jackie didn’t pause for an answer. She just kept going. Describing the looks on their faces when Mya came in second. She could’ve gone on about it for a good ten minutes but Mya looked like she’d already forgotten about it. Her dark stare was fixed on me, thinking on something else.
“What’s wrong baby?” I heard myself say just as Jackie was taking a breath.
“We ever gonna get to see daddy again?”
Silence filled the kitchen and all eyes locked on me. Couldn’t tell them the truth—that I hoped not.
“What if he sorry about hitting Jackie? Ain’t we supposed to forgive somebody when they sorry.”
Ricky hadn’t been sorry a day in his life, but I couldn’t say that either. Besides, Mya seemed real sure of what she was saying…like she had first hand knowledge of his sorriness.
I took a seat at the table and beckoned her over to me. Needed to put my hands on my girl.
“Where’s all of this coming from?”
“Daddy say he told you he was sorry but you don’t wanna forgive him. He say that you hate him and you spreading lies about him so you can take all his money.”
The restraining order said he wasn’t supposed to go anywhere near the girls. Not at home and not at school. That little piece of paper was all the protection I had and it apparently didn’t mean a damn thing. But I ain’t wanna scare them so I smiled and asked, “When your daddy tell you this?”
Mya shook her head. “He didn’t.” I was about ready to call her on the lie when she said, “Jonathan Murphy did. He say his daddy talked to daddy. And…”
“And what?”
“Nothing.”
She clammed up after a double glance from Jackie and Nikki. But it was too late. The nerves that was usually reserved for bedtime pricked at the hairs on the back of my neck and ran up and down my arms. Folks thought I was overreacting when I kicked Ricky out. I was just being overly emotional when I said he beat us. They pittied him and was suspicious of me. How Ricky pulled that off was beyond me. I forced a smile and asked her again as sweetly as I could.
“What else did your daddy tell him?”
“That you umm…doing stuff with your boss you not supposed to be doing. To get money.”
IF HELEN KNEW WHICH one of the girls we worked with was Ricky’s snitch, she wasn’t letting on. She stood at the elevator, pressing the button and giving me that it’s-for-your-own-good face. She’d told me a bunch of times to let it go. Said I didn’t need to let Ricky get me so worked up. I told her she could advise me on my feelings when her husband was telling her kids that she was a whore.
Helen went up in the elevator and I took the stairs down to the first floor and slipped out the employee entrance into the side parking lot. It was close to the loading dock but a brick wall separated me from the men unloading things and joking around. Customers didn’t come through that way so that’s where we went to chit-chat and grab a smoke.
I’d just lit up when I heard somebody calling my name.
“Now, what kinda mama take up such a nasty habit?”
Ricky was always real good about scaring the living daylights outta me. He’d find the worst moment in my day to remind me that I was his. And obviously the fact that I was divorcing him didn’t change that.
“Since when you start smoking, Pecan?”
My fingers twitched slightly as I took another puff, then I dropped it to the ground and stepped on it. Wasn’t none of his business and I meant to say so, just as soon as I found my voice.
“Hope my girls don’t take up after you. They see how their mama is and think that’s how they supposed to be.”
“What you want Ricky?”
He waved his finger back and forth, pointing at the building behind me. “You work here?”
He knew damn well I worked there. He’d pitched a fit at the very thought of it.
“I had no idea. Just came down here to buy some things. So, how’s it feel? Being a working girl? It ain’t easy like you thought, making the money, is it Pecan?”
“I’m fine. And my girls are fine. You supposed to stay away from us.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. Just kept right on grinning and stepping in my direction.
“Leave Ricky. Before I call the cops.”
But it was too late. There he was, pushing me up against the brick wall. Whispering in my ear about how good I had it and how we could go back there if I just let all this restraining order stuff go. Saying it hurt him that he couldn’t be with his family. He said it without an ounce of pain in his eyes while his hands focused on my body.
“Don’t you miss me, Pecan?”
“Quit it, Ricky. Stop.”
“You still my girl.”
“Back up off me!”
“Why? You saying you don’t miss me? Don’t miss none of this? Hmm? Cause you got that white man all up in between your legs? Huh? That it?”
Mercilessly, the bricks tore at the back of my blouse, making tiny scratches against my skin while I tried to fight off Ricky’s touch. I thought I’d won when he finally gave my breasts and hips a break but it was only so he could get a good grip on my neck. One hand squeezing up under my chin, the other latched on to my behind as my feet dangled in the air. The laughter of the men on the loading dock had died down and all I could hear was some pathetic soul gasping for air as she disappeared between the parked cars. I landed hard on the concrete, head first. Dazzed and underneath a typhoon. Ricky mumbled up in my ear how he knew me. How he could tell if I’d been with any other man. He ain’t need no kissing or affection to get himself all worked up. Just about any other kind of physical contact was enough.
“Tell me you ain’t turned into a slut.”
I twisted left and right, wondering why nobody else saw fit to take their breaks at the same time as me.
“Tell me you ain’t just giving it away. Tell me Pecan.”
He gave up fighting with my knees and thighs and went straight for my panties. Kissing the tears on my cheek. His belt buckle rang in the silence between his words and just for a moment his attention turned from me to himself. Stroking his manhood up under my skirt, reminding me how deep his love went.
“I know you want this.”
I didn’t. I never did. I wanted love. Wanted somebody to take care of me. But I never wanted him.
“You miss this don’t you?” He thrusted into me.
It couldn’t be happening, I told myself. Not like this. In broad daylight. Not to me.
“Good girl, Pecan. Yeah, that’s it.”
Didn’t take long before Ricky was done. Panting all up on my neck while he put himself away. And my body finally began to respond to what my mind was telling it. Wiped the tears from my eyes and sucked in the free air again.