How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) (17 page)

“It wasn’t really up to him.”

“Oh right.” Her neck got all twisted around as she checked out the stuff in my cart. It came to me that I should’ve put it underneath something. “Pecan! Are you...you...”

“I’m minding my own business just like you should be.” With my eyes squinting and hands on my hips, for a split second I was Clara Morrow.
 

After my neighbor slinked over to the other lane I felt real bad. I ain’t mean to snap on her like that. It just came out. As I took the stuff out of my cart so the cashier could ring it up, I made up my mind to catch up to Carol Ann and apologize to her. Then I heard the cashier say the total.

“Fifty-five twenty-six.”

“Fifty-five dollars?” All I wanted was eggs and bread! And a few other things...but I couldn’t believe it. I had about thirty bucks in my wallet but I thought maybe more had fallen to the bottom of my purse.

“You got it or not?”

The line behind me was getting long and they were all looking at me. “I don’t need...that. Or um...that.”

She rolled her eyes and pressed a button then rescanned a few things and they disappeared under the cash register. “Forty-seven even.”

“Okay um...I really just came for the eggs...the bread—”

“Look, you want me to un-scan everything?”

“No.” I shouldn’t have but I looked back at the end of the line and there was another one of my neighbors. “How much is the eggs, bread, laundry soap, and um...the cans of tuna and...the face cream, oh and...the fruit—the bag of apples? Please.”

The girl huffed and puffed and tried to kill me with just her eyes. I felt bad enough but she must have thought I needed to feel it more. I’d never had to think twice about food. Even when we had nothing, Ricky just told me exactly what to get. Five cans of this...two jars of that...it wasn’t something I was proud of but that’s how it was.

“You still want the—?”

“Yeah. Please. Thank you.”

Getting back to the house was more of a labor than it was getting to the store. I only had two bags but between them I couldn’t see the two or three feet in front of me. I made it all the way to my block before my feet decided to go in different directions. Stuff went flying. And I landed face down on the icy sidewalk. Guess I was lucky the bags broke my fall. It ain’t feel like that, though. Some kids were playing in the snow pile a little ways up and I heard them laughing at me. Guess I was funny. I took my time putting as much as I could into one bag then dragged myself up the porch steps. When I got in the TV was going so I didn’t think much about what the kids were up to. Then I heard the slap. The paper bag slipped from my hands and I ain’t even notice.
 

Nikki and the younger ones were watching the TV. The slap had come from Mya. Ricky was sitting at the very edge of the sofa, holding up both hands, his elbows were planted one on each knee.

“Turn your fist,” he said. “Now pivot and go on and hit my hand. Right in the palm. Right there. Don’t hold back, baby. You can’t hurt Daddy.”

“Ricky.”

Mya froze in place. “Hi, Mama,” she said and held both hands behind her back.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m passing on the family business!” Ricky grinned.

“I don’t want them fighting. Mya knows that.”

He sighed and fell back against the sofa cushions. Ricky wasn’t used to defending himself to me. He just stared at me. Then the floor. I couldn’t move fast enough to keep him from seeing it.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Nothing. It ain’t nothing.” I scooted and scooped and knelt across the foyer, shoving things back into the bag. But it was too late. He was standing over me, looking down as I tried to pile other things on top of it. “Just stuff I got from the store.”

Ricky’s smile grew all big and I knew exactly what he was thinking. “You pregnant.”

It was so quiet I thought I was going to suffocate from all the damn quiet.
 

“I ain’t.”

“Yeah you is that why you got that there test. I ain’t stupid, Pecan. I can read.”

“I said I ain’t. Now leave it be.” I didn’t even bother to hang up my coat, just squeezed the bag to my chest and made a beeline for the kitchen. Trying to convince myself on the way that I was convincing enough that he’d leave it alone. Don’t women just wanna have tests handy just in case? The bag rustled in agreement with me as I set it on the counter.
 

“Mama, you pregnant?”

“No, Nikki,” I said. “Go play with your sisters.” Ricky sauntered in behind her. I could see he was chewing on something that wasn’t no good. “Nikki! Get in here and help me with supper.”

“But I thought you just said—”

“I said...help me with supper. Okay? Here. Chop an onion.” She did as I asked and I folded my coat over the nearest chair. Ricky sat in one of the others, staring at me, accusing me of something with his eyes. “Be careful, baby. Take your time. That knife’s sharp.”

“Pecan.”

“Thought you wanted to see the girls.”

“Nikki go on back up front with your sisters. I wanna talk to your mama alone.”

“No.” I held her by both shoulders so she stood right in front of me. Don’t know what I was thinking. Just squeezing her itty bitty shoulders until I felt I had control of the situation I guess.

“Why you don’t wanna just tell me the truth?”

“Because it ain’t the truth.”

Ricky’s fist pounded against the table and we both jumped. “WHAT THAT ‘POSED TO MEAN? HUH?”

“Nikki, go.” She ain’t need me to tell her twice. She took off running. But I stayed put. And looked Ricky in the eye. “You can’t scare me...” Tiny little bumps rose up on my skin, calling me a liar. “I said I ain’t pregnant because I’m not. I just got the test because you just wanna have one just in case you need it. That way you ain’t gotta go looking for it.”

“Uh-huh.” Ricky bit his lip then spit the skin onto the floor. “So you just got it in case you need it in the future?”

“Right.”

“Because you expecting me to come back home, right?”

“What?”

“How else you thinking you gone have use for it?”

“I...I don’t know. I just thought—”

“N’all what you thought was that I was stupid enough to fall for that shit!” He flew across the kitchen like a crazy man and I ain’t get no farther than the fridge before he pushed me up against it. “Either you pregnant and you lying about it. Or you trying to get pregnant by some mothafucka behind my back. Which one is it?”

“N-N-No one. I ain’t doing nothing.”

“You ain’t doing nothing? Nothing, huh? Girls that ain’t doing nothing don’t need that there box. DON’T LIE TO ME!”

“I ain’t lying! It was on sale. I just…I just thought I’d get one.”

“You just thought you’d get one?”
 

I hated when Ricky repeated everything I said. Was like he just wanted to prove how stupid it sounded. I knew. I ain’t need no extra help seeing it.
 

“Maybe I oughta ask the girls. Ask them if anybody been nosing around you since I been laid up in the hospital. Hmm? What you think of that?” Course he didn’t really need my opinion. Just wanted me good and scared, which I was. “NIKKI! GET IN HERE!”

“Ricky...”

“What? You got something to say, Pecan?”

“She just a kid.”

“Yes, Daddy?” Like all my girls, Nikki, got real good at acting innocent. But the nerves still showed up on her, twitching and pulling at her fingers. Plus, she couldn’t hold eye contact for no long period of time. Was a good thing Mya came with her.

“You see anybody hanging around your mama when I ain’t here?”

“She just a kid!”

“You. Shut up. I’m talking to my firstborn. My big girl. Come on over here. You ain’t gotta be scared now. I just wanna know. Ain’t nothing gone happen to you.”

“Ricky—”

“SHUT UP! GODDMAN IT, WOMAN. What you afraid of if you ain’t do nothing? Huh? HUH?”

“I’m afraid—I’m afraid you gone take whatever she say and twist it until it mean what you want it to! And then...then...”

“Ain’t nobody been here, Daddy.” The lie came as steady as it could. Gliding out her mouth and into the room like warm butter. I ain’t even know Mya could lie like that. We were both so busy looking to Nikki when it came we had to readjust.

“No?” Ricky asked, turning his gaze to his favorite.

Mya shook her head side to side. Lying. Only her face ain’t give it away. Not even a little. Maybe it was her youth. So sweet and gentle. Easy to make him believe her. Not like me. He’d have never believed me.

“Aight.” Ricky backed up enough to grab the box in one hand and my arm in the other. “Then let’s get this over with.” We stumbled into the hall and I could hear the TV going but no voices. They always got real quiet whenever Ricky got into one of his moods. “Pecan, you go upstairs and pee on this here thing. Then we’ll see if I’ma be a daddy again.”

The stairs weren’t big enough for us to walk up them side by side so Ricky pushed me ahead of him. Getting even more pissed when I fell forward on my hands. Dust and dirt and pebbles from the outside was ground up in the rug that ran down the stairs. Nineteen stairs. I counted each one. Around the sixteenth stair I got a little lightheaded, a little wobbly. Ricky’s hands held on tight enough to my waist I actually thought he was searching me for some proof of his baby. Then was five more feet to the washroom. He sat on the edge of the tub and held out the box.

“I can’t go with you looking at me.”

He gave me that look, sighed real hard, and pointed his finger in my face. “You trying to get on my nerves.”

“I—”

“You might as well go on and do it because I’m just about sure I’m right. Go on now. What? Huh? You still think you about to leave me? Think you gone have my baby and not tell me about it? Woman, you crazy.”

Next thing I heard was a boom coming from downstairs. Then a sorta sizzling sound that made me think of grilled cheese. Ricky looked at me but wasn’t no way he could blame me for it. I followed behind him a safe pace. Five feet then the nineteen stairs. The girls were all standing back in a half circle around the TV. Or what used to be the TV. At that moment it was no more than a broken screen with a mop sticking outta it.

“Which one of y’all did this? Huh? You know how much that thing cost? Huh? Answer me.”

“It was a accident,” Jackie said not looking one bit sorry.

“Yeah, I knew it had to be you. Always messing something up.” His head whipped around to ask me, “Ain’t you gone say something?”

“Accidents happen.”

“That’s it? That’s all you gotta say? That’s a hundred dollars right down the fucking drain! How the fuck you accidentally shove a mop into the TV? And why ain’t none of y’all stop her? Huh? Nikki you the oldest.”

“Ricky—”

“N’all you had your chance now it’s my turn. I’m gone—”

“Jackie ain’t do it. It was me. I did it, Daddy. They tried to stop me but I did it.”
 

Ricky looked real hard at Mya then at Jackie. It ain’t matter that Mya confessed with a straight face. It was the second time in only five minutes that she’d put her lying skills to the test but this time Ricky wasn’t buying it. Still, wasn’t nothing he could do about it. Short of beating the truth outta her. And that he wasn’t about to do, not to her.

“And why you do it?”

“We were playing pretend. I was a knight.”

“You were a knight? You don’t even know what a knight is.”

“Yeah I do. It’s like a soldier and he rides around on a horse with a stick and knocks people down. I was a knight.”

“Mmhmm.”

“She...um...she been doing it a lot lately. You just ain’t know because you ain’t been here. She—they be pretending to be different things.” Honestly, I ain’t know where Mya got that knight stuff from but it ain’t really matter. The hardness had gone outta Ricky’s eyes.
 

“So y’all like to play pretend, huh? That’s y’all new thing?”

“We always did,” Jackie rolled her eyes.

“Well y’all about to get to do it a lot more because you ain’t getting a new TV. Maybe if you good Santa’ll bring you one for Christmas. Just like he’s gonna bring something for me and your mama.”

Test or no test, Ricky’d made up his mind that I was with chile. His chile to be exact. I ain’t argue with him no more about it. Just let it be. My little trip to the grocer’s showed me something. We needed things. Things I couldn’t pay for. Every cent I had came from Ricky. So when he said he was staying for supper I just nodded. And when he said he was staying the night I kept quiet. But the next morning when I peed on the stick and it turned pink, I damn near cried.

"I
F
IT
DON
’
T
WORK
but ninety-five percent of the time, you supposed to tell folks that!”

“Look, miss. Your doctor was supposed to explain the risks to you. No method of birth control is perfect.” The balding white man wasn’t even looking at me. His peachy face and rosy head craned around to see the next person in line. “Next?”