Leaving: A Novel (43 page)

“I know you’re angry. You got a right to be angry. Just listen to what I have to say.”

“I don’t have to listen to a goddamn word out of your lyin mouth. Who the hell you think you are? Give me back them keys to this house. Where the hell you been?” She held the knife out at him, more like a pointing stick, an accusation rod, than a weapon.

“I’ve been in Joliet. They locked me up for dealing. I’m telling you, I didn’t want to stay away.”

“No.” She covered her ears. She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to hear any excuses, especially any legitimate reason. She wanted him to have been cheating and running around so she could kill him and kick his body onto the street. It wasn’t fair to take that away from her after three years.

“Why didn’t you call me or write to me or send word or nothing? Don’t tell me they don’t got no pencils and paper in prison.”

Marcus shook his head. “I was going to, baby. Every day I told myself I was going to call you. But I figured you knew from David and … I know I should have called you, baby, but I was ashamed. I’m sorry. I just thought I’d do my time and come back a new man.”

“Don’t give me that shit. You get the fuck out. You think you can just leave us and come back in here so easy, just walk back in here and lay down and rest.” She jumped up on the couch and climbed over the top, holding the knife over him.

“Watch out, baby. You’re gonna hurt yourself with that.”

“Get out a my house.”

“This is my house too.”

“Don’t tell me whose house this is or ain’t. Get the hell out!”

He picked his paper bag up off the counter.

“I’ll kill your sorry ass.” She came at him, and he backed out onto the porch; then down the steps into the rain.

She watched him from the doorway. He pulled his jacket collar up, covered his head with the paper bag, and walked up the block, looking back at her and smiling. She wanted to slam the door, make it thunder in its frame, loud enough to shake the sidewalk under his feet, but she could not move from the doorway, from watching him walk away huddled under his jacket until he turned the corner into the liquor store.

*   *   *

EVERY DAY FOR
the next two months, Marcus came to the house, sometimes with flowers, dressed in a nice secondhand blue suit, and other days drunk or stoned with a bag of beer in his hand, his shirtsleeves stained.

One Monday evening she returned from work to find him playing on the porch like a cat tapping at the window, waiting to be let inside. He was talking to Love through the glass, pointing to different things in the house and telling him to bring them over for him to look at.

“That’s an ashtray. Spell ‘ashtray’ for me, Ronald. Ash—.”

“What does he need to know how to spell ashtray for?” Lida dragged herself up the steps and took out her key.

“Don’t open it,” Marcus said. “Watch, I taught him how.” He tapped on the window. “Ronald, go open the door for Mommy.”

“Oh great, Marcus, now my child can get out the house by himself. Thank you. Would you please stay away from here when I’m not home?”

“So when you are home?”

Lida shook her head. She let him in, not because she forgave him but because she was lonely.

“I need some cash, baby.”

“Well, get a job.” Lida put her purse down on the vanity. Marcus looked at it and then put his hands in his pockets.

“I’m working on that, but I need some funding right now, just to hold me over, and you’re the only one I can ask.” Marcus jumped over the top of the couch and landed on the cushions like a cowboy.

Love stood up in the middle of the living room, half listening to them, but turned toward the TV, watching the news.

“I should be asking for money from you, Marcus,” Lida said. “We’re tight as it is. How about three years of child support and then we’ll talk.”

“I told you before, I’m gonna take care of that when I get back in business. You’ll get all that and more. I’m just in need of a quick fix.”

“Haven’t you seen the inside of prison long enough, or do you plan on another three-year vacation?”

Love turned around and looked at his father.

“Baby, don’t you know how hard this is for me to ask in front of our child?”

Lida opened the padlock to the kitchen and went to the refrigerator. “Ronald, come in here and give your mama a hug.” Love ran into the kitchen and grabbed his mother around the hips.

“I don’t want you going to that window anymore when he’s around,” she whispered to him. “Okay? You hear me?” Love nodded. “Now what do you want for supper? You want some lasagna?”

“That sounds good to me,” Marcus yelled in from the living room.

“You need to be out a here before Ruby comes home. She’s already told me she’d chop off your privates if she sees you again, and she’s not foolin.”

“Listen, baby, I need that money. I can reciprocate it to you by tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you ashamed, asking your own wife for money?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Sure, I’m ashamed. This is hard for me, baby. You think this is what I wanted to be? But a man comes out of prison with nothing—I’m flat broke, and besides, who’s gonna hire me? When times was hard for you, wasn’t I down for you? If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even be living back here no more. I’m not trying to say you owe me, Lida. I’m just saying how come you can’t help me out when I’m down too?”

“Because you left for three years, Marcus.”

“Never mind.” He turned and walked out of the kitchen through the living room. He got to the front door and opened it.

“Where you going?” Lida asked.

“Out.”

“To do what?”

“What do you care? I’m going to do what I have to.” He opened the door and put on his hat.

Lida marched out to the couch and yelled at him, “How come after you leave me, I’m the one that feel bad?”

“’Cause you know it ain’t my fault. You know I always helped you out when times was rough. But don’t worry, I ain’t asking for nothing from you. This time I know what I got to do.” He turned to the door.

“Don’t do anything crazy. Don’t go off and make me be alone again. I can’t.” She shook her head, and it was clear she was trying not to cry.

“You know I didn’t want that. You know I wanted the best for us.”

“Just come back in here and shut your mouth.” She walked into the kitchen, and Marcus followed.

“We don’t have any extra money, Marcus.” She pulled a chair over to the counter and stood up on it, almost exactly where Love had been reaching for the pretzels. She took the money jar off the top shelf.

“This is not mine,” she said. She opened the lid to the jar and took out a handful of bills. “You better have this back by tomorrow.”

“Spot me twenty and I’ll never ask for money from you again. I promise.”

“Oh, I know you won’t, ’cause I ain’t givin you any more.”

She clasped the lid back on and stepped down with the money in her fist.

“Don’t come back here without this money.” She put it into his hand, and he counted it. “Don’t ask for anything more.”

He stuffed the money in his pocket and smiled up at her. “How about a kiss?”

She didn’t answer him. Love watched his parents. Marcus leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Lida closed her eyes.

*   *   *

TWO MONTHS LATER,
Ruby stood in the entryway of her house and surveyed the living room. The black-and-white TV was twenty years old, so it wasn’t that valuable. But it had a soul value, like anything that has been with you for long enough that it becomes a traveling companion. The stereo-turntable was as much a piece of Corbet as the picture of him on the wall or the records on the shelf. Other things had been stolen too: the crystal ashtray, the giraffe bookends from Love E’s trip to visit Eldridge Cleaver in Algeria, and what hurt her most of all, her sewing machine. The only thing left was the Bible on the cast-iron table.

She was tired from cleaning at the calculator company and didn’t have enough energy to do more than shake her head and sit on the couch.

Lida watched her from the table. She had spoken with the police and given them a report.

“They took your jewelry too, Mama.” Ruby didn’t move.

“Go get your Nanna some water,” Lida told Love.

“I don’t want any water,” Ruby said.

Love didn’t move from the tall chair at the table where he sat staring down at his reflection, his hands in his lap.

“The police said they must have come through an open window ’cause there was no sign of breaking in.”

“Why should he break in,” Ruby said, “when his boy’s gonna let him in?”

“This has nothing to do with Marcus,” Lida said.

“Then how did he get in? Ask your son. He was here.” Lida looked at Love. He reminded her of how she used to sit when she was around Easton, making herself small and invisible.

“Don’t you think I asked him? The police asked him too.” She turned to Love. “Was your daddy here today?”

Love shook his head.

“Well, what’s the boy going to say?” Ruby whispered. “Don’t you think Marcus told him not to tell.”

“Did your daddy tell you not to tell?”

He didn’t answer.

Ruby sighed loudly from across the room, closed her eyes, and folded her hands across her stomach in resignation.

“Now, you look at me when I’m talking to you! You tell me.” Lida stood up and grabbed Love’s chin. “Was Marcus here today? I want to hear your voice, Ronny.”

“No.”

“I swear, God’s gonna keep you outta heaven if you’ve been bad.” She squeezed his face even harder, her thumbs sinking into his cheeks.

“I didn’t see nothing.”

“The child was here all day,” Ruby said. “He had to see something.”

“He was in his room.” Lida let go of Love’s face, and he turned away from her.

“Now, how you gonna tell me he was in his room while all this ruckus was goin on down here?” Ruby asked.

“He was sleeping in his room.”

“That drug-addict fool of a father of his better not show his face ’round here ever again. I’ll have the police lock him up permanently.” Ruby got up and went into the kitchen. She saw the chair by the counter and looked at the open cabinet above. Some last reserve of energy seemed to leave her body, and she hung her head. She couldn’t bring herself to see if she still had money in her jar. She went into the refrigerator—at least they hadn’t taken the food—and took out the carton of orange juice. The words came to her as she was pouring, and she said them loud enough for Lida to hear.

“I don’t want you speaking his name in this house. I got my forbidden people, and now you got yours. You should have been celebrating the day he left and never came back. I told you to keep clear of him, and now look where it’s got all of us. We’ve been stripped naked by that beast.” She came out of the kitchen with a glass of orange juice. They stood face-to-face.

“You never gave him a chance,” Lida said. “You’d have blamed him for this even if he was still in jail.”

“Listen to yourself. In jail. In jail for robbin and lyin and stealin someone else’s away from them. Yes, he’s a fine, upstanding young man.”

“I trust Marcus. I trust him more than I trust anybody. He could have stolen anything from here any time he wanted, but he asked me for money, and I gave it to him. And he gave it back the next day. He knew he could ask if he wanted more.”

“What money’d you give him?”

“What does it matter? He paid it back. What? I can’t give him money if I want to? He’s done more for me than anybody else ever done. He’s done more for me than you ever did. He’s the one who brought me back here in the first place. You should be thanking him. You should be on your knees thanking him if he ever comes back!”

“Lida,” Ruby begged. “Baby, why are you acting like this? Why are you saying such mean things?”

“I want him to move back in here. I’m gonna ask him tomorrow to move back in here.”

“He’s not coming near this house. You can’t have a thief in this house.”

“He’s no thief. You don’t know what he’s done for me.”

“I jus don’t know why you want to live with that man after what he’s done to you. I don’t understand you, Lida. I don’t understand you.” Ruby shook her head and sat back on the couch, facing away from Lida toward the empty shelves against the wall. She pulled a knitted blanket over her legs. “I don’t think I’ve ever understood you.”

“That’s right, you haven’t.”

“From the day you was born, I loved you the best I knowd how. But I always felt that wasn’t good enough for you. I know how you always been jealous of Love E. Marcus done told me all about that. That’s one thing that man has cleared up.”

Lida gaped at her mother, as if the lie she thought could never get any bigger had just swallowed everything around her.

“No.” She shook her head. “That’s not how it was.”

“It’s all right. I don’t mind. I’ve gone and accepted it in my heart. Now I put you first. The truth always sets you free.”

Lida walked up to Ruby slowly and stood above her. Ruby reached up and took her hand and their eyes met.

“He raped me,” Lida said. She’d imagined saying these words out loud so often that she wasn’t sure if she’d really said them.

“Oh baby, no.” Ruby squeezed her hand. “And now you want me to let him move back in?”

“Not Marcus.” She looked straight into Ruby’s eyes; they were soft and filled with more compassion for her than she’d ever remembered, and she nearly stopped herself. But the words flowed to her lips, and she felt herself fall into them as she had fallen into Marcus’s arms off the edge of the bed so long ago.

“Love E raped me.”

She let the silence hang because there was nothing more to add; after so long, those words had become the only fixed point in her life, the most distilled truth. Every time she had imagined saying this to Ruby, her mother responded in a different way, sometimes yelling, sometimes reaching out and holding her. And a part of her regretted having said it, if only because in a moment, it wouldn’t be possible to imagine or to hope anymore.

“What are you sayin?” Ruby asked. “What are you sayin?”

But Lida didn’t answer. Now that this piece of her was out, she felt herself cave inward, bow her head and curve her shoulders. She felt herself run away into the center of her chest as if she’d done something terribly wrong. Ruby pulled her hand away.