Word of Honor, Book 2 (28 page)

“No, you don’t. You’ll be getting out of here any day now.” He looked around the place, hoping and praying his words were true. Such dismal, depressing surroundings…

“No, I won’t; I’m a risk. I don’t take my medicine when I’m out,” she said, counting off her fingers. “I get drunk, get into bar fights. I don’t check in with my probation officer on a regular basis and I buck authority.”

She said the shit so matter-of-factly but, unfortunately, she was right. Amy was his little sister, no larger than a mustard seed, but she caused fear in many due to her violent outbursts and unruly ways.

“Not any time soon anyway. I’m safer in here. The world is safer with me in here.” She chuckled. “But enough of that, tell me about Mia. Oh!” She snapped her fingers. “Let me do like you and Joe-Joe used to do, you fuckin’ perverts! Is she brunette, blonde, or redhead?” She giggled like some maniac and hugged herself tight.

A tickle crept up his throat, reminding him of the senseless questions he’d asked Mia so long ago… She’d passed his test with a bit of trickery. Would he administer the same?

“Brunette.” He couldn’t help but smirk.

“Really?” Her brow rose in suspicion. “I’ve only seen you with blondes! Well, well, well… you’ve changed your M.O.,” she stated as if she were some detective.

“I’ve dated some dark-haired women before.”

“Yeah? I guess you have… You and Joe-Joe go through women faster than you change underwear! Damn womanizers, just like Dad!” she spat, her brows furrowed just so.

“What?! I never ran through a bunch of women. Amy, you’re crazy!”

“Yeah, and what’s your point?”

They both burst out laughing.

“So anyway, yeah, she’s nice… real nice. I love her. We’re gettin’ married actually.”

Just then, he watched her smile slowly fade. “You found her…” she said in almost a whisper.

“I don’t…understand.”

Amy must be having one of her moments…

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?”

“When we were little, one time you played dolls with me out in the front yard, remember?”

Aaron scratched his head, trying to dig up those recollections, but nothing came to him; nothing registered. He simply shook his head, sorry he could not pull from his memory bank.

“One day, Mama and Arnold were at it again. I was upset so you did what you never did, and offered to play with me, to get me out of there. No tellin’ where Travis was.”

“It sounds so strange when you call Joe-Joe Travis; I sometimes forget that’s his real name.” They both laughed.

“Yeah, anyway, we got outside, playing, and Mama’s voice was carryin’. We could hear crashing, like plates bustin’ up and them cussin’ each other out. Arnold was drunk, and probably so was Mama, too. I was shakin’; my nerves were bad. Ain’t that a shame how a seven-year-old could have bad nerves?”

Aaron slowly nodded as a rush of warm rage overcame him. Yes, the memory was materializing, front and center, becoming real once more.

“So, we were playin’ and I had the Barbie and the Ken doll and you said, ‘That’s me.’ You were talking about the Ken doll. You then pointed to the Barbie that I had inside the dollhouse holding a little rolled up piece of tissue paper that I pretended was her baby. And you said, ‘I’m gonna have a nice family, Amy. I’m gonna have a wife, and babies. I won’t throw stuff at my wife. I won’t spend up all our rent money. My wife will be happy. I’ll make her happy and she won’t treat our kids bad. She’ll love them because she’ll be a good mother and I’ll be a good husband and father. She’ll show it and never treat ’em bad.’ I never forgot that, Aaron. I think, inside, you was always a hopeless romantic. You’d write stuff down and tuck it away. I’d find the papers and read them… real pretty words, Aaron. You was a real good writer.”

He swallowed.

I thought I had that stuff hidden pretty good in my room!

“I think it was the only time I really saw you show any emotion, knew how you felt about Mama and Arnold. It was through your poems that never rhymed; I’m not sure what they were.” She smiled sadly. “And from us playin’ dolls that day. I knew, right then and there, that you were just as afraid, hurt and upset as I was…but you was too busy tellin’ me to stop crying all the time and running away to Patti’s house, that I never got to really see you like that. And then, there was something else.”

“What?”

“Later that night, Patti came by. She brought some food over. The house was a fuckin’ mess. She looked around at us and everything and she asked Mama how it was goin’. Mama didn’t pay her much mind but asked her for a cigarette and some money. You then stood up and asked Patti if she’d adopt you and me and Travis. Mama came over and smacked the old ass white dog shit outta you…”

Aaron bit his damn tongue as the memory flooded him, made him rear up inside! He tasted blood.

He’d stuffed so much shit down, pushed so many things away, he’d forgotten it all! Amy had a steel trap mind. Her memory remained intact like the love of God for sinners so there was no questioning her accounts – even the ones about his womanizing, which had occurred over the course of a few years before he’d met the mother of his child. He just didn’t wish to discuss it with her, so he lied and said it never happened, but that was the truth.

“But wishes come true sometimes, huh?” Amy’s eyes glossed over as she flopped back into her seat with a sullen smile. “She did finally adopt you, and I saw a change in you. You went from keepin’ to yourself to bein’ outspoken. A real leader! I couldn’t get behind what you were sayin’ though. I didn’t hate nobody. Now yeah, I think a lot of the blacks want somethin’ for nothin’, use their race as an excuse as to why shit doesn’t get done, but there’s good black people too, Aaron. I know you don’t wanna hear this, but I had black friends ’nd shit and it got to the point that I couldn’t bring ’em around, Aaron, because
you
were
there
!”

He could hear the woman’s resentment in her tone as she relived the moments… moments when she realized her big brother, the one who used to protect her, was breaking her damn heart. He lowered his head in shame and fought back the rush of pain.

“I was afraid you was gonna hurt ’em, maybe even kill ’em ’cause I know what you done!” she hollered. Her voice cracked at the end and she pointed a shaky finger in his direction.

“Yeah… I know you do, Amy,” he stated calmly. “I’m sorry for any pain I caused you with my beliefs.” He could immediately see the damn shock on her face. Her expression cracked like an egg, exposing a runny yolk chock full of confusion. On a long exhale, he continued. “I don’t think like that anymore, Amy. I was wrong. I uh…” He swallowed harshly as he looked her in the eye. “I’ve had a lot of time to think and…this time in prison changed me.”

“…But you were acquitted.”

“Amy, the charges were dropped after the new evidence came out, but I was in there a year. Now, a year ain’t that long to many people, when you think of prison time, but for me it felt like an eternity. A lot happened to me in there, Amy… a lot.”

“Like what? You get hurt?”

“Not in the way you think but one thing that happened was that I was forced to go to counseling. After a while, it wasn’t forced anymore. I wanted to go, wanted to see him. I’m pretty messed up, Amy.” He smiled sadly. “We all were. We can say our parents did this to us; it sure as hell didn’t help. As a reaction, I had chosen something that made me feel better about myself but was harmful to others, even people I cared about. I’m sorry for beatin’ up your boyfriend that day… that Mexican boy.”

She hung her head and began to twitch in her seat. “His name was Lucas…”

“Yeah, Lucas.”

“He couldn’t see for days… had to get stitches in his head.”

“That was… a terrible thing for me to do…me and my friends. I was angry you were seein’ him, and I did the wrong thing. I judged him based on his ethnicity instead of how he treated you. I was wrong, dead wrong.” He sucked his teeth as more and more memories of abuses came to light; things he did on practically a daily basis in the pages of yesteryear, things he hadn’t thought twice about doing. He’d beaten, stabbed, and threatened. He’d done unthinkable things, animalistic things, terrible, harsh and damn near demonic things… and, he slept just fine at night afterward… until Dr. Owen got a hold of him…

“I’m glad to hear you’ve changed, Aaron. I can see it in you. I believe you.” She reached across the table and took his hand. “You’re my brother, and I love you.”

“I love you too, Amy. I love you a whole lot.”

“You were the strong one. You’d protect me and Joe-Joe, stand up for us. Most times it ended up causin’ you to get your ass beat. Mama was so mean to you, Aaron… so mean.”

He lowered his gaze, for he needed a minute.

“Arnold was always afraid you’d off him in his sleep. You’d threatened to.”

“Yeah, I did threaten to. And I meant it.”

They looked at each other a while longer, a love and reconnection forming, stronger than ever before.

“He was hurtin’ us… hurtin’ my little sister and brother, too. I was the oldest. I was in charge. I protect the people I love, Amy. We all a bit crazy, but we love one another.” He quickly dabbed at his right eye, refusing to let that son of a bitch leak and expose him for what he was—a man with feelings.

“I got somethin’ to tell you, Amy.”

“Yeah? You sound serious.”

“I
am
serious. You know Mia, my fiancée?”

“The brunette?” she teased.

“Yeah… She’s black…” They said it at the same time…

His brow cocked up as he stared at her curiously. Was Amy’s crazy ass a damn oracle?

“How’d you know?”

Amy slowly rose to her feet and looked down at him. Her slight form cast a shadow. “’Cause when I asked you to tell me about her, you hesitated and ran your left hand over your right hand three times. It’s a little nervous tick thing you’ve done since we was kids. That’s why Mama would tell you to sit down and put your hands on the table before she’d ask you something…”

I never knew that’s why she’d ask me that…

“She’d beat you no matter what your answer was… Anyway, you’d do it when you wasn’t sure if you was gonna lie or not… but you always hated lyin’; it made you feel guilty, so you’d do that right before you told the truth. You changed ’cause of a woman… so,” she said, shrugging, “I put two and two together. You sittin’ here talking about how wrong you were, how you don’t do those things anymore… You found ’er, I see, you found your Barbie and that’s all that matters.”

She said those words real easy like – like sweet, honey lemonade rollin’ over freshly frozen ice. Aaron slowly rose to his feet, now looking down at the tiny woman who had more heart than three lions. He leaned over, grabbed the back of her head and kissed the top, slow and gentle.

Once he released her, she looked up into his eyes and touched his jaw with slightly trembling fingers.

“You was too smart to be filled with so much hate. I always hoped you’d stop what you were doin’. Now, I got my wish.”

“You want to know what happened? How I met her?” he offered.

“I did, when you first sat down, but now,” she said, her shoulders slumped, “I don’t too much care. All I know is my brother is happy, his heart is open, and he can live again. Mama and Arnold fucked us up, royally. You might not blame ’em, but I sure as hell do. That’s why I could forgive you time and time again for all the things you’d done. I knew you didn’t understand what you were doin’. I prayed that God would teach you a lesson, turn the tables on you. He ain’t never answered not one of my prayers,” she said with spite. “But He answered
that
one. My Nazi brother fell in love wit’ a black girl, and they gettin’ married… sounds about right to me. Send me an invitation. Can’t say they’ll let me attend, but send it any ol’ way. I need to meet this Limited Edition Barbie… ’cause anyone who can love the hate right off a Nazi Socialist Party Leader has earned every ounce of my goddamn respect!”

She smirked, then turned and walked away…

Chapter Thirteen

A
ARON SAT ON
the edge of Mia’s bed. Her room was like some candle and oasis retreat with splashes of lime green and soft indigo, and plush white pillows one could mistake for fluffed clouds that had descended from the vast blue. None of that mattered, for his mood had drastically changed in the past few seconds… The ceiling fan hummed a rhythmic song as his heart beat out of his damn chest and, for a moment or two, he tried to calm down, make sense of it. In one hand, he gripped a bottle of water; in the other, a crumpled letter.