Roy
She wasn’t like how I remembered her. It wasn’t just her man-short hair or the spread in her hips, though these are things I noticed. She was different now, sadder. Even her scent was altered. The lavender endured, but behind it was something earthy or woodsy. The lavender was from the oils she kept in a crystal bottle on the dresser. The wood-chip scent radiated from beneath her skin.
I recollected Davina, who welcomed me with accepting arms and a feast fit for a man home from the war. Celestial didn’t know I was coming, but I wanted her to sense I was on my way and prepare a table for me. I fell asleep in her lap, and she let me rest until I opened my eyes of my own accord. Night falls early in the winter. It was around eight o’clock, and outside it was as black as midnight.
“So,” she said. “How do you feel?” Then she looked embarrassed. “I know it’s a basic question, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
“You could say that you’re glad to see me. That you’re glad I’m out.”
“I am,” she said. “I’m so happy that you’re out. This is what we’ve all been praying for, why we kept Uncle Banks working on it.”
She sounded like she was pleading with me to believe her, so I held my hand up. “Please don’t.” Now I sounded like I was the one on my knees. “I don’t want for us to talk like this. Can we sit in the kitchen? Can we sit in the kitchen, talk to each other like a man and his wife?” Her face lost its softness as her eyes darted around the room, suspicious and maybe frightened. “I won’t touch you,” I said, though the words were as bitter as baking chocolate. “I promise.”
She moved toward the kitchen like she was marching toward a firing squad. “Did you eat?”
The kitchen was how I remembered. The walls were the color of the ocean, the round table a pedestal topped by dark glass. Four leather chairs were evenly spaced. I remembered when I assumed those seats would be occupied by our children. I remembered when this was my house. I remembered when she was my wife. I remembered when my whole life was ahead of me and this was a good thing.
“I don’t have anything to cook,” she said. “Not over here. I usually eat . . .” She trailed off.
“Next door?” I asked. “Let’s get this part over with. It’s Andre. Say yes, so we can go from there.”
I sat in the chair that I used to think of as my spot, and she perched on the countertop. “Roy,” she said like she was reading a script. “I am with Andre now. It’s true.”
“I know,” I said. “I know and I don’t care. I was away. You were vulnerable. Five years is a long time. If anybody knows how long five years is, it’s me.”
I went to the counter where she sat, positioning myself in the V of her legs. I reached for her face. She closed her eyes, but she didn’t pull away. “I don’t care what you did when I was gone. I only care about what our future is.” I leaned in, kissing her lightly.
“That’s not true,” she said as I felt the brush of her dry lips. “That’s not true. You do care. It matters. Everybody cares.”
“No,” I said. “I forgive you. I forgive you for everything.”
“It’s not true,” she said again.
“Please,” I said. “Let me forgive you.”
I angled toward her again, and again she didn’t move. I placed my hands on her defenseless head, and she didn’t stop me. I kissed her every way I could think of. I kissed her forehead like she was my daughter. I kissed her quivering eyelids like she was my dead mother. I kissed her hard on her cheeks like you do before you kill someone. I kissed her collarbone the way you do when you want more. I pulled her earlobe with my teeth the way you do when you know what someone likes. I did everything, and she sat as pliable as a doll. “If you let me,” I said, “I can forgive you.” Starting my circuit of kisses again, I made my way to her neck. She shifted her head slightly so I could touch my nose where her pulse beat close to the surface. But the thrill wore off fast, like the rush of a homemade drug, the way the cheap stuff hits you hard but leaves you hungry in an instant. I moved to the other side, hoping she would tilt her head the opposite way, allowing me access to all of her. “Just ask me,” I said, my voice barely more than a rumble in my chest. “Ask me and I will forgive you.” I held her now; she was limp, but she didn’t resist. “Ask me, Georgia,” I said. “Ask me so I can say yes.”
The bell rang seven times, one after the other, with no break in between. I jumped at the first note, and so did Celestial, righting herself quickly, like she had been caught. She slid off the counter, all but sprinting to the front door, throwing it wide for whomever she might find there. It was the girl from the shop, the one who looked like the past. She was holding a baby who enjoyed mashing the doorbell. He was a plump little fellow, bright-eyed and pleased.
“Tamar,” Celestial said. “You’re here.”
“Didn’t you tell me to come by with the muslin from the wholesale place?” The shop girl stepped into the foyer as the little boy reached for her hoop earrings, the left one dangling a key like Janet Jackson’s back in the day. “Jelani, you want to say hello to Auntie Celestial?” She shifted the baby in her arms. “I hope you don’t mind me bringing him.”
“No,” Celestial said in a rush. “You know I’m always tickled to see this little man.”
“He wants his uncle Dre,” Tamar said, struggling with the squirming baby. “You okay, girl? You look stressed, like this is a hostage situation.” She laughed a merry little laugh, until she noticed me standing there in the hallway. “Whoa,” she said. “Hi?”
Celestial paused before pulling me into the room by my arm. “Tamar, Roy. Roy, Tamar. And Jelani. Jelani is the baby.”
“Roy?” Tamar scrunched her pretty face. “Roy!” she said again once she ordered the details.
“Here I am,” I said, smiling my salesman’s smile. But then I noticed her eyebrow creep, reminding me that I was missing a tooth. I covered my face like I was coughing.
“Nice to meet you.” She extended her hand, tipped with blue-green fingernails, the same as the shimmer on her eyelids. Tamar was more like Celestial than Celestial herself. She was the woman I held in my mind when I slept on a dirty prison mattress.
“Sit down,” Celestial said. “Let me get you something.” Then she disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me alone with this girl and her baby boy.
On the floor, she spread a quilt of various shades of orange and set the baby on top of it. Jelani arranged himself on all fours, rocking. “He taught himself how to crawl.”
“Does he take after your husband?” I asked, trying to make conversation.
“Hypereducated single mother here,” she said, raising her hand. “But yes. Jelani is the spitting image of his daddy. When they are together, people make jokes about human cloning.”
She lowered herself onto the floor beside her son, then unwrapped a paper packet to reveal brown fabric the same color as her skin. She opened another, several shades darker, and then a third that was the peachy white that crayon companies used to call “flesh.”
“We are the world,” she said. “I believe this is enough to get us through to the new year. Inventory at the shop is pretty low. Celestial is going to have to be a lean, mean sewing machine if she wants to restock. I stay, trying to tell her to let me help, but she says that it’s not a poupée if she doesn’t sew it herself and write her John Hancock on the booty.”
I joined her on the floor, dangling my key ring to get the baby’s attention. He laughed, reaching for it. “Can I hold him?”
“Knock yourself out,” she said.
I pulled Jelani onto my lap. He struggled against me and then relaxed. Not having much experience with babies, I felt awkward and silly. The scene reminded me of a photo taped to Olive’s mirror—Big Roy carrying me when I was little like this. My father looked apprehensive as if he were cradling a ticking bomb. I bounced Jelani, wondering if this was the age I was when Big Roy made me his junior.
Celestial returned from the kitchen with two champagne flutes with tiny scoops of ice cream floating atop the bubbly. I took a sip and was reminded of Olive. On my birthday, she used to pull out her punch bowl to mix a ginger ale punch with gobs of orange sherbet bobbing on top. Greedy for the memory of it, I tipped the glass again. When Celestial returned with her own glass, mine was almost finished.
We sat there, the three of us, four if you counted the baby. Celestial and Tamar talked about fabric while I kept busy with Jelani. I tickled him under his chin until he gave his little baby laugh that sounded slightly hydraulic. It was amazing to think that here, in my arms, was an entire human being.
The son that Celestial and I didn’t have would have been four or five, I think. If a kindergartener slept in the back room, there is no way Celestial would be talking about how she’s with Andre now. I would say, “A boy needs his father.” This is a scientific fact. There wouldn’t be anything else to talk about.
But as things were, there was a lot to talk about, more words than could fit into my mouth.