Nash
“I’ve seen you do some shitty things before, but I gotta say, that was the shittiest.”
Natalie followed me around the living room, her voice lifting as I discarded my keys and wallet on the coffee table. “Ah, Sis, it was perfect timing. It’s better that she think I’m taken.”
“Damn, Nash, is this you pulling that ‘I’m too busy and important’ nonsense? Because, if it is, I gotta say, little brother, that it’s played out as hell. You aren’t the G that you think you are.”
“Nat…”
“I come here to see you because you’ve ignored my phone calls and texts for weeks and here I find you blowing off some pretty young thing that clearly is into you.” I tried to play off the quick jerk of my gaze at my sister, trying to divert that stupid hopeful look I knew was in my eyes, knowing I looked a little too encouraged, a lot too pathetic. “Oh…so I’m right? You want her to be into you?”
I slumped in my recliner, leaning back with my hands covering my face. Natalie sat next to me on the sofa arm rest, waiting. I hated when she did that, like she was so damn convinced I’d unload all my issues on her and wait for her to fix my problem. I didn’t feel like hearing her nag at me, I’d had enough of that for one night from Roan. Instead, I shot for deflection.
“What’s this little brother mess? Little brother, my ass.”
“I came out first.”
“Yeah a whole four minutes before me. That’s doesn’t count.”
Natalie shook her head, ignoring my assertion to glare at me like I’d earned it. “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?”
“You not here just for me. I know that.”
I never won when we stared each other down, but I tried hard just then, matching my twin glare for glare until she rolled her eyes. “I have a new designer to check out.”
“Uh huh…”
“But I wanted to check up on you too.” She smacked my arm when I shook my head. “Stop changing the subject. You gonna tell me what’s going on with that girl?”
“No.” She should have known better. Things hadn’t changed that much since I last saw her. My twin had been gearing up for a new gig on a sitcom for a major network, doing the set design. By the labels she wore and the jewelry she sported, I got the feeling things were going pretty good. “New purse?” I said, nodding to the Prada bag on her arm.
She smacked me in the arm again, lowering herself onto the sofa when I laughed at her. “Tell me.”
And so, I did. Everything. About Willow and my aura, about the dreams that felt so real, I unloaded everything to my sister just like I’d always done; we’d shared the worst of our drama and not once had we looked down on each other. Wonder Twins and all; that wasn’t just some DC fantasy. Nat was my down-for-whatever sister. My drama was hers and right then all of mine was tied up in Willow.
“You like her.” I shook my head and Nat laughed, reminding me of Roan’s smug ass. “It’s true. You’re very into her.”
“Whatever,” I said, slipping into the hall to grab a pillow and blanket as my sister sat on the coffee table. “I got no time for anyone.” I stripped of my shirt and flopped onto the sofa, watching Nat as she looked me over. “What?”
“We can table this for tomorrow, but for now, I gotta tell you something.”
She had that worried, shifty eye thing happening, something that always told me that bad news was coming. Nat had gotten the same look on her face when she told me our father had contacted her when he got out of prison, and when she had gotten pregnant and didn’t plan on keeping the baby. Bad news always followed that look.
“Damn, Nat…what the hell is it?”
She adjusted on the table, tapping her index fingers together, a nervous annoying habit she had. “Hear me out, okay?”
I sat up, pulling my feet on the floor while I held the pillow over my lap. “Are you pregnant again?”
“What? Oh God, Nash, really?” She flipped the bird at me scowling a little. “Your nephew is the only one I’m gonna have, ever. You know this and he’s happy with his parents in New Orleans, okay? Give me a little credit for learning from past behavior.”
“Alright, my bad.” I tossed the pillow to my side and waited. When she only looked at me, I folded my arms, clearing my throat. “Just come out and…”
“I’ve been spending time with…Dad. For about a year now.”
Something loosened in my chest; it felt hot and bitter, stung as I took in a long breath. Natalie watched me close, her eyes cautious, concerned. She had spoken to the man responsible for our mother’s death. The asshole who took everything away from us.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
We sat there for a few seconds watching, waiting as the threat of an argument moved around us like a fog, choking every good thought, every emotion that would make me admit how much I’d missed her. This was a game changer, something I couldn’t easily stomach.
“Before you start getting all worked up and yell at me, I’ll tell you he was in treatment on the inside. He’s been sober thirteen years, Nash and he’d got his GED while he was locked up and is working on his Bachelor’s at a community college out in San Francisco.”
Nat stopped tapping her fingers and had instead taken up a little bounce with her knee, moving without knowing she was doing it, nervously watching me as I let her words sink in.
Finally, when she stopped moving her knee, I sat back, hand on the back of my head because it felt like the only thing that would ground me to the earth. “And?” I spit out.
“And what?” I tilted my head, glaring at my sister until she stood, slipping off her shoes and moving them next to her purse at the bar. “You gonna give him shit for trying to better himself or me shit for wanting to have a relationship?”
“Hell yes.”
“My God, Nash, he was sick. Addiction is an illness like cancer or diabetes.”
“Except, when you get cancer, it’s only your life that’s in danger.”
“Nash…”
“He killed her, Nat.”
“He did. And he’s sorry for that. He really is. But nothing he can do now will bring her back. We have to come to terms with that.”
I shook my head, ready to yell, to scream until she saw reason, but I knew better. Natalie was bullheaded. If she latched onto something or someone it stuck. Even, I guessed, if it was the man who took our mother from us both.
“You can’t just forget…”
“No, you can’t but sugar, you have to learn to forgive.” Nat’s voice was strong, but she didn’t yell. It was a calm tone, something she’d perfected when we were kids and temper and anxiety had turned me into a bad seed. It was her nurturing way, and that firm, confident tone never failed to pull me back from the edge. But this wasn’t me buckling to peer pressure from asshole kids putting on me to lift beer from a convenience store cooler. This was the man I’d always hated inching his way back into my sister’s life.
Still, Nat adopted that tone and just the sound of it had me tamping down my anger. She leaned forward, taking my hand. “You’ve got yourself all twisted up over the stuff that happened to us. You’re still letting it rule your life.”
“I am not.” I jerked my hand back and leaned against the sofa with my arms over my chest.
“Really? So pushing away women, not wanting to rely on anyone at all, thinking that your life will be perfect with enough money? That all comes from losing everything you had as a kid. It comes from not trusting the one person who should have never let you down.”
“Yeah?”
“So maybe if you let it, that mess will keep you down. That happens, little brother and the man who killed our mother, also killed the person you were back then. You hold on to that and Nash, that kid stays dead.”
She knew she’d had me. I tried to tell myself I was too tired to argue. I tried to move the reason and logic around in my head so that I made sense, so that my reason was sound. But Nat always saw things differently than me. She always saw the potential, always had hope even in the grayest parts of our lives.
“Man, whatever.” I stood, stretching as she moved in front of me. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” I nodded toward the hallway. She’s stayed with me a half a dozen times and knew the routine. “You take the bed.” I laid back down on the sofa, fluffing the pillow as I stifled a yawn. “For now, let me sleep.”
* * *
New Orleans
After I didn’t come back home, and Mr. Simoneaux’s old Chevy had circled our driveway for the third time, Mama and Uncle Aron came looking where I’d most likely be— the tree house. We’d seen the headlights from our hiding spot; whether it was him looking to see where Dempsey had gotten off to or maybe Andres telling some lie about me, making the man bring him around to see things over, I wasn’t sure. But Mama made her irritation known.
“Why you hiding up there, girl? You do something to that hateful man?”
“No, Mama. Not me. I ain’t done nothing.”
“You always running your mouth, sassing folk…” Then she shut herself up I climbed down and she noticed how I held the too-big shirt Dempsey gave me over my chest. She didn’t fuss about how I’d missed the delivery, then, not when Dempsey climbed down after me, then took my hand and went to move in front of me a little, as if to run interference between me and my kin. Both Mama and Aron looked at me holding Dempsey’s button up over my chest like it was only a flimsy excuse to cover myself, then traded a look that was both worried and a whole lot scared.
“Ms. Lanoix, it was me, honest. I’m the one he’s looking for.” Dempsey had a way of speaking to grownups. It was how calm he could make his voice. It was deep, deeper than it should be at only seventeen, that put people at ease. “I forgot about cleaning after myself again when I got done fishing this afternoon. Left all the bait and tackle on the dock. He’s probably looking to skin my hide.”
A few moments passed with nobody saying anything. Mama was no fool, she knew when someone was trying to pull something over on her, but maybe she thought I wasn’t worth the trouble of finding out what that something might be. The more we stood there, me looking at the ground and Dempsey looking at Mama liked a wupped pup, the more the anger seemed to leach out of her and resignation set in. Finally she signed, and gave Dempsey a soft look that she’d never once given me. For Dempsey, though, it came easy enough. “Fine then.” She told him with one head shake that he needed to keep after himself. “Mind your business, Dempsey Simoneaux and don’t bring your daddy’s belt anywhere near this property.”
“No ma’am. Wouldn’t hear of it.”
It satisfied her enough that she seemed to forget how late the night had gotten or that it was the first time she didn’t settle Dempsey on Bastie’s sofa or at least on the floor in Sylv’s room. Uncle Aron, though, wasn’t so easy to take Dempsey at his word.
Mama had just made it through the front door when Uncle Aron pulled a cigarette from his front pocket, eyes steady, gaze moving between me and Dempsey as we watched him. He let out a long, slow breath and smoke puffed and billowed around his head in lazy, round rings. “The two of you, by God, will do us all in.” Another drag and Uncle Aron nodded for us to follow, leading us toward the fence line and the broken path that led the back way from Bastie’s property and the south end of the river. “Tell me now,” he said, leaning against the fence post, flicking ashes that burned orange red then faded to nothing as it landed on the black ground. “What’s all the fuss about?”
And so, I told him about Andres and his searching, drunk hands, about him tearing my shirt and me running like loon after I popped that fat white man real good in the eye. It took only a few minutes, with Dempsey adding how he’d come to find me in the tree house looking more vexed than a kitten, claws deep on the bow of a sinking boat.
Aron was smooth, slow, with everything he did. There was a little white at his temples and he wore his mustache neat and trimmed. He kept himself looking sharp with fine pressed suits and a fedora for whatever job each day would bring. Tonight he wore a pair of dark slacks and a shirt opened at the collar. But the fedora was sharp and pristine and the suspenders he wore had gold clips and teeth. It was date night, and by the look of his slow grin and missed-button state of his shirt, date night had been a good one.
“Well now.” Another drag and my uncle threw the cigarette to the ground, stamping out the small flame with his heel. “Seems to me it’d be best if the pair of you keep to yourselves this lovely night.”
“I can sleep in the tree house.” Dempsey shrugged as though there was nothing to be debated. Most nights when we stayed at the farm, he slept in the tree house just to be out of his family’s sight. “There's a blanket up there, I'll be fine.”
“That won’t work,” Aron replied, taking off his hat to smooth back the tips of his hair that had come mused in whatever activity he’d gotten into. “Your daddy is fool enough that he’d come up that ladder and drag you out by your ears.” He thought a second, flopping the hat back on his head. “And Joe Andres might sober up enough to remember who gave him the shiner I bet he’s sporting.” He glanced at me, a hesitant smile stretching across his face.
Dempsey grabbed my hand again, squeezing it tight as though he wanted me to not worry over the “mights” Aron laid out for us.
“Nah, I reckon it’s best you both clear out.” He glanced back toward the cottage, then looked at us again, lowering his voice as though he was sure someone was listening. “Can I trust you two to walk out to the fish shack and stay there?” We both nodded, not bothering to look at each other. “And can you promise me, Dempsey Simoneaux, on your honor you won’t be thinking of things you ought not think about with my niece in the same room?”
Dempsey widened his eyes, blushing a little before he nodded quick. “Good. You keep her safe and don’t get up to anything funny. I’ll be down to check up on you in the morning, but mind what you’re doing cause I won’t be telling you exactly how early I’ll come get you.”
“Of course. We’ll…it’ll be all fine,” Dempsey promised then lifted back the thick brush hiding the small opening to the trail, motioning me to go ahead first. Luckily the moon was out, and though it was slow going, we could see the path to follow.
We walked in silence for a few long minutes until Dempsey didn’t seem to take the quiet and started up whistling “Black Water Blues,” likely because he knew how much I loved Bessie Smith. I just started in on a chorus, singing about having no place to go, when Dempsey stopped me, covering my mouth with his hand as he pressed right behind me. He leaned down and the scent of his breath, like peppermint, came soft against my cheek.
“There,” he whispered, nodding to our right beyond the cover of the trail. By then we had walked past my Mimi’s property line and crossed over back into the Simoneaux land that edged along the river. My heart was pounding like a scared rabbit, and when Dempsey tried backing away, I grabbed his arm, pulling him tighter still just to keep myself from running or my fingers from shaking something awful.
The river was low this time of year when the hurricane season had yet to start. There would be heavy rains, and storms that would come—one was brewing in the gulf, coming in from Alabama. It had been on the radio and was all my Bastie could talk about and fret over for a week straight. But the boat passing around the riverbank right now had no problems cutting through the dark water.
There were voices and the trickle of water moving as a paddle dipped in and out of the water. I couldn’t make out who they were even as we sidled closer toward the river, staying beneath the heavy limbs of the cypress that skirted toward the end of the trail, but there definitely was more than one voice echoing quietly over the water.
“Poachers, looking for gators from the sound of it,” Dempsey whispered in my ear.
“They not in season?” I only asked to keep Dempsey leaning close to be heard. I did so like the way he smelled and how much heat his body made as he came close to me.
“No. I don’t reckon. If they were, those boys would be out during the day hunting.” The small boat floated further up the river and Dempsey took my hand, pulling me away from the trail and toward the small shack some fifty feet back off the water.
He nodded at the broken cinderblocks Aron had fashioned into a walkway and Dempsey helped me navigate it, stopping to offer me his hand and picking me up a little by my waist to make sure I made it from the path without slipping.
The small front door was made from three thick planks of pine with three smaller pieces nailed across, and as Dempsey grabbed the knotted twine of rope looped into a small hole in the wood that serves as handle, the small hinges that had rusted from the weather and moisture in the air made what seemed to be an earth shattering screech, but probably wasn't all that loud. .
“That Aron is clever.”
“Not so clever.” I nodded a thanks to Dempsey as he held open the door, but I didn’t step inside straight away; instead, we both leaned inward, looking over the small bucket in the corner upturned, I reckoned, to act as a seat and the two fishing poles leaned against one corner of the tiny shack. “He comes out here when he’s had too much whiskey and Mimi won’t let him in the house. Drunk fool will throw a line out that window at two in the morning thinking he’ll surprise the catfish when they’re half asleep.”
“Does it work?” There was a little laugh in Dempsey’s voice, like he already knew the answer to his question.
“Comes home with dozens, more than that when he’s good and drunk.”
“Then I won’t fault the man for his drink if it means your Mimi will fry up some catfish for us.”
Dempsey smiled at my shaking head then followed me away from the shack to sit near the bank. “There’s a purple sky tonight.” It was something Bastie liked the best about the spring. The sky on the Manchac was always clearest at night, but in the spring the weather was the brightest, like God settled the seas and calmed the wind so that we could have a clear sight of the most beautiful of his kingdom.
“What did your Bastie say about it? I forget.”
“Purple skies come when God is in court. He comes close to us and the purple we see is the hem of His royal cloak.”
Dempsey shook his head, smiling to himself as we both looked up into the dark sky. It wasn’t only purple, but blue with swirls of gray swimming in the darkness around us. If I looked away from Dempsey, I could only make out his silhouette from the corner of my eye. He looked dark as coal in that purple light.
“If God is visiting, He might not like to see what’s happening here.”
Dempsey was right. The way things were turning, how restless and mean folk had gotten—how our own lives had found the same restlessness, wouldn’t make any God happy looking down on it.
“Maybe He only see the good among us.”
Dempsey went quiet, slipping his hand to mine to move his palm over the top of my fingers. “Then He only sees you, Sook.”
And then Dempsey who swore he loved me, leaned close, pulled my face toward his and showed me for a little while that I wasn’t the only good one in that small corner of our world.