Jennifer Brown - Torn Away

Even though on the inside I didn’t want to dignify his question with a response, I found my head shaking vehemently. “No,” I said. “He…” But I didn’t know how to continue. I didn’t have any excuse for why Ronnie had done what he had. I was still so angry at him myself.

“He didn’t want you no more,” Clay finished for me, and as much as I hated to admit it, that was as close to the truth as he could have gotten. Ronnie didn’t want me anymore.

Clay looked out into the backyard, shaking his head ruefully. “So the way I see it,” he said, “you gonna be a senior next year. And then you got your own life to get on with. I can live with puttin’ you up for a year, I s’pose, as long as there ain’t no shit going on. No babies, no drugs, none of that shit. But after you graduate, I reckon it’s time for you to go. I ain’t lookin’ for no long-term reunion here, and neither is anyone else in this house.” He took another drink, then crushed the can in his fist, burping under his breath. “And you need to understand, them two girls of mine are number one for me, okay? You ain’t never gonna be on the same level as them. And I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear, but it’s just the way it is. I’m bein’ honest with ya, just in case you got some big ideas about fairness. Fairness left the building sixteen years ago. Like Elvis.” He chuckled at his own joke. “I feel sorry for ya and everything, because what went down wasn’t your fault, but you gotta know there’s such a thing as too little too late.”

The door swung open and Tonette clomped through it, her toes hanging over a pair of turquoise-colored wedge heels. Her hair was damp, as if she’d showered recently, and her boobs were hanging out of a tight T-shirt with a glittery skull emblazoned across the front.

She looked at Clay and me with amusement in her eyes and handed Clay another beer, then popped one for herself.

“You’re chubbier than I pictured you,” she said. She gazed at me as I felt my face turn red, and then laughed as if it were the funniest thing she’d ever said, her lips wet with beer and lip gloss.

“I’m not fat,” I said, trying not to sound as snippy as I felt. I turned my gaze back down to my hands, rubbing the smooth stomach of the kitten with both thumbs now.

“Don’t get all boo-hoo about it,” she said. “We can’t all be supermodels. Besides, Clay says your mama was kinda beefy, so it makes sense.”

I glared at her.

Clay noticed the kitten in my hand. “What you got there?” he asked, and my first inclination was to hide it. I balled it up in my fist, covering it, which was dumb, since he obviously knew it was there.

He held out his hand. Slowly, I leaned over and handed it to him, waiting for recognition to register on his face.

He turned the kitten over and looked at it. “Six?” he said. “What’s that mean?”

“Six years old,” I said, not understanding how he could not know.

He snorted again and placed the kitten in Tonette’s outstretched hand. “You six years old now?” he asked.

“It’s the only one I could find. The others were all shattered,” I said.

“Other what?”

“Cats, stupid,” Tonette said, thumping his biceps with the hand that was still holding my kitten. “She musta had a collection.” She handed the kitten back to me.

“I did,” I said. Confusion etched itself across my heart. “You sent them to me on my birthday every year.”

Clay raised one eyebrow. “I did?”

Tonette looked from him to me and back again, frowning like if he had been sending me gifts for my birthday, it had been a personal betrayal against her. “You did?” she echoed.

“No, I didn’t,” he said, to her rather than to me.

For a moment, I thought maybe he was putting on an act to keep Tonette from getting mad. Maybe he’d had to send them on the sly so Tonette wouldn’t know about them, and to admit to it now would mean admitting to sixteen years’ worth of betrayal. I sat there uncomfortably, afraid to say any more.

“I didn’t send you those,” he said, pointing at the kitten. “Your mama probably gave them to you and just said I did.”

“But I got them in the mail,” I said. “I opened them up myself. In front of Mom.”

“Maybe they come from a secret admirer,” he said, “ ’cause they sure as hell didn’t come from me. Hell, maybe they came from your real dad.”

“You are my real dad,” I muttered, but doubt began to needle at me. Could Clay have been right about my mom? Did she have… others? Did I belong to one of them?

Of course not, I told myself. Why would I believe anything that came out of this liar’s mouth, especially when it came to Mom? He didn’t know her.

Or at least one of us didn’t.

“Well, whoever give it to you, you better put it away tight. If Terry’s boys get hold of it, they’ll use it for batting practice,” Tonette said.

Again, I tucked the kitten into my palm, which was sweaty now. “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

The screen door opened again and Terry poked her head out. She had the baby on one hip, his T-shirt adhered to his chest with drool, a Cheerio stuck to his chin.

“You comin’ or what?” she asked me.

I stood up and started cramming my things into my backpack, zipping the kitten into a small pocket in the front, hoping it would be safe there.

“Back off, Terry, can’t you see I’m bonding with my long-lost daughter here?” Clay shot at her, and then he and Tonette both cracked up, Tonette’s belly bouncing against the fabric of her shirt, both of them swigging beer.

I swung my backpack full of clothes over one shoulder and headed toward my aunt, leaving Tonette and Clay on the porch, glad to be taking my valuables with me.

I had a feeling Terry’s boys were the least of my worries here.

“I feel for your mama,” Terry said, holding a pair of jean shorts—mom shorts—up for inspection. She was standing in front of her open closet and tossing shirts and shorts to where I sat on the bed. I definitely wasn’t going to be in style, but at least I’d be able to change my clothes. Finally. “Taking care of kids by yourself is no picnic. The idea of something happening to me and leaving the boys alone with no mama is one of my biggest fears.”

I tilted my face down. I wondered if that was one of Mom’s fears, too. Had she ever been able to guess that, if something were to happen to her, Ronnie wouldn’t be there for me?

“I guess at least you got Clay, for whatever that’s worth,” Terry said, shrugging.

“Clay says he’s not my real father,” I blurted.

She waved her hand at me. “Don’t listen to him. That’s what he says when he tries to make himself feel better about how everything went down. It’s the party line around here. Your grandfather is fond of reminding Clay that it’s possible he’s not. But that’s just who Harold is. Never believes anything for sure until he sees it himself. He’s the skeptical type. Of course Clay’s your father.”

“And if he isn’t?” I asked, taking a tank top that Terry was holding up against my torso.

“Well, at least you got a place to stay,” she said.

But would that be enough? Because at the moment it felt like it could never be enough. People needed more than a place to stay, more than a porch to sleep on. They needed a home, right? They needed love.

“I miss my mom,” I said, barely able to croak out the words. I missed her so much, and saying it aloud only made it feel like a piece of me had fallen away. “I didn’t get to say good-bye.”

She gave me a sympathetic look. “We got to be pretty good friends when she was married to Clay,” she said. “You know that?” I shook my head and she nodded, tossing a T-shirt at me. “I never understood how someone like her got mixed up with someone like him in the first place. She was sweet. And real smart.”

She tossed a few more items across the bed and told me to try them on in the bathroom, to bring back the things that didn’t fit. But I didn’t want to leave. For the first time since Kolby went to Milton, I felt like I had an ally, someone who cared.

“Will you take me to her funeral?” I asked before my brain could catch up with my mouth.

She looked surprised. “They didn’t have the funerals yet?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I tried to call my stepdad last night to find out when they are, though. When I know for sure, will you take me?”

She chewed on her lip and looked over at Jimmy’s crib, as if the thought of driving three hours north to Elizabeth was frightening for her. As if it would somehow be bad for Jimmy. But after a few seconds, she nodded.

“I’ll have to make sure Mother will watch Nathan and Kyle,” she said, almost to herself. “But, yeah. I will. You should get a chance to say good-bye at least. It’s not right that he sent you here without that much.”

I had to restrain myself from throwing my arms around her. I practically floated out of the room. I tried on everything, not even caring that most of her clothes looked so out of style I would have been mortified to wear them in front of my friends.

I gathered all my new clothes and headed down to the basement, where the rickety washer and dryer gathered cobwebs in the far corner.

I’d never been fond of basements, and being stuck in one by myself when the deadliest tornado in forty years ripped through my house didn’t help matters much at all. But I was still on a high from my conversation with Terry, and besides, the basement was preferable to the rest of the house, where I might run across Grandmother Billie, who mostly sat in front of the TV all day eating popcorn from a green plastic bowl, or Clay and Tonette, who alternately clanked around under the hood of an old car in the driveway and fought in the kitchen.