Olivia Goldsmith - Young Wives

“Do you want to sleep over?” Natalie asked. “I can unfold a cot I use when we get full at the crisis center.”

Angie restrained herself from shivering. The idea of sleeping on a bed of misery here in this warehouse made her father’s sofa and the plaster infinity signs overhead seem almost heavenly. “No,” Angie said. “I’m just fine.”

“Yeah,” her mother said. “You’re fine and I’m skinny.”

Angie managed to give her mother a watery smile before she shrugged into her coat and left.

In which dinner and an ultimatum are both served

Jada and Michelle had planned to rendezvous at Post Road Pizza, but Michelle had called back to say she had to go down and pick up Frank. Jada pulled the car into the driveway, got out, and opened the rear door for Jenna. Jenna got out, moving slowly, as if overnight her eleven-year-old body had been transformed into an old woman’s. But at least she was moving. Frankie seemed to have become paralyzed, turned into a block of stone, or maybe ice, by the trauma of the last twenty-four hours. When Jada lifted him from the backseat, she was surprised by his heaviness. The kid couldn’t weigh more than forty pounds, but as dead weight he felt like the huge bags of Sacrete that Clinton used to throw so easily across his shoulder in the old days. Jada hugged the little boy to her, freed up a hand, and put it on Jenna’s shoulder as she led them into the house.

When Clinton looked up from the kitchen table, Jada knew immediately that there would be trouble. She decided to ignore him for as long as she could. Normalization was the goal here, and since she normally ignored Clinton anyway, that was the route to take.

“Hey, Kevon! Hey, Shavonne! Guess who’s here?” she called out. Shavonne wasn’t crazy about Jenna lately—sometimes they got along and sometimes they fought—but Kevon adored Frankie. Kevon ran into the kitchen, but skidded to a stop when she put Frankie down on the linoleum. Kevon stood almost as still as his friend, then his eyes flicked from Frankie’s face to his mom’s.

“What’s wrong with him?” he asked her in a hoarse kid’s whisper, as if he could already tell that Frankie wasn’t talking and maybe couldn’t hear.

Jada felt Clinton’s disapproval from all the way across the room. He was such a hypocrite! He’d hung with some neighborhood brothers who’d gotten in plenty of trouble, and once or twice had even brought the kids along until she’d put her foot down.

“He had a bad sleepover,” she said. “Remember when you had that sleepover at Billy’s?” Kevon nodded. It wasn’t easy for her son to be the only African-American in his grade. “Well, it was scarier than that . But he’s okay now. He’s with us.” She tightened her arm around Frankie, really talking to him. Kevon, bless his heart, reached his hand out to Frankie, who still stood immobile.

“Come on, Frankie,” Kevon said. “We hate Billy.” Jada realized that Kevon thought Frankie had spent the night with Kevon’s little enemy. But she wasn’t going to bother to correct the picture because, thank the Lord, Frankie allowed Kevon to pull him out of the room. She turned to Jenna, who was chewing the end of her hair.

“Is my mother coming back now?” Jenna asked.

“She’s having dinner with your dad. He wanted pizza. We’ll be eating in a little while,” Jada said. Then she raised her voice and called her daughter again. Shavonne came into the kitchen clutching the baby.

“Oh, hi,” she said, overly casual. She looked at Jenna. “I can’t really play with you now,” she told her self-importantly, “I’m baby-sitting my little sister.”

“Jenna’s going to help you baby-sit,” Jada said. She felt like strangling her daughter, and the girl wasn’t even a teen yet. “If you both do a good job, I’m going to pay you both.” She could actually feel Clinton’s stare, though he was behind her. “Don’t go up the stairs with the baby,” she admonished more gently than she felt disposed to be. “Play with her in the living room,” she told them. Reluctantly, it seemed, Jenna moved with Shavonne through the living room, Jada right behind them. Be nice to her, Shavonne , Jada thought. Now’s not the time to stand off . The baby gurgled and then spit up on Shavonne’s shoulder.

“Oh, yuck! Gross,” Jenna said. She’d inherited her mother’s clean gene.

“That’s nothing,” Shavonne told her. “When she had a cold, you should have seen her snots.”

Normality—such as it was—had been achieved. Jada felt relieved and left them. Graphic descriptions of bodily functions would bind them. She closed the dining room door, then entered the kitchen, but avoided even looking at Clinton. Jenna had refused pizza, so Jada pulled out two bags of frozen french fries and a cookie sheet, sprayed the pan with vegetable oil, opened the oven door, and threw the tray in. She filled a pot with water to boil hotdogs. At least they were turkey dogs, not the other junk. Guiltily she looked for something green to serve with them. Nothing but very old strawberry yogurt (which ought not be green). She hadn’t had time and Clinton hadn’t had the ambition to clean out the refrigerator in the last two or three weeks. Well, she told herself, she’d just give them green Jell-O and pretend it was a balanced meal. They deserved better and so did she, but she was working under a lot of adversity here.

Even more adversity than she thought, however. Clinton rose from the kitchen chair he’d been sprawled in and came up beside her. It wasn’t to help with the damn dinner, but to take the refrigerator door out of her hands and close it behind her. He leaned on it. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“Making the dinner that you should have made?” she responded. He was worse than DAS. The man was dead and stupid.

“Don’t try to get smart. You’ve already been dumb,” he told her. “What are those kids doing over here?”

She narrowed her eyes. “ Those kids?” she asked. “You mean Frankie and Jenna? Those kids are always over here, or our kids are always at their house.”

“Not anymore,” Clinton said.

“Oh, Clinton, don’t start with me.” She did not have the patience for this kind of bullshit. Not today. Not now. Not from this bastard, who was spending his days with his dick in some other woman and his nights taking his kids for granted.

“Those children shouldn’t be over here.”

“ Shouldn’t ? Why shouldn’t they?”

“Because I don’t want them influencing my children.”

“Oh, today they’re your children?” she glared at him. “When did they become your children? They weren’t yours the other night, when Shavonne had her book report to write or the day before, when Kevon had diarrhea. You think Jenna is a danger to Shavonne, who bullies that girl shamelessly? And do you think that Frankie could influence anything right now?” She crossed the kitchen, her steps fast and angry, not that they made much noise against the plywood of the unfinished floor. She started to set the table.

“Are you through running your mouth?” Clinton asked. “Because you’re just missing the point. Number one, they’re the children of a drug dealer. Number two, if you don’t think the police are watching them and everything they do right now—”

“The police are watching everything that Frankie does? Well, that’s an easy job. Even you could do it. ’Cause Frankie isn’t doing dick.”

“Don’t show a smart mouth to me,” Clinton said, narrowing his eyes. “I’m telling you that a black man in Westchester don’t need a connection with a drug lord.”