Margaret Sexton - A Kind of Freedom

He looked her up and down though. He couldn’t help that. “You look good,” he said.

“She big, huh, T?” Tiger shot in.

Alicia play-slapped him in his chest. “I ain’t big, boy. I’m pregnant.”

“That’s what I meant,” Tiger said.

“Then that’s what you say next time,” Alicia went on.

In all the squabble T.C. wasn’t sure if Alicia would hear his compliment, so he repeated himself.

“You’re beautiful,” he lightweight whispered, and she looked up at him and smiled.

Once Tiger left, they went outside and sat on his stoop.

“I can’t be in that house too long,” Alicia said. “I’d wind up getting some contact high or some shit.”

T.C. laughed. He had missed her candor. “I feel you.”

“So when you got out?” she asked.

“A month ago.”

She nodded. “I knew it was a month, I was just making conversation,” she said.

“I was gonna come see you.”

“Don’t even start, T.C.,” she shrugged, and waved her hand at him. “I’ve heard it all before and I don’t have the energy for it, not today.”

He didn’t say anything to that. What was there to say? They watched kids jump Double Dutch across the street. T.C. didn’t know where they could possibly be living.

Banana, banana, banana split,

What you got in arithmetic?

Banana, banana, banana for free,

What you got in geometry?

“How’s your mama and them?” Alicia asked.

“My mama? Crazy as ever. You already know.”

Alicia laughed. “I ran into her the other day at Castnet. She made the owner give me my sandwich for free, said her grandbaby was going to be eating it.” Alicia shook her head, laughing.

“I didn’t know she knew the owner like that.”

“She doesn’t, but I think they just didn’t want to cross her.”

Their laughter was so much a habit only part of them knew they were doing it.

“So how has it been? The pregnancy and all that?”

“Easy breezy. My mama was sick the whole first two trimesters with me, and you know she had a miscarriage between me and my sister.”

T.C. shook his head.

“Yeah, so I was nervous you know, I was real nervous in the beginning, but now, I’m just ready to go.”

“You due, what, in a week or two?”

“Boy, I got about four weeks left. I wish it was a week or two. Nah, lemme stop, I just want him to be healthy. Sometimes if they come too early, they gotta stay in NICU and shit.”

“Aww, no, not our lil’ dude.” He put his hand around her shoulder out of habit, and she didn’t move. “You thought about names already?”

She nodded, smiling. “I got a couple. Why, you wanna hear them?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“One is Malcolm Darrell, Darrell after Daryl, may he rest in peace.” She made the sign of the cross.

T.C. could feel the emotion rushing to his face and he put his head down.

“And you know I just love Malcolm X.”

“You still tryin’ to be a Black Panther, huh?” he said, glad to change the mood.

“Boy, whatever,” but she smiled. “The other one is Malik.” She looked up at him to gauge his reaction. “I just like the name Malik.” She shrugged. “Always have. What you think?”

“Those sound good,” he said. “Those sound real good.”

“You got a favorite?”

“Probably Malik,” he said. “That just sound real cool to me, and unique. Malik Darrell. MD. Maybe he’ll be a doctor or something like that.”

“I didn’t even think about that,” she said, her face lighting up.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then Lewis of course.”

He was too caught off guard to play it cool. He looked up at her with impossible gratitude. He had long since given up on having the last name, being locked up half his girl’s pregnancy, and then he had gone and let the shame over that keep him from being there the rest of the time too. If it hadn’t been for Tiger, who knew when he would have shown up? Kindergarten? High school graduation? But she was going to give him the name anyway.

“You serious, Licia? You really thinking about naming him Lewis?”

“It’s your baby, ain’t it?”

“Of course it’s mine”—he sat up straight on the porch chair—“but I haven’t done right by you. I know that. I’ma do better, but I let so much time pass; sometimes I worry it’s too late.”

Alicia sighed. “That’s why you didn’t call? You thought it was too late?”

He shrugged. “Something like that. I thought about calling all the time. I’d pick up the phone and actually dial the number. Then I’d imagine your mama in your ear telling you that nigga ain’t shit , then imagine my kid hearing that over and over through the years. That’s how it was for me, you know. I don’t think my mama ever mentioned my daddy’s name without following it with the word mothafucka , and I’d think about all that, and I’d put the phone right back on the hook, roll up. You know how that go.” He was looking at those kids again now, anything to keep his eyes off her. The overgrown weeds were hugging their knees.

I know something,

But I won’t tell.

Three lil’ monkeys,

in a peanut shell.

One can read,

And one can dance,

And one got a hole

in the seat of his pants!

“I just thought you had moved on to somebody else, that you weren’t thinking about me and old Malik,” Alicia said.

He reached for her hand. “I could never stop thinking about you, Licia. You never have to think that.”

“Well, you never have to think it’s too late. No matter what happens with us, it’s never too late for you to be part of his life, T.C. You hear me? That’s your son.” She moved his face so it was parallel to hers. He never wanted to kiss somebody more in his life, not fuck her, just kiss her, pour his whole heart into hers and have her pour the new merged contents back.

Instead he just nodded. They stared into each other’s eyes for a while until the kids changed their song, and T.C. looked up.

Call the army, call the navy

I heard Tashica gonna have a baby.

Wrap it up in tissue paper,

send it down the elevator

“They over there ear hustling,” T.C. joked.

Alicia shook her head, smiling.

“Anyway, what the hell y’all doing in here, nigga?” She gestured toward the house again. It smells like a high school bathroom. Better yet, it smells like the hallway to prison, that’s what it smells like.”

“Aww, please, you know it ain’t nothing like that.”

“I don’t know a thing.” She paused. “Now you doing good. Don’t go fooling around with Tiger and get yourself back in trouble, T.C. I mean it. Malik needs you. We need you.”

Tiger was right on both counts. T.C. had checked the buds just the other day, and they were cloudy as a glass of ice water. He chopped the branches off all twelve plants, trimmed the leaves so only the buds were left to dry. In another week or so, they’d be open for business.

Not only that, he and Licia were still kicking it together real strong. He’d worried that the momentum from a few weeks ago would whittle down, and she’d be back to going ham on him, worse than that, barely speaking to him, but no. Every morning first thing, he called her to check in, make sure the baby was still inside, see if she needed anything. He’d gone with her to buy that car seat too, and a pair of baby Jordans he thought his little man shouldn’t be without. Then she’d invited him to the doctor’s appointment last week, and he’d heard his baby’s heartbeat, steady as the rhythm of God. Tears welled up in his eyes, and he didn’t wipe them.