Angela Flournoy - The Turner House

“Mother fuckers! ”

“Calm down, Cha, before you throw that hip out,” Lonnie said. He smacked at something between his teeth. “Thought you was lettin the bank have the house anyway.”

“I never said that! Nobody ever said that! I was just here with Lelah. And Troy. I never said that. I’m paying almost seven hundred dollars a month for this place, gotdamnit.”

“We got insurance?” Lonnie asked. “They might cover somethin like this, maybe.”

“Mother fuckers! ”

Lonnie stood and witnessed Cha-Cha’s tantrum. His round, ungainly brother cursed and swatted at the air and cursed again. For a moment Lonnie worried whether Cha-Cha could rile himself up into a heart attack, but since he had never been one to stand between a man and an outpouring of emotion, he let it continue. Lonnie looked at the house, then to the corner, where a car stopped longer than the sign required before driving on. He muttered a quick thank-you to God—a more open-minded and ethereal god than the one Cha-Cha envisioned—that he had never developed a taste for the truly hard stuff, the kind of stuff that made a person snatch a rickety garage under cover of night.

Lelah saw the moving van parked in Brianne’s reserved spot but refused to believe it belonged to her daughter. It had only been two days. It was too extreme for her to have rented a van already, too final. She parked in a guest spot and walked over. From what she could see through the rear windows, the van appeared to be empty. That was a small relief. But then she saw Rob standing at the top of the apartment stairs with Bobbie in his arms. Bobbie spotted her and called out.

“Gigi! Gigi, come here now. ” His squeaky voice mimicked the bossy tone of an adult’s.

She climbed the stairs with her hands outstretched for her grandson, offering Rob the smallest amount of eye contact one could dole out without appearing rude.

“Hi, Rob, hi.”

“Hi, Ms. Turner,” Rob said.

He actually seemed to be mulling over whether he was going to hand Bobbie to her, weighing his options, as if he had options. After about five seconds he passed Lelah her grandson. Lelah kissed Bobbie, squeezed him so tight he squirmed, and then handed him back.

“Brianne’s inside,” Rob said.

Rob was an inch or so taller than Lelah, with a smooth, medium-brown complexion and the sort of swirly, light brown eyes that made boys look more innocent than they were. He was likely not used to people staying upset with him for long—those sparkling eyes underneath his thick eyebrows compelled you to forgive him. But Lelah had not forgiven him for his early absence in Bobbie’s life, nor had she forgotten the hypocritical, self-congratulatory behavior of his parents. Once Rob had changed his tune and decided that he did in fact want to be a father, his parents had thrown a belated baby shower at their house in Grosse Pointe. Lelah, Marlene, Francey, Netti, and Tina had gone together. The unapologetic bourgieness of his parents—with their not one but two Romare Beardens on the front-room walls that they just had to point out—the way they lavished attention and affection on Rob, the baby boy of his family, as if he were doing a valiant service by deigning to be a father to his son, never mind his short-term negligence—it had all been too much bullshit for the Turner women to stomach. Francey had made a very Francey-like comment—not out of malice but for the sake of small talk—about how times had surely changed, because she could remember when a black family couldn’t even buy a house in Grosse Pointe thanks to their now infamous point system. Rob’s parents had looked at her blankly and changed the subject. Every Turner woman but Lelah and Brianne had left within the hour. She pushed those memories down now and gave him a shoulder squeeze.

“Thank you, honey,” she said. “It’s good seeing you.”

Inside the apartment, the scene reminded Lelah of her own recent eviction, the sort of chaos that resulted when there was no time to see one packing project through from start to finish. Heaps of clothes in every corner, dishes stacked on the couch, a wastebasket overflowing with ripped-up documents. A foreboding sense that many items would be permanently lost or trashed in a mad rush to get everything out the door. Brianne, in pink sweatpants and a white sports bra, dragged a duffel bag through the hallway to the kitchen. She plopped it down with a grunt.

“So you’re moving out today?”

“Yep,” Brianne said. “Gotta give the landlord keys by three o’ clock.”

Lelah’s phone said that it was already 11 A.M. No way this place would be packed in four hours, not with Rob futzing around with Bobbie. Brianne left the room and came back with a plastic bin of toys. She set the bin outside the front door and yelled downstairs for Rob to come pick it up.

“Can I help?” Lelah asked. “I’m pretty good at moving out in a hurry.”

Bad joke, she realized too late.

Brianne shrugged. “No, we got it. Thank you.”

“So Rob’s driving the van, and you’re gonna follow in your car? Tonight?”

“Yep, as soon as we drop off the keys.”

“Oh.” The lack of eye contact rattled Lelah. “Well, are you gonna come back Saturday for Grandma’s party?”

“Don’t think so. We need to get settled, and Bobbie’s been on too many long car rides lately.”

“You know, Grandma’s sick.”

“I do know that.”

“Like for-real sick. Really sick. Worse than whenever you saw her last.”

Brianne knelt in front of the couch and wrapped dinner plates with bath towels from a hamper. She carefully placed the wrapped plates in a box.

“Do you think you guys can wait? It’s just two days until the party, and then y’all can leave early Sunday morning.”

Brianne’s hands stopped moving.

“I am turning the keys in at three, and we are getting on the road to Chicago before it gets dark.” She said this like a chant, as if saying it repeatedly might make it come to pass.

“Alright, well. I want you to have this.”

Lelah reach into her purse and pulled out the thousand dollars she’d set aside for Brianne at Cha-Cha’s that morning. She held the money out to her, but Brianne did not budge. Lelah set it on the arm of the couch.

Brianne went back to wrapping plates. Rob walked in with Bobbie, saw Brianne sitting on the floor, the helpless look on Lelah’s face, the money on the couch, and turned on his heels.

“Please take it, Brianne.”

“You want me to take that?” Brianne pointed her chin at the stack of cash.

“Yeah. Why not? I don’t want you moving to Chicago with nothing. If you’re determined to go, then I support you, fine. But you shouldn’t go empty-handed. It’s just some just-in-case money.”

Lelah wanted to add something about not moving in with anyone, especially a man, with nothing to offer, but she thought better of this.

“Where’s that money from, Mommy? That’s the money Auntie Marlene gave you?”

“Yeah. Well, kinda, yeah. It’s some of her money in there.”

“Oh my god ,” Brianne said under her breath, but Lelah heard her. Brianne pursed her lips and went back to wrapping plates.

Rob returned, holding Bobbie.

“I’m sorry,” Rob said. “I just, I’m gonna pack up more stuff in the room so we can make time. Sorry.” He shuffled through the living room and shut the bedroom door.

Brianne stood up, picked up the cash, and held it out to Lelah.

“You want me to be codependent with you. That’s what you want. Co dependence. But I won’t, Mommy. I can’t. I can’t take this money. I know where you got it from.”