After Nothing (32 page)

Kane put my phone back on the bench at the same time Joey’s cry reached us.

‘Why are you on the floor?’ said Kane.

I shook my head.

‘Get up, Nat.’ He hauled me back on to my feet, then raised his head toward the hall as Joey’s crying became piercing in its loudness.

Kane swore, this time under his breath, before saying, ‘He heard me yelling, didn’t he? Fuck. Just two seconds, okay, baby? Sit on the couch.’

I sat. Everything was too bright. I needed to block out the light. I shut my eyes, put a hand over them. It wasn’t darker, it was louder. Joey was really screaming.

Kane was talking. Quietly.

‘You alright. I got you. Ain’t nothing bad gonna happen to you.’

‘Mom-mom-mom,’ cried Joey.

‘She here. She alright.’

I dropped my hand as I heard them come close. Kane put Joey in my lap and I wrapped my arms around him.

‘Mom-mom-mom,’ he sobbed.

‘It’s okay, baby boy.’

My body moved in a gentle rocking motion. I found it soothing. Comforting.

‘Mom-mom-mom.’

‘You’re safe. You’re safe, Joey. You got a big fright, I know. But you’re safe here.’

I pressed my mouth to the top his head. He kept crying.

‘Nat, what do you want me to do?’

I raised my gaze to meet Kane’s.

‘I forgot,’ he said. ‘I won’t forget again.’

‘Make him up a bottle? Please.’

It took an hour to settle Joey again, and he only really slept once I’d put him in my bed, lying between Kane and me.

The bedroom lights were off, but the main light in the hall was on, and Kane and I could just make each other out.

We spoke softly to each other, Kane stroking the back of the hand I’d rested above Joey’s head.

‘What’s going on with you, Nat?’ asked Kane. ‘Where’s your fight?’

‘I’m tired. I’m tired of this life.’

‘You don’t even got any hate?’

‘No. Yes. Toward Bey.’

Kane’s fingers stilled a moment, but then he went back to moving them across my skin, wrist to fingertips and back again.

‘I want you to stay, Kane.’

‘I’m gonna.’

‘I don’t want to upset the Drummonds.’

‘Rev been upset alright, but only ’cause me and him had words.’

‘About what? Kane, they’ve been so good to us.’

‘I know, and they know we appreciate it. I said that, but you ain’t had Rev telling you how to live your life for the last few years. But it’s cool now, and we can pay rent, which I want to do.’

‘You can live here?’

‘He and Julie have always been cool with me living here, Nat, as long as I committed to raising Joey.’

My eyes went to the baby sleeping between us.

‘He can’t make you want him.’

‘Yeah, it had to be my choice.’

‘Had to be?’

Kane’s eyes went to Joey’s slumbering face, then he looked at me.

‘I’ll raise him, with you.’

Kane carried Joey back to his room, and laid him in his crib. I pulled his blankets up over him and made sure he was tucked in.

Kane turned my light on when we went back into my room.

He hesitated a moment.

‘My new tatt, I know you ain’t gonna like it.’

‘Then why’d you get it?’

‘’Cause it ain’t for you. It’s for me. And Joey.’

Kane pulled his sweater, and then the tank he had on underneath, up over his head. He turned and showed me his back. Across the middle of his shoulders was a long, wide bandage, its edges partially concealing tattoos he already had.

‘Pull it off,’ said Kane.

I gently lifted the tape and then peeled the bandage off.

There was his
Richmond
tattoo, and below it the pattern he’d designed which rippled across his shoulders and swirled around the fanged snake’s head. The new, bold ink below that read: BEY.

It dominated all his other tattoos, covering one side of his back to the other. It was beautifully done. The letters intertwined, their end pieces flowing into the surrounding work. But it was so big.

‘Kane.’

It was all I said: it was enough for Kane to know my response to it.

‘He was Joey’s dad.’

‘He shot Reesey in the head.’

‘Yeah, and I let him down. Should have helped him. Should have protected her.’

‘You said you didn’t want any part of him.’

‘I take Joey on, I take Bey with me. Joey gonna know him through me, and Bey was more than the man who killed his mom. More than just the bad shit he did. I know things about Bey no one else knows. I can give Joey that.’

‘But your whole back? You could have got his name small somewhere.’

‘I wanted it.’

I just stared at him. What did it matter? It was just another emotion, or another ten emotions, or whatever the hell the stupid tattoo invoked. I thought I should protest more. At the same time, I also thought I should be conveying how relieved and grateful I was that he’d agreed to raise Joey with me.

But what I felt was nothing. Nothing but a deep bone-weary tiredness.

‘Can’t explain it to you, Nat.’

‘I’m the one who has to look at it, Kane.’

‘Yeah, and I gotta carry it.’

Harold paid me out a month’s wages. And I got to keep the laptop. Kane said Harold agreed to it, but I’m pretty sure Kane just told him he wouldn’t be getting it back.

I got in touch with my old boss at the bakehouse, Leonie, and she offered me my old job back. I asked if I could just do three days a week as a server, starting in a month’s time. She agreed.

I spent three days catching up on things like buying Joey bigger clothes, and grocery shopping, replenishing all my baking supplies and tackling the mountain of washing that arrived with Kane.

Then I fell apart.

I could do what Joey needed, and that was it. No cleaning, no cooking for Kane and me, no talking to people outside of the Drummonds and Aunt Sarah. Definitely no going to church. I lived in fear of Joey’s caseworker, Penny, calling by, but it wasn’t enough to get me off the couch. Every time Joey went down for a nap I turned the television on. All those same shows my mom used to watch: most of them were still on. I watched them.

Melissa walked in through the back door without knocking, and when she saw me, she struggled to find words. Melissa never struggled to find words.

I was standing in the kitchen, Joey in my arms, while I warmed him a bottle.

Shocked at her sudden appearance, all I managed was a weak ‘hi.’

She walked forward and wrapped her arms around both me and Joey.

‘Natalie, I had no idea things were so bad.’

‘Kane called you?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t tell me this,’ said Melissa, stepping back and gingerly touching my hair. ‘Girl, have you looked at you lately?’

She smiled at Joey and touched his cheek. ‘Hi, beautiful.’ He grinned at her. ‘Oh my goodness, look at all your teeth.’

For every admiring look Joey got for the next quarter of an hour, I got a frown and a shake of Melissa’s head.

Once Joey was down and asleep, Melissa reached for my hand and examined my nails.

‘Have you been chewing these?’

We were sitting side by side on the couch. My head was resting on her shoulder, and I’d been listening to her update me on college life.

‘They’re just nails, Mel.’

‘Natalie, look at these. Look!’ She held up my hand in front of me. ‘How are you going to convince anyone to give you that baby when you can’t even look after your own nails? And your hair! I don’t even know where to begin. Take it out.’

‘No.’

‘Natalie, take it out or I will.’

I reluctantly sat up and pulled my hair free from its knot on my head.

Melissa’s eyes ran from one side of my head to the other, and then she gingerly lifted up the dreaded curls at the back.

‘That is disgusting,’ she said, sitting back. ‘You are disgusting.’

‘I’m not,’ I said, but at the same time I felt it – a smile.

‘You are,’ said Melissa. ‘You are the grossest thing I have ever seen. Ew. You’re just gross. And Natalie, to be honest, not that fine anymore. I bet Kane isn't even touching you.’

‘He is.’

‘Really? He’s doing you morning and night?’

‘Well, no. We’re not really having sex as much at the moment.’

Melissa raised an eyebrow at me.

‘I haven’t really felt like it. But it’s me, not him.’

‘Mm-hmm,’ said Melissa, and then leaned forward and sniffed.

‘Mel!’ I said, outraged.

‘Have you showered today?’

‘Of course I’ve showered today.’

‘Well, it’s hard to tell when you look like a homeless person, Natalie. What are you wearing?’

I was wearing a pair of Kane’s sweatpants rolled up at the leg and a hooded sweater that had been through the wash so many times its black color had turned to dark grey.

‘Let me rephrase that,’ said Melissa. ‘Why are you wearing that? I mean, what made you decide to put this on?’ She gestured with a beautifully manicured index finger between the sweatpants and sweater. ‘Because this is not a good look for you. In case you were wondering.’

‘Joey needed breakfast, and they were both at the top of the clean washing pile.’

‘You need to get organized,’ said Melissa.

‘I am organized.’

‘Nat, I don’t doubt that you’re organized with that baby of yours, but in terms of you! No wonder you’re feeling bad. No self-respecting black woman could feel good with hair like yours. I can tell you’ve lost weight, too. You’re always unhappy with how much you weigh, and now you’re hiding the figure you wanted back so bad. Unless it’s all saggy baggy under there? Is that why you’re hiding it?’

‘Saggy baggy?’ Another smile broke through. ‘I am not saggy baggy.’

‘You got elephant booty, don’t you?’

I laughed. Out loud.

She laughed with me, and when we had both stopped Melissa said, ‘Okay, Nat. Tell me now what’s going on.’

‘It’s just hard. It’s been hard since Reesey and Bey died.’

‘You weren’t looking like this during Christmas break.’

‘Do I really look that bad?’

‘Yes! I’m not lying. I wouldn’t do that to you. You are in a state.’

I sighed.

‘It’s easier not working. I like being home with Joey. I really love him, and he makes me happy, but I also feel sad about it all, because it’s Reesey who should be getting that happiness. He was Reesey’s baby.’

‘He was, and now he’s yours.’

‘It feels wrong.’

‘It’s reality though, isn’t it? Reesey is his dead mother, and you’re his alive one. As for taking her happiness, someone else took that from her. You deserve anything that comes your way out of this.’

‘Reesey would have been a better mom.’

Melissa sighed. ‘Okay, this is going to hurt.’

‘Then don’t say it.’

‘I have to. Natalie, I know you loved that girl, but she was far from perfect. For starters, she stayed at home all day, every day. Bit like you now – and I think we can agree it’s not a good thing.’

‘Bey wouldn’t let her work.’

‘That’s sad, and I feel bad for her. I’m sorry she was in an abusive relationship. I’m sorry it cost her her life, and maybe given the chance she might have done something different. She might have changed. But, Natalie, the girl was passive as hell. The day I met her, Bey told her where to sit, and then he told her to move because he wanted to sit there and talk to Kane, and then when Joey started crying he told her to take him outside even though it had started to rain.’

‘She took him home.’

‘That’s my point. She didn’t stand up to him once. I mean, don’t even get me started on Bey. You know it all anyway. But imagine the sort of upbringing Joey would have had with them.’

‘I think she was going to leave him.’

‘I wish she had. I wish for your sake she had. You know, Nat, your life should be so much more free and so much easier than it is. You and Kane have worked harder than anyone I know. Why should you have to raise someone else’s child? Why can’t you just enjoy starting to have money and being young? Joey’s beautiful, and I love him because he’s yours, but I wouldn’t take him on. Reesey and Bey had other friends, right? Bey had all his “brothers”, but I don’t see any of them putting their hand up for his son. You want Joey, you’ve
earned
him. He’s yours. Do you agree?’

‘That he’s mine?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mine and Kane’s?’

‘Is he?’

‘Yes.’

‘You sure? You don’t sound sure. Shall I take him down to the nearest child welfare office and drop him off?’

‘You’re not funny.’

‘Is he your baby or not?’

‘Yes, he’s mine. Mine and Kane’s. No one else is having him.’

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Letting that sink in. Owning it.

‘Okay. What else is wrong?’ said Melissa.

‘We’re just going to tick off my lifetime of problems one by one?’

‘We need to go out for lunch, because I want to, and you’re getting your hair done, and some clothes that fit. And you’re getting your nails done too. Seriously? They are so
ugh
. I don’t even like to look at them. But around all those things, yes, we’ll deal with your problems.’

‘Mel, I’ve got Joey. I can’t do all those things. He might last for one of those things.’

‘Callem and Kane should be here soon. Callem wanted to see some car Kane’s working on, but they’re looking after Joey today.’

‘Callem?’

For probably the first time in our friendship I saw Melissa look flustered.

‘Yeah, so that happened. I mean, that’s happening. Are you surprised that happened? I was surprised.’

‘Mel, that is the most unsurprising thing I’ve ever heard.’