Firestone (12 page)

“
No, Dad, I have no idea
how you did that,” Tanesha said.

“
It was because of you,”
Rodney said. “I could hang on to my justifiable, righteous
indignation, or I could live in the present with my beautiful
daughter by my side. The past can’t compete with you.”

Tanesha looked up at him.

“
Answer me yes or no,”
Rodney said. “You like going to medical school.”

“
I do,” Tanesha
said.

“
You have good friends,”
Rodney said.

“
My girls are awesome,”
Tanesha said. “Fin is a good friend, too.”

“
You love Jeraine,” Rodney
said.

“
I do,” Tanesha said. “I
always have.”

“
You have a great life
now,” Rodney said.

Tanesha gave him a long look.

“
A life worth fighting
for,” Rodney said.

Tanesha sighed and dropped her head in
resignation.

“
Come on,” Rodney said.
“Let’s go fight for your fabulous life.”

He put his arm around her and they left the
bathroom.

~~~~~~~~

Monday morning — 9:35 a.m.

“
What’s going on over
there?” Ivy asked Delphie.

They were waiting in line to get into the
court building. Ivy had been subpoenaed to speak with the Grand
Jury.

“
You remember Tanesha?”
Delphie asked.

“
Sure,” Ivy
said.

“
Her husband’s son is
coming to live with them,” Delphie said.

Ivy stared at the reporters, cameras, and
the press of fans. Delphie put her arm around Ivy’s shoulder to
keep her close.

“
It doesn’t look good,”
Ivy said.

“
Good?” Delphie furrowed
her brow and looked down at the small girl.

“
You know, for the kid,”
Ivy said.

“
To live with Tanesha?”
Delphie asked.

“
All of this,” Ivy
said.

“
No, I don’t think it’s
very good,” Delphie said.

Delphie helped Ivy through the metal
detector and went through herself. The coordinator from the Denver
DAs office waited for them just beyond the metal detectors. The
woman talked a mile a minute.

They were meeting to talk about the rape
case with the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury was helping the DA’s
office determine what charges needed to be filed and against whom.
They’d wanted to see Ivy first because, as the youngest victim, her
case carried the gravest charges with the longest sentences. They’d
had to leave Keenan with Valerie to get down to the courthouse
first thing. Charlie was scheduled to testify in the afternoon.

The coordinator led them to a quiet hall
outside the courtroom. They settled in to watch Jeraine’s fans
pressing forward and the reporters trying to get the latest
dirt.

“
What’s his name?” Ivy
asked.

“
Jabari,” Delphie
said.

Ivy nodded. They fell silent.

“
I thought
my
situation was bad,”
Ivy said.

“
What do you mean?”
Delphie asked.

“
My mom’s dead. Dad too,”
Ivy said. “And my . . .”

Ivy’s voice caught, and she looked very
small and sad. Delphie put her arm around the child.

“
Well, you know,” Ivy
said. “But everyone loved me. Mom. Dad. Even Aunt
Gracie . . .”

“
Me.”

“
You. Pan. My friends.
Honey,” Ivy nodded. “Nobody would have left me if they
hadn’t
had
to,
you know? But that kid . . .”

“
You can feel that?”
Delphie asked.

Ivy nodded.

“
I do too,” Delphie
said.

A reporter ran across the hallway and all
the reporters started talking at once. A ranting and raving woman
was escorted from the courtroom by the Denver Police.

“
You have no idea who
you’re messing with!” the woman screamed. “You
stupid . . .”

Seeing the reporters, the woman swooned, and
the uniformed policemen had to hold her up. The cameras flashed and
the reporters screamed questions. The woman came to and answered
their questions in a weak voice. From her answers, it appeared that
Denver County social services had contacted Atlanta social services
and the woman’s other children were being “stolen from her.” Other
fathers were filing custody papers in other courtrooms. The woman
had lost all of her children, and it was “that evil man’s” fault.
The woman screamed and swore.

“
Jabari’s mother?” Ivy
asked.

“
I think so,” Delphie
said.

“
I was really lucky,” Ivy
said in a low voice. She looked up at Delphie. “I am really
lucky.”

Delphie smiled at the irony of Ivy feeling
lucky on the day she had to testify about being horrifically
abused.

“
Ma’am? Ivy?” The
coordinator peered out from the courtroom. “They’re ready for
you.”

They got up and followed the coordinator
into the chamber.

~~~~~~~~

Monday morning — 9:35 a.m.

“
Oh, no, you don’t,”
Valerie said to Keenan.

Valerie was getting chicken pot-pies
together for dinner in the big Castle kitchen. Keenan had been
helping her roll out the pie dough at the big kitchen table. She’d
turned her back to put the pie-crust in the oven when he started
juggling oranges with his mind. She batted the oranges out of the
air.

“
Hey!” Keenan said. “I was
playing!”

“
That’s not play,” Valerie
said.

He tried to make the orange move, but
Valerie used her own skill to block him.

“
How did you do that? I
mean . . .”

“
You think you’re the
first person with ‘powers’ I’ve dealt with?” Valerie sniffed. “Why
do you think Delphie asked you to stay with me?”

Keenan shrugged.

“
I won’t put up with your
crap,” Valerie said.

“
I’m not
doing
anything bad!”
Keenan yelled.

“
Yes you are!” Valerie
said. “What do you think kids are going to say when they see you
can move things around with your mind?”

Keenan shrugged.

“
Let me tell you,” Valerie
said. “They’ll call you a freak and a weirdo. They won’t want to
play with you and you’ll be miserable.”

“
But . . .”

“
The more you use your
skills, the more you’ll be used to using your skills,” Valerie
said. “You won’t be able to play with normal kids. You won’t have
any friends.”

“
But . . .”

“
You think I’m kidding?”
Valerie asked.

“
You don’t know anything,”
Keenan said.

“
JAKE!” Valerie yelled.
“JAKE!”

The door to the loft flew open, and Jacob
ran down the stairs.

“
What happened?” Jacob
asked. He gave Keenan a frantic look. The boy shrugged. “What
happened?”

“
Keenan thinks kids will
think he’s cool, because he can move stuff with his mind,” Valerie
said.

“
That’s the emergency?”
Jacob asked.

“
You remember what
happened when you went to pre-school?” Valerie asked.

“
Well, now,
Val . . .” Jacob gave her a patronizing
nod.

“
You’re saying you don’t
remember,” Valerie said.

“
It was a long time ago
and . . .” Jacob looked at Valerie and swallowed
hard. “Remind me.”

“
You came home crying
every single day,” Valerie said. “The kids made fun of you, called
you a freak. They played ‘kill the witch,’ with you as the
witch.”

Jacob winced.

“
That happened?” Keenan
asked.

“
It wasn’t that bad,”
Jacob said. “I got through it.”

“
After you were kicked out
of four schools,” Valerie said.
“And . . .”

“
That’s right.” Jacob
nodded. He grimaced.

“
And?”

“
Val learned to stop me
from thinking about using my skills,” Jacob said. “Mom thought she
could do that. She worked really hard to block me. Did she do that
to you?”

Keenan nodded.

“
It was the only way I
could stop doing it,” Jacob said. “I didn’t really know how to do
anything without moving things around with my mind. I thought it
was so cool that I didn’t do anything else. The kids
were . . . brutal.”

“
Horrible,” Valerie added.
“Mom thought they might kill you.”

“
I thought they might kill
me,” Jacob said. “Dad was . . .”

“
Upset,” Sam said as he
entered the kitchen from the stairwell to Delphie’s apartment. “It
was my fault, mostly.”

“
Your fault?” Keenan
asked.

“
I thought his skills were
pretty cool,” Sam said. “I encouraged him to use them all the time.
He really didn’t know how to do a lot of things without them. He
had to relearn how to do almost everything. It was really hard on
him, frustrating. And the kids . . . It was
horrible. Jacob Lipson was blocked from Denver Schools. We had to
enroll him under Jake Marlowe.”

“
That won’t happen to me,”
Keenan said.

“
Oh yeah?” Valerie asked.
“Why not?”

“
I’ll make them like me.”
Keenan nodded.

“
That’s never going to
work,” Jacob said. “You have to let people like you — you can’t
make them.”

“
I’m a fairy,” Keenan
said. “I can do anything I want.”

“
Oh yeah?” Valerie said.
“Try to move the orange now.”

Keenan tried to move the orange. Nothing
happened. He got more and more frustrated.

“
That’s unfair!” Keenan
yelled.

“
It’s for your own good,”
Valerie said.

“
Hello!” They heard from
the living room.

“
We’re in here, Anjelika,”
Valerie yelled.

“
I’ll go.” Sam started
toward the door.

“
You can’t do this!”
Keenan said. “How are they going to like me now?”

“
They will,” Jacob said.
“You’ll see.”

He looked so sad that Valerie hugged
him.

“
What’s happened?”
Anjelika asked.

“
Keenan’s worried about
not being liked,” Jacob said.

“
Sounds like I got here
just in time.” Anjelika smiled at Valerie and Jacob. “Are you ready
to start, Keenan?”

The little boy looked at Anjelika and gave a
slow nod. Anjelika held out her hand. Keenan let go of Valerie to
take Anjelika’s hand. When their hands touched, he looked at her
hand and then at Valerie.

“
I understand,” Keenan
said.

Anjelika led Keenan out of the room.

“
What was that?” Sam asked
in a low tone.

“
No idea,” Valerie said.
She looked at Jacob, “You?”

Jacob shook his head. They turned to watch
Keenan and Anjelika walk to the dining room.

“
She can be very
intimidating,” Valerie said.

“
Tell me about it,” Jacob
said.

Monday afternoon — 2:35 p.m.

Sandy walked down the empty hallway past MJ
and Honey’s apartment and Sam’s rooms. She paused for a moment
outside MJ and Honey’s apartment before she remembered that Honey
had gone to work. Sandy scowled at herself and continued down the
hall until she stood outside the door to the storage room where
they’d piled all of her biological mother’s earthly belongings.

She’d tried to sort through Andy Mendy’s
things a few times. Valerie had even helped a couple of times. But
each effort ended in Sandy being overwhelmed and quitting before
they’d really started. Today, she’d promised herself she would make
some progress.

Even though she usually spent every Monday
with Rachel, she’d taken her baby to the Marlowe School
mid-morning. She’d gone to her studio to do her weekly accounting
early so that she’d have all afternoon to work on this space.

“
You can do it, Sandy,”
she said out loud to herself.

She turned the key and opened the door. The
dusty darkness of the room made her cringe.

She never felt more vulnerable than when she
was touching Andy’s belongings. All of her life, she’d longed for a
mother. She touched her heart, where the ache for a mother’s love
still lived. Every fiber of her being screamed, “Why did she have
to die? Why did she leave me?”

It was a question no one had ever really
answered. Sandy believed that the mother who raised her, and used
her so brutally, Patty Delgado, knew what had happened to Andy.
Patty wasn’t talking. Andy’s passing had been ruled a suspicious
death with the probability of suicide.

Why would Andy kill herself? She’d just met
Sandy again. She’d met Rachel. By all accounts, she was happy with
her life. Everyone who knew her said that she was thrilled to see
Sandy again. Why would she jump off a building only a few hours
later?

Sandy didn’t dare ask the one person who
could possibly answer that question — Seth. Even though he’d moved
on in his life, she knew he had always harbored a deep love for
Andy. His face flushed with sorrow when Andy’s name came up. No,
Sandy couldn’t ask the great detective what had happened to her
mother.