Firestone (8 page)

“
Look around us,” Sandy
said. “We live here in Delphie’s house. We moved in when we were
desperate — you were in prison, I was here with the kids alone,
pregnant. She’s never asked us for anything. I mean, we help out
with dinner or whatever, but they don’t charge us rent and they
help with the kids and everything. That’s what we get for trying to
do the right thing.”

Aden gave her a long look.

“
You’re just tired,” Sandy
said.

Aden paused for a moment and looked at
Rachel.

“
I want to use,” Aden
said. “I was going to . . . today at lunch.
But . . .”

“
I know,” Sandy said.
Aden’s head jerked to look at her.

“
I don’t know what to do,”
Aden said. “It’s been eating at me. I sat outside of a liquor store
last night for an hour. I had a plan to drink to day at lunch,
but . . . I guess I got too busy.”

Sandy touched his arm and he looked at
her.

“
It really scared me,”
Aden said. “I love our life. Using, drinking, would ruin
everything. I was right there, and
somehow . . .”

“
You need rest,” Sandy
said. “Did you eat?”

Aden shook his head.

“
Don’t get too hungry,
angry, lonely, tired,” Sandy said.

Aden smiled.

“
How ’bout we go into the
kitchen?” Sandy got out of bed. “I’ll make you a roast beef
sandwich. You can tell me all about the site. We’ll make love, and
you’ll sleep like a baby.”

“
That should do it.” Aden
grinned at her logic.

“
Yep,” Sandy said. “And a
meeting tomorrow.”

“
And a meeting tomorrow
first thing,” Aden said.

She held her hand out to him. He got out of
bed with Rachel. He put Rachel on his hip and took Sandy’s hand.
She led him to the kitchen.

Saturday night — 11:02 p.m.

“
Hi,” Jeraine said to
Tanesha when she walked into the basement room where Heather was
putting them up for the night. He was sitting with his back against
the headboard with his laptop open on his lap. “Late
night?”

“
The last couple of days,
I’ve been so busy.” Tanesha smiled at him. “I needed to catch
up.”

“
And Fin?”

“
He’s behind too,” Tanesha
said. “Plus, I wanted to spend tomorrow with you and your son. Does
he have a name?”

“
Jabari,” Jeraine said.
“It means ‘brave’ or ‘strong’ and it has a ‘
J
’ for me and an
‘
A
’ for her. At
least that’s why she said she named him that.”

“
Jabari,” Tanesha
repeated. “Heather said there’s some problem with his
name?”

“
His mother calls him
‘Jabber.’” Jeraine scowled and Tanesha shook her head. “Did you see
the episode where she . . .?”

Tanesha nodded.

“
How . . .?” Jeraine asked.

“
Fin thought we should see
it,” Tanesha said. “We watched it while we ate dinner. Jabari’s
mother? Annette? She’s . . .”

“
A complete nightmare,”
Jeraine said.

“
Special,” Tanesha
repeated what she’d said before. “You have your computer out. Did
you want to watch it again?”

Jeraine gave her such a sad look that she
sat down on the bed next to him.

“
Let’s take a look,”
Tanesha said.

Tanesha leaned over to push the play
button.

The scene opened with Annette, Jabari’s
mother, talking to her lawyer about the new child support
agreement. The lawyer explained to Annette that her child support
was reduced due to Jeraine’s current financial situation. Annette
started screaming the moment the lawyer told her the new amount of
child support, and things went down from there.

While the cameras rolled, Annette marched
out to the backyard, where Jabari was playing. She grabbed the boy
by the arm and dragged him across the marble floors in her enormous
house to his tiny bedroom, where she told him to pack. When he got
out his suitcase, she balked. She stormed out of his room and
returned with a plastic bag. When he tried to pack any clean,
wearable clothing, she would grab it from the plastic bag and throw
it on the bed.

“
Ima gonna sell dat,”
Annette said to anything that looked wearable. Her voice was
artificially accented with unintelligible English. “You of no use
to me now.”

When the boy had packed a pair of tattered
pants and a top, Annette took him into the bathroom, where she
changed him into diapers, “like the baby he is.” Clearly
humiliated, the boy didn’t look up at the camera when he came out.
He shuffled toward the door as if he’d gone through this
before.

“
You’s goin’ back to your
daddy,” Annette said.

The boy looked surprised.

“
What . . .
What do you mean?” Jabari asked.

“
Yo daddy put you in my
life,” Annette said. “Yo daddy will take you out.”

“
But . . .
but . . . why?” Jabari asked.

“
You ain’t worth a dime,”
Annette said. “Not one thin dime, and I’m done with
you.”

She gestured for him to pick up his plastic
bag. Silent tears streamed down the boy’s face.

“
You better stop that,”
Annette said. “You know what happens when you cry.”

“
Yes, ma’am,” Jabari said
in a low voice.

Annette pushed the child out into the
hallway. She nudged and badgered him down the grand stairway of her
pink and white palatial home. At the bottom of the stairs, the boy
turned to look up. Another child, a year or so younger than Jabari,
started to scream.

“
They’s no reason for you
to cry,” Annette said. “Yo daddy ain’t no broke-ass
negro.”

Jabari’s eyes went round, and he looked at
his mother. She pointed to the door and he walked out. Annette’s
driver watched the whole thing from the sidelines. He grabbed a
warm jacket from the coat closet and followed them out.

The ride to the airport was filled with
Annette’s opinions about Jeraine and Tanesha. When they got to the
airport, Annette bought the boy a plane ticket to Denver. Without
saying another word, she dropped him off at airport security. The
driver leaned down to help the boy with his jacket. The camera
filmed the man stuffing money into Jabari’s pockets.

“
Bye,” Annette said, and
she walked off.

Jabari watched her go before walking into
airport security. The cameras followed Annette out of the
airport.

Tanesha pushed the laptop closed.

“
How could anyone do
that?” Jeraine whispered. “She’s proud of . . .
abusing . . . my . . .
my . . . He could have . . .
died . . . and . . .”

Jeraine looked at Tanesha and shook his
head. Tanesha put her arm around him. He pressed his head into her
shoulder.

“
Mom, Dad, me, we’ve all
tried to see him,” Jeraine said into her arm. “You have to know
that I tried. It’s not like she said on the TV. I tried everything
I could think of to get a chance to see him. So did Mom and Dad.
She made up stuff and . . .”

He shook his head.

“
And
he’s . . . really great,” Jeraine said. “Funny,
smart, and . . .”

Jeraine leaned back to look at her.

“
Are you going to leave
me?” Jeraine asked.

“
Me?” Tanesha asked. “Are
you dealing with your life?”

Jeraine nodded.

“
Are you high?”

Jeraine shook his head.

“
Are you sleeping around
with who knows what?” Tanesha asked.

He shook his head. She smiled.

“
Why would I leave?”
Tanesha asked.

“
Because Jabari is going
to live with us in your perfect yellow house,” Jeraine said. “More
wreckage from my fucked up life.”

“
A child is not wreckage.”
Tanesha’s response was immediate and her voice was
harsh.

He looked up into her eyes. She wrinkled her
nose.

“
I always figured your
kids would come live with us,” Tanesha said. “Sooner or later, if
you got your shit together, they’d come live with us.”

“
W-w-why?” Jeraine
asked.

“
I don’t know,” Tanesha
said. “Women’s intuition.”

Jeraine smiled at her.

“
But I do want to kill
that Annette,” Tanesha said.

“
But not me?” Jeraine
asked.

“
I’m pissed at you for
being so careless as to have a child with that . . .
thing,” Tanesha said. “But it’s done. He’s here, and according to
everyone, he’s pretty awesome. Heather might not give him
up.”

“
She has to!” Jeraine
said.

Tanesha smiled, and he hugged her.

“
She and Blane were kind
to let me sleep here,” Jeraine said. “They didn’t have to, but
I . . .”

“
You wanted to be near
him,” Tanesha said. “That seems pretty normal to me. What’s going
to happen?”

“
He met with his
attorney,” Jeraine said. “He has his own attorney, and Jammy filed
for immediate termination of parental rights — hers, not
mine.

“
Schmidty’s handling this
for you?” Tanesha said.

“
It’s part of his ‘clean
up your act’ program,” Jeraine said. “Nothing’s going to happen
until Monday. The TV show intervened and we have a court hearing
first thing Monday morning.”

“
How did they do that?”
Tanesha asked.

“
Jammy says that she
planned this whole thing.” Jeraine gave an angry nod. “The TV
people helped her.”

“
Helped her abuse your
son?” Tanesha shook her head. “I don’t know what to say about
that.”

“
I know,” Jeraine said.
“She called after the show aired and squawked about wanting him
back. She says it’s my fault because
I . . .”

Jeraine looked into Tanesha’s face for a
moment.

“
You broke her heart,”
Tanesha said. “Such drama. Shit, I could have written this story
myself. Did you keep the letter she sent you? You know, the one
that said that she got pregnant on purpose so you would have to pay
her all of her life. The one you showed me?”

“
I gave it to Jammy.”
Jeraine nodded.

“
You did?”

“
I’m going to fight,
Tanesha,” Jeraine said. “This is my child. I thought she was a
great mother and he was better off with her.”

“
She’s not,” Tanesha said.
“He’s not.”

“
Not anymore.” Jeraine
nodded.

“
What about the other
one?” Tanesha said. “Jeraine Junior.”

“
His mother called after
seeing the broadcast,” Jeraine said. “I guess Jammy talked to her
earlier in the day. She was really angry. Her mother’s coming on
Monday with JJ. She has school, so she can’t come.”

“
School?” Tanesha
asked.

“
She’s been studying to be
a radiology tech,” Jeraine said. “She was just eighteen when she
had JJ. She’s been in school most of his life.”

“
Very liberated,” Tanesha
said.

“
Don’t be like that,”
Jeraine said. “She told me once that having a baby by some rich man
is the only way girls like her get out of the ghetto.”

“
She’s the one who tricked
you,” Tanesha said.

“
Holes in all the
condoms.” Jeraine nodded. “She’s apologized for it a couple times.
And before you say it, it’s my fault. If I didn’t always have my
dick out, I wouldn’t have been in that situation.”

Tanesha gave him a curt nod.

“
I’m really trying,
Tanesha,” Jeraine said.

“
I know,” she said. “So
both kids will be here Monday?”

“
And we’ll be in court
first thing Monday morning,” Jeraine said.

“
And tomorrow?” Tanesha
asked.

“
Just us,” Jeraine said.
“Heather said we could spend the whole day with Jabari.”

“
Good,” Tanesha said. “He
needs clothes and . . .”

Jeraine grinned.

“
My mom wants to spend
time with him,” Tanesha said.

“
He thinks she’s his
angel,” Jeraine said.

“
She did save him,”
Tanesha said. “And got all this in motion. How’s your head? Usually
stress gets it going.”

“
I’m okay,” Jeraine
said.

“
Good,” Tanesha
said.

She slipped off her clothing and got into
bed with him. He shut his laptop and turned off the light. She
kissed him. He watched her close her eyes and drift off to
sleep.

“
I love you,” Jeraine
said. “I don’t know why you love me, but I hope you never
stop.”

He put his arm around her and followed her
to sleep.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday morning — 7:35 a.m.

“
Why do I have to get up?”
Charlie whined and pulled his comforters over his head.

“
We’re going to a
meeting,” Aden said, and pulled the comforters off him. “You laid
around here all day yesterday. It’s time to get moving.”