Fixin’ Tyrone (27 page)

“That’s the last time you’re going to throw that in my face,” Mia said. “I already told you I can get a nanny to do everythin
g
you’re doing. I don’t nee
d
you to pick up the kids! I don’t nee
d
you to bring them home, and I definitely don’t need you to be in here havin
g
se
x
while my children are home. I bet you nobody I hire will be doing that!”

“I—I don’t mind picking the kids up,” Crystal pouted.

“Yeah, you don’t mind living in my house for free, either. I think it’s about time you got on with whatever
life
you’ve got planned, Crystal.”

“Don’t start saying that.”

“I don’t want these dumbass niggas in my house! I don’t want them around my kids. You ain’t got sense enough to keep your damned pants on for a couple of hours . . .” Mia crossed her arms and flared her nostrils.

Crystal looked up with the best puppy dog eyes she could muster. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it no more.”

“I don’t want him in my house,” Mia said again. “
Ever
.”

Crystal looked crushed, but she didn’t respond.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“You let me down,” Mia said. “You know that? I took you in, treated you good, bought you a car. You repay me like this?”

Crystal was crying now. “Why you saying that? I said I was sorry. It was just, I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Mia caught herself. Maybe she was going overboard. Every child had sex at their parent’s house at least once, didn’t they? Crystal was twenty-one, but she was still a kid at heart.

Mia sighed. “I, okay, something happened today. What you did, it’s bad, but I guess I shouldn’t make it sound like you
betrayed
me. I was already upset when I got home.”

Crystal smiled.

Mia rolled her eyes and let the anger go, but the pain still stayed. “The kids were fighting when I came in.”

“They was playing video games,” Crystal said. “I thought I, we was just gonna kiss for a couple of minutes.”

Mia shook her head. “That’s crazy, Crystal. You can’t control yourself any better than that?”

Crystal leaned forward and grabbed her sister’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

Mia raised an eyebrow. “You are pretty
sorry
,” she agreed, then turned to leave.

“What happened today?” Crystal asked.

Mia stopped, her heart once again breaking with just the memory. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, and left to see if TC was still crying.

* * *

TC was not mortally wounded, though you’d never know it by looking at him. He lay on his stomach moaning, his shoulders hitching. It was always the shock of being hit by his mother that shook him up more than anything else. Mia sat on his bed and watched him for a while.

“You okay?”

“You...you . ..hit.. . me.”

“Stop crying. It didn’t even hurt.”

“Yes . . . yes it did.”

Mia put a hand on his back. “I told you not to hit your sister.”

He didn’t have a response for that.

“A boy is never supposed to hit a girl,” Mia chastised. “Remember?”

“Ye—yes.”

“Did you finish your homework?”

TC nodded.

“Let me see it.”

He got up to retrieve his lessons, and Mia looked over them. She found four mistakes, and set him up at his desk so he could correct them.

Mia went to check on her daughter and found that Mica was still upset, too, but only because she didn’t have anyone to play
Shrek
with.

Mia finally got a chance to take a bath at eight-thirty. Tyrone hadn’t left any more messages on her cell phone, and he didn’t call the house phone either. That was good, but it only reminded Mia of him even more. She couldn’t believe she trusted him. He gave up $400 in one day. She was blind not to see the signs.

After her bath, Mia dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. She herded the kids to the living room and they played a board game before bed. They knew she was upset with Aunt Crystal, but neither knew why. They didn’t ask any questions, and Mia didn’t volunteer the information.

When she tucked them in that night, Mica made a vow to play the video games fairly and let her big brother help if she got stuck on a difficult part. TC promised to never hit his sister again. Mia promised to get right on his butt again if he did.

Mia went to talk to her sister after that. Crystal was again apologetic for the incident with Sydney, but Mia didn’t feel like arguing anymore. She had a story to tell, and Crystal was always a good listener.

“I can’t believe I’ve had so much bad luck with these men,” she said. “I’m glad I went over there, though. I almost came straight home.”

The two sat on Crystal’s bed. Mia looked heartsick and weary. Wore down.

“You would have found out sooner or later,” Crystal reckoned. “He wouldn’t have been able to hide that.”

“What’s done in the dark always comes to light,” Mia agreed.

“Have you talked to him?”

“No. Why? What’s he going to say? I saw it with my own eyes.”

“So you not gon’ be with him no more?”

“Of course not.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean,
why not
? I don’t want that mess around my children. He’s no good. I knew he was full of shit.”

“You give up on people too quick,” Crystal noted.

“I
give up
on people? What am I supposed to do, accept it? I can get another man if I want. I don’t have to settle.”

“I’m not saying you should settle, but it seems like if anything goes wrong, you through. You did that with
all
of them.”

“All of
who
?”

“You said Eric was like, the
perfect
man, but you broke up with him anyway.”

“His girlfriend threw a br—”

“I know. I was here. But you didn’t try to work it out with him. Maybe y’all could have done something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.
Something
. You didn’t even talk to any different police. You just took those guys’ word for it and dropped it. You broke up with Eric, and he didn’t even do nothing wrong.”

“This has something to do with Tyrone?”

“You kinda doing the same thing to him. If you want him to stop selling drugs, why don’t you just tell him? How do you know he won’t stop if you tell him to?”

That actually made a little sense. Crystal was right; Mia never even considered talking to Tyrone about it. “Why should I have to tell him to stop doing something that’s gonna send him to the penitentiary? If he’s not smart enough to know how stupid that is, why should I bother?”

“You can’t judge people. Everybody selling drugs isn’t stupid. You don’t know their circumstances. What they grew up in.”

“Why are you defending Tyrone so much?”

“I like Tyrone.”

“Why?”

“The same reasons you like him, Mia. You know he’s trying to do right.”

“I need to talk to someone else. You like
thugs
. This is what you’re expected to say.”

“I’m not defending
thugs
. I’m talking about the way you do people. One thing wrong, and they’re gone. You did the same to that guy from work.”

Mia wasn’t having that at all. “What? I told you what he said to me.”

“But you said he tried to apologize. You kicked him out of your office. He do
one thing
wrong, and you’re through with him. Just like Eric, and now with Tyrone. I think you give up on people. You want it all
picture perfect
. Sometimes you have to go through some shit to get what you want.”

Mia shook her head. “Tyrone must have gave you some money. Tell the truth. I
know
you’re not preaching that
hard work and perseverance
stuff to m—” Mia sneezed into her hands.

“Ewww!” Crystal said.

Mia looked around her sister’s room, her hand still over her face. “Where’s your Kleenex?”

Crystal looked around, too. “I don’t have any.”

Mia got up and went into her sister’s bathroom. She pulled toilet paper from the roll next to the toilet. Crystal was not a great housekeeper, but she kept her bathroom fairly clean. If not for that, and the fact that the tiles in there were white, Mia might not have seen the small brown capsule on the floor next to the toilet.

She picked it up. It wasn’t a brown capsule. It was a clear capsule with brown powder inside, about the size of an allergy pill. It would have meant nothing to Mia if not for the fact that Mica’s father had a fondness for those little pills.

Mia blew her nose and stepped out with the dope in hand. She felt like someone had punched her in the stomach.

“I think your boyfriend dropped this boy pill in there,” she said nonchalantly.

Crystal didn’t know how to respond. She looked baffled for a moment, then came up with, “What are you talking about?”

Mia held the capsule between her thumb and first finger. She walked up to her sister and held it close to her face. “
This
. This right here. This is a ten-dollar pill of
heroin
. In
my house
. The same house where my babies are.”

Mia hoped this would be as big a shock to her sister, but Crystal’s face gave her away.

“You
knew
?” Mia asked.

“He don’t never do it here,” Crystal said.

Mia’s eyes grew wide. “Crystal, what the hell are you doing? You’re going with a dope fiend?”

“He not a dope fiend.”

“What the hell do you call this?” Mia wiggled the dope before her nose.

Crystal was close to panic. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know he left that. It must have fell out his pocket, Mia.
I swear
. He don’t never do it here.”

“But Crystal, you don’t even seemed worried about him doing it. Do y’all think this is a
recreation
drug or what? This is heroin, just as bad as
crack
.”

“A lot of people do it,” Crystal said. “Those rappers, at the studio. All of them do it. It’s not that bad.”

Mia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. A horrible thought struck her. “Are
you
doing it, too?”

When Crystal didn’t answer right away, Mia almost passed out. “Oh, my God, I don’t even know you.”

“I just did it a couple of times,” Crystal admitted.

“Crystal, why the hell would you do heroin
at all
? You might as well put a gun to your head.
Oh, my God
.” Mia rubbed her temples. “I got a dope-head watching my babies.”

“How can you call me that?”

“I can’t even believe this.”

“Mia, I only did it twice.”

“You’re
crazy
. Is this, did he leave this for you?”

“No. I didn’t even know it was in there.”

“Well, do you want it?” Mia held the pill out to her. “Here. You wanna get high
now
?”

“Mia, stop.”

“Take it.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Then flush it down the toilet.”

Crystal was flustered. “Why don’t you do it?”

“It’s
your
dope. If you don’t want it, flush it.”

Crystal stared at her for a second, and then took the pill and did as she was told. Mia was standing in the center of the room waiting on her when she got back.

“Do you need to go to rehab?”

“Mia, I’m not on drugs.”

“I’ll put you in rehab. You can get some help before this gets worse.”

Crystal smiled. “Mia,
I’m not on drugs
. I swear.”

“You plan on breaking up with Sydney, or are you still gonna see him behind my back.”

“I’ll break up with him if you want me to,” Crystal said.

“What do you want to do? You want to stay with him?”

“No.”

“Crystal, I don’t know what to think about you.” Mia stared at the girl as if she were a stranger. “You did
two
stupid-ass things back-to-back in the
same day
. Your decision making is flawed, and I don’t know if I can trust you around my kids anymore.”

Crystal looked like she’d been shot. “Mia, how can you say that?”

“I’m serious. I don’t want some dope fiend driving my kids around.”