Life's A Cappella (19 page)

I almost didn’t answer my phone when it rang, but practically jumped on it when I saw it was Nate calling. Shayna loved to speak to him first thing in the morning, before she started her day with her Tia Sofie.

“Hey,” I answered.

“Hey, yourself.” He paused, and I waited for him to continue talking. Have I mentioned I hate mornings? “I have some news.”

“What kind of news?” I asked, rolling my eyes again, wondering why Nate always seemed to call before I had a chance to take in an obscene amount of coffee.

“Good news.”

“Nate,” I demanded, and heard Trent loudly warn Nate about the curses the spawn of the devil –me – would place on him for playing games with her in the morning.

“Shay’s adoption is ready to be finalized,” he said, and I could hear his smile through the phone lines.

“What?” I shouted. “No shi – kidding?”

“No kidding.”

Was this really happening? I hugged my arms around my shoulders and gave Shayna and Trent my biggest, most genuine smile. Bouncing from foot to foot, unable to contain my joy much longer, I tried to get off the phone with Nate so I could share the news with Shayna and Trent.

After hanging up with Nate, I hugged Shayna and jumped on Trent, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. Shayna laughed and somehow climbed on top of both of us. A memory of a human totem pole that would forever be engraved in my brain.

“Why are we happy?” Shayna asked.

“We’re going back to Alabama,” I told her, and she frowned.

“I don’t wanna go back.” Confused, she shook her head at me. “You say I stay with you.”

I knelt down so I could be at eye level with my sister and told her, “We’re all going, Little Miss. I have to sign some papers so that I can adopt you. And then we’ll officially be a family, forever.”

Shayna looked at me skeptically, not sure whether she believed me or not.

“Do you think I’d leave you in Alabama when we have so much fun playing in the sand together?”

“And who’s gonna grind her coffee when I’m at work?” Trent added.

“Or sing until I wake up?”

“Or make the potty sing?” Trent asked, and Shayna laughed.

“You won’t leave me?” she asked, her eyes so big, so scared.

“Not a chance.” I hugged her tightly and kissed her forehead. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”

“And Trent?” she asked.

“And Trent,” I said looking at him, “is ours, and we’re his.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay,” Trent repeated, smiling at me in such a way I felt my heart flutter. A nice flutter, completely unlike the harsh pangs of a heart on the verge of shattering.

Unfortunately, Trent was scheduled to work the next two days, so he wouldn’t be able to go with us. But I wanted him to go. I was torn between not wanting to sound too pushy, too needy, and stubbornly wanting him to go with us. I wasn’t about to embark in a new chapter in my life; Shayna and I were already together. But it was important to me for him to be a part of our life, every part of it. And this was easily one of the biggest parts of Shayna’s and my life. In a few days I was going to be Shayna’s legal guardian, her mom.

After helping Shayna into her tutu, I turned on Trent’s computer and started looking for flights leaving Wednesday or Thursday. I felt Trent walk behind me and put his arms around my waist as he leaned forward to see what I was doing.

“You want me to go with you?” he asked, surely noticing the dates I had chosen, and I could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

I turned around, wrapping my arms around his waist and looked up at him with my chin resting on his chest. “Yes,” I told him honestly, “but I understand if you can’t.”

He kissed me on my lips for a long time while I wondered what he was thinking. I felt my desire for him stir and tried to maneuver my body so that I could fasten my arms around his neck and my tongue around his tongue. But he stayed there, with his mouth shut, firmly pushing his lips against my mouth and my arms around his waist while he hugged me around my neck. I felt my body relax and closed my eyes, with my head tipped back and my mouth still on his.

And there it was. The comfort in love I had read about but never believed in.

“If you want me there, I’ll go,” he told me.

“I want you there.” I looked up at him with my chin still resting on his chest and he kissed me again. But this time the kiss was driven by hunger and an entanglement of tongue and mouth. I quickly led Shayna to her bedroom and put on her television before I met Trent, who was already half-naked in the room we shared together.

“We’re gonna be late for work,” I told him, smiling at him in satisfaction.

“Yeah, we are,” he agreed and grabbed me by the waist.

His lips attacked any bare skin they could find as he helped me pull down my pants. With my hands in his hair, I angled my pelvis towards him, begging him to fill me. And he did. He filled me until I reached my limit and exploded on a barely audible f-bomb.

“Don’t look so smug,” I told him as I pulled my pants back up and called for Shayna. “I’m a pretty hot piece of ass too, you know.” I kissed him quickly and did my best impersonation of a sexy model saunter as I left the room.

***

That night we had dinner with Tonya, Brianna, and Jermaine in Trent’s apartment. I had spoken to them a handful of times since Camilla’s passing, but hadn’t seen them since the night I stormed away from Trent at the beach. I missed them. I wanted them to meet Shayna and for Shayna to meet them. They had been a part of my family for years until I shut them out. I wanted them back. For myself and for Shayna.

So Trent invited them over, only telling me a few hours before I got off work. I was so excited to see my friends again but worried about what they’d think about this new life I was leading. Would they still want to be friends with me?

I was grateful I hadn’t known about our plans until last minute because it gave me less time to worry. When I got home, I took a quick shower and bathed Shayna just as quickly. I had her put on a peach colored sun dress Tonya and Brianna had bought her and she insisted on wearing a pink bow she put on herself. A bit crooked, but all Shayna.

“Beautiful,” I told her and kissed her on the nose, making her giggle.

Trent got home shortly after me and carried boxes of carry-out food from a nearby Chinese restaurant. I followed him into the kitchen and paced behind him as he placed the food on the counter.

“You’re making me nervous, Erin.”

“Yeah, well,” I told him, throwing my hands in the air, and laughed.

“They’re still your friends,” he reminded me. “They’re still the same people you’ve known for years.”

“But I’m not the same person they’ve known for years.”

“You’re still that beautiful girl I met in Key West that didn’t want my banana.”

“Not true.” I shook my head, narrowing my eyes at him. “Now I want your banana,” I told him, and he threw back his head in laughter.

It didn’t take long to get reacquainted with my friends. Nothing much had changed between us, except for the obvious; Camilla was gone. Irrevocably, forever gone.

“How is her mom doing?”

“Eh,” I responded. “She’s not doing great, but she hides it well.”

“Shayna makes her happy though,” Trent offered, and I nodded my head at his words.

“The happiest I see her is when she’s with Shayna,” I agreed. “She loves Shayna, and Shayna adores her. It’s good to see them together.”

“Tia Sofie?” Shayna asked and I nodded. “We have sleepovers,” Shayna told my friends, who then asked what she and Tia Sofie did during their sleepovers.

Shayna kept my friends busy with her constant chatter, and I felt my misgivings disappear. Trent was right. These people were still my friends. We had changed. Of course we had; it was human nature to change. But we were still friends.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I would always be skeptical about others. I didn’t want to always think the worst of people just so I wouldn’t be disappointed if they did wind up letting me down. I wanted to believe in the goodness of those around me. In the togetherness that bonded us.

“Sofia is taking classes to become a foster parent,” I told them, brimming with pride.

Apparently, when I told her about Vanessa, she felt the need to open her homes to kids like her. And when I told her about myself and Shayna, she enrolled in classes for potential foster parents. And I was grateful for people like her. It was because of her that people like me, like Shayna, like Vanessa, stood a chance at a normal life. It was because of her that people like us had the potential for a future in which we accepted ourselves for who we are. And who we are is simple: we’re people, individuals, humanity. Just like everyone else. And we are worthy of love, of giving and receiving love.

After they left and Trent and I had tucked Shayna into her bed, Trent and I sat on the couch watching television, our feet constantly touching each other. It felt good – no, it felt right to be in Trent’s apartment, sharing his bed, watching television on his couch with Shayna only a room away. This was the way it was supposed to be, I thought, and didn’t feel the fear I was sure would creep in any second. No, no fear. Just a feeling that this was right.

“What do you think if I break the lease on my apartment and move in with you permanently?” I asked him boldly.

“And what?” he asked me, wiggling his eyebrows up and down at me, as he had seen me do to Shayna several times. “Have our stuff touching each other?”

“Yeah,” I smiled, my heart throbbing in my throat.

“When do you want to move in?” he told me.

“Tomorrow,” I told him, wiggling my eyebrows back at him.

“Hey now, that’s too soon.” Trent shook his head at me and I smiled. “We need to take this whole moving our relationship to the next level a bit slower.”

“Okay” I pouted, playing along with him. “When do you want me to move in?”

“When we get back from Alabama.”

“Do I get my own key?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he offered, and focused his attention back to the television.

I stuck my tongue out at him, but he didn’t see me. So I sat back and stared at Trent as he watched his show. Geez, what a creeper I was becoming.

After Trent’s show was over, we went to the computer to look for tickets to go to Alabama. Together. And because Trent knew me so well, he went to YouTube to find music to commemorate our first trip together and played Leaving on a Jet Plane. Repeatedly, until our tickets had been bought and we had received our email confirmation.

I wanted to stay in Alabama until Sunday so that Trent could meet Nate and his dad. And so that I could show him where I had grown up. Just as I had promised, I wanted him to know every facet of my life. The good with the bad, I thought, as I listened to Trent sing loudly off key.

“You know Aerosmith sings this?” I asked, and he smacked my bottom.

“Actually, The Chad Mitchell Trio sang this song,” he retorted, a bit too happily for my liking, “but it didn’t get popular till Peter, Paul and Mary sang it,”

I wrinkled my nose at him and told myself that the next time he decided to be smart, I was going to shove a harmonica in his mouth.

Chapter 34

Shayna

She couldn’t sleep. Erin had told her she wasn’t going to leave her back home, but what if she was lying? What if Erin really did think she was bad and didn’t want her anymore? What if Trent didn’t like her and told Erin to get rid of her?

What if Nate was wrong and she’d never have a home or a real family?

What if Momma was right and no one could ever love a rotten little girl like her?

She held her baby doll close to her chest the way Erin held her when they slept together. She tried to remember the words to the Spanish song about a flea Tia Sofie and Erin liked to sing to her. She wanted to sing it to her baby doll so she would stop worrying and they could both go to sleep. But she couldn’t remember the words, so she lay on her bed, crying as quietly as she could.

She didn’t mean for her crying to wake up Trent, but he had heard her and had come into her room. He brushed her hair back with his fingers as she tried to stop crying so she could pretend she was sleeping. She didn’t know if he really thought she was sleeping, but he kept brushing her hair back and started singing to her until she fell asleep.

Chapter 35

Erin

The heat had seemed unbearable, but the rain proved to be far worse. I huddled in the corner, pressing my body against the cage, with my heart hammering in my ears. I wished for disorientation, sudden death even. But fate was not that kind to me.

Instead, as life tended to do, it laughed at me. Mocking me from a distance while I was locked away in a cage. A large dog kennel. Outside. In the summer when the sun punished anyone who sought her and the thunderstorms ran in excess.

Even in the afternoon heat, I had stopped sweating, and I hoped that meant death was around the corner. I had tried not to drink the rain water as it came down, but self-preservation kicked in and I found myself on my hands and knees, drinking from a puddle. I saw a bobcat watching me from a distance and humiliated, I couldn’t return its stare.

I no longer felt human, but wasn’t worthy enough to consider myself an animal. An animal would fight, but I was too weak, too scared to fight.

From my corner of this little universe, I had too much time to think, but not enough capacity to retain any wisdom I might have gained from this experience. My brain wanted to shut down with the rest of my body, but my heart wouldn’t let me. It just kept on beating. So one day, I started singing, sometimes rapping. My very own a cappella about my screwed up life.

My mother had done this to me. My mother, whose desperation for drugs overshadowed everything else, including her daughter whom she had sold. Not for the first time. But definitely the longest.

The men would be back soon, I knew. And then it’d be worse. They’d touch me, whispering words meant only for lovers. They’d hit me, kicking me as if I were nothing more than a pile of garbage they were too lazy to dispose of. They’d shackle me to their walls, reveling in my screams and my cries.