Long Time Coming (6 page)

She had been married seven years now, and each childless day that passed ate at Deidre. The guilt of her silence was sending her into a depression. Deidre had stopped monitoring the foods she ate, had stopped exercising. She'd put on thirty pounds, and Johnson hadn't said a word. But one day he would figure things out, and that's when she would finally see the truth in his eyes.

K
evin went with Kenisha to her next radiation treatment. He sat in the waiting room with Diamond and Kennedy while she lay in the back undergoing her treatment. When she was done, they caught the bus home so that she would be there when Jamal got home from school. Kenisha had promised Kevin dinner if he sat with her children long enough for her to get the radiation treatment. So, even though she was tired, she was in the kitchen making good on her promise."Is spaghetti okay?"

"I'm not picky," Kevin said as he made his way to the refrigerator."You got any salad?"

Kenisha put a pot of water on the stove and a skillet for the hamburger."Everything you need to fix the salad is in there. Wash your hands and make it."

"Oh, so I get to fix the salad, huh? Just like I used to do when we were kids. Remember?"

Yeah, Kenisha remembered. She remembered a lot of things that Kevin used to do before crack took over his mind. Kevin, Kenisha, and Dynasty had been the three musketeers. Aisha had always been so hard to get along with that none of them wanted anything to do with her, and Angelina was too young to kick it with them, so the three of them hung out as if they were best friends rather than sisters and brother. Now that Kenisha thought about it, Kevin's drug abuse hadn't started until after Dynasty's death. So now Kenisha had more guilt to carry around with her. If she hadn't talked Dynasty into going back with Clyde, Dynasty wouldn't be dead and Kevin wouldn't be such a loser.

Kenisha crumbled up the hamburger in the iron skillet and then turned to face her brother. He was happily putting the vegetables in a strainer. He walked over to the sink and rinsed them off and then set them out on the counter and began cutting them up into the salad bowl."Kevin, can I ask you something?"

"What's up, lil' sis?" he asked as he started slicing a tomato.

"Have you ever thought about checking yourself into rehab?"

He put the knife down, turned toward his sister, and then answered honestly, "I thought about it. But when I'm high, I don't remember as much." Hunching his shoulders, he continued, "Guess I just like it that way."

"What are you trying to forget that's worth what you're doing to yourself? Look at yourself, Kevin. You're skin and bones. You have no place to live, and I know you've started stealing to keep up with your habit. What if someone kills you?"

Kevin turned back to the counter and became one with his vegetables again.

"Answer me," Kenisha demanded.

"Trust me, lil' sis, you don't want to know."

Stirring the hamburger in the skillet, Kenisha said, "I need to know, Kevin. At one point in our lives, I would have trusted you completely with my children. But now . . . if something happens to me, I wouldn't want you around them."

"Nothing's going to happen to you, Ke-Ke. Don't say that."

She smiled; Kevin used to call her Ke-Ke when they were younger and before crack took over his mind. James had begun calling her Ke-Ke after hearing Kevin say it. He'd told her the name fit her better. She had a ton of memories, just none that ever turned out the way they should have."What are you trying to forget?"

He put down his knife and turned toward Kenisha again."You really want to know? All right, I'll tell you. But have a seat, because you just had radiation treatment, and I know you're weak from that. What I have to say just might knock you over."

Kenisha took the skillet off the burner, then walked to the stairs in the front of the house to check on Diamond and Kennedy. They were upstairs changing, but she didn't want them to run downstairs in the middle of her talk with Kevin."Y'all lie down and take a nap until your brother gets home," she yelled up the stairs.

"Aw, Mom, we don't need no nap. We're playing dolls," Diamond protested.

"Okay, then, just play quietly, and I'll let you know when dinner is ready." She went back into the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table that had been propped against the wall because the fourth leg was wobbly."I'm ready, so spill it."

Kevin sat down across from Kenisha and opened his mouth to speak but then closed it. He looked down at the table, not meeting her gaze."Look, let's just drop it, okay?"

"No. Not this time, Kevin. You used to have dreams. I want to know why you never became an architect. Remember those skyscrapers you were always bragging you'd build?"

He still didn't look at her, but he said in a low and bitter voice, "People kept stealing my dreams from me."

"Who, Kevin? Who stole your dreams?"

Silence filled the kitchen, but Kenisha was determined that she wouldn't let Kevin run from his demons anymore. He was going to face them right here and now. She grabbed his face and made him look at her as she gently asked again, "Who?"

"Jimmy Davis."

Kenisha let go of Kevin's face as she stood up. She walked over to the sink, needing a little bit of distance. That name sent fire through her soul, because she instantly knew what was wrong with Kevin. It was the same thing that had done her in. Angelina's father, Jimmy Davis, had raped Kenisha when she was just six years old. He'd told her that if she told anyone, she'd have to go live in foster care. At six, Kenisha had been so afraid of living with strangers. But looking back, she wished she had taken him up on that. Anyone would have been better than a drunken mother who was too passed out to know what was going on in her house at night.

Kenisha put her hands to her mouth. Even now she was afraid to let his name pass her lips. The nightmare hadn't ended until Kenisha was nine years old, when Martha woke up one night and stumbled upon Jimmy and Kenisha. Martha cursed Kenisha for being a "little trollop," and threw Jimmy out. Kenisha didn't care what her mother thought of her, just as long as she didn't have to put up with Jimmy Davis anymore. She brought her hands down from her mouth as she looked directly at Kevin and asked, "He raped you, too?"

Kevin lowered his head as he nodded.

"I could kill him!" Kenisha exploded as the front door opened.

Jamal walked into the kitchen with a playful grin on his face. He discarded his book bag on the floor as he asked, "Who do you want to kill now?"

"Boy, grown folks are in here talking," Kevin told his nephew jokingly."Take yourself up them stairs with your sisters and leave us alone."

"You ain't grown. You still live with your mama just like I do," Jamal retorted.

"Okay, smart mouth," Kenisha said, "go upstairs with your sisters like your uncle told you. Dinner will be ready in a minute."

"But who you want to kill, Mama?"

Shaking her head, Kenisha said, "Nobody, Jamal. Just go on upstairs so I can finish talking to Kevin."

As Jamal left the kitchen, the fire returned to Kenisha's eyes. She sat back down."Did you tell Martha?" She desperately needed to know if she had been the only one too scared to speak up.

"Not until a couple of years ago. She had been riding me about being a dopehead, and I told her that the drugs helped me forget what her boyfriend did to me."

"What did she say? Did she accuse you of trying to steal her man like she did me?"

Kevin shook his head. Kenisha could tell that the subject was hard for him to talk about. She was about to tell him that she didn't mean to pry any further into the situation and let him off the hook, when he answered her.

"She said that God would take care of Jimmy, like that was supposed to comfort me."

"Yeah, God be taking too long. And I want folk to get what's coming to them right when they ought to get it."

"Amen to that," Kevin said in agreement.

Shaking her head, Kenisha got up and put the spaghetti in the pot of boiling water. She wanted to bust some heads, but since Jimmy and Martha weren't around, she took her anger out on the spaghetti as she broke it into pieces and then flung them in the pot. She then turned back to Kevin and said, "Martha shouldn't have been allowed to have pets, let alone raise unsuspecting children."

"I'm with you on that. Not a one of us turned out to be worth anything."

"I think Angelina's going to make it. Jimmy might have been a perv, but at least he instilled something in Angelina that the rest of us didn't get. And he's paying the tuition that her scholarship doesn't cover," Kenisha said.

"He should be paying me and you. So I don't want to hear anything about what a good father Jimmy Davis is. I get sick of hearing that mess from Martha. That man owes me and you, and until he pays that debt, he hasn't paid enough as far as I'm concerned," Kevin said with venom in his voice.

Trying to move the subject away from the boogey man, Kenisha said, "I always thought you started smoking because of Dynasty."

Sorrow etched across Kevin's face as he said, "I took my first hit the night of Dynasty's funeral. But it would've happened even if Dynasty had lived. I just had so many images in my mind that I've been trying to forget. I thought drugs could do it for me."

After that, Kenisha didn't know what to say to Kevin, so she called the kids down and they ate dinner together. Kevin hung around after dinner. He and Jamal played tic-tac-toe, and the girls cheered for the winner no matter whether it was their brother or their uncle. As it got darker outside, Kenisha could tell that Kevin was getting antsy.

He finally jumped up and said, "Got to go."

"Why don't you stay here with us tonight?" Kenisha asked.

"Naw, I got things to do. But thanks for the offer. I'll let you know if I need to crash."

Kenisha got up and walked Kevin to the door. As they stepped onto the porch, he told her, "And don't worry about nothing but getting better. If you need a babysitter, I can watch the kids."

Kenisha wanted to tell Kevin that she wouldn't allow him to watch her children because she worried that he might sell them while on a crack high. But after what she'd learned today, she didn't want to cut a deeper wound into his soul. So she simply grabbed his arm and said, "I need you to promise me something."

"Anything, lil' sis. Name it."

"I-if I don't survive, I want you to promise me that you'll get off drugs so my kids can be proud of you. And you won't become an embarrassment to them. I don't want them to hide when they see you coming."

A sad smile played on Kevin's face as he said, "Like we used to do with Cousin Joey."

Cousin Joey was Martha's first cousin. The entire family had been proud of him after he passed the realtor's exam and became a high-powered realtor making a six-figure income. Then Joey found cocaine. After his business took a nosedive, he downgraded to whatever was available on the street. He had always been a sharp dresser, but once the drugs took over, Joey stopped bathing, and wore rags with holes in his pants and in his shoes. His full-time occupation now consisted of begging for spare change."Yeah, just like Cousin Joey. Don't make my kids ashamed of you like that, okay?"

"Ain't nothing gon' happen to you, anyway, Kenisha."

"We don't know the future, so I need you to promise me that you'll do better."

"Yeah, all right, whatever," he said and then walked away.

Kenisha had two more radiation treatments before Dr. Lawson scheduled an appointment with her. She nervously sat in his office waiting for the lifeline that she desperately needed him to give her. After keeping her waiting for twenty minutes, Kenisha thought he would at least show up with a smile on his face, but Dr. Lawson looked just as grim as he always did, making Kenisha wonder why she hadn't found herself a happier doctor.

"Hello, Ms. Smalls," he said as he sat down behind his desk."Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Not a problem as long as you're bringing good news. If not, I might have to cut you for keeping me waiting so long."She said it in a joking manner, but she said it to test the waters also. If Dr. Lawson laughed, then she could relax, because she would then be convinced that he had good news. But he didn't laugh. At best he gave her a grudging half smile for her attempt at humor. Kenisha's stomach churned, and she felt like she needed to throw up.

Dr. Lawson put the folder he was carrying down on his desk and opened it."Well, the news isn't all bad," he said as he lifted his head to finally look at her.

Again Kenisha wished that she had found a more cheerful doctor. Who says "The news isn't all bad?" when they could just as easily say, "I have some news for you. Some of it is good." She couldn't hold her peace any longer. She glared at Dr. Lawson as she said, "You know what? If I'm dying, I'd rather you tell me with a smile on your face. I can't take this gloom-and-doom attitude of yours."

Clearing his throat, Dr. Lawson said, "Well, Ms. Smalls—"

"Call me Kenisha. If you're getting ready to ruin my day, you can at least act like you know me."

"Okay," he said slowly, as if he were talking to someone who was emotionally unstable."Here's the deal, Kenisha. The tumor has shrunk enough for us to be able to operate."

She had been holding her breath, but once she heard Dr. Lawson's news, she let out a sigh of relief as she jumped out of her seat."What's wrong with you? You had me so scared. That's good news, and you should have said that when you walked through the door."