Love Thy Neighbor (32 page)

I stop to take a good look at this woman.
This awful, awful woman. I tell her, “Don’t ever come back here,
Grace.” Then I turn on my heel and head back into my apartment.

Once inside, I rest my back on the door,
cover my face in my hands and cry. Sliding down the door, I cry
harder.

Sobs tear out of my throat and my heart
breaks some more.

Come home, Ash.

***

God, whiskey tastes like ass.

Cringing as I take another sip, I really
have no idea how he drank this shit almost every day of his adult
life.

Sitting on my father’s grave, staring into
it as if it’ll bring me some answers to the questions I don’t know
how to ask, I wonder if he can see me right now.

My father is dead because of me.

I killed him without a bat of an
eyelash.

He was a bad man.

It was a couple of months after I’d left
that hell-hole. I took another route home, one closer to my old
house. I guessed you could say I was curious to see how they’d been
getting on without me. Secretly, I wanted them to be worse off. I
wanted dad to realize that
I
wasn’t the shit thing in his
life.

He was.

I climbed over the side gate, peeked through
the kitchen window and froze at the sight before me.

He was wailing on mom. She looked like I
used to. Black and blue. This was obviously not the first time she
took a beating since I’d been gone.

My anger boiled into a rage and unable to
stop myself, I went around the house to the back door and into the
kitchen. I took hold of a ten-inch kitchen knife, tore my father
off of my barely-conscious mother and reared my arm back before
piercing the very center of his gut. I pushed that knife in as deep
as I could.

It took longer than I expected it to, but I
took pleasure watching him gurgle and gasp for breath. I saw the
exact moment the light faded from his eyes.

Unsure what to do next, I called Ilia. He
told me he’d take care of it and to come straight home.

My mom tried to hug me but I pushed her
away. I told her someone would be there soon to clean up and that
she needed to take care of herself. With only a nod, I left my
mother with my father’s dead body and never looked back.

Ilia came home later than normal that night
and came straight up to my room. He took the bag full of bloodied
clothes I’d been wearing in one hand and searched my face. Just
before he turned to leave, he told me in his heavily accented
speech, “Turns out your mom knifed him in self-defense. She’s lucky
to be alive, son.” Putting a hand on my shoulder, he said, “You did
good, Asher. She needed you and you came to her. You are like the
archangel Michael. The protector. I’m glad you’re a part of this
family.”

Family.

I have one of those.

Coming to an epiphany, I tell my father’s
headstone, “I’m nothing like you.”

I have to get home. I have to see my girl. I
somehow have to fix what I fucked up.

But before I do, there’s one stop I need to
make.

Chapter Twenty-Five
Grace

I knock on the front door and hundreds of
memories course through my brain at once.

It’s been a long time. I used to spend most
of my summers here.

The front door opens and the short, plump
woman asks, “Can I help you, son?”

Shorter than I remember, that’s for sure.
Wearing thick coke bottle glasses, I can see her pretty green eyes
peeking out from somewhere behind them. Her hair is in a neat bun
at the back of her head. Smiling at the sound of her voice, I tell
her, “Yeah, aunt Faith, you can help me.”

She gasps dramatically and holds onto the
door frame for support. She leans closer and whispers, “Asher,
baby? Is that you?”

“Yeah. It’s me,” I say, chuckling at her
dramatics.

She blinks. Once, twice, three times.

Then she squeals and jumps up and down in
excitement, her plump body jiggling with every jump. She yells,
“Oh, sweet Jesus! Oh lordy lord! I prayed and prayed and
prayed
for you, baby.”

She jumps into my arms and smiling like an
ass, I hug her tight. I missed my aunt. Pulling back a little, she
places her hands on my forearms and says, “Let me get a look at
you!”

She searches my body first, her hands cup my
cheeks and she shakes her head and clucks, “Oh, dear me. You turned
into a looker, Ashy.”

I open my mouth to speak, but Aunt Faith
turns on her heel and walks back into the house. She shouts,
“Follow me, honey.” So I do. I open my mouth to speak a second time
but she cuts me off again with a shout to another room, “Jeffrey,
get off your ass! We’ve got company!”

Holy shit. Jeffrey’s still alive?

Jeffrey putters in saying, “What’s with all
the squealin’ woman? I can’t hear what the hell’s going on on
Wheel of Fortune
.”

Aunt Faith puts a hand on her fleshy hip and
responds, “What the hell do you need to hear when you watch
Wheel of Fortune
? It’s all right there on the screen,
Jeff!”

Uncle Jeff scowls at her and says, “I’m
missin’ all the one-liners.
Wheel of Fortune
ain’t funny if
you miss the one-liners. Oh shit, woman. Askin’ you to be quiet is
like asking the cat to take a dump on the toilet.” He turns to me
with a smirk. “Ain’t gonna happen.”

I chuckle and watch as his brow furrows. He
stares at me long and hard before a small smile breaks out on his
face. He whispers, “I don’t believe it. Is that my little man
Asher?”

Smiling so hard my cheeks are starting to
hurt, I nod. Uncle Jeff comes forward and wraps me up in a bear
hug. I don’t do hugging all that much, but if I’d let anyone hug
me, I’d let Jeff or Faith.

Jeffrey is a large African American man who
fell in love with my aunt Faith when they were in college. I’ve
never met a more perfect couple in my life. Faith is my mom’s
sister and the complete opposite of what my mom is.

Mom is tall, Faith is short. Mom is
graceful, Faith is not. Mom cares about appearances, Faith…not so
much. Mom is quiet and Faith is louder than an air horn. Faith is
happy…mom is not. Mom told Faith she was making a mistake by
marrying a ‘colored’ man, Faith told her to stick it.

Jeffrey taught me how to throw a football.
He taught me how to swing a bat and pitch too. Jeffrey was
everything my dad should’ve been and I loved spending summers with
them. They never had kids of their own, but they fostered two or
three needy kids at a time. They had a lot of love to give and
would give it freely to whoever needed it. Faith did a lot of
charity work with special needs children and Jeffrey used to coach
a baseball team for paraplegic kids.

They are, for lack of a better word,
exceptional.

Jeff finally lets me go and clears his
throat. He says quietly, “How you doing, Ash?”

Sitting at the table, the same table I sat
at as a kid, it all pours out, “If you’d asked me that yesterday,
Uncle Jeff, I’d have told you I was doing pretty shitty. But today,
I’m better. I’m doing better than I’ve ever been.”

Aunt Faith’s face softens. She raises her
brows as she smiles, “You got yourself a girl, baby?”

My face falls. I tell her, “I don’t know. I
hope I do. I fucked up.”

Uncle Jeff booms, “Oh hell! Never thought
I’d see the day!” He turns to Faith and says, “The boy’s in love,
Faithy. Seen that look many, many times before.” He smiles at me
and recalls, “I remember this young man told me one day a long time
ago that girls were yucky and that he’d never take a wife because
he didn’t want to catch cooties.”

My head falls back and I burst into
laughter. I really did say that. Faith and Jeff laugh with me.

Suddenly, I’m sad. My chest hurts. I tell
them both, “You guys were the only good thing in my life, and I’m
sorry I never came to see you after I left. You- you helped me a
lot and I guess- I guess I just wanted to say thank you.”

Faith bursts into loud and noisy sobs, and
for some reason it makes me want to burst into laughter.

Aunt Faith…she’s somethin’ else.

Jeff looks over at me and rolls his eyes. I
grin at him. He knows how she is.

What Faith sputters through tears makes us
both sober: “If I’d known- If I’d known, baby. I would’ve taken you
away from that place. Never taken you back. You’d have been safe
here, Ash. I would’ve protected you with my life.”

She says this with such conviction that I
don’t doubt her, not even for a second.

Her face remains devastated when she asks
quietly, “So all the sports injuries you had? They were
really-”

Cutting her off, I reply, “Yes, ma’am. Never
played sports all that much. Dad was a serious case of fucked up.”
Turning to Jeff, I say, “You remember how he liked to drink, right?
I can’t really remember a time he was sober.”

We sit in thoughtful silence for a while
before I decide to get to the point of my being here.

I ask, “Do you know where mom is? I don’t
want to call her. I don’t actually
want
to speak to her, but
she has something I want.”

Jeff and Faith look at each other in a way
that makes me narrow my eyes. Jeff says quietly, “Well, you see,
son, Grace lives here…with us.”

My back straightens and I look around. I see
photos of her on the wall and wonder why it never clicked.

I ask quietly, “Is she here?”

Faith looks confused for a moment before
saying, “Honey, I thought that was why you were here. She went to
see you today.”

My brow furrows.

Why the hell would she come to see me? She’d
know I wouldn’t want to see her.

Just as I open my mouth to ask, the front
door opens and from down the hall, a familiar voice yells out
teasingly, “It’s just me. Don’t shoot, Jeff!”

She walks into the kitchen with a small
smile and says, “Why so glum, chum?” Then she spots me.

Her body stiffens, her hands fly to her
mouth and her bag drops on the ground, its contents spilling
everywhere. I take this moment of silence to get a look at her.

She looks like my mom used to. Happier with
bright eyes. I guess she should be happier with my dad gone.

I stand slowly and, knowing it would hurt
her, say in a way of greeting, “Grace.”

Direct hit.

Her eyes close tightly, her face pained. I
suddenly wonder why I feel like a piece of shit.

Faith clears her throat and says, “C’mon,
Jeff. We’ll give you two some time alone.” They both stand. Faith
quickly picks up the contents of mom’s bag, placing it on the
counter. They both walk out, leaving me and my mother alone for the
first time in twenty years.

Coming to terms with the fact that her son
stands only feet away from her, her face softens and a small smile
appears on her face.

She looks really pretty. I missed that.

She tells me, “I just went to see you, but
you weren’t in.” She shakes her head, smiles and rambles, “Well, of
course you weren’t in. You’re here! Which is strange as heck. And I
know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m your mom and I’m going to
tell you anyways… You grew to be a handsome man, baby.”

I can’t stop myself from staring at her.

She’s a different woman to the one I knew
twenty years ago. To the woman I hated.

Who is this woman?

She claps her hands together, goes through
the fridge and says over her shoulder, “I missed lunch so our
options are turkey on rye or…” she looks closer before nodding,
“turkey on rye, it is.”

I still haven’t said a word, but she goes
about making our sandwiches and talking jibber jabber. She
chuckles, “So, like I said, went to your place today and you
weren’t there.” She turns to look at me and says, “Ashy, it’s not a
great neighborhood, baby. Are you sure it’s safe there?”

Stunned into silence, I can only nod.

I feel like I’m ten again.

She puts the cheese on the bread first then
the mayo then the turkey and cuts off the crusts, just how I used
to ask for it. By the way she moves around the kitchen, she hasn’t
even noticed. She utters, “I guess I should ask what brings you
here today, but we can talk about that over lunch.”

She brings me my sandwich on a plate along
with a glass of sweet tea then brings hers over too and sits. She
takes a bite of her sandwich and watches me closely. Suddenly
feeling awkward, I take a bite of my sandwich and her face erupts
into a beautiful smile.

Unable to fight myself any longer, I say
quietly, “You can’t pretend it never happened, mom.”

Her face falls a little but not into
sadness, into something serious. She tells me, “Asher, I spent
twenty years with that man, fearing for my life and yours. I was a
different person back then. Did you know that your father
threatened me? He told me if I went to the police that he would
kill you.” Her face falls further as she whispers, “And I had no
doubt he would, baby.”

Clearing her throat, she speaks a little
stronger when she says, “I told myself that if I had you beaten but
alive, I was winning. I know I wasn’t there for you, Ash. I wish I
could go back and do what you had the strength to do. If I could, I
would’ve been the one to end it. But after you’d gone, I felt like
I was getting only what I deserved, so I didn’t fight him.”

I shove half the sandwich in my mouth to
stop myself from speaking a little while longer.

Fuck this, get to the point.

After I swallow, I tell her, “I want Gram’s
ring.”

She blinks at me wide-eyed for a moment
before standing and walking away. Not a minute later she comes back
with the blue velvet ring box. She places it on the table in front
of me, opens it and says, “Asher, this was yours from the day you
were born, baby. No need to ask for what’s yours. That’s why I’ve
been calling. I came to bring this to you today. This and something
else. Something I’m sure you won’t want, but I have to give it to
you.”