Pieces of Why (14 page)

S
ATURD
AY MORNING
,
I woke up feeling as if I hadn't slept at all. It was raining steady, and Ma offered to make us a feast, but I shook my head. There was no use pretending either of us would enjoy it.

I wasn't sure who was more nervous—me or Ma. When we set out, Ma looked pale and she clutched the steering wheel so hard, her knuckles were white. She'd had to ask for a whole day off from work and borrow a car from a coworker, and Ma hated to drive. Plus, I knew she didn't want to see my father, so every time I looked at her, guilt piled up like landfill.

We didn't talk on the way to the prison. Ma kept her eyes fixed on the road, and I stared out the window, watching the countryside pass us by. When Route 66 finally ended at the prison gates, I held my breath, waiting for memories from my last visit to flood back in.

They didn't. Everything felt new, from the huge property
with the surrounding barbed-wire fences, to the posts with armed guards looming above us. The prison was right on the Mississippi River, lush greenery dipping into babbling water, while men with guns kept watch in towers overhead.

Ma and I stood in line to get checked in as guards with dogs circled the area. We had to go through a metal detector and get patted down and then take a prison bus to the right building. Ma had warned me not to wear any jewelry and to choose clothes that were plain, so I'd opted for jeans, sneakers, and a green T-shirt, and I'd worn my hair down instead of pulled back so that my hair clip wouldn't set off the metal detector.

When we finally got to the visiting room, Ma reached over and took my hand. The room was large and crowded with inmates and families, talking and eating together. I couldn't imagine eating anything, and the smell of fried chicken and catfish made my stomach cramp.

“Will they bring him in soon?” I asked, glancing at the door.

“Yes,” Ma said, studying my face. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, but I could hardly breathe.

“Did he want to see me?” I'd been avoiding that question, but now I wondered if my father might not show up.

Ma paused. “I don't know how your father feels about things,” she said, “but he agreed to meet with us.”

I remembered when my father had said not to bring me
here, and I couldn't stop my knees from shaking under the table. Then Ma nodded toward the door, and there he was being led in by a guard.

After all these years, he looked almost the same as I'd remembered. Maybe he was thinner, but mostly he had all the same lines and angles as before. His eyes were still dark and deep set, his arms thick and strong. Seemed strange that I ever could have forgotten him.

He walked slowly toward our table, staring right at me.

“Tia?” he said at last, as if he wasn't entirely sure.

I nodded and we gaped at each other like the strangers that we were.

I swallowed hard, but my throat was completely dry. My father shifted from one foot to the other, and then he looked at my mother. There was such a mixture of pain and love in his gaze that I wanted to look away, but I couldn't.

“Baby?” he whispered, his voice cracking.

My mother's eyes welled up. “Lyle,” she breathed.

Then we were silent again for far too long, until finally my father sat down across from us. “How you been?” he said at last, but it wasn't clear who he was asking, so I waited for Ma to answer. When she didn't, I guessed she was leaving the talking up to me.

“Okay,” I said.

“You've gotten real big,” my father murmured, “and pretty. You look like your mama.” I didn't, so I wondered if he really
thought that or if he was just saying it. Then he turned to Ma. “You look good too.”

My mother held every part of herself completely still.

“Thank you.”

My mind screamed,
This was a mistake!
But despite everything, another part of me wished he'd reach out and hold my hand. How could I want that?

I opened my mouth, praying that words would come out. “Thanks for seeing me,” I said at last.

My father laughed, a nervous guffaw. “I was surprised you wanted to come.”

“Me too,” I said. “I guess . . . I needed to ask you some things.”

This was harder than I'd ever imagined.

“You're twelve now,” my father said. “I should've expected as much.”

It was as close as we'd come to acknowledging why he was in here.

My palms were starting to sweat, and I shut my eyes tight, just for an instant. “I wondered if you're sorry,” I said, blurting the words out. “And I wanted to know why you did it.”

My mother's jaw fell open and she reached over to take my arm. Even the people sitting nearby were staring.

“Tia,” Ma started, but my father held up one bony hand.

“It's okay,” he said. “She has a right to ask.”

He scratched the dark stubble on his chin, and for one eternal moment, I waited.

“Yeah,” he said, at last. “I'm sorry. And I know you probably came here wanting me to say it was an accident or something, but I made up my mind I'm not going to lie to you about any of it.”

It felt so good to hear that word—
sorry
—come out of his mouth, but I knew it wasn't enough. “If you're sorry, then how could you do it in the first place?”

My father paused. He glanced at Ma, then back at me. “I don't know,” he said. “I ask myself that a whole lot, and maybe I'm just a real bad person. Alls I know is, I was drunk, and I was in that house to steal some money, and that girl came out and surprised me, and it happened in a split second.

“I had my gun, and I saw her standing there in her pajamas, and I thought, ‘Lyle, that girl is going to call the police and she knows just what you look like.' Then my finger pulled the trigger before I thought anything else. I wish I would've thought it through some more, but I didn't. And some things . . . you can't take 'em back.”

There it was. The truth from my father's own mouth.

My breath hitched hard.

“Bad enough what I done to that girl,” my father said, “but then I went and left you and your ma all alone. Figured you were better off without me, so I never wrote or nothing, but when your ma called . . . well, I know I don't deserve this visit.”

He was looking at me, begging me with his eyes not to hate him. I thought of Danielle and her family, the baby and
everyone who loved him. I even thought about Keisha. For every one of their sakes I should have stood up and left now that I'd gotten what I came for, but instead I sat there studying the features of my father's face. Soaking him in.

This time, I was looking for the good, not the bad.

“So you made a horrible decision?”

Seemed impossible that the reason
why
could get boiled down to something so small. That so many lives could be affected by a split-second wrong choice.

My father leaned back. “No,” he said. “It was a whole bunch of stupid decisions one right after another. Shouldn't have been drinking, shouldn't have been in that house, and shouldn't have had my gun. Shouldn't have bought the damn thing in the first place and the kicker is, I bought it for protection after that house near us got robbed. But see, that's what gived me the idea. I knew those people from work and when that Morton guy won all my money in a poker game, I thought, if someone else can do it, and they ain't even got a right to the money, then why can't I do it when it's my money in the first place? You see?”

I didn't, but I nodded.

“Just so's you know,” my father said, “I'd been going to write to you someday, even if you hadn't called, and what I wanted to say is that I never deserved your mama.” He looked straight at Ma. “She was always too good for me, and even though I never got to know you all that well on account of
you being real small when I got put away, I already knew you were gonna turn out more like her than me. And that's a good thing.”

Beside me, Ma was crying silently. Then my father said something I never expected in a million years.

“'Bout two years ago,” he said, “the Morton family came up here to tell me they forgave me for what I done to them. They'd asked me to go through this program with them that their foundation runs, so we could meet face-to-face and I could say how sorry I am, and they could say they hoped I was saved, and ever since then I've wanted to tell you both that I wished I never hurt you.”

My father stopped abruptly. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingertips and screwed his mouth up tight. He coughed, then cleared his throat. “That meant something powerful to me,” he continued. “Them coming here and all, and I didn't figure you two wanted to hear from me, but I made a promise to myself that if I ever got the chance, I'd say I regret what I done and I wish I could have been a good daddy for you and the right kind of husband for your mama.”

My father's final words came out quiet. “I don't expect you to forgive me or anything, but if you ever want to come back and see me again, I'd like to ask you about school and friends and if you still sing songs like you used to when you were small. And . . . I guess that's all I have to say.”

Amen.

My mind was swimming. Tears pooled behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. Then Ma stood up and patted my shoulder.

“Give Tia some time to think, Lyle,” she said. “This was plenty for today.”

My father nodded, and the way he looked at me was heavy, as if there was so much more he wanted to say. He glanced over and signaled to the guard.

“Be good,” he said, standing up, and then he looked at Ma. The two of them stared deep into each other's eyes as if they were having a whole conversation. Then my father started to walk away, but I stood up quick.

“Wait!”

The guard stopped, and my father turned. Before I could lose my courage, I ran over and threw my arms around him. At first, he just stood there, but then, slowly, his arms wrapped around me. I heard his heart beat, and his embrace felt strong and safe. It shouldn't have, but it did. I breathed in the scent of him and held on tight until the guard made me let go.

O
N T
HE DRIVE
home, I sat beside Ma in silence, feeling light-headed, my brain overwhelmed. I hadn't eaten since the night before, and my insides were tied in knots. Ma stared at the road ahead as if it might disappear if her eyes strayed for even a second. Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and I knew—
just knew
—that every inch of her wanted to howl.

I felt a stab in my gut and clutched at the door handle.

“Ma?”

“
What?
” It came out meaner than she'd probably meant it.

I swallowed hard. “Could we stop at the rest area up ahead?”

Ma took in a shaky breath, then nodded. “Sorry I snapped at you. I guess I'm still a little tense.”

She got off at the rest stop exit, pulled the car over, and I
leaped out, pausing a second to get my bearings before jogging over to the women's room while Ma waited in the car. The rest area was small and dirty, as if no one remembered it was there. The bathroom smelled the way bathrooms do when it's hot out and no one cleans them, and the odor made me want to gag, but I slipped into a stall.

When I sat down, my breath caught. I'd gotten my period. Relief mingled with pain. All that waiting and it had finally happened. Today of all days.

I left the stall and ran back out to the car. Ma's window was already open, and she peered out at me.

“I got my period, Ma,” I said, breathless.

Ma shrugged. “It's not unusual to have it again so soon. Girls your age can be irregular when they first start.” She rustled some quarters from the depths of her frayed purse. “Here's some money for the machine. From now on, carry supplies with you all the time, just in case.”

The quarters felt cold and heavy in my hand. I wanted more from her, but I knew this was all I'd get. And that was my own fault. “Okay,” I said. “I will.”

I jogged back to the restroom and stood by myself, thinking about the way I'd once believed this moment would transform me into a woman. As if one day I'd be a little girl, and the next I'd be all grown up.

Now I understood. There was nothing simple about
this transformation. No caterpillar bursting forth from the cocoon with beautiful, delicate wings, ready to soar across the open sky. That was the myth, but the truth was something different: messy, confusing, and full of mistakes.

But the truth was all I had.

T
HE MORN
ING
of the fund-raiser came up quicker than I thought. Ma was true to her word. She and Ms. Marion had been in touch with the Mortons, and they'd gone over to the foundation together to work out all the details of the Rainbow Choir's performance. The meeting had lasted for three hours, and Ma said they'd been hard but good ones—that they'd talked about what my father did, and the pain of the trial, and all the long years afterward. She said in the end, Mr. Morton had hugged her, and Mrs. Morton had smiled, and she'd looked so much like Danielle's picture that Ma had cried.

“I made a right fool of myself, standing there bawling in the foundation boardroom,” Ma told me. “Thank goodness Marion was there. It was good of her to go with me.”

I'd wanted to go too, but Ma had been hard as iron again.

You do not need
to apologize, Tia Ro
se. I won't hear of
it. Not a single spe
ck of what happened
was your fault. You
hear
me? Don't let
me catch you dwellin
g on things that are
not your responsibi
lity.

The words had been familiar, but there had been something different when she'd said them. She'd reminded me of those pointed black fences in the Garden District, the way they protected what was theirs without hiding the beautiful mansions and colorful flowers behind their bars.

“Did they tell you why they invited me to sing?” I'd asked. It was the one question I still hadn't been able to answer.

Ma had shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and I'd known she wasn't entirely comfortable with what they'd had to say.

“Yes,” she'd said. “They told me we're all victims of Lyle's violence. You and me, Tia. Not just them.” Ma had shaken her head. “Seems too generous. But if you can do something to help them out by singing at their fund-raiser, and if I finally got up the courage to say I'm sorry after eight long years . . . well, I guess that's the best we can do, isn't it?”

I agreed. Mostly.

There was no doubt in my mind that I'd sing my heart out at the fund-raiser. I had the lead on ‘I Know,' plus I was singing ‘Pyramid' with Keisha and Kenny. We'd been practicing every day for the past week, even going in for extra lessons with Ms. Marion to set up the arrangement. Every time we sang together, our harmony got tighter. Now when I thought about performing in front of the Mortons, my heart still
pounded, but it was a mixed feeling—part nervousness and part excitement.

I also knew that the Mortons having the courage to invite me would make an impression on everyone who heard me sing.

And that was an amazing opportunity, wasn't it?

So why did I feel like there was an important piece of the puzzle still missing?

Maybe the most important piece of all.

That morning it was overcast, and I walked slowly, taking my time and feeling the rhythm in my feet as my sneakers slapped against the concrete of the sidewalk. The worst of the heat wave that had swamped New Orleans for the past weeks had moved on, and now the air was cooler, but the sky was still heavy and gray.

When I got to the baby's house, I stopped. The memorial fence was gone, and someone had swept the sidewalk clean. I wondered what had happened to the teddy bears and candles, the poems and pictures.

What had happened to my father's photo?

My chest clenched with a pang of loss, but I kept going, inside the gate and up the steps until I reached the front door and rang the bell.

I didn't expect an answer. I waited a moment, then
slipped the flyer for the fund-raiser in the mailbox. I'd written a note on top saying that I hoped their family would come, and I'd included the foundation's phone number in case they couldn't make it. I wasn't entirely sure if they would be able to read my note, but I had to try.

As soon as I let the flyer go, I turned to leave, but then the door opened, and there she was, tall and beautiful, wearing a long patchwork skirt that had tiny silver bells at the bottom hem line.

“Hello,” she said, her dark eyes searching mine.

I chewed on my bottom lip. “Hi.”

She held up one long, delicate finger. “Wait,” she told me. Then she disappeared inside the house, and when she returned, she was holding the photograph of my father.

“Yours, yes?”

She handed it to me, and the photo felt smooth against my fingers. “Yes,” I said. “My father.” I traced the lines of his face with the pad of my thumb.

“Ahhh.” We stood in silence for a moment, but it wasn't uncomfortable. “Sit?” she asked at last.

“Okay,” I said, sitting down on the steps. She sat beside me, one step up. Her skirt made a tinkling sound as she moved.

“Braid?” she asked, reaching out to touch my hair with gentle fingers.

I smiled, surprised. “Yes, please.”

Then she stroked my forehead, forming strands, and twisting each one carefully, intertwining all the pieces.

“What is . . .” She frowned. “Name,” she said at last.

“Tia,” I said.

“Aa'ida.”

I repeated the syllables after her, slowly and carefully. “Ah-ee-da?” I turned around to make sure I'd gotten it right.

She nodded and her dark spiraling hair fell over her shoulder. She reached into her shirt and pulled out a small locket. When she opened it, I recognized the baby's photo with his sweet, toothy smile.

“Aksander.”

I ran my finger over the baby's face.

“Ak-zan-der,” I repeated. “He's beautiful,” I added, and—Aa'ida's eyes filled with tears.

“Love of mine,” she said. “Always.”

She said the word
alw
ays
so that it sounded like two words.

All ways.

“You come see me,” Aa'ida said. “Some . . . times. O-K?”

“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes against the gentle tug of her hands. “I'd like that.”

“Is good to see . . . child.”

I wasn't sure if she meant me or children in general, but it didn't matter. I'd visit as often as I could even if all I ever did was sit on the front step to get my hair braided. Maybe I'd ask
her about Aksander and I'd listen the way Kenny had listened to me, without trying to make things better.

We were quiet for a long time, and then Aa'ida began to hum as she worked her long fingers through the tangles in my hair. She wove a French braid, then two smaller braids on the sides, but each time she let the strands fall and began all over again. Felt good. When she started to sing softly—lines of unfamiliar music in minor keys—I hummed along.

The sky grew darker, but it didn't rain. The air was still. The streets were quiet save for Aa'ida's voice. Sometimes, I sang a line after her, fumbling over the strange words, and she'd nod and sing the line again more slowly, so I could repeat it. Once I'd learned a certain line, she'd add the harmony while I sang the melody. Then we sang together, two quiet voices pushing away the darkness.

It was more than I'd hoped for.

It was enough.