The Between (33 page)

He found Kaya and Jamil frozen in the dining room as they set the table, as though they’d been startled in the midst of a crime. The table was laid out with the lace tablecloth they usually only brought out at Christmas and Thanksgiving, with freshly cut blossoms from the yard propped in small glass vases. Kaya was wearing a housecoat, her hair still uncombed, and Jamil was only half dressed in an African ensemble Hilton had never seen before. They looked crushed to see him.

“You’re not supposed to be home yet, Daddy,” Jamil whined.

Kaya didn’t speak, transfixed by the expression on Hilton’s face as his eyes searched the room. He saw a pile of wrapped gifts in a chair beside the china cabinet. Other boxes of streamers and gift-wrapping paper from the garage were lined on the floor. Hilton could barely hear anything except his own heartbeat.

“Mom’s not home yet?” he gasped.

“Not yet, but I locked the door. Did you turn off the alarm?” Kaya asked. “We got cut off on the phone, right?”

Hilton didn’t answer, running to the kitchen and then the living room to search for a box that didn’t belong in the house. Had his senses fooled him? Had he imagined everything he’d seen and felt? “We were trying to surprise you,” Kaya said in a somber tone, following closely after him. “What’s wrong?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hilton saw Jamil’s back as he scampered out of the dining room. “Hey, where are you going?” Hilton called after him.

“Nowhere,” Jamil called back, giggling.

Hilton tried to slow his breathing and wiped perspiration from his face with a dishtowel from the kitchen. “We need to get out of the house,” he said to Kaya. “Where’s the package?”

“What package?” Kaya asked. He gazed at her and realized she was being coy, trying to hide something from him.

He walked to her and put his hands on her shoulders firmly. He had to make himself clear. He didn’t have time for anger or games or panic. “Kaya,” he began, “I’m not playing. I need that package. I need it now.”

Kaya made a face, studying Hilton. She sighed. “Didn’t you even notice the decorations we put up, Dad?”

“They’re wonderful,” he said, struggling not to shout because he thought it would be worse to scare her. “Where’s the package?”

“We wrapped it. We put it with your other presents, in the dining room.”

Jesus Christ. Hilton ran, stopping in his tracks when he reached the dining room entryway from the kitchen. The chair beside the china cabinet was empty now, the stack of gifts gone. That couldn’t be. He hadn’t slept or dreamed. What the hell happened to the gifts?

A movement caught Hilton’s eye, and he saw Jamil’s grinning face retreating from him as his son walked backward, his hands behind his back. He’d been running back and forth and was breathing hard. He’d been hiding the goddamn gifts.

“Hi, Daddy,” Jamil said playfully.

Hilton couldn’t believe, after everything, that it was coming down to this. His legs wobbled beneath him. He didn’t have the energy to lunge at Jamil the way he needed to. His windpipe felt clogged, as though it wouldn’t permit any words to leave him. “Jamil,” he said, “what’s that behind your back?”

“Nothing,” Jamil said, still grinning.

“He knows, Jamil. Just give him the package,” Kaya sighed. She started to walk toward her brother, but Hilton grabbed her arm hard and held her at his side, ten feet from his son.

“Stay back,” Hilton whispered to her. She looked up at Hilton and then back at Jamil, her expression changing with a taste of monstrous knowledge. Her face looked gray, drained of blood.

“It didn’t say who sent it. It just said ‘Happy Birthday,’” Kaya said in a tiny, unsteady voice. “Dad, is it from—”

“I don’t know,” Hilton said, shushing her. He had a bigger problem on his hands: What would Jamil do if he panicked? Would he drop it? Would he fling it away? Carefully, mustering all of his strength, Hilton took two steps toward his son. Jamil stepped back, still smiling, oblivious to the grave look on Hilton’s face.

“The surprise is over now, okay? Give me the package. I mean it, Jamil. This isn’t a game. You’re making me angry.”

“Give it to him, Jamil.” Kaya’s voice was adult, shaken.

Jamil dropped his eyes, bringing a basketball-sized box from behind his back. It was wrapped in shiny striped Snoopy paper, covered with Happy Birthdays. “You ruined our surprise,” Jamil said, pouting, still clasping the awful package against his chest.

boom

Hilton took another step toward Jamil and held out his arms, which felt as leaden as the day Raul hypnotized him. His eyes were glued to the package’s ridiculously cheerful wrapping. “Is this the one, Kaya?” he asked, his jaw shaking as he spoke.

“Yes, Dad,” she whispered. He heard her take a step back.

Hilton’s fingertips were almost close enough to touch it. Almost. “Jamil, don’t move. I’m going to take it. Then I want you and Kaya to run out back as fast as you can. Don’t you move.”

Jamil gazed up at Hilton, wide-eyed and bewildered, just as he’d been that day at the birdcage. He was frightened. Hilton realized his son couldn’t move now if he wanted to.

Hilton pressed his palms firmly to either side of the box and gently lifted it from Jamil’s grip. His arms twitched, and he felt a slight resistance. “Let go, Jamil. All the way.”

He had it. It was heavy. But he had it.
“Run!”
he shouted at his children. “Get out!”

In an instant, they were gone. He heard the French doors fling open from the kitchen as they ran to the back patio. The mad pounding in Hilton’s chest hadn’t let up, and his breathing was still heavy as he held the box in his hands. He closed his eyes, bracing for an explosion.

Nothing.

He had to get out of the house, as far from Kaya and Jamil as possible. Hilton took painstaking steps across the floor, breathing through his mouth as he read the label Kaya had affixed to the wrapping in her girlish script. To: Dad. From: A friend.

He didn’t dare shake the box to better judge its contents. They’d wrapped it, bless them. Charles Ray Goode had mailed a bomb to his house, and his children had gift-wrapped it.

The distance from the dining room to the front door seemed endless, but Hilton breathed a little easier once he was outside. Charlie was still standing against the fence, barking his furious warnings. Hilton’s extended arms ached horribly. He looked right and left, up and down the emtpy street. What now?

Beyond the coral wall, Hilton saw the aluminum garbage can and remembered. It was all happening just as Nana had shown him in his dream. Had he won, at last? Was it finally over?

Gently, gently, he eased the box into the open container. Once it rested against the bottom, he slammed the can’s lid down and jumped back. The adrenaline coursing through his system made him feel as though he were flying, soaring above the scene and looking down at the garbage can and the man who’d dropped a bomb inside. He had really won.

Hilton laughed, filled with an overwhelming relief and hysteria. Jesus, maybe he was just crazy, as Raul kept telling him. For all he knew, Curt or Raul or Stu had mailed him an expensive gift and he’d just chucked it into the garbage can. It wouldn’t be the first time his father had mailed a gift instead of bringing it. Anything could be in that package. The thought made him double over with laughter. He felt so light, so light.

hilton

Hilton’s head snapped up. He thought he’d heard someone call his name, a woman, but all he could hear now was Charlie’s barking. He turned around to look at his house; he saw the door he’d left ajar, the light in the window, the birthday banner. He started to trudge toward the backyard to search for Kaya and Jamil.

come, hilton

But no. He heard it again. A woman was calling to him.

Hilton smiled despite his emotional exhaustion, cleansed in a contentment he’d never known. What’s done is done is done. He wasn’t thinking or feeling anything at all when he walked back to the garbage can and wrapped his fingers around the lid’s handle. He only knew that this was where he was supposed to be, and this was what he was supposed to do.

Hilton never heard the explosion that rocked the street, shattering the living room’s windows, slamming his car against a tree like paper, and blowing to bits the coral wall that had stood for thirty years in front of his house.

A traveler can tell many tales, but he cannot explain all that he has seen.

— Ghanaian proverb

Hilton hears a horrible scream suffocating him until he realizes it is not human, but the mechanical squeal of brake pads grinding against rubber. He feels a jolt in the darkness. He lurches and then lunges until he is flying, flying

Glass is breaking around him. he is flying through a wall of glass. He bounces against something solid and hears the thump-thump of his arms falling limply on either side of him

He is here for a long time, surrounded by voices that sound far away, too far for him to hear clearly. He doesn’t recognize the voices. He only hears the Dolphins playing on the radio

The Dolphins?

After minute-hours, he feels himself sliding down, down across a smooth surface until he is unsupported, flying again. He is somersaulting into emptiness

He plunges into a cold bath of water, which plugs his ears and his nose, he can feel bubbles swirling all around him. He is still falling, falling into the depths. He tastes salt in his mouth. When he tries to spit it out, the water invades his mouth and he begins to choke, thrashing in the dark pool. No no no no Nana, he tries to call. Where is Nana?

He begins to swim furiously, propelling his body upward with powerful strokes of his arms. There is a light above him; it must be daylight. He must be dreaming again.

He swims toward the light until the water grows more and more shallow, and he feels a sandy surface beneath his bare feet. He gasps, finally breaking his head free from the water’s prison. Land. He drags himself across the sand and struggles to stand. When his stinging eyes are clear, he can make out the figure of someone standing on the shore, waiting.

A woman. She is wearing a dress and a scarf that billows in the wind. Nana beckons to him. He can see her smile, her youthful face. Her black, black hair. “You did good, Hilton,” Nana says, taking him in her arms. His head only reaches her waist and the folds of her dress there, sinking into her soft belly. He is smaller than he imagined next to her, but it is right this way.

Bit by bit, she wipes sand from his back and shoulders. “You did good, boy.”

“Where we going?” he asks in a high, piping voice.

She points. Of course. He can see her house and its porch at the top of a steep, craggy hill, glowing from inside with bright lights. He already feels himself growing sleepy. He hasn’t slept in so long. “Come,” Nana says, taking his head. “Supper’s on.”

As they walk together toward home, Hilton feels his heart growing more and more light. He hopes she has a sweet-potato pie waiting. He hasn’t had one in ages, or her coconut icing. She always gives him sweets when he’s been good.

“Nana, is this real?” he asks, looking up at her face as he clasps her warm, soothing hand. “Can this be real?”

Nana doesn’t answer, smiling.

they caught him, baby

we’re okay, daddy

Voices?

Hilton feels a sharp sting in his palm and opens it with a start. He finds a small silver pin there, a winged staff with two serpents wrapped around it. Suddenly, his insides tremble with joy. He has done something, he’s not sure what, to make everything all right.

A
dear playmate gave him this pin. No, more than a playmate. Someone he loves. He cannot quite remember her name or her face, not yet, because this is something that only comes with time. But he knows with certainty that she is a very great woman, a famous healer he knew once, long ago.

I always knew I would publish a book someday. I just never imagined it would be today.

Thanks to the people who taught me to believe before I knew there was any such thing as
not
believing: my parents, John and Patricia Due; my maternal grandmother, Lottie Sears Houston; my paternal grandmother, Lucille Ransaw, whom I wish had lived to see this book; my aunt, Priscilla Kruize; my uncle, Walter Stephens; and my sisters—and best friends—Johnita and Lydia.

Thanks to my agent and voice of reason, Janell Walden Agyeman at Marie Brown Associates, who knew what we had before I did and made me see it, too. And my editor at HarperCollins, Peternelle van Arsdale, for her enthusiasm and gentle hand.

Thanks to my first readers for their candid advice: Muncko Kruize (love you, Cuz), Robert Vamosi, Olympia Duhart, Grace Lim, Mirta Ojito, Milana Frank, Nigel Horscroft, and Anthony Faiola.

For much-appreciated assistance during the journey, thanks to Mitchell Kaplan, Jay McLawhorn (there
will
be a cure), Juan Gomez, John Lantigua, and Ellen Anmuth, LCSW. And Inez Gaffoglio, who saw the future and whispered it to me.

Also, many thanks to my creative-writing instructors at Northwestern University, who helped me in ways I’m still discovering—Janet Desaulniers and Sheila Schwartz.

It takes more than words and advice to write a book, it takes friends helping you navigate through the joys and pains of life. Thanks to Ivan, Luchina, Kate, and Craig, for being a part of mine.

Lastly, thanks to Anne R., who opened my mind.

T
ANANARIVE
D
UE
is a features writer and columnist for the
Miami Herald.
The daughter of two civil rights activists, she lives in Miami.

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