The Bridge (19 page)

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Authors: Solomon Jones

BOOK: The Bridge
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He walked faster. She was losing him, so she gave him the snippet of truth that he wanted.
“It's a lot to what happened with me and Tyrone.”
Lynch stopped and turned around.
“No,” he said. “I don't think there's a lot to it. You got him to deal drugs, then you got pregnant and told him Kenya was his. Everybody knew she wasn't. He couldn't handle it, and he died trying to.”
“Okay, Kevin,” she said as she caught up to him on the landing. “Kenya ain't Tyrone daughter. Is that what you wanna hear? You want me to say that out my mouth? Okay, she ain't his. I lied. But it wasn't like everybody thought it was. I lied 'cause I had to.”
“Why, Daneen? What reason would you have to do that?”
She considered telling him the truth. But the truth, in all its ugliness, wasn't something she was ready to give up. It was something she'd promised herself she would take to her grave.
“I wanna tell you that, Kevin, but I can't,” she said haltingly.
“You can't, huh? Well, tell me this, just to ease my mind because I've spent a lot of time wondering about it over the years.”
Daneen looked at him expectantly.
“Is Sonny Kenya's father?”
Daneen stared at the steps as a range of emotions poured through her. She considered answering the question, but she couldn't. Not there. Not yet.
“I know who I wish her father was,” she said, looking up at him.
Lynch shook his head with contempt. “You're the same as you've
always been, Daneen. You say whatever you have to say to get what you want.”
“I'm not tryin' to use you, Kevin. I was just sayin'—”
“Why don't you do yourself a favor, Daneen? Do us both a favor. Leave me alone. Go away and let me do what I have to do to find Kenya. You don't have to pretend you love her. And you definitely don't have to pretend you feel anything for me. I don't need that. And I don't need you.”
As Lynch turned and continued up the steps, Daneen looked after him and decided that she could find Kenya on her own.
So as he went to Tyreeka's mother's apartment, she took to the streets. Because the streets were what Kenya knew best.
 
 
 
Tyreeka cradled her baby, looked into her eyes, and saw the love she'd never received elsewhere.
There was something pure in those eyes—a thirst that could only be quenched by Tyreeka.
As she watched her daughter explore every part of her mother's face, Tyreeka knew that this was what she had always longed for. Something of her own, something of substance that she had created.
Her daughter was the one genuine thing in a life covered over with masks and pretense. She made her feel like a child again. It was a feeling that she savored. Because even at thirteen, Tyreeka had seen more than most adults ever see in a lifetime.
The baby reached up and twisted her lip. Tyreeka winced and pulled the baby's hand away because her lip, like the rest of her face, was swollen. It hurt even to breathe.
When her mother called her from the living room, Tyreeka had to brace herself for the pain she felt when she spoke.
“Yeah, Mom,” she answered, sounding like her mouth was filled with cotton.
“Come here, Tyreeka,” her mother said. “Somebody here to talk to you about Kenya.”
She carried the baby with her to the living room, where a dark-skinned bald man with tired eyes and hulking shoulders sat waiting on the couch.
“Is that your little sister?” Kevin Lynch said, leaning forward with a smile for the baby.
“This my daughter,” Tyreeka said, sounding annoyed.
“Oh.”
Lynch stopped smiling, embarrassed. “My name is Detective Kevin Lynch. I've been working on trying to find Kenya and I understand that—”
Tyreeka looked up, and Lynch noticed the bruises on her face for the first time.
“What happened to you?” he asked with concern.
“I fell,” Tyreeka lied, looking sideways at her mother, who sat across the room in a folding chair.
“No, she ain't fall,” her mother said matter-of-factly. “I beat her ass for stayin' out all night trickin' with some drug dealer while her baby was in here hungry. Now, if you gon' take me outta here for lovin' my daughter enough to discipline her, go 'head,” she said, holding out her hands for the cuffs. “Jail probably be better than sittin' up in here takin' care o' everybody else babies, anyway.”
Tyreeka looked down at her baby and remained silent as Lynch looked from mother to daughter.
“I'm not here to judge you, Miss …”
“Johnson. Hattie Johnson.”
“I'm not here to judge you, Miss Johnson. I just want to talk to your daughter about Kenya's disappearance, if that's okay with you.”
“It's fine with me if it's okay with her.”
Tyreeka nodded almost imperceptibly.
“I understand you saw Kenya on Friday night. Do you remember where you saw her and what time it was?”
“I guess it was a little after ten, 'cause the news had just came on Channel 29. I was goin' to the store to get some cereal for my baby, and I saw Kenya in front o' me. I called her and asked her where she was goin'.”
“What did she say?”
“She never answered. She just said she was comin' with me. I told her she couldn't, and she asked if she could spend the night with us. Told me somethin' about some cousins comin' up from down South and Judy apartment bein' crowded.
“I knew she was lyin'. Kenya would lie sometime to keep from sayin' what was really goin' on down there. But somethin' about the way she said it made me take her serious.”
“And what was that?”
“She started cryin'. I ain't know if she was fakin' or what, but I took her serious. I told her to go 'head up and ask my mom if she could spend the night.”
“Why didn't you go with her?”
“I was talkin' to somebody.”
“Who were you talking to?”
Tyreeka hesitated. Lynch sensed that she didn't want to give details.
“Look,” he said, feigning exasperation, “we can do this down at Central Detectives if you prefer.”
Tyreeka sighed and held her baby tighter, rocking her nervously as she answered the question. “This boy named Scott that hustle down Crispus Attucks.”
“Scott what?”
“I don't know his last name. They call him Scott Playa. We was talkin' and then we went for a ride. One thing led to another and, you know, we ended up at his aunt house on Thompson Street.”
“Do you remember the exact address?”
Tyreeka stopped to think. “It was 1185,” she said. “I remember
'cause I was lookin' at it and thinkin' I ain't know the numbers went that high.”
“Did you see Kenya go in the building before you left?”
“I saw her walk toward the buildin', but I ain't see her go in.”
“Did you see her talking to anyone else after she left you?” Lynch asked as he jotted notes.
“No.”
“Is there anything you remember about her state of mind when you talked to her?”
Tyreeka thought about it for a few minutes, then looked up at Lynch with a troubled expression.
“She seemed like she was nervous,” she said. “She kept lookin' over her shoulder and actin' like she ain't wanna leave me.
“Tell you the truth, I think she was scared,” Tyreeka said finally. “I think she was scared to go home.”
 
 
 
Darnell sat with the shades drawn in the darkened living room, waiting for the hurt to subside. He'd been sitting there for hours, ever since Lily had dismissed him.
He was out of crack, and for the first time in months, he had no desire to scrounge for more. It was crack, after all, that had put him there, writhing in the pain that came with Lily's latest rejection.
It was the kind of hurt that twists in one's gut. The kind that comes after hope is built up, then crashes to the ground and shatters. It was an ache that Darnell had forgotten.
He had long ago stopped feeling. The crack had taken away his ability to do so. But in quiet moments like this, when the crack was gone and sleep refused to come, his emotions awakened and stabbed at him like needles.
Normally, he would turn to the drugs to make it stop. But all he wanted now was Lily. Nothing else would do.
He considered going out to join the search for his niece. But at
that moment, he didn't care about the search, and he didn't want to act as if he did. The demand of doing so was too great. And Darnell was in no mood to meet demands.
He looked up as the doorknob turned, squinting at the dim hallway light that rushed into the darkness. He recognized the silhouette that filled the doorway. But not even the sight of his sister could pull him from his funk.
“Who that?” Daneen said, spotting him in the corner.
“It's Darnell,” he said.
There was a moment of awkward silence.
“What you doin' here?”
“What you mean, ‘What you doin' here?' I live here.”
“Well, shouldn't you be somewhere lookin' for Kenya?” Daneen said, with a hand on her hip.
“Shouldn't you?”
“I just came in from lookin' for her,” she said, walking to the window. “But it's only so many times you can keep goin' over the same streets.”
She lifted the shade. Then she went about the task she'd come there to carry out. She went from room to room, rummaging though the drawers and closets, looking in vain for something that would give her a clue about Kenya.
She went into the kitchen, looked into a drawer, and saw the gun that Sonny kept behind the silverware tray. She quickly slipped it into her jeans, covered it with her shirt, and pushed the drawer shut.
“The cops already been through here lookin',” Darnell said, walking into the kitchen behind her.
Daneen jumped, but quickly regained her composure. She didn't want to have to explain taking the gun. She didn't even know why she'd done it. But somewhere deep down, she felt that she might need it.
“The cops couldn'ta searched the way they shoulda,” she said haltingly. “Or else they woulda found my baby by now.”
She looked at him nervously. When she realized he hadn't seen
her take the gun, she leaned back against the counter and sighed. “I don't know what else to do.”
“I don't think nobody do,” Darnell said, going back to his spot on the floor.
Daneen walked over to the living-room couch and sat down across from Darnell. She took in the dark circles around his eyes, his pallid skin, his beaten expression.
“You look like you done lived a couple o' lives in the past few days,” she said, almost sympathetically.
“So do you. But I expected that.”
They sat quietly for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.
“You see Kevin?” he asked.
“Yeah, I saw him. He ain't wanna see me, though. Matter fact, he told me to stay away from him. Said he ain't need me to help him find Kenya.”
Darnell laughed.
“What's funny?” she said.
“Seem like it's a whole lotta that goin' around. I went down Lily's like she was gon' fall for me if I washed my ass.”
“So what happened?”
“You see where I'm at, don't you?”
“I don't know why you expected no different,” Daneen mumbled.
“I don't know why you expected somethin' different from Kevin,” he said in a tone that was almost angry.
Daneen was about to say something hurtful. But her brother was already in pain. His eyes held a sadness that had set in years before—the same sadness that had set into her own.
“I guess we always expectin' somethin' different, Darnell. I guess we think if we look past all the dirt we done did, everybody else gon' look past it, too. But it don't work that way.
“You live with the stuff you do,” she said pointedly. “You live with it, and you can't kill it. 'Cause every time you think you done
buried it, it get up out the grave. You can run from it, you can pretend it ain't there. But it's always standin' right next to you, remindin' you who you really are.”

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