The Realest Ever (35 page)

Nice try
, Donovan thought and smiled again.  “Yes, I’m the tall one,” he said.  “So, is Kyra in?”

“Naw,” Ruth said.  “She left with her baby
-daddy.”

Donovan thought he
was ready for this woman’s acid, but that comment threw him for a complete loop.  He couldn’t even pretend to be okay.

“Wh, what?”

“You said you’re Donovan?” the older woman asked.

A car horn sounded.  Donovan checked his rearview mirror and saw that he wasn’t alone on the street anymore.  He made a right at the intersection and pulled over in front of a random house.  He put his car in
PARK and tried to slow his heartbeats.

“Yeah, I’m Donovan.  When did Kyra leave?”

“About ten minutes ago.  I don’t wanna get all in your business, but you look like a good man,” Ruth said.  “Kyra told me you coach for Western Hills.”

Donovan’s breaths were hot and heavy
.  “Kyra left with Kat’s father?”

“Yeah,” Ruth said.  “Leonard been calling her.  They talk all the time.  He just came down from Arkansas to see her.”

Donovan’s head was spinning.  He didn’t know what to believe anymore.  He knew this woman was lying, but how much of it was a lie?  Surely she wouldn’t say Kyra wasn’t there if she really was. 

“She using you,” Ruth
confided, “if you wanna know what I think about it.”

“I don’t,” Donovan said.  “I just want to know where Kyra is.”

“I told you she ain’t here.  You don’t believe me? 
Kyra
!”  The woman barely took the phone away from her face before she screamed.  “
Kyra!  You in here
?”  She was very loud.  After a moment, she said, “See.  She ain’t here.  She with Leonard, like I told you.”

Donovan’s eyes burned.  What the hell was going on here?
  Kyra told him Leonard was trying to contact her, so Donovan believed that Kat’s father might come to Overbrook Meadows.  But why would Kyra leave with him?  Why now?  Donovan told Kyra he was going to pick her up after church, so she and Beverly could talk.  Kyra wouldn’t leave with some loser.

“Where the kids?”  Donovan was speaking without thinking now.  He was on the side of the road
with nowhere to go.  His mind was racing.  His heart was, too.

“She left the kids here,” Ruth said.  “I like you, Donovan, and I feel bad about what Kyra’s doing to you.  I want to tell you the truth about how she’s using you and why she came back here.  Did Kyra tell you why she came back
to Overbrook Meadows?”

Donovan
swallowed roughly.  He knew Aunt Ruth was full of shit, but some of it had to be true.  Kyra was always vague about what happened in Little Rock.  Donovan wanted to know everything, and he knew she was holding back.  But he couldn’t trust the woman he was talking to.  He should hang up.  

“You’re lying.”

“You don’t have to believe me,” Ruth said.  “There’s a million people in Little Rock who know what I know.  Aunts, uncles, cousins,
everybody
.  I can give you any phone number you want.  I’m trying to help you, Donovan.  You need to know what was
really
went down over there.  You don’t know Kyra like you think you do.”

Donovan’s soul was
tormented.  He felt like Ruth was carving chunks off his heart, slice by slice.  “What are you talking about?” he breathed.  He didn’t want to know, but his mind would concoct all sorts of terrible scenarios until she told him.  Even if Ruth gave him a bastardized version of the truth, Donovan needed to hear it.  He could decide for himself what parts he wanted to believe.

“Drugs,” Aunt Ruth said.  “They was on drugs.”

Donovan nearly sighed in relief until the word “
They
” registered.  “Who?  Kyra?”

“Yes, she was,” Ruth said. 

She sounded solemn, but Donovan could almost see her grinning, like the devil himself.  His eyes filled with tears even as he barked at her.  “You’re lying!”

“I’m not lying!” Ruth snapped back.  “I’m trying to help you, so stop telling me I’m lying
!  Kyra was on drugs, and Leonard was on drugs, and that’s why them people came and took her kids.  I know she told you they took her kids…”

Donovan’s silence was answer enough.  Ruth
hummed into the phone.  “Uhn uhn uhn…”  She sounded different than before.  Her smugness was unmistakable now.  Donovan realized she wasn’t lying, not about this, and he lost the slippery hold on his composure. 

Dark shadows filled the
streets as the gray clouds above blocked out the rest of the fleeting sunshine.  Donovan heard a crackle of thunder.  He saw a bolt of lightening streak down to the earth, miles ahead of him.  His vision blurred, but it wasn’t the rain. 

“The CPS took Kat and Quinell from her,” Ruth continued.  “Kyra was getting high on heroin with that boy.  She was a dopefiend, just like her mama.”

Thinking about Kyra’s mother broke Donovan out of the trance this evil woman had him under.  Donovan tried to love his neighbors and forgive his enemies, but Kyra’s mom was one person he still despised.  She let drugs replace the love she once had for her children, and she ruined all of their lives, especially Kyra’s.  Donovan could not believe that the woman he loved was in any way similar to her despicable mother.  He refused to accept that.

“I’m getting off this phone,” he growled.  He wiped his eyes and nose angrily.  Why did he entertain
Kyra’s spiteful aunt in the first place?  He knew Ruth wasn’t right.  Kyra told him so nearly every day.

“
Why don’t you ask Kyra?” Ruth said.  She was tired of this conversation, too.  Donovan’s nose was so wide open, he wouldn’t listen to any negative comments about his pearly white princess.  “You ain’t gotta believe me,” Ruth said.  “Ask Kyra.  Ask her if she was on dope.  Ask her if them people took her kids.  Ask her your damned self!”

She hung up i
n his face.  Literally.  Aunt Ruth had an old school telephone.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

Donovan returned to his mother’s house a few minutes later.  Beverly took one look at him and knew that this was the kind of pain only a woman could cause.  She sat with him in the living room while Donovan told her about the conversation with Aunt Ruth.  Beverly tried to make him feel better with the same reasoning Donovan used when he was on the phone with Kyra’s aunt.

“She’s lying, Donovan.  Why do you believe her?  You told me how she was.”

As he talked to the woman who knew him best, Donovan managed to get his emotions under control.  His eyes were dry as he shook his head, his body slumped over, his forearms resting on his knees.  He looked up at his mother.

“I don’t think s
he was lying, Mama.”

“Why do you believe that, Donovan?  Sit up, baby.”

He sat back on the sofa, but his body still slumped.  Beverly had never seen his spirits so low.

“Because of the way she sounded,” Donovan said.  “She said everybody knew about it.  She said I could ask Kyra herself.”

“And that’s what you should do,” Beverly urged.  She was nearly as exasperated as he was.  “That lady’s trying to come against you and Kyra’s happiness, Donovan.  I can feel it in my bones.  You don’t need to think nothing else bad about Kyra, until you talk to her yourself.  When was the last time you called her?”

“When I was on my way over there,” Donovan said. 
“She still not answering.”

“Call her now,” Beverly suggested.
“She’s the only person you can get the truth from.”

Donovan knew that was the best advice anyone could give him.  He dug his phone from his pocket.  Even that movement took a
lot out of him.  He felt completely drained.  But Donovan’s face lit up when he checked the display on his cellular.  He had a missed call from Kyra.  And a message. 

“She called
,” he told his mom. 

“When?”

“I had it on silent, from church,” Donovan said as he accessed his call log.  Kyra called him two minutes after he talked to her aunt.  What a fool he was!  The whole time he was giving his mother this sob story, he could’ve been talking to Kyra. 

“Did she leave a message?” Beverly asked.

Donovan didn’t respond because he had the phone to his ear, already listening to his voicemail.  Beverly waited.  Twenty seconds later Donovan sighed and smiled.  “She sounds fine.  She said she was outside, and she didn’t hear her phone ringing.”

“She didn’t say anything about her baby’s father?”

Donovan shook his head.  His smile wavered.  He was so happy to hear that Kyra was alive and well, that he momentarily forgot about the terrible things her aunt said about her.

“I’m gonna call her.”

Donovan’s pulse thumped as he returned Kyra’s call.  His mother watched him nervously.  Kyra answered after a couple of rings.

“Hey.  I’m sorry I missed your call.”

“I was going to pick you up,” Donovan said. 

“I know.  Baby, I’m so sorry.  Are you still coming?”

She sounded normal.  Donovan held out hope that the things her heard about her were not true.

“Did you leave?” he asked.  “I called your home phone.  Your aunt said you left.”

“What?  I didn’t go anywhere,” Kyra said.  “I was here.  You talked to my aunt?”

Donovan knew
Ruth was a liar!  He half smiled at his mother. 

“She told me Leonard came from Arkansas, and you left with him.”

There was a pause.  Donovan’s smile slipped again.

“He did come,” Kyra said.  She
cleared her throat.  “But I didn’t leave with him.  I just went outside with him so we could talk, without the kids hearing us.  My aunt knows I didn’t leave.  I don’t know why she told you that.”

Goose bumps sprouted on Donovan’s forearms. 
He had a feeling Ruth was mixing lies in with the truth.  But Kyra didn’t tell him about Leonard at all.  He had to bring it up first.  The whole time he had known her, Donovan never doubted Kyra’s word.  But now he wondered if she was going to tell him Leonard paid her a visit.  He wondered if maybe Kyra did leave with him after all.

“Wh, what’s wrong?” she asked.  “I was
gonna tell you.  But I wanted to talk about it later.  I got a lot of stuff to talk to you about.  I can’t believe she told you I left with him.”  Kyra growled.  “I can’t stand her, Donovan.  I gotta get out of here.  A lot of stuff happened today.  I need to talk to you in person.  Me and the kids, we gotta move out.”

There was so much to process.  Donovan felt like his world was slowly turning upside down.  He had a million questions, but one was more important than all of the rest.

“Your aunt told me you were on drugs, Kyra.  She said CPS took your kids.  Is that true?”

In the five seconds it took for Kyra to come to terms with the fact that her biggest secret was out
, and she didn’t have the opportunity to tell Donovan herself, her boyfriend’s face fell apart.  Beverly threw her hands over her mouth as she watched him. 

Kyra wanted to scream, and she wanted to cry, and she wanted to kill her aunt.  Her brain quickly decided that crying was the only one of those options that was acceptable.  Her eyes twitched, and then the tears flow unabated.  She wiped her nose and said, “I’m sorry, Donovan.  I was
gonna tell you.”

Her admission broke down the last wall of defense
Donovan built around Kyra.  He knew she wasn’t perfect, but Donovan never would’ve believed Kyra fell into the same pattern of drug abuse as her mother.  After all they went through as children, it was unthinkable that Kyra put Kat and Quinell through the same hell. 

“How could you do that?” 
Hot tears flowed down Donovan’s face.  He didn’t know why, but this almost felt like a personal slap, in
his
face.  He felt like everything he did to protect Kyra when they were children was all in vain.  All of the help he offered Kyra since she came back was based on a lie.  What else had she lied about?  Donovan had no idea, and he hated that he couldn’t take Kyra’s word for it.

“I need to talk to you in person,” Kyra cried.  “I’m sorry, Donovan.  I didn’t lie to you, I just didn’t want to talk about that.  I was too embarrassed.” 

Her voice was laced with regret.  Her breath came in shudders.  Donovan knew she was hurting, but so was he.  And Kyra was the one who caused it, with her lies and her half-truths and her, her
drugs
!  It was hard enough to
think
it; Donovan was by no means ready to talk about it.

“I gotta go.”

“
Please, baby.  I’m sorry
!”

“
Kyra you lied to me.  All I ever did was try to help you.  I never did anything to hurt you
.” 

Donovan
’s eyes were nearly bloodshot.  His mother was crying, too.  She placed a hand on his shoulder and rubbed comfortingly.  But there was nothing Beverly could do to make the pain go away.