Young Wives (27 page)

“You’re late,” she said to Clinton. “I’m not going to bring them back until twenty after four.” As she spoke, she saw his mother, a hulking dark shape descending the rickety stairs. Clinton didn’t say a word. She tried to read his face to see if there was guilt or shame written on it, but it was as blank as a brown paper bag. He put Sherrilee into the baby seat and closed the door. Meanwhile, Shavonne had climbed across the front seat and had her arms around Jada’s neck. Shavonne, who had disdained PDAs—public displays of affection—for the last year or more. Jada cupped her daughter’s head with her hand and kissed her hard on the cheek. “Hey, kids, I’m taking you for a treat,” she said.

“Two hours and they’re back,” Clinton said, and as if to emphasize what he was doing, he looked at his watch. Jada said nothing at all. She just hit the accelerator and tried to burn rubber as she pulled the Volvo away from the man who was ruining her life.

“I want nuddets! I want nuddets! I want nuddets!” Kevon chanted for the sixtieth time.

Jada turned into the parking lot and pulled into a space. She took a deep breath.

“But do you want sauce, do you want sauce, do you want sauce?” Jada sang back.
Might as well join them
, she figured. Sometimes go with their flow.

Kevon smiled, delighted. “No, I do not. No, I do not. No, I do not!” he sang back at her, then giggled.

“I ain’t eating no McDonald’s,” Shavonne said.

“I’m
not
eating
any
McDonald’s,” Jada corrected. “And yes, you’re going to.” Jada was amazed at Shavonne’s language. She’d begun speaking Ebonics overnight. Tonya’s influence?

“Ha! You’re eating McDonald’s,” Kevon crowed.

“You’re a poop with a fart for a brain.”

“So? So…you’re a doody mouth. Mama, she’s a doody mouth.”

“Tattletale. Fart brain.”

“Okay, now. That’s enough of all that. Calm it right down,” Jada said, shocked at their vocabulary and the intensity of their bickering.

“Oh, Mom. Will you get some honey sauce? Then I can have some of Kevon’s.”

“They’re
my
nuddets,” Kevon said.

“They’re not even nuddets, stupid,” his sister informed him. “They’re
nuggets
.”

“No, they’re not, no, they’re not. And they
are
mine. Aren’t they
mine
, Mom?”

Jada, who was struggling to get Sherrilee into the McDonald’s high chair, assured her son that when she got the food, it would be his. Poor Kevon: his sister always knew more, always corrected him, and was almost always right. Is that where men’s resentment of smart women, of powerful women, began? Jada wondered. But they didn’t all have sisters who were six years older. Clinton didn’t. “Sit down, honey,” Jada told her son and he clambered onto the yellow laminated chair beside her.

“
I
want to sit next to Mommy,” Shavonne said, raising her voice. Annoying as their bickering was, Jada was grateful for the small indication of affection.

“You can
both
sit next to me,” Jada declared before there was war, “but then Sherrilee has to sit across from me and we all have to help her.”

“Oh, she don’t eat nothing. She just throws it on the floor,” Kevon said.

“She
doesn’t
eat
any
thing,” Jada corrected firmly. Since when was Kevon using double negatives, talking street talk? Was that what a few days in funky Yonkers had done to his speech? If her boy started speaking Ebonics, Jada decided she would have to kill Clinton
and
her mother-in-law. “Shavonne, you watch the baby while I get your Happy Meals.”

“Okay, Mom,” Shavonne said, self-satisfied.

“Kevon, you watch our bags and see that no one takes them.” She glanced over at the line and pulled a Sesame Street coloring book and some Crayolas out of her bag, just to be sure to keep them busy. “And there’s also a contest, with a prize, to see who can fill in their picture best. Now I’m going to get lunch and I’ll be right back.” She kissed Kevon on his head as she passed him.

“Kiss me, too,” Shavonne said, and Jada had to smile. She did it, of course, though she noticed Shavonne’s hair didn’t smell fresh. When had it last been washed? she wondered. Sherrilee was still drowsy from the car, but for good luck, Jada kissed the top of her head, as well. It, too, smelled…well, not exactly bad, but certainly not fresh. She was more uncomfortable than ever. Couldn’t Clinton even keep the children clean?

She joined the short line at the fast food counter. The kisses and fight over seating were unusual. The kids were bothered by all this—they usually, especially Shavonne, avoided affection.

She looked around and sighed. She hated feeding her kids this stuff, but it was a big treat to them. They loved it. And they seemed hungry. What was Clinton, or her mother-in-law, serving them?

Thank God the restaurant wasn’t too crowded. It was an off-peak time. Actually, Jada had planned all of this badly. She had been a little lost about what to do with them. It had been too cold to take them to a park and Jada also knew she couldn’t bear the screaming at one of the indoor kids’ gyms, so she’d just walked them through part of the Cross County Mall and shown them the Santa’s Village already on display, though it wasn’t even Thanksgiving. The kids had been excited by it, but all Jada wanted was to get them home and crawl into bed with the three of them, read them a story or tickle them, or just watch some television holding them tight. But there was the time limit, so it was the mall and McDonald’s—such public places. She still hadn’t had a chance to really talk with them; she didn’t know how to start, and still wasn’t sure what Clinton had said about this abduction.

“Next,” the older woman behind the counter barked, peering through thick bifocals. Jada rattled off her order, then after a pause, added a decaf coffee for herself. She couldn’t eat. She hadn’t eaten anything in two days. No wonder she was so exhausted. “Are ya sure you’re done now?” the woman in her McDonald’s uniform asked nastily, and Jada felt as if she almost was.

She turned to make sure the children were all right. Sherrilee was awake now, tearing up her coloring book page, at least one piece already in her mouth. Kevon was standing on his chair, getting the most leverage he could out of a crayon he was pressing onto his picture, while Shavonne, of course, was daintily working on a page still in the book. Jada watched them until her order came. Then she brought the bag full of saturated fats and starch and sugar to her waiting babies.

“Okay,” she said, summoning the energy to try to keep it cheerful. “Let’s see what you got done. Remember, there’s a prize for the best job.”

“Mine. Mine!” cried Kevon. “Look at this!” He had colored Big Bird—and most of the rest of the page—in Caribbean turquoise.

“Great,” she said. Jada put down the brown collapsible boxes of food. “Let’s take the crayons and the coloring off the table for now. Let’s eat.” She handed round the food and cut one plain burger into bite-size bits for Sherrilee while the other two tore into their boxes and bags. They ate, thankfully, in silence, and Jada, too sick to her stomach to even watch them eat, sipped her decaf and checked her watch. Only twenty-eight minutes left. She couldn’t believe that she was not savoring this time with them. When they went back to coloring, she was ashamed to find herself relieved.

“That’s stupid,” said Shavonne. “Big Bird should be yellow.” Even though she had recently turned twelve, she still—secretly—liked to color. Just like Jada, Shavonne was a good girl and didn’t go out of the lines. Jada looked over at Shavonne’s neat rendering of Bert and Ernie.

“It ain’t no Big Bird,” Kevon answered. “It’s Aunt Tonya.”

Aunt Tonya? Aunt Tonya? Forget the “ain’t.” Now Jada had to deal with “aunt”? For a moment she felt she might lose control, tear the page of the coloring book off the table, and scream at the top of her lungs. Instead she clenched her fists in her lap, then laid three more french fries out for Sherrilee, and calmly turned to Kevon. “You don’t have an Aunt Tonya, Kevon, honey,” she said, and at least in her own ears her voice sounded close to normal.

Kevon continued mashing the crayon into the paper. “She’s our baby-sitter,” Kevon replied, still coloring. “Daddy said so.”

“I’m not no baby,” Shavonne said. “I don’t need a baby-sitter. Do I win the prize, Mom?” Shavonne looked at her mother and Jada thought there may have been a flicker of pain or doubt in her daughter’s eyes. The pain went straight to Jada’s heart. “Mrs. Green,” Shavonne said. “I call her Mrs. Green. You know, from church. She baby-sat.” Shavonne looked away.

In a bid to secure the prize, her daughter looked with contempt at her little brother’s page. “Isn’t it Big Bird, Mom?” Shavonne asked, looking back at Kevon’s paper. “Anyway, Mrs. Green isn’t that color, she’s dark. She’s
real
dark brown.”

“Her dress was this color,” Kevon said. “And she gave me two Matchbox cars. Wanna see?” He shoved his hand in his pocket. Sherrilee chose that moment to choke on a french fry and Jada was up, around the table, and at her side in a moment. She lifted the baby’s little arms to the ceiling and Sherrilee coughed and swallowed, then pulled one hand away from her mother’s and directly went for another fry. No Heimlich needed. Jada gratefully bent down and inhaled the slightly stale bread scent that came from her daughter’s hair and kissed the top of her head. She slowly walked back to her seat.

“Who’s taking care of Sherrilee?” she asked as neutrally as she could. She knew it was wrong to pump the kids for information, but felt almost desperate.

“Aunt Big Bird did,” Kevon said and laughed, giving her the look he gave her when he was naughty.

“I miss my stuff,” Shavonne said. “My blue sweater, and the knapsack with the cats on it. But I can get it when we go home.”

“Yeah, let’s go home now,” Kevon agreed. Sherrilee, finished with her lunch, reached her arms out to her mother and Jada smiled, rounded the table again and picked her up, putting her on her lap. Kevon, feeling left out, got up from his swivel chair and rubbed his head against his mother’s shoulder.

“I brought you some things,” she said. She opened the bag and took out Shavonne’s slippers. Her daughter looked up; the little
V
between her eyebrows, one that exactly replicated Jada’s own, appeared.

“I don’t need those
now
,” Shavonne said. “I can wait until we go home. I’ll put them on then.”

“I’m tired,” Kevon said. “Can we go home now? Can I play with Frankie?”

And it was then that Jada realized that her children didn’t have a clue. That Clinton, once again, had failed not only her, but them. They thought they were getting in the Volvo and driving back to Elm Street. One more responsibility, the most heartbreaking one, had been laid on her shoulders. What could she tell them? What should she? That their father was a selfish man who didn’t care about their best interests? That right now they were a pawn in a stupid grown-up game?

Jada looked at the three messy faces of her beautiful babies and her shoulders sagged. She cupped a hand over Kevon’s lovely round head. “Listen, sweethearts. Daddy wants me to take you back to him. You’re going to go back there for right now.”

“I don’t want to,” Kevon said.

“No, Mom. I don’t like Grandma’s,” Shavonne added. “Why do we have to visit her now?”

Hadn’t Clinton told them
anything
? Jada reached her hand out from around Sherrilee’s back toward Shavonne and took her daughter’s wrist. “Listen,” she said, “Daddy and I are having a kind of fight. A big one. And he wants you to come back and stay with him there.”

“Well, I don’t want to,” Shavonne said and Kevon put his head down and began to cry. Shavonne snatched her wrist away from Jada. “I don’t want to. Grandma only makes us bologna sandwiches and I don’t like Mrs. Green. I don’t like her house. Let’s go home.”

Her daughter’s voice had risen high and several people turned to look at her, not that Jada cared about any of those strangers. She only cared about her kids. But how could she explain? How could a six-year-old, or a pre-teen, or the baby understand visitation privileges and contempt of court? And she had only nineteen minutes left before they were due back. “Well, I have to go away for work. When I come back, we’ll all decide, okay?” Shavonne narrowed her eyes. “Let’s get into the car,” Jada said. “We can talk for a little bit in the car.”

“I wanna go home,” Kevon wailed, and so Jada lifted him on one side while she cradled Sherrilee on the other.

“Take the bags and let’s go,” she told Shavonne and started toward the exit, hoping her daughter would follow her out the door to the Volvo.

Court and spark

The files had become, if possible, even higher and messier since Angie had moved “temporarily” into Karen Levin-Thomas’s office. Angie figured that was appropriate, since
she
was higher and messier than she had been before she committed to this work. Not higher in the sense of a buzz, just higher in energy. Her mother, annoyingly, had been right: Anger did work as a high-octane fuel. Except for brief slumps of overwhelming self-pity, Angie had lost her lethargy. Now, most of the time she was so furious, not to mention so busy, that unwinding and sleeping at night had become difficult.

The staff at the clinic were great, and Angie actually enjoyed the joking, kibitzing, and other camaraderie. The other women were great and the two guys who worked there—one gay and one married—were just as dedicated as the women. Bill, the paralegal, was a riot, always there with a lawyer joke or a Mallomar to get you through a tough afternoon. And Michael Rice, the middle-aged married attorney, was really sweet, as well as smart. As a Yale graduate, he also should have been a snot-nose, but in Angie’s non-Ivy opinion, he wasn’t.

It was also a pleasant surprise to find how much she liked working with her mother, not that she got to see her often. Between depositions, fundraising, and office administration, Natalie was even busier than Angie. But she managed to check in with her every day, in person or on the phone, and Angie found their exchanges very comforting. Perhaps she hadn’t been able to return to her old room, but working daily with her mother let her return to the womb at least in some psychological way.