“I can still keep you company while I sleep,” he said without opening his eyes.
“Usually when people keep the driver company, they make conversation.”
He leaned up on an elbow. “Alright, Miss Civil. What you want to talk about?”
“What you think the girls will say when they see the apartment?”
“Well, Mama ain’t stopped thanking God since she seen the place. I say, ‘Mama, what you want to eat tonight? And she say ‘I’m too full of the spirit to eat.’？”
“Well, she has reason to be. Thank goodness my mama was able to get y’all past the waitlist.”
He spoke his next words so quietly I almost didn’t hear him over the rumble of the car’s motor. “You know, we had a life before you. I appreciate all you done, but don’t come around here thinking you the Messiah. All you government folk think we ought to kiss y’all feet.”
“Now, why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Mess up a good moment.”
A truck roared by, and whatever he said in response was lost. It was fine because I didn’t feel like dealing with Mace’s moodiness. The man was so defensive. Everything I said was wrong, every compliment through a back door.
As the street noise died down, Mace picked back up. “You don’t know how hard this is,” he was saying, “accepting help for my children. I’m they daddy. I’m supposed to be the one providing for them. Before they mama passed on, I promised her that.”
His voice broke. The sun started to settle in the sky and the light in the car weakened, but I could still see him clearly. He was staring straight up at the ceiling. It was hard to imagine what it must be like for him. I was just trying to do the best I could for them. But I remembered what my mama had said about not shaming him.
When we got to the house, the girls were sitting on the porch.
“Daddy,” yelled Erica. “I put the fire out, but it’s still warm.”
“Alright.” Mace walked inside the house and I asked the girls if they had anything else they wanted to bring with them.
India picked up a doll off the ground. It was a white doll with a dirty face and knotted yarn hair. She held it to her chest and pressed her face into it.
“That yours?” I asked gently. India was eleven years old and big for her age. Her attachment to the doll startled me.
“Yeah, it’s hers,” Erica answered for her.
“Well, I think that’ll look nice in your room. You can put it on your bed.
“What about the dogs?” I asked Mace when he came out of the house.
“Them ain’t our dogs.”
“I hate them dogs,” whispered Erica as we walked to the car.
“Why?”
She pointed under her chin and lifted her face. I could make out an old scar in the waning light.
When India saw that we weren’t taking the dogs with us, she got back out of the car and walked over to one of them. She hugged it to her and pressed her face into its neck. The dog licked her cheek.
“Come on now,” Mace said.
When India got back in the car, I saw that her eyes were red. She looked back at the mutt as we made our way down the hill. By the time we arrived at Dixie Court, the street was dark because there were no lamps. I slammed my door and it echoed in the street. Far off, a puppy yelped in response. India’s head turned toward the noise.
“Come on, come on.” Mace rushed up the stairs. All that talk about me not being Jesus and here he was acting like he had done it all.
I paused. It was time for me to go home. I wanted to stay, but Mace’s accusation rang in my ears, so I didn’t follow them up the stairs. Mace must have been looking for me, because he came right back down.
“Hey, lady. You better come on in here and help me with these girls. They might start crying or something. Then what I’m supposed to do.”
I called to him over my shoulder as I turned around. “Be their daddy, like you said. Tell the girls I’ll see them for their next appointment.” It was all I could do to get those words out of my mouth. In my car, I sat for a moment looking up at the apartment window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girls’ profiles through the sheers. I wanted to see their first smiles, to know if they liked what we’d done with the place. It had pained me to decline his invitation.
But I couldn’t make out anything, and I realized I was in darkness. A breeze fluttered through the open car window and the bark of the pup droned on and on.
SEVENTEEN
Before I knew it, the time had come for me to pick up the girls for their next Depo shot. This time, I was supposed to take them into the clinic for pelvic exams. But I thought my head was about to bust wide open: I could not give either of them that shot again. Alicia had convinced me there was no way we could switch all the patients to pills. It was a supply issue. Mrs. Seager kept track of the inventory.
They’d been in their new apartment for over a month, and I hadn’t seen them since the night I dropped them off. Evidence of newly arrived families littered the grounds. A deflated basketball in the grass. A fading hopscotch map on the sidewalk. A man’s white drawers hanging on the clothesline between buildings. As I walked up the stairs to their apartment, I noticed that someone had swept the entry clean since I had been there last. Before I could knock, India opened the door and put her arms around my waist.
“Hey, girl.” I kissed the top of her head and stepped inside. Erica emerged from the hallway, carrying a black patent leather purse, its strap tied on with a safety pin. The living room was starting to look lived in. Someone had folded a faded orange throw across the back of the couch. Baby’s breath sprayed from a drinking glass on the painted end table next to the sofa.
“Come see our room.”
I bet no one had told them that I’d helped decorate. Selfishly, I wanted credit for it. Mace might have been right about me after all. India held on to my hand. When I’d left there had only been a bed and a dresser. Now there was a poster of Diana Ross on the wall. The singer was wrapped in a black fur and wore a big smile on her face.
“Look at this,” Erica said, straightening the covers on the bed.
“What you doing?”
“I’m making the bed.” She looked pleased with herself.
“It looks real nice.”
On the dresser, they had placed a brush and a jar of Royal Crown hair dressing. The only thing I was thinking they still needed was a lamp. The overhead light was dim, and I could barely see myself in the dresser mirror.
“So you took the bed by the window?”
“Yeah. India don’t like the sound of the cars and the people talking. We ain’t never heard so much noise at night before.”
Their bedroom faced the street. I could see the rental office a few hundred yards away.
“And guess what.”
I turned back around. “What?”
“India started bleeding.” Erica looked over at her sister, pride written in her face.
“What? When?” I could barely think. The birth control meant something different now. It was no longer inappropriate medicine dispensed to a prepubescent minor. It was now guarding against something real. And I knew that only too well. I looked at India. Surely she didn’t have an interest in boys. At least, I’d never seen a sign of any kind of interest.