Uncle Ty’s neck loses its ability to hold up his head and he droops, a man sunken in shame. He looks up. I watch as Marcus and him stare each other right in the face and Uncle Ty’s hand shoots forward to try to hold on to Marcus’s other palm, but Marcus moves it back into his lap. It feels wrong for me to be sitting here, to be witnessing this ultimate break between them.
“You gotta understand I been taking care of your family so long that when your sister died, I realized I didn’t have nothing of my own. That you wasn’t my child and your mama wasn’t my wife and I didn’t have no place here. So when a friend of mine offered to let me live with him down in L.A., it felt like my chance, like I could have something bigger and you was eighteen so I thought I would just let you live your life. How was I supposed to watch after y’all and have my own shit at the same time?” Uncle Ty’s arms are resting on the table, supporting his head, and he’s looking up at us with these big eyes with red all up in the whites of them. “Both of y’all just started to remind me of your mama and I couldn’t stand looking at you the same, not after what she did, who she became, so I did one last thing and paid her bail and then I had to go. I had to.”
Marcus is shaking his head, his tears flowing, squeezing my hand so tight the fingers are turning yellow. “It don’t matter no more what you meant to do, this what you did.” Marcus slams his free hand down on the table, the vibrations shooting Uncle Ty back into an upright position.
“I’m sorry.” He glances toward me, then back to Marcus. “What I gotta do to make it better?”
I still don’t trust him or his apology, but I can sense the desperation in him, the desire to be forgiven.
“You can’t.” Marcus’s voice shatters.
The guard standing closest to us gives a five-minute warning and Uncle Ty leans farther across the table, toward Marcus. “I’ll do anything.”
Marcus nods slowly. “Take Ki back to L.A. with you.”
Uncle Ty looks at me fully, like he’s assessing whether or not Marcus is worth it.
“You know I can’t do that, Marcus. I got a family out there, can’t take neither of you back.”
Marcus’s lips tilt into a smile that is actually more of a wince, more like the face Trevor makes when he loses a game. “Then I guess we done here.”
Marcus starts to stand, letting go of my hand.
“Wait.” Uncle Ty stands too, almost Marcus’s height. “At least let me pay your bail. They set it at a hundred thousand, yeah? I can pay the ten percent.”
I watch as Marcus shakes his head, looks back down at me, and returns his gaze to Uncle Ty. “Pay Cole McKay’s bail, not mine. I spent too long not doing right by no one. Least I can do is give his baby her daddy back.”
Cole’s child’s eyes come back to me again and this time I see Cole in them, when he bursts into laughter and they glitter. I don’t know if Marcus does this for me or for Cole or for his daughter, but I don’t think I’ve ever been that proud of him, ever looked at him and thought, That is a good man. He’s still got a lot to make up for and I don’t know if I’ll ever really forgive him for what he’s done this past year, but seeing a glimmer of the person I know my brother to be gives me hope where I thought I didn’t have any.
The guard approaches Marcus to take him back to his cell, back inside the tunnels of this place, and, for the first time, he doesn’t look at Uncle Ty or any of the other faces in this room but mine, leaves me with a last glimpse of a smile I recognize from back when we didn’t know how lonely we would be, before he is pulled beyond the table, a flash of my fingerprint disappearing down the hallway.
* * *
Uncle Ty pulls into a parking spot right in front of the Regal-Hi and stops the car, turning to look at me for the first time since we were at that table with Marcus. He didn’t play his music on the drive back, didn’t talk either, but now he opens his mouth to speak again.
“I know I made my choice years ago, when I got in that car and didn’t even leave y’all my number. I know that.” His eyes are still red, no tears, not that I expect them. “And y’all made your choices too, but I want you to know that I’m still living with the consequences.”
“You got more than one car and a fucking mansion, Uncle Ty. You don’t know nothing about no consequences.”
“I got one car and a house big enough for my wife and kids, aight? I don’t know where y’all got the idea I was rich, but I’m about to spend money I would’ve spent on a vacation on your friend’s bail, so don’t go talking to me about money. Biggest consequences ain’t about no money anyway.” He looks past me to the Regal-Hi. “Last time I saw your mama she was locked up and it was like she was a whole different person than the woman I knew. The kind of shit she went through, the kind of shit we all did, changes a person and I couldn’t handle that, aight? I still don’t know how to handle that. Instead of hating your mama for not being who she used to be, I should’ve just figured out who she turned into, but I decided to leave and now I don’t know none of you, not really. That’s my consequence.”