“So now you just gonna get on a plane and leave? Never see us again? You out here talking about Daddy being disappointed when you’re the only one who really would’ve disappointed him.”
Uncle Ty turns back to the steering wheel. “I made my choice. You made yours.”
He doesn’t even glance back at me or say goodbye or nothing, just waits for me to get out of his car before gliding away, back down to where the sand is warm and he doesn’t have to think about Marcus, about all the things we should’ve done different, about what it means to have a life you can’t drive away from.
I open the door to my apartment and Trevor is there, standing on the mattress in only his boxers, dancing to some Backstreet Boys song on the radio. He glances at me and does that nod, a little boy masquerading as a man.
“What you doin’ here?” I ask. “Where Alé at?”
“She brought me back here ’bout an hour ago. Said she’d call you.”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and a missed call from Alé flashes. She must have called while we were with Marcus.
“Lemme call her back,” I tell Trevor, retreating into the kitchen and raising the phone to my ear. Alé answers on the second ring and I can hear it in her voice: how her heart is pulled taut.
“Hey. You okay?”
“They thought they found Clara’s body.” Alé’s voice shakes. “Called us down to identify her, but it wasn’t even her face. Just some other twenty-year-old woman all beat up and dead.” Alé doesn’t sound like she’s going to cry, she just sounds like she’s ready to sleep, like she needs to block it all out before she breaks. “Mama’s a mess and I gotta take care of her, run the restaurant and everything. Can’t be keeping Trevor no more.” She says it harsh, not like she doesn’t care, just like she doesn’t know how to right now.
I don’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry, Alé. If it ain’t her, that means Clara could still be out there, though. There’s still hope. You need help? I could pick up a shift at the restaurant or—”
“No. I just don’t know how to be around you right now, not when you chose this. She didn’t get a choice, Kiara, and now she might as well be dead. I just need a minute, okay? It’s too much, you and Mama and Trevor. I can’t do it right now.” Alé hangs up before I have a chance to say goodbye and Trevor is standing there, staring right at me, so I can’t even begin to think about how her face must be streaked and wet. How she can’t even stand to hear my voice right now.
I gather myself. “Just me and you, boy,” I say, slipping my sneakers off and going over to where he’s still balancing on the mattress, lump of a belly and the rest bones. I try to forget Alé’s voice, push it behind all the other shit we gotta think about.
He beams. “Can we make some pancakes?”
Like always, the only word I got for Trevor is yes. Ten minutes later and we’re covered in flour, his hand dipped in a bag of M&M’s. He scoops them out ’cause we don’t have any chocolate chips and adds them to the bowl of batter. The pan is sizzling on the stove and he’s now tall enough to pour the batter in. When he does, he pours so much it fills up the whole thing, makes a perfect circle.
“That’s enough.” I grab the bowl before all the batter is added to the massive pancake now sizzling, except at the center. “You know it’s gonna take a long time for that to cook.”
Trevor shrugs and I smile, shaking my head. The song on the radio is this new techno bop and I don’t think it’s got much beat, but he starts to jump, twisting and jerking across the room, throwing himself on the bed. He turns the boom box volume up and the apartment is blasted in techno wheezing, so loud I don’t hear the knock on the door. It’s the light that floods in when it swings open that makes me turn.
Vernon stands there, looking just like I remember him: a boxy ’fro, cargo pants splattered in what could be grease or paint or water. For such a short man, he seems much taller than he is, his step a heavy thud on the floor. I watch him take in the image of us. The pancake, the stereo, me with flour still covering my palms. Trevor mid-shimmy.
“Is Dee around?” He turns to me, voice a gravel scrape against the techno.
I shoot a look at Trevor and he turns the volume down.
“No, she ain’t,” I say, crossing my arms so I can hide my hands against my chest. “Why don’t you check her apartment?”