He nods slowly, surveying the room again. “Already did. I don’t s’pose you know when she’ll be back?”
“I’m babysitting. Why you asking me?” I fight the urge to charge headfirst at him, push Vernon right out the door, and slam it in his face.
“Thought maybe you’d know. I’m collecting the rent.” He pauses. “Now that I’m here, though, I should tell you it’s in my job protocol to alert the authorities to any neglect of a minor. You understand me?” He speaks slowly, like what he really means is hidden in the space between each word.
“Don’t see why you’d have to do that. I’m sure Dee’ll be back soon and I’ll let her know you need the rent.” I’m still leaning against the counter, waiting for him to leave. He looks me in the eyes for a moment and then nods once more before stepping back out and shutting the door. I turn and Trevor is facing me, still standing on the mattress, and I’m not even sure he’s blinking.
The smell snaps my head back to the stove, where the liquid center of the pancake is now hard and the sides are burning black. “Shit,” I say, scavenging for the spatula. I turn the flame off, but the pan itself is hot enough to keep it cooking. I dig the spatula under the pancake and attempt to lift. Only part of it comes up, lopsided.
Trevor is beside me a moment later, fork in hand. “I got one side if you got the other,” he says, slipping the end of the fork under the mass of pancake. I lever the spatula under the other side of the pancake, counting down, and on “one” we each raise our arms up and flip.
The pancake splits in two, its charred side facing upward now, so black. I look to Trevor and his face has filled up with grief, bottom lip sucked in.
“Hey, it’s okay. We gonna cover it in syrup and it gonna taste just as good.” He doesn’t have any tears yet, but I can see them getting ready to streak down his face. “You sit on down and I’ll fix it.”
“Like you fixing things with Mama?” he shoots back.
“What you say?”
“You always saying you gonna handle it but we still here.”
Trevor shakes his head and slinks away, goes to sit on the floor in front of the mattress. I try to gather a response as I search the cupboards for syrup, finding Aunt Jemima in the top cabinet where we replaced the empty bottle from my birthday. I remove each half of the pancake from the pan and fit them back together again on a plate. It may be burnt and split down the middle, but it’s still a perfect circle.
I pour a thick layer of syrup on and it comes out slow, viscous. This is the magic of Aunt Jemima: always releases the same sickly scent. Perfect mix of sugar and something way too cutting to be natural. Can’t taste no wood, no maple. Just the crunch of toaster waffles smothered in sweet.
I bring the plate and two forks to where Trevor is seated on the floor and set them down. I hand him a fork and sit across from him. His eyes are cast down and I can’t tell if he’s looking at the pancake or the inside of his own eyelids.
Before I get a chance to say anything, he starts talking. His speech is mumbled and I’ve never heard him speak like this: with no clarity, just a trace of a voice.
“What you say?” I lean in so I’m closer.
“Is my mama coming back?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him.
I know there’s more to say, more questions harbored under his tongue, but I don’t know how to give a child answers that will fracture him. How can you tell a child he’s alone? There’s no way to explain the type of loneliness that finds its pit in your stomach, makes you think there must be something hidden inside your flesh, something to make this world turn on you. Like when Daddy died and Mama told me how they were gonna turn his body to ash after the funeral. Daddy’s body a pancake kind of burnt. I didn’t look Mama in the eyes for a week. How could I? Everything falling apart and she wanted me to think she’d stay, be the exception.
“Where’s Marcus?” Trevor still hasn’t taken a bite, still hasn’t looked up at me.
“He’s not around no more,” I say, mostly because I am too scared to say anything else.
“Why?” Trevor glances up at me and his eyes flash a rage I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.
“？’Cause he’s in jail.”
“That where my mama is?”
“No.”
It’s almost worse to tell him this. To watch his face wrinkle trying to understand how someone could leave him without a cell or a grave to keep them away.