He touched her hand. “This is my fault, baby.”
“Dante, no—”
“Yeah, it is. I brought this to you. You not used to this life. This ain’t you. And really, it ain’t me, neither.”
“I don’t know what happened, Dante. It just got away from me.”
“That’s what happens, baby. I tried to tell you, but we gone stop this, right now. I been saving, and I almost got enough for mechanic’s school. A couple more months is all I need. And I think you should go to the City to your family—”
“What? You want me gone?” So her prayers hadn’t been answered. He didn’t want her anymore. Her words sent above had been returned with ashes.
“No, Lydia, I don’t want you gone. I love you, baby. But you can’t be around this kind of life no more. So what we gone do is, you going home, and you gone get yourself together. And then I’m gone save, and I’m gone get another place in another neighborhood—”
“Dante—”
“No, woman. I’m not changing my mind. I’m gone take this weekend off. We gone drive your car up to the City and I’m gone take the bus back. That’s what’s gone happen.”
He was no longer the soft boy that she had met at the basketball game. His voice had deepened. Even his face had changed, with lines that had not been there before. Perhaps he’d never been that boy, but always a man with the bitterness of strength, taking charge of the weaker beings in his sphere. And Lydia was weak. Once, she’d dreamed about being taken care of by this man. But this care didn’t have the sugared taste she’d imagined.
When he left, she tried to spend her day as she had before, in the mindless months when Dante and she had played house. But time had sped up, and the apartment was clean and there was nothing else to do. She tried not to think of the cloudy diamonds in her purse, the ones that called to her. She rode the minutes until they became an hour, and she was suffering. On the second hour, she broke.
She went to her pocketbook, but there was nothing there. She searched the compartments, pulling out the lining. Then she went to Dante’s drawer, moving the clothes she had neatly folded. She ran her hands inside the edges of the drawer, but there was nothing. And she shook and cried and thought of what she would say to Dante to make him give her a rock. Just one, but he did not return, and Lydia didn’t know which was worse, Dante leaving her or that she had torn up the apartment and found no rocks.
He was gone all night, and in the morning, there was a knock. She ran to the door. She hadn’t slept. Every time she’d dozed, her heart had pounded, and she would cry out and she was afraid of sleep. But now Dante had come back. He would make things better, he would give her a rock, and she would do anything he asked to get it. But it wasn’t Dante knocking because he had forgotten his key. It was Tim, and he was telling Lydia that her husband was dead. And Lydia was wailing as she slipped to the floor. As she beat her fists against the carpet.
Tim kept talking over her cries. He had seen the whole thing. He’d been coming to the back of the convenience store, where the owner didn’t have cameras, and that geek monster Marcus had pulled a gun on Dante. He had been begging, just give it to him. He didn’t have any money, but he would soon. So just give it to him, please, brother, please, he was good for it, but when Dante shook his head, Marcus shot him. He’d been searching Dante’s body when Tim had walked up. There wasn’t anybody around, so he shot the geek monster in the head.
Tim pulled a wad of money out of his pockets. “Here you go. This all my boy had.”
When she didn’t take the money, he started for the door. She was still weeping, but she couldn’t stop herself. She’d gone too long without. She needed something.
“Wait,” she said. “Did Dante have anything else on him?”
Tim turned. “Say what?”
She wiped her face. “You know. Like . . . you know?”
At least Tim didn’t smile when he reached again into his pocket for the cellophane packets. And there was another pipe, if she needed it. He was grim as he said he’d get at her. He’d come back and check on her soon.
Before calling Dante’s mother, Lydia smoked a rock, but Miss Opal already had heard the news. She was screaming, her only baby dead. Why, Jesus? Why? And Lydia told her she was sorry, but Miss Opal didn’t have to worry. She had enough to bury Dante.
“We had policies, just in case. It’s only four thousand. I got a little bit more in my emergency fund, though.”