How to Knock a Bravebird from Her Perch : The First Novel in the Morrow Girls Series (9780985751616) (34 page)

A bunch of girls were huddled in a circle in the side parking lot, some of them coming off their shift and others were just starting like me. But they were good and distracted—chatting and giggling, crowded around some man. Not nearly as worried as they should’ve been about the time that was slipping away. A couple of them looked up and caught my eye as I got closer. They smiled and nudged each other and before long the whole crowd was looking at me. Didn’t make sense until the man they were making such a fuss over stepped out.

“Hey pretty girl.”

A bouquet of daisies waved in my direction and Ricky smiled like I hadn’t seem him do since before we’d left Mississippi. For a second I thought I’d lost my mind. It couldn’t be real. Him standing in front of all my co-workers grinning at me like he ain’t know what he’d done to me.

“I brought you something.”

I managed to say, “I don’t want it,” and keep moving to the employee door but Ricky always liked a challenge.

“They pretty ain’t they? I got them just for you.”

Folks were swooning and giggling behind me. And I just wanted to sock each one of them in their mouths. Then pull my pistol out my purse and point it at Ricky’s head. I hadn’t made up my mind yet whether I was gonna pull the trigger. I just wanted to see the look on his face when he realized his life was in my hands.

“Pecan, I came all this way to see you. You ain’t gonna at least say hi?”

I flashed my left hand at him and said, “I’m married. And I don’t wanna see you.” I expected the words would at least draw some blood but they didn’t. Ricky’s smile dimmed a bit but I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.

“You looking real pretty there,” his eyes dropped to the ground and slowly climbed up my body.
 

My hands started trembling.

“Remind me of when you was carrying Jackie. Here. Take these.”

“I don’t want them!” I was shaking all the way up to my ears.

Ricky sighed rolled his eyes and made some comment about how he had no intention of begging me. That he had something more to show me. Shook the bouquet at me, holding it out for me to take. And once again I thought maybe I’d gone crazy. Standing there three feet from the door…from where it happened…holding flowers he said were meant for me.

Ricky pulled out a thin roll of paper big enough to be a map and unrolled it so I could see. “It’s blueprints. I got it from an architect. It’s for the house. I’m gonna get you a room for you to do all the sewing you want. And the girls gonna get their own bedrooms…”

It wasn’t me who was insane. It was him. All this time I’d thought there was something wrong with me. I stood there watching and listening as my ex-husband explained all the plans he had for us. The vacations he wanted to take and family moments he’d never thought twice about before. I watched him go on for a good five minutes until it was just the two of us in the parking lot and I was about to be late for work. The man I’d known my whole adult life suddenly looked different. He was smiling but somehow he still looked sad. And a piece of me felt pity for him.

“Don’t worry about Connie. Me and her done. Soon as I saw you—saw your condition, I told her it was over.”

“Ricky, we not together no more. I’m married. I gotta husband. And the girls…they gonna come back to live with us. Not you.”

“You shouldn’t be working—standing on your feet all day. Not in your condition.”

I shook my head more outta confusion than in response to what he was saying but Ricky ain’t take too kindly to it. Grabbed me by the arm before I could get my hand on the doorknob and turned me back around so I faced him.

“Where you going Pecan?”

I had to have been some kinda fool to pity him. Even for a second.

“We got us a second chance here. We gonna have us a boy. We gonna get the girls back and be a family.”

“Let me go, Ricky.”

“You love me and I love you—”

“Ricky, stop before I scream.”

I didn’t want to shoot him. I wanted him to disappear sure enough but there had to be other ways to make that happen.

“You tell him about us?” He grinned, lording it over me like some big juicy secret. “Hmm? He know you having my baby? What kinda weak mothafucka just gonna sit back…” his fingers stretched out against my waist and I immediately felt light-headed. “Mmm, look at my sexy wife.”

“I AIN’T YOUR WIFE! AND YOU TOUCH ME AGAIN AND I’LL…”

“Why you acting like this? Cause of him? Think about it Pecan. He can’t give you what I can. Can’t take care of you and the girls workin’ at some rinky dink little carpet shop.” Ricky’s grip tightened on my arm and his face inched closer to mine. “You know can’t nobody get between us. I ain’t gonna let them. You mine. Always was, always will be.”

He looked at me sleepily, licking his lips, about to make a move to kiss me. No other man would’ve dared but Ricky was one of a kind. He ain’t see the writing on the wall. Ain’t see how much I didn’t want him. Hints ain’t work on my regular old man.
 

The doorknob was cool to the touch and it turned easily. Before he knew what was happening I was in the doorway. Turned back because I didn’t want him to think he had the power to make me run or that I was playing hard to get. I had to be absolutely clear.
 

“Ricky, I don’t love you. I never did. Now leave me be.”

T
HAT
NIGHT
I
GOT
home and Heziah wasn’t anywhere in sight. His shift ended before mine but he sometimes got home a little after me because of the traffic downtown. So I waited. Kept watch from the bay window in the living room. Watching all over the neighborhood. Nothing. I made dinner. Set the table and poured myself some milk, thinking he couldn’t be too far away. An hour passed and I was a mess—working a groove in the floor, ignoring the growls of my hungry stomach, I was about to grab my coat and go down to State Street to see for myself if he was lying in the back alley or something. But then he walked through the door.

“Belinda! Guess what I got!” He was in and then he was out again. Came back in dragging this big box and a smile that was a mile wide. “Look—whoa, what’s wrong?” We swayed a bit, me hugging him until I was sure it was real. All of it. He was alive. “Belinda? What is it?”

I ain’t wanna tell him because I wanted to handle it myself. Wanted to be able to say I made it go away. That I ain’t let Ricky get to me. But just wanting something ain’t make it mine. I damn sure wasn’t about to risk Heziah over it. So, I told him what’d happened to me on the way to work. He listened real quiet like I knew he would then we called the police.

"H
OW
DO
YOU
THINK
the girls are adjusting?”

“They fine,” I said sniffling and wiping my runny nose.

“Did they ask you to take them home? You mentioned that last week. They wanted to know why they couldn’t go home.”

“No. That was Jackie. Nikki and Mya...n’all they ain’t ask me that.”

She nodded like she understood. Couldn’t nobody know what it was like. Hurt every part of me to have my family torn apart. Seeing them cry and beg over and over again...seeing them smile and laugh like everything was how it should be. I couldn’t be happy either way. Everything had its own special kind of hurt. Her pen went right back to keeping track of whatever I’d said that she thought was important, gave me a few moments’ peace before the next question.

“Have you talked to them about your marriage? About your pregnancy?”

The doctor and Helen were the only ones I told the truth to. Heziah didn’t want to know and I’d take it to my grave before telling my girls what happened to me. They lived in a world where bodies were fragile. Couldn’t add this on top of it. Have one more thing for them to be scared of.

“Well, they might have questions...might feel like they’re being replaced. You’ve been apart now for seven months.”

“That’s just silly. Can’t replace one kid with another.”

“Well, Belinda, sometimes children don’t fully understand that. Sometimes they have fears—”

“Ain’t nobody afraid of that!”

Shut her right up. I was proud too. For all her schooling she didn’t know my girls. They were too smart to think anything like that. And I wasn’t about to put that in their heads.
 

“Have you and Heziah discussed it?”

“What? The girls?”

“No,” she blinked robotically and waited for me to follow her drift.

I figured most shrinks thought talking was the answer to all their clients’ problems. They probably read it in some book.
 

After a long breath she nodded and moved on. “Have you seen Ricky lately?”

I nodded.

“And what happened?”

“I told him the truth. That I never loved him.”

“And what did he say?”

“That the baby got me all confused.”
 

“Why would pregnancy make you confused?”

I shrugged. I’d given up trying to make sense out of Ricky’s sense a long time ago. For as smart as he thought he was Ricky ain’t understand a thing about pregnancy. He thought that was the reason I did everything he didn’t want me to do. Anytime I felt something that wasn’t conveient to him, he blamed it on me being pregnant. I didn’t even have to be pregnant for him to do it. But it always made him feel better. Maybe because it was a problem that he couldn’t do anything about. So, he got off the hook—ain’t have to treat me no better, just had to wait until I wasn’t pregnant any more.

“Then he blamed Heziah. Said he knew where Heziah worked. That he oughta be careful when he’s working late.”

“He threatened him?”

The woman was genuinely surprised like we hadn’t been discussing the habits of Ricky Morrow for seven months. Was right about then I decided I was done with therapy.

“Are we done yet? Heziah’s waiting on me.”

H
EZIAH
MET
ME
WITH
a big old smile on his face. He said my other doctor, the woman’s one, had called to give us the news. Wasn’t going to be one baby, was gonna be two. We were having twins. Twin girls.
 

Heziah acted like we’d won the lottery. Wanted to go out and buy an extra one of everything. Don’t know where we got all the money from, but there we were, shopping up a storm. Squeezing stuffed animals and making funny voices, was like we were kids ourselves. Was a side of Heziah I hadn’t seen. Was a side of me I hadn’t seen.
 

“Maybe that’s enough. Belinda?”

“I like this. You like this?”

He grinned, leaning forward so all his weight was on the shopping cart. “It’s nice, I guess. For a dress.”

“I wanna get it.”

“Okay. Might as well get two. That way they’ll be matching.”

That was the point of everything as far as Heziah was concerned. Wanted the twins to have the exact same things. Same bibs. Same towels. Same car seats. We came in looking to get whatever was on sale but turned out they only had one of the sale car seats left. So, we had to get the next cheapest so they’d be the same. Same. Same. Same. He was obsessed with it.