Stand Your Ground: A Novel (15 page)

Delores surrendered and hugged me. Told me that she’d call me later. And then, when she slid out of the car, it was just me and Syreeta.

In that quiet.

Then, because I guess Syreeta figured out that I was never going to say anything, she said, “I was going to go back with you, but I’m wondering if I should stay here for a while.”

I gave her a blank stare. There was no way I could figure out what she should do when the only plan I had for my future was to lie down.

She said, “I was thinking that you and Tyrone could use some time. Right now. Together. Alone.”

I nodded.

“Is that okay?”

Again, all I had in me was a nod.

Syreeta hugged me, too, but she held me much longer than Delores had. She held me so long that I could’ve taken a short nap. When she finally leaned away, she said, “I’ll give you a couple of hours, okay?”

“Yes,” I whispered only because I felt like she deserved a word. At least one.

That pleased her. I could tell by her smile.

Then I sat in the car alone. I tilted my head, taking in the scene outside. Syreeta followed Delores into the house, but Tyrone stood on the lawn with his brother, their heads close together. It was apparent that they were whispering, plotting. Then, together, they glanced at the car.

They couldn’t see my frown through the tinted window.

Not more than a minute passed before Tyrone stepped away and slid into the car at the same time as the driver.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

Tyrone wrapped his arm around me. “Take us home. Take me and my wife home.”

I
’d been right—there was so much quiet in our home. I welcomed and savored it.

But I’d been wrong, too. Because though I didn’t expect it, I also found a bit of peace here. It was a different kind of peace, not complete, but enough peace to give me hope. I knew this peace came from God, through Tyrone. I found peace in my husband’s arms.

We’d lain together like this in bed so many times over the years of our marriage, but I’d never felt this close, never this intimate with my husband. We were fully clothed, but our hearts were exposed, bleeding sorrow.

As I cried, Tyrone wiped my tears away, and as he cried, I did the same for him.

Though every part of me ached, this is where I wanted to be. If Marquis had to be gone, if there was no way for me to get him back, then I wanted to be here with Tyrone. Just the two of us wading through this together.

We’d been this way for hours, lying in the quiet of the peace with only the dimming brightness of the sun to show the passage of time. I had no idea, really, how many hours had passed. It seemed
like it might have been six o’clock, seven o’clock. It was still light outside, the days longer now as we moved toward summer.

Summer.

Marquis’s favorite time of the year.

I sighed and rolled over and Tyrone pulled me close. My back to his front.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No. But I will be. I hope. One day.”

I felt his nod behind me. “We’re going to make it. Together.” And then he pulled me even closer as if he were trying to make the two of us one.

More quiet. More peace.

Just minutes and hours of it.

Then Tyrone said, “The Guardians are arranging some protests.”

I stiffened, but Tyrone didn’t let me go.

He said, “Today, they’re protesting over at the Montgomery courthouse. They’re there right now.”

Slowly, I rolled back over so that I could look into his eyes. Maybe seeing him would help me to hear better, because surely, my ears were doing that deceiving thing.

When I looked into Tyrone’s eyes and he said nothing else, I told him, “We just buried Marquis!” because clearly, my husband and everyone else had forgotten that fact.

“I know, but with the news on us, with this focus, we have to move now for the greatest impact. Public sentiment is on our side. Did you see how many people were at the funeral?” he asked as if he were actually a little bit happy about that.

I blinked.

“That was because of the work the Guardians have put in. This
is the perfect time to show the police and district attorney that the people are with us. We want the world to know . . .”

See? Right there was the problem. The world to know?

The world was beginning to know my son’s name, but no one in the world knew my son. And that’s why the Brown Guardians couldn’t be part of this. Because then the world would judge my son by those thugs.

But I didn’t want a fight, not even a debate, so I pressed my lips together. Saying nothing was the safest, easiest way.

Tyrone said, “I’m not going to the protest tonight. I want to be here with you.” He paused and I already knew what was coming. “But tomorrow, I’m going to be there and I want you with me.”

“No.” I couldn’t say it fast enough. Then, “I don’t like the way this is going, Tyrone. The police are starting to do their part. They’ve released his name—”

“Only because of the Guardians.”

I acted like I didn’t even hear him. “So why not wait for the police to handle the rest of it?”

“Because why should we wait?” His tone told me that he thought his answer was obvious. “The Guardians are all about being proactive, not reactive. They’re going to stay within the system because I’ve told Raj how you feel. That’s why they’re setting up protests and rallies rather than . . .” For a moment, he stopped speaking, and for that same time, I stopped breathing. “We know that’s what you want,” he continued, “so the Guardians are going to do it your way. But we are not waiting for the police to do what’s right.”

“I don’t trust the Guardians.”

“I don’t trust the police.”

And there it was. Our impasse. There wasn’t anything I could ever say to a black man about the police.

So I tried what I knew would tug at Tyrone’s heart. “If we turn this into a black-and-white thing, do you know what they’ll do to Marquis?”

Right away I saw that strategy didn’t work. His frown was so deep when he lifted and tilted his head as if he needed to get a good look at me. “The worst possible thing has already been done to our son. We had to put him in the ground a few hours ago,” he said, as if I needed the reminder. “So now? It’s whatever. I don’t care. There’s nothing they can say, nothing they can do to hurt Marquis now.”

Clearly, my husband hadn’t watched any of the other situations on television. Or maybe he had. Maybe he just hadn’t watched with a mother’s eye. Or maybe I was the only mother who had this kind of eye. I didn’t know. But while it was true that the worst was done, I knew more bad could come.

But Tyrone was right. We’d just put our son into the ground and all I wanted to do was hold Tyrone and have him hold me and have our hearts connect, and think of the boy that we had created.

So I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his. He opened his mouth and accepted my truce. And then he rolled over, and this time, I held him. His back to my front.

And we lay that way. Not saying another word. I’d have plenty of time to tell him no—tomorrow.

M
orning came. And my first thought when I rolled over was, I wonder how the night had been for Marquis?

Crazy, I know. But I was beginning to accept crazy. Especially once Tyrone rolled over, kissed my cheek, and started up again about what he was going to do with the Guardians. He hadn’t even brushed his teeth, but he was riled up and ready to go.

It sounded all kinds of crazy to me.

“That man has to pay” was Tyrone’s mantra.

I agreed with that; I just wanted to make sure that while Wyatt Spencer was paying, no one I love was caught in any kind of cross fire.

Tyrone rolled to the edge of the bed and looked over his shoulder. “Wanna take a shower with me?”

I shook my head and his eyebrows rose. When had I ever passed that up?

But while I needed my husband so bad, I wasn’t ready to take a shower with him. Not yet. Leaning toward him, I gave him another soft kiss. Telling him everything was all right when we both knew that it was all wrong.

I stayed in bed until Tyrone was locked inside the bathroom,
then I wrapped myself inside my robe and went to the bedroom across from ours.

Before I knocked, I pressed my ear to the door, not wanting to wake Syreeta. I hadn’t heard her come in, so I had no idea how late she’d been.

But I heard the soft drone of the television, so I knocked.

“Come on in,” she said in a voice that sounded like she’d been up for hours.

I took two steps inside and asked, “You just getting in?” as I looked her up and down.

“No. Why would you ask me that?”

“Uh . . . because it’s barely eight and you’re not only up, but . . .” I took in the T-shirt, jeans, and brown blazer she was wearing. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail and no makeup, she barely looked like she was out of her teens.

She reached for the remote, and as she muted the TV, my eyes glanced at the screen and got stuck there.

It was the first time I’d ever seen myself on television. But there I was holding hands with Tyrone as we walked into Harmony Hearts Baptist yesterday.

“I’m going to go with the guys.” Syreeta’s voice pulled me away from the television. “I’m going to the protest with the Guardians.”

I sat on the edge of the futon that doubled as a bed for our overnight guests, my attention now fully on my friend.

She leaned back against the dresser and crossed her arms with an expression on her face that looked like she expected to do battle with me. She said, “Tyrone told you about the protests, right?”

I nodded.

“Are you going?”

“No. And I’m surprised that you are since you know how I feel.”

She lowered her arms. “But there’s not going to be any violence. Last night, that’s all they talked about. How they wanted to do things differently because of you. I was really impressed as I listened to them at Delores’s. They have a plan and it’s not about the Guardians at all, it’s about Marquis and all the young men who’ve been hunted and shot down in the streets.”

I shook my head. “Even if I could trust them, which I don’t, the Guardians are going to turn Marquis into a cause.”

“So? What’s wrong with that? If he were here, Marquis would be proud of what the Guardians have put together in his name.”

Now I folded my arms.

“Think about it, Jan. Think about what they’ve done so far. Without any kind of threats, without any kind of violence, they got the ME to release Marquis’s body early, then they got the police to release that man’s name. Now, if it were the old Guardians, that man’s house would have been firebombed already.”

“Dang, Syreeta!”

“I’m just saying. That man and his family would’ve had to move to another planet. But do you know what the Guardians did? They put the word on the street, to all the homies in the hood, that Wyatt Spencer is not to be touched. And they’re not playing. Raj is making sure that it’s all handled the way you want it.”

“The way I want it? How many times do I have to say I want it handled in court?”

She threw up her hands as if what I was saying was absurd. But couldn’t my friend see that sure, the Guardians would be peaceful today, maybe tomorrow. But there would be a point when the violence would start.

After a couple of huffs, she sat down next to me. “Seems like there’s nothing I can say to you, and there’s nothing that you can
say to me. So I tell you what: I’m going. Period. And you’re not. Another period. But I’m going for you. I’m going to stand in for you . . . and Marquis.”

I felt like I was being deserted, but how could I hate on what she’d said? She was wrong, but it wouldn’t take long for her to realize I was right. Once these protests started, she’d see the Brown Guardians’ true colors, and then, she’d leave them alone.

Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. Definitely soon.

I hugged her, stood, and once again my eyes locked on the television, now focused on an image of the empty steps of city hall. Syreeta clicked the remote, fading the screen to black.

She put her arm around my shoulders as we walked into the hall and then down the stairs. Tyrone walked out from the kitchen just as we hit the last step.

“Hey, Syreeta,” he said.

“Hey.” Then, she said, “I drove Raj’s truck here last night since he was gonna ride his motorcycle over to the courthouse this morning with . . .” She paused, but it was too late; I already had the image in my mind—of dozens of black men in brown fatigues rolling their motorcycles onto the courthouse steps. She asked Tyrone, “Wanna ride with me?”

“Yeah,” he said to her, though his eyes were on me.

Without another word, Syreeta stepped outside, leaving me and Tyrone alone.

“Are you sure?” he asked me.

I nodded and asked him, “Are
you
sure?”

He nodded and pulled me into his arms.

I muttered a quick prayer for protection, begging God to keep my husband safe.

It felt like Tyrone’s arms were still around me, even as he stepped back and kissed my forehead.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I followed him to the door, and even though I only had on my bathrobe, I stood on the step outside. May’s morning sun was bright and warm, welcoming me to the first day of my life after my son’s burial.

I watched Tyrone open the driver’s-side door, but before he slid inside, he held up his cell phone and I nodded.

And then he blew me a kiss.

I stayed in place as Tyrone rolled Raj’s truck to the end of the driveway. And even once they were out of sight, I stood outside, marveling at how the day could bring such beauty in the midst of such sadness. And then I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, leaving all the warmth outside.

As I looked around my home, memories screamed from every corner. My eyes settled on the stairs and I could see Marquis bouncing down.

“Mom, I’m late. I gotta get to the bus.”

“You have to eat breakfast.”

“No time.”

But then, he stopped long enough to give me a kiss.