The grandfather clock strikes six, and Sheryl's beef casserole is already in the oven. Judith's perched on the countertop between the stove and their Galanz fridge.
As her mother stated, her father mounted a bright yellow rotary phone on the wall, and with Jerome's number on a slip of paper next to her, the handset between her left shoulder and ear, she spins the plastic disk.
Judith listens to the faint buzz, her back slouched and her fingers picking at the hem of her left pant leg.
"Hello?" Judy furrows her brows at the unfamiliar voice.
"Um, hello. Is Jerome there," she asks. "I'm a friend of his from the University of Darlington."
"Yeah, hold on." She hears rustling as he sets the phone down. Rembrandt descends the stairs in a white t-shirt and grey boxer briefs. When she hears the last step creak, Judith turns her head to him, and her eyes grow wide with shock. He stands under the frame.
"Girl, what're you doing on the phone at this hour?" She doesn't respond, and when the rustling presumes, she looks ahead. He flicks the switch to his right, and she squints at the bright light above.
"Hello?" The sound of his voice puts a smile on her face. Rembrandt strolls toward the refrigerator with his gaze on her.
"Hey! It's Judy from school," she cheerfully reminds him, and he chuckles dryly. Her Uncle stands in front of the fridge, and he yanks the door open. "I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time. I've just been thinking about what you said and all the stuff I'm currently dealing with. I guess I needed to talk to you."
"It makes me happy knowing that you feel comfortable talking to me, and no, you didn't catch me at a bad time. If anything, you pulled me away from tutoring my stubborn little brother," he assures her. She chuckles, and Rembrandt glances at her with his brows creased. "But what's going on? How're you feeling?"
"I'm – okay right now, but earlier I was a little heated." He shuts the door when he doesn't see anything he wants, and with disgust, she watches him return to the stairs. "I kinda took it out on my sister, and I felt bad afterward. In my defense, her recklessness was just another extra pound added to the emotional overload I have."
"What'd she do that was reckless," he asks, and before she answers, she waits for her uncle to return upstairs.
"She has a condition that makes her – you know – unable to push a baby out without extra help," Judith tells him. "That coupled with her bleeding disorder and heart problems is like a death wish. After her third child, she was told not to have anymore, and she didn't listen. I found out today that she's due near the end of this month."
"I'm sorry to hear that." His voice is softer and sympathetic. Though she can't see him, by the sound of his sigh, she can tell he's frowning. "How do your parents feel about it?"
"My Mom doesn't care anymore. We haven't talked about it in maybe a week when she broke the news to me." Judy sighs and runs her fingertips against the back of her neck.
"She's probably just struggling to process it; That's her daughter, so I'm sure she cares. What about your Dad?" Her hand freezes in place, and her eyes dart onto the fridge. She'd forgotten again that she hadn't told him about his death. "What does he think?"
"He's – been quiet lately. I guess he's trying to come to terms with it also," Judy lies, then pulls her dry lips inward and licks them. Her heart begins to race when he doesn't respond. "Are you there?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just not sure what to say," Jerome admits. "Do you have any other siblings, and do you know who your sister's pregnant by?"
"I have a thirteen-year-old brother and sister. I told you about Michael, and I have another older brother, but he's on the road. He's a truck driver." Judith takes a deep breath. "I don't know who got her pregnant. I can only hope that it wasn't my brother-in-law because how reckless would that be, y'know? But at the same time, if she stepped out on him, that would be a hundred times worse."
Before he can respond, Sheryl lets out a blood-curdling scream, and when Judy flinches, the handset drops onto the countertop next to her.
"What was that? Are you okay," Jerome questions her, but his voice is faint. With her attention on the stairs, she scrambles her trembling hands beside her and lifts the phone to her ear.
"I gotta call you back," she rushes the words from her mouth and slams the handset onto the hookswitch. She jumps to the base of her clogs, and she hastily makes a beeline up the stairs.
She follows the sound of her mother wailing, which leads her to an open door to her left. She peeks through the frame and watches Stacey caress her sobbing mother's left arm. She's lying in bed with her back to the door, and Stacey's sitting on the edge near her legs.
"God took him from me. He took him from me," she repeats despite her daughter's shushing. Judith hadn't seen her mother cry in ages, so seeing her in distress causes her chest to hurt.
"Momma, you gotta relax, or you'll pass out again." Judy takes hesitant steps toward them, and Stacey glances at her, then at their mother. Her attempts to calm her are in vain; her words merely slip through one ear and out of the other.
"What's going on?" They look toward the arch and notice that Stevie and Vera are awake. He looks past them at his mother, then at Stacey and Judy, and asks, "Why's she crying?"
"She's upset about Dad," Judith answers. Stevie and Vera share confused glances.
"What'd he do? He's at work," Vera says. Stacey and Judy furrow their eyebrows, then they turn to their mother.
"You didn't tell them?" Sheryl doesn't respond. Judith sighs, and Stacey pushes herself up. She watches her waddle toward their siblings.
"Come on, you two." She ushers them into the hall with Judy's eyes following her out of sight before returning her attention to her mother's back. She sits in her sister's place with her hands on her lap, and she stares at them as she racks her brain for the right words to say.
"Do you want to talk about it," she finally asks, and she shuts her eyes at how plain of a question it sounds. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to say to make you feel better."
"He was supposed to take me to New York to watch the ball drop up close. We even made reservations to go to Randall's Soul Kitchen near my Mom's tenement," Sheryl tells her through her hiccups. Judith turns her head to look at her and notices her tears sitting on the brims of her eyes. "He wanted our anniversary to be special. Everything we planned, we'll never get to do."
"I'll take you to Times Square," she mumbles, veers her body to her, then places her hand against hers. "I know I'm not Dad, but – if it's what you want, we can do it."
"It's not the same." She looks at the nightstand, and when she sees a shattered picture of her parents kissing under neon lights, she sighs sadly. "Spending those moments with him was what kept me composed. There's a lot that you don't know, Judy. A lot that I kept from all of you for your own good."
"Like what," she asks, but her mother doesn't answer. Judith licks her chapped lips. "Hey, maybe tomorrow we can go fly kites with the kids, get ice cream, or ride bikes. Wouldn't that be –"
She's interrupted by the sound of Vera and Stevie sobbing. Stacey broke the news to them.
"I gotta go check on the kids," Sheryl says, and she thrusts herself upright. Judith watches her wipe her tear-stained face.
"Mom, you should really lay down. I'll do it," she tells her and is given a dark look.
"I'm fine, Judith! Now, don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do!" She watches her slide out of bed and wander toward the door. When she exits her room, Judith's lips fall agape, and tears cloud her already blurry vision.
Stacey returns to the arch with her dark brown leather purse in one hand and her car keys in the other. She's wearing a white pair of leather open-toe kitten heels.
"I need to get out of the house. You wanna go get something to eat," she asks, and Judith stands to her feet with her brows furrowed.
"The food is almost done." Stacey rolls her eyes.
"Just come on," she says before walking toward the stairs. Judith hesitantly follows her to the front door, then outside.
The sun has fallen early, yet little boys are still playing football in the street. They stroll to the Monte Carlo against the side of the road, and they swiftly enter.
"So where should we go," Stacey asks while inserting her key into the ignition. Once their doors are shut, Judith tugs her seatbelt across her chest.
"I don't really want to get full before I eat dinner, so I don't know." The engine turns over with a confident rumble, and her sister fastens her seatbelt while looking at her out of the corner of her eye.
"We can go to the wing spot around the block," Stacey suggests, then veers into the street.
***
The two are parked in front of a dainty building with transparent glass and a neon purple sign. They each have a red and white box of six wings, but instead of holding hers in her hands like Judith, Stacey has hers on her stomach.
"So what happened with Mom – and the kids," she asks to break the silence and watches her for a response.
Stacey rolls her eyes, scoffs, then plainly says, "I told them and Ma got on my case for doing it, telling me I have no right doing that."
"I can't believe she didn't tell them, and then got mad at you for basically doing her job." Stacey takes a bite of the wing in hand, shaking her head with her calm gaze on her windshield. "That just reminds me of when I told Mom what David did, and she got mad at me."
"What'd he do," Stacey asks with her hand shielding her mouth full of chicken. Judith scoffs and sits her warm tray on her lap. She folds her arms across her chest and takes a deep breath.
"He stole my virginity," she answers without hesitation, but she doesn't look her in the eyes. Her sister stops chewing and stares at her in thought. She swallows what's left.
"Did you tell Dad?" She nods her head. "Okay, and what'd he do?"
"He and Mom argued, he dropped me off at school the next day, and we made plans to go somewhere, but – he died," Judith explains with a solemn sigh and expression. "And the Dean of the University basically let him back in after I reported him for physically assaulting me. There was another person's account: Housemother Roberts, but his parents probably paid off the school and our parents."
"Is Dean O'Connell the one in charge still?" She nods, and Stacey sniggers, grabbing her attention but with furrowed brows. They look at each other. "I'm not laughing at you, by the way. I'm laughing because that same man told me to get out of his office when I reported being raped by one of the guys in that big building in the back: Kappa Delta Psi, but when my white friend came to him with her story from the same night, they not only arrested the guy, but they tore that building down."
"Are you serious?" Stacey nods her head with her lips pulled into a straight line. "What'd you do? Did you give up?"
"Hell no," she says. "I rallied two or three of my friends, and I went down to the main quad, and I protested until they expelled me. After that, I came back on campus – trespassed really – and found out that he shook up my friends, so they weren't much help anymore. I stood on a table in the community lounge, and I screamed at the top of my lungs about everything that was done to me and my sistahs until security came and escorted me off campus; I was charged with inciting a riot and trespassing."
"That's unbelievable." Stacey closes her box of wings. "I'm so sorry, Stace."
"Don't sweat it; it's cool. What you need to do is protest, but only if you're as done with that campus as I was," Stacey tells her, then sets her tray on top of Judith's. "You'll lose a lot of friends, and this may go on your record, but real activists are willing to take risks; Food for thought."
She turns the key until the engine roars on and Judith's eyes glaze onto her dashboard.
Maybe she's right – I should stand up for myself. Wait — was Mary there to report Derek?