☆☆☆ Chapter 62 ☆☆☆
Anniversary
It was the middle of the day, or the afternoon. I don't know, I didn't look at the time. I was outside, in my parents' backyard. Barefoot and still in my pajamas, pressing the soft throw pillow I snatched from the living room against my chest. Dad was a good couple of steps away from me, on the grill. Mom was there, too. She was pecking at the maybe-finished burgers and corn on the cob.
There were no signs of the thunderstorm from the night before, as if it had never existed in the first place. The sky was crystal clear, a vibrant sea of baby blue, with white clumps of fluff. The ground, the evenly cut grass, wasn't moist or damp in any way, and all of the outdoor furniture in the backyard was spotless. Or at least, the metal bench I was lying on felt as such. Dry. The sun took care of it all── the sun was brighter than ever, its rays bold and powerful── hot. Enough to make me drag the yapping fan near the back door of the house just a little closer to me. Of course, after making sure that the extension cord wouldn't give in to my pulls. A shadow came over me as soon as I did the final pull.
"Here Imani," it said, with a somewhat muffled voice. A small piece of solid heat caught me off my guard immediately after. It was jammed straight into my mouth. I jerked myself up, sat myself straight. Mom stood there, looked down at me. Her eyebrows were all the way up, on her forehead, and her full cheeks were moving. She was chewing on something. "Whaddaya think?"
I chewed the ground beef for a second or two, then swallowed it down. "Not ready yet. A little undercooked?" I still felt some weird texture in some parts.
"Thought so." She sat herself down, next to me. "Bruno! Put 'em back!" She still had another piece in her hand, one that she popped in her mouth as soon as she was done shouting at Dad, raw and all. I let myself lie back down, this time with my head on Mom's lap. I closed my eyes, breathed in the fresh air. Held the throw pillow tighter. "Been tellin' ya not to wear it outside 'less ya tryna get jumped." I jerked back up, immediately feeling the weight of the gemstone that hung on me behind the pillow. Mom sucked her teeth, licked away the loose meat on them. A small smile followed. Just one side of her glossy lips went up. Along with it followed her hand. She reached for a side of my neck, caressed it, then went for the velvety fabric that held the ruby, rubbed it between two fingers. "Dat boy spoils you," she chuckled lightly. "But from what we hear, he a good kid. When we gonna meet 'im?"
I found myself gawking. "I... "
"We gotta see it," she quickly said after I dropped my head low, after I sunk it on the pillow. "We gotta see it fo' ourselves. Bruno an' I... " She sighed. "We don't want ya sufferin' again." I brought my legs closer to each other, squeezed them tight. Mom, in response, scooched closer to me, slid her hand up to my head. I didn't realize it earlier, but the grass near me was moving back and forth, in silence. Lightly. The same way Mom did on my hair. Back and forth. Back, and forth. Back... and forth. "Sometimes, I be thinkin'... I be thinkin' it's my fault."
My stomach dropped. "Mom?"
The back door slid open. Out stepped Teresa, with her damaged hair down. I was the first person she noticed outside, so she pressed her lips together and turned the other way, towards Dad and the grill.
"Close it! Quick! Bugs'll go in," Mom shouted at her. Teresa followed through Mom's orders then sped-walk her way to Dad. They spoke for a few seconds, laughed, then spoke some more before Dad pointed to my direction. Teresa obviously didn't want to come over, but she nodded at whatever Dad had said and dragged herself over to Mom and I. She never set her eyes on me as she did so. She looked straight ahead, then at Mom when she arrived.
"Where's the radio?" she asked. "Dad wants it on."
Mom shrugged. "In the fridge." Just then, Teresa and I's eyes met. We furrowed our eyebrows and grimaced. We looked away as soon as we noticed our unintentional reaction to what Mom had said, Teresa visibly more pissed off than me about it── actually, I wasn't pissed. My cheeks were hotter than any other place in my body, but it had nothing to do with her. And if it did, it was only shame── a shame that was small in comparison to everything else that was on my mind. "Don't ask."
My heart upped its pace when Mom and I were alone again, and rightfully so, when Teresa went back inside. Mom went back at it again with my hair. Back and forth. Back, and forth. Back... and forth. This time, I heard the grass. Its movement. Along with the whirrs of the fan.
"It's not your fault," I heard myself mutter. "It's not anyone's. Just his." And mine.
☆☆☆
When Dad finally grilled the hamburgers right, Mom and I set up the picnic table and Teresa brought out the macaroni salad she'd made inside. We placed all the food on the table, and sat ourselves down. We held each other's hands and prayed for our meal, for Uncle Jesse, for his wife, for Molly's wellness and safe return. We urged the souls of Molly's parents to watch over her, then served ourselves.
I felt Teresa's eyes bore through me as soon as we finished our prayers, but when I gave them a glance they were elsewhere.
"I still can't believe Uncle Jesse liked peanut butter and jelly on his corn. That's so weird," she said, right before taking a good bite out of her own in his name.
Dad chuckled. "I still can't believe you eat it with all that joy in your face. Gross."
Mom waved a hand. "She like it. Leave 'er alone."
My sister licked her lips. "I do not!" she whined.
"You do," I said.
Teresa didn't say anything── not a single thing, not a single word, for the rest of our mealtime.
Once we filled ourselves and the dirty dishes were put in the sink, Mom gathered us all in the living room. We spent some time together playing cards and listening to Dad's favorite radio station── not the one that's baseball-related, but another that just so happened to be Uncle Jesse's favorite, too. The one where instrumental classics played all day every day.
We also talked through some of our best moments with our fallen relatives, as well as our worst. We had never really done that before. I was always in my room.
We cried together, held each other when we thought we couldn't speak anymore. Only in those times was Teresa not angry with me. She just had no energy. But I had all the energy in the world to be ashamed, because the tears summoned more of it. So when Mom told us we needed to talk, I was prepared for a lecture. I thought it had everything to do with what I had done to Teresa. I thought she told our parents about it. But then Dad held my hand, and Mom looked me straight in the eye. Together, they said they knew I had a therapist.
"We know," Dad repeated. "And choosing to see one, especially after such a violent episode── "
My attention turned to Teresa, whose long face brought itself up to my level. She gave me the tiniest of nods along with the longest eye contact she'd given me, and that was that. She told them. I clenched my fists, took in a deep breath, picked at the insides of my cheek. Exhaled, slowly. My heart ignored all of it, started to run a marathon that, for some reason, froze the tips of my fingers and toes. Had them tremble and melt away into nothingness under the table.
"Did you do this to get back at me?" I choked out. "Did you really do that?"
"No, I would never," Teresa replied. "I told them long before that."
"Why? Why would you?"
Teresa shook her head, sighed, then gave me a look of pity that crushed my lungs together. "They needed to know, booger. You need them. I did it for you."
I opened my mouth to speak, but a squeeze from Dad's hand closed it. "You need us too, Teresa," he began. He reached for her hand with his free one, and squeezed it too. Mom quickly joined in, held the hands of my sister and I, over Dad's. "Imani, we're proud of you. For taking that one step forward. Teresa, we're proud of you too, for watching out for her. But you're not just her older sister. You need to watch out for yourself too. Please, get a therapist. We'll help. That includes you too, Imani. Your boyfriend has been a great help to you from what we hear, but this is something we can do. We can cover the bills, we can afford it. He doesn't have to."
"Trust us. Let us be part of everythin' 'ere." Mom motioned to the left area of her chest. Her heart. "We wanna help. We care. We love you. We want ya... want you close. Too many years in the dark. Too many years of our babies cryin'. We're sorry. We're sorry we weren't there."
"But you've always been there," Teresa mumbled.
Dad shook his head. "No," he cried. "This house has been cold. Maybe... if only... " He paused, wiped his tears away with his shoulder. "We didn't push hard enough. We didn't... we didn't do anything. We gave up, we were afraid. That must've been it."
"If... if I'd done somethin' different, would our babies've been fine? Happy?"
"Akos... " For a good moment, only sobs and sniffles were heard. We had no words to say, only tears to bleed. Tears that our swollen eyes could barely afford. "Um, about the house being cold and wanting you close... "
"We... we been meanin' to tell you both somethin'." Mom squeezed our hands, brought them up to her face, kissed them. "Please, move back in. Come back home."