The grandfather clock strikes twelve and sends out a gong concurrent to the buzzing on the television. The white light beams through the darkness and pierces Judith's eyes when she opens them. Lying on the sofa, a pool of saliva resting between her lips and the throw pillow on her forearms, she gazes through her blurry lenses at the static staring back at her.
Judith pushes herself up and sits on the edge, taking off her hexagon glasses. She scrubs the sweat and lint off the lenses using her striped shirt then returns the frames to her face.
She wipes her mouth and cheek before she leans to grab the remote off the floor. With it in her left hand, she pinches the off switch, but before she flicks it, she turns her head to the door.
On the outside is a blaring melody pouring in through the cracks, and her ears twitch. She racks her brain, longing to remember the familiar tune, and she leaves the remote in her place on her way to the front door.
Judith turns the locks, the knob, then tugs it to herself, and she scoffs when she sees David standing near her mailbox with his walkman aimed at her house. He's playing You Cheated by The Shields, and she crosses her arms for warmth.
"David, what the fuck are you doing right now," she yells. The tree limbs sway with the breeze, and his Adam's apple bobs when he gulps. "You're lucky my folks are at the hospital with Stacey because if Rembrandt or my mom were here, you'd be a dead man."
"Judy, I deserve a second chance." She rolls her eyes at his remark. "Look, I'm sorry for hitting Stevie and you, and I'm sorry for dating Mary and embarrassing you. I really need you back."
"We were done long before you hit my brother, but that - that left you dead to me." She drops her arms and sits her hand on the knob. David lowers the walkman and shuts it off as she says, "Get off my property."
"I don't have happiness, and I guess I never will again," David rushes the melody from his mouth as she swings the door toward him, and she stops when she hears him sing. He slowly ascends the steps, and she draws it open to watch him. "When you walked out on me, in walked ol' misery, and he's been here since then."
Judith opens her mouth to speak when her heart begins to race, drawing a breath that chills her teeth. He waits for her to compose herself, but she slams the door between them. The locks click as she quickly seals the entrance, her hands trembling.
She leans her back against the door and cries through clenched teeth. The tune David serenaded to her was one he sang over the phone when she was committed to Red Cave, and the pain it caused her prolonged her recovery.
Judith sniffles as her teardrops slip into her quivering lips. Stevie stops at the bottom of the stairs with one hand on the railing and the other brandishing her knife.
"Was that David," he asks, and she quickly wipes her face, then pushes herself off the door. He has a bandage across his nose bridge and bags under his eyes.
"Go back to bed." She glances at the weapon in his grasp, then says, "and put that back in my room while you're up there, and don't touch it again."
Judith watches Stevie ascend the steps, only returning to her seat when he reaches the next floor. She reaches down to grab the remote, the white light shining on her arm, and she pauses with her fingertips against it when the phone rings.
She leaves the remote where it lay and walks around the buzzing television, rushing into the kitchen. When she reaches the counter, she lifts the handset to her ear.
"Hello?" She leans against the fridge's edge.
"Hey, Judy," Ja'liyah greets her, and her voice bears the heaviness of someone who's missed countless nights of sleep.
"Hey, I've missed you. How're you feeling?" Her cousin chuckles, but it resembles a scoff.
"I've had better days," she says. Judith curls her mouth, unsure of what to say. "How was the funeral?"
"Oh, um, well, it was as most funerals are: sad and long. Made me wish I didn't go." Judith gives a hollow laugh, and Ja'liyah pauses in thought. "I spoke to your brother."
"Yeah? How's he doing," she asks with a weary sigh.
"I was expecting a little rabble-rouser, but he's real nice and polite. Him and Stevie were practically glued at the hip along with another boy. I forgot his name," Judith explains. Ja'liyah heaves a dry cough, and each inhale emits a whooping sound. "Did the doctors find out what's wrong with you?"
"They say I have anorexia," Ja'liyah tells her monotonously. "They're giving me so many pills, crackers, and boxes of juice, I feel - I don't know. My Dad's losing his shit, but I know I'll be fine."
"What's anorexia?" Judith furrows her eyebrows, and her cousin clears her throat.
"Basically, because I chose not to overeat and die like Grandma did, I'm sick and can't leave until I gain weight," she explains and sighs from annoyance. "I can't believe this shit. I'm eighty-nine pounds, and they want me at a hundred."
"That's more than me. The last time I weighed myself, I was ninety-five pounds. I'm sorry, 'liyah," Judith crones, and her cousin scoffs. "I mean, I don't understand why they're holding you there. It's not like you'll die or something."
"Exactly! I wonder if Grandma would've been here right now if they'd have held her when she reached two hundred," she whisper yells, her voice quivering from a stifled cough. She clears her throat to avoid the inevitable, and she coughs again. "Now I'm sick because of the skinhead they discharged last night. Could this day get any worse? Wait - is that --"
"Are you okay? What's wrong," Judith questions her, pushing herself upright. First, Ja'liyah chuckles, and after a short pause, she laughs so joyously that all her cousin can do is listen in silence.
"I just saw Stacey holding a baby," she tells her. "She's across the hall from me right now."
"Oh, my God, she had the baby," Judy says under her breath, her fingers pressed to her lips and her eyes brimming with excitement.
"Damn, the doctor shut the door." Ja'liyah sighs, and her bed crinkles as she fidgets into a comfortable position. "Congratulations, auntie of three."
"Four," she corrects her after dropping her arm, a smile nestled on her face. "Wayne has a little girl too."
"Oh, I forgot about him. How's he doing?" Judith hums I don't know as she shrugs her shoulders.
"He comes around whenever he pleases, and he was late for the funeral, so I don't even care anymore." Judith sighs.
"I'm sorry." Judith doesn't respond, so she changes the subject when she feels her mood shift. "So what's the skinny on that school in North Carolina? When're you going?"
"I don't think I will," she says, and her cousin responds with silence. "I don't know. I mean, the kids need me here, and I don't think I wanna finish my course, anyway."
"Are you kidding me?" Judith knits her brows at her sharp tone and listens to her take a deep breath. "Judy, I'm not gonna yell, but I'm a bit disappointed. I'm always bragging to my nurse about my cousin who protested like Dr. King and got herself a scholarship somewhere better. I even saw the Dean of your school on the News making you seem like a child who needed to be punished."
"It's still on TV?" She peeks into the living room, and Ja'liyah groans from annoyance.
"Who cares? You can't do this to me," she raises her voice and grasps her cousin's attention. "My Mom is dead, and my Dad can't even afford public college. I have to work like a man whenever I need new clothes."
"I'm sorry, I didn't know." Ja'liyah cuts her off.
"I wanted to go so I could be a radio disc jockey like Wolfman Jack because, at the time, I just turned eighteen, my mom died, and I was sick, so my voice was different. While I was being taunted by my white classmates, listening to him gave me confidence," she explains, her voice quavering. "That's all I want - but here I am. I don't mean to make it about me, but I'm your biggest supporter, and this --"
She's interrupted by the gravelly cough she struggled to suppress, but the break gives Judith a moment to think.
Maybe she's right, but I can't just leave Stevie and Vera. I'll never forgive myself if they end up at Red Cave.
"Let's say I go," Judith begins, and between her desperate breaths, Ja'liyah hums in agreement. "Who's gonna look out for the kids?"
"Uh, their mother," she responds with a sarcastically questioning tone. "I don't understand your point."
"Look, I'm gonna be candid with you. My mom doesn't know what the hell she's doing when it comes to parenting us." Ja'liyah clears her throat, and Judith rests her forehead against the crack of her fridge. "My dad was the same way for a while, but before he died, he actually listened to my problems and tried to help me."
"Judy, what problems do you have that they can fix?" She opens her mouth to respond, but her answer catches at the back of her teeth with the inhale. "What you need is to go to a shrink when you go to North Carolina, get a job and save your money. With the money, find a place off-campus, and maybe Stevie or Vera can visit during their breaks from school. In the meantime, stop fucking wasting your life being a mammy-like figure to everyone and do what makes you happy."
"That sounds like a perfect plan, but it's easier said than done," she argues, and Ja'liyah coughs.
"Oh, for goodness sake." She retches after forcing herself to speak, and Judy waits for her to calm down. "Check it, my nurse is bringing me pills, so I'll ring you when the sun comes up. Call whoever you need to and get transferred to that school, you dig?"
"But," she begins, but her cousin hangs up, and the dial tone buzzes in her ear. Judith sighs and returns the handset to the hookswitch; it clicks upon being set down.
***
Judith races down the stairs when she hears the twins arguing, and her long hair swishes behind her.
"Vera, you know I always do it," Stevie hollers. She stops at the bottom step and peers over the banister at them kneeling before the box television in their pajamas. Her sister's gripping the numbered dial in her right hand with her brother beside her. "Let go before you break it again!"
"Daddy showed me how to do it! Get out of my ear yelling," she orders him, but he doesn't budge.
"What's going on?" The twins flinch and turn their heads to her when she shouts at them. "Why're you down here?"
"I wanted to watch the Mickey Mouse show," Vera explains, and Stevie stands to his sock-clad feet.
"And I told her Mom said she can't watch it anymore." He glares back at his sister when she shoots him a dark look for telling Judith. "But she already knows that."
"Why can't she watch it?" With her brows drawn together, Judith steps onto the floor and walks around the staircase toward them.
"Because Mom doesn't like Annette," he says, folding his arms, and Vera darts upward and faces him.
"Annette didn't do anything to her or anyone else but everyone's such a prude! All she did was, what she wanted, and that's to star in real movies," Vera yells, and he stares at her without blinking, watching her face turn red from lack of oxygen.
"Real movies? Yeah, sure." Vera rolls her eyes, and Judith quietly watches them bicker. "All she stars in are bikini movies, and you know Mom doesn't like it. Now, move so I can tune the TV."
He lowers to the floor as Vera grinds her teeth behind her closed lips. Her gaze is venomous, her hands curl into fists, and her jaw shifts. She huffs and turns away from him, her body relaxing.
Judith's eyes follow her upstairs, losing sight of her when she steps into the hall.
"Mom called, by the way." She looks at Stevie when he speaks. A color test pattern covers the screen with an announcer repeating the colors from white to black. "She said she'll be here in an hour."
"Alright." She drags her right hand across her face to wipe away the tiredness from her eyes and sits her left on her hip.
Judith walks toward the kitchen when the phone rings, stopping before the rotary. She brings the handset to the left side of her face.
"Judith." She rolls her eyes toward the ceiling and groans through her exasperation. David's persistence - harassment - is driving her to anger, and she squeezes the handset like a can of soda.
"Yes, Cambridge," she greets him, and he chuckles at her. He turns the table-sized radio dial and sifts through songs.
"We're doing last names? Okay, well, Jefferson, I heard this tune a while ago, and I lost it trying to turn this thing up," David explains. He stops at a slow-paced Motown song, and her heart sinks into her stomach when she hears it: Ooo Baby Baby by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. "Ah, here we go. Remember when we went on our first date? This was on the radio until I cut it off halfway."
That's where I remember it from! God, why was I dreaming about it?
"I know you don't like me right now, but I'll do whatever it takes to win you back, Judy," he says, raising the music volume. "When you helped me at the party, it told me that you still have feelings for me."
"The feelings I have are pity, and right now - disgust." She takes a shaky breath, her eyes and lenses fogging. "You really don't know what you did, do you?"
"Mary said I - forced myself on you," he says, hesitating from discomfort. Judith squeezes her eyes shut, and as she hangs her head, she bows her shoulders. Her hair shrouds her face, and he sighs. "I know what consent is. Like I told you maybe two weeks ago, my Dad and I talked, and he chastised me for what he heard. It's why I asked if you wanted to have sex or not."
"Please turn the music off, David." David turns the dial to lower the volume, and she shakes her head at his disobedience, then straightens her posture. "What you did - you --"
Judith wipes her face with her shaky hand when tears drip over her eyebags. He clears his throat, and she shudders through gnashed teeth, her hand pressed to her upper lip.
"You're why I took those pills, and you're why I had to stay at Red Cave longer. Because of you, I drank Ipecac, and because of you, I can't let myself feel any ounce of joy," she hurls the hostile accusations at him, each breath she takes whistling on their way in. As she blinks, more tears fall, but she doesn't wipe them away. "I wanna hate you like you hate me, but I can't. I want peace, but I can't have it until you let me go."
"I don't hate you," he says, and she drops her arms, then sniffles. She waits for David to proceed, but he doesn't utter another word.
"You don't love me. No man who hits his woman truly loves them," Judith wails. "And it took me - it took me so long to convince myself that. It took me almost dying and hurting my brother to see what you've done to me, but the accident in your car was a pivotal moment in this relationship."
"Judy, I'm sorry," he interrupts her with his high and desperate voice. Her body racks and she hides her red face in her palm. Her chest aches as if her heart shattered at the reality of the situation, and each breath she yanks through her sobs burns her lungs. "You mean the world to me, and I can't believe you don't see it anymore. When I told the fellas from Edison High about our plans to get married, you should've heard how they howled like hound dogs. Especially Rodney."
"Judy," Stevie calls her from the kitchen arch. She returns the phone to the hook, and with her back to him, she wipes her face. "Ma's outside. You okay?"