What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(20)

“Sure!” Charlotte squeaks as the smile returns to her troubled face.

I smile back. I think we gon’ still be okay. I wave as Charlotte skips to her porch, bouncing colored patterns against all the white.

“KB?” I almost forget Bobby is still there, til I hear him call my name all quiet. He’s closed the suitcase, but he’s still got some rocks in his hands.

“Thanks for showing me your rock collection,” I start, since he ain’t said nothin’ else yet. I don’t know what to do with my hands while I wait for him to talk. I put them on my hips, then run them cross my hair, then lace my fingers behind my back.

“You’re welcome,” he finally says, then gets silent again. I turn to head back home, cause he ain’t talking and I don’t want his momma to come back out.

“Here-you-wanna-have-these?” Bobby blurts the sentence out like it’s all one big word. I start to ask him to say it again, but then he holds out his hand, where he’s got three rocks. And not just any rocks. The prettiest rocks from the whole collection. Which ain’t saying too much, cause most of the rocks was ugly. But not these. They sparkle in the sunlight as they rest in his palm. He inches his hand closer to mine, so I know he’s tryna offer me the rocks. I open my hand and feel the weight of each stone drop into my hand like gold.

“You can start your own collection.” Bobby smiles, so I smile.

“Thank you,” is all I can think to say. I’m too busy thinking bout starting my own rock collection. Before now, I only tried to start a collection once. Momma was the one who gave me the first thing to collect. Dolls, three of them to start. A bald-headed Black one with an open mouth for drinking bottles; a white one with long blond hair and only one leg, after an accident when Nia dropped her out the car window and right into the middle of the road when Momma was driving; and my favorite, a dark-skinned princess who I named Nia, just like my Nia, and whose hair was plastic waves drawn on her round head. I ain’t think it was so big a thing, the dolls, but when Momma gave them to me, she waved her arms and smiled real big, talking bout the dolls she collected when she was a girl just my age, and all the fun she had. She talked til her eyes were round and wet. I ain’t get it, but when I showed the dolls to my friends at school, one at a time on show-and-tell days, I repeated Momma’s words, that a girl and her doll are inseparable, and my friends tried out the new word on their own tongues, inseparable.

When we moved to the motel, all my dolls had to go to the storage unit with the rest of our stuff, so that was the end of my collection. But now I got a new collection. I got three rocks, and I’m in Lansing, where I can find more rocks—or anything else I wanna collect—and probably, somewhere to put ’em. And I got two new friends cross the street, best of all. Yeah, they momma was acting kinda mean, but I know that sometimes mommas do stuff we don’t like and we gotta just go with it. So I ain’t too worried.

“You’re welcome!” Bobby has to almost shout that part cause he’s walking up the three wide porch steps and into the house. I can’t tell if he gave me the rocks cause I listened to all his stories and Charlotte didn’t. Or cause he don’t like these ones, or he got too many. Or maybe he gave me the rocks for the same reason I offered Charlotte my best book. Cause sometimes it’s worth it to give something so you can get something. The first lesson I ever learned from Daddy.

Bout three years ago, when I was seven, Momma had to go on a trip to Chicago for work. She had been working at the Chrysler plant most of my life, but this was the first time they ever sent her anywhere. She said it was just for a boring convention, but still she spent almost a week perfectly folding all her clothes and organizing them in a little suitcase with flowers and rolling wheels.

Me and Nia had never been outside Detroit, so she let us come along. And Daddy, to keep an eye on us while she was working. I don’t remember much bout the trip, cept we never really saw Momma. Me and Daddy and Nia explored the city all day long. Then, when we would get back to the tiny hotel, Momma would talk forever bout everything she heard that day and all the food she ate for lunch and how sure she was that she would always remember it all.

For our last day in Chicago, Momma promised that we’d spend the whole day together. All of us were excited. Even Nia. We stayed up the night before talking bout what we would take Momma to see and do. I made a list on the little notepad from the hotel, while Daddy and Nia yelled ideas to each other from cross our double hotel beds. But the next day, when I held up our list for Momma to see, she barely saw it, running out the door to another speaker and another lunch. She ain’t spend that day with us, or any day with us in Chicago, turns out.

Still, Daddy made a plan. We picked up food from our favorite Chicago place, with chicken wings you could choose in different flavors, then took it to her at work. I remember asking Daddy why he wanted to bother taking Momma food, when she had been breaking promises and letting us down all weekend. Sometimes you gotta give up something you want to get something you need. I’m still not sure exactly what Daddy lost or gained that day, but it seemed really important to him. And like he thought it would be important to me one day, too.

I skip back cross the street with my new rock collection in my pocket and a giant grin on my face, happy cause I made new friends, and cause I thought of Daddy without crying. And, most of all, cause Granddaddy was wrong bout them white kids.