What Lies Beyond the Veil(Of Flesh & Bone #1)(73)

Nia is rocking and rocking, but not speaking. “He what, Nia? What did Daddy do to you?”

“He ain’t mean it,” Nia whispers and rocks. “He ain’t mean it.”

“Did he hurt you?” I ask. Nia slowly starts to nod, then faster and faster. The faster she nods, the more my heart breaks.

“He hit me so hard, it knocked me down the stairs. I landed flat on my back.” Nia breathes deep, the air again escaping from her body. “He ain’t even stop. He ain’t even stop.” Tears are running down Nia’s face, past her chin. “I was just laying there, crying for him. Crying for him to help me . . .” Nia’s voice cracks, then melts into sobs.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.” I cradle Nia in my arms like a baby. She lays her head in my lap and I rub her hair, whispering, “Shh-shh,” into the silence. I try to think through what Nia just told me, but I ain’t even sure where to begin. All I know for now is that Nia needs me. We might not be the perfect family, but we the kind of family that’s gon’ be there when you need ’em. Just like Momma and Granddaddy, I suddenly realize. They ain’t even been talking all these years, but when Momma needed him, Granddaddy was there. That’s what family does.

“Hey, you remember that time we all went to Chicago?” I ask Nia, still stroking her hair. She nods, then settles back in my lap. The memory fills the room, but I don’t speak, so Nia don’t speak. We don’t have to use words to make it come alive, cause it lives in both our minds forever, the same.

Daddy said, Sometimes you gotta give up something you want to get something you need, and I finally know what he gave up that weekend in Chicago. And I know I gotta do the same, for me and for Nia. I clear my throat before I speak again.

“Something happened yesterday,” I begin, and then I tell Nia bout running away and Rondell and the dumpster. Halfway through, Nia lifts her head and holds my hand as I talk, guarding tears at the rim of her eyes. I tell Nia bout Rondell lying and pretending to be my friend, and then touching me again and again. Bout how somebody I thought I could count on betrayed me. Hurt me. As I talk, I know Nia’s thinking bout what happened between her and Daddy. She shared her secret with me, so I’m sharing my secret with her. This way, we ain’t gotta be alone. I confess and cry and rub Nia’s hair. Soon she’s crying and rubbing my hair, neither of us speaking. We lay there like that, both remembering and crying, til we can forget.

“I wanna apologize to you,” Nia says once we’re quiet again.

“For what?” I sniffle.

“Well, even though I ain’t mean for it to, I think you got the worse end of everything I’ve been dealing with.” Nia folds her hands and tucks them under her chin. “Honestly, it’s hard to talk to you sometimes, cause you always wanna talk about the past, and I just wanna forget it.” Nia sighs. “I mean, ain’t it hard for you to remember all that stuff? Even remembering good stuff about Daddy makes me feel like I’m ripping in half.” Nia’s voice cracks as she finishes.

I take some time to think before I answer, twisting my hair around my pinky finger. “It’s hard for me, too,” I eventually respond, “but it feels like I gotta do it. You and Momma don’t wanna talk bout Daddy, so it feels like if I don’t, then he’s really gon’ be gone forever. Even if he did some bad stuff, he was still our daddy. He still made you laugh harder than me or Momma ever could. And when he would dance with Momma”—I pause to imagine them there, dancing in the room beside us—“I never saw Momma happier than when she was in his arms.”

Nia smiles so big her teeth show. “Yeah,” she replies. “I remember.”

“I’m so scared I’m gon’ forget all that stuff. That I’m gon’ lose him.” I cry again, but this time it feels like it’s coming from somewhere deeper, somewhere I ain’t even know was there. Nia wraps her arms around me, and I sob into her chest. But instead of feeling sad, I feel safe.

Daddy’s gone. Momma’s gone. But Nia’s still here, with me. She lifts my head, offers me her version of an ice cream cone smile. I’m eleven years old and I’ve lost so much, but here with Nia, I know I still got some important stuff, too. It’s like I’m standing in a field full of fireflies, struggling to catch ’em all, when really, I just gotta slow down and catch one.





PART III


   August 1995





10





Once we reach the middle of August, I’m almost positive Momma ain’t gon’ ever come back. It’s been three weeks since Nia’s birthday, since me and Nia finding our way back to each other. She still don’t play with me all the time, but sometimes she helps me find caterpillars or rocks. And last week, she even surprised me with a new book.

“What’s this?” I asked when she handed me the bag one night after dinner. Nia ain’t answer, just smiled. I looked over at Granddaddy and he was smiling, too. Weird.

I opened the bag and inside was a book with a girl on the cover who looked just like me. She was younger than me—missing two front teeth—but besides that, she was just like me. Same eyes and nose and smile. She even wore her hair in two ponytails with braids and bows, just like I used to wear, before I changed my hair to be like Nia.