On the Come Up(43)

She puts the phone back to her ear. “All right, you get back to your nap. Just wanted to say Merry Christmas . . . All right, now. Talk to you later.” She ends the call. “Lord. The man fell asleep in the middle of talking to me.”

“You lucky he didn’t die in the middle of talking to you,” Trey says. Jay shoots him a stank-eye. He nods toward the box. “What’s that?”

“Some Christmas surprises for y’all.”

“Ma, we said we weren’t buying gifts—”

“I didn’t buy anything, boy. I was looking through the garage to see if there was anything worth selling. Found some of your daddy’s things.”

“This is his stuff?” I ask.

Jay sits cross-legged on the floor. “Yep. I had to hide it from your grandma. Woman wants everything that belonged to him. Even had to hide it from myself.” Her eyes cast down. “I probably would’ve sold some of it back when I was sick.”

That’s what she calls her addiction.

I stare at the box. There’s stuff inside that belonged to my dad. Stuff he actually touched at some point, that may have been a part of his everyday life. Stuff that made him him.

I pull back the flaps of the box. An army-green bucket hat sits on top. It’s dope, and it’s me. It was obviously him, too.

“Law acted like he couldn’t be seen without a hat,” Jay says. “That man would get on my nerves. Didn’t matter where we were going, he needed some kind of hat. He thought his head was shaped funny.”

I’m the same way. I lower the hood of my Pikachu onesie and put the bucket hat on instead. It’s kinda big and a bit floppy, but it’s perfect.

I scoot to the end of the couch and dig some more. There’s a sweatshirt that still has the scent of his cologne lingering on it. There’s a composition notebook. Every page has something written on it in a sloppy handwriting that shouldn’t really be called handwriting. I can read it though. It’s a lot like mine.

There are more notebooks, a worn leather wallet with his driver’s license inside, more shirts and jackets, CDs or DVDs, hard to tell which. At the very bottom of the box, there’s gold.

I lift it out. A glistening crown pendant dangles from a gold rope chain. Diamonds spell out “Law” at the bottom, like the crown sits on top of his name.

Holy. Shit. “Is this real?”

“Yep,” Jay says. “He bought it with his first big check. Wore it all the time.”

This thing has to be worth thousands of dollars. That’s probably why Trey says, “We need to sell that.”

“No, hell no.” Jay shakes her head. “I want Bri to have it.”

“Really?” I say.

“And I want Bri to have food and shelter,” Trey says. “Come on, Ma. Sell it! Hell, it’s worth more than he was.”

“Watch. Your. Mouth,” Jay growls.

When it comes to Dad, Trey’s not a fan. I don’t mean he doesn’t listen to Dad’s music—he doesn’t do that either—but let Trey tell it, Dad died over stupid stuff he could’ve avoided. Trey never talks about him because of it.

Trey tiredly wipes his face. “I . . . yeah.”

He pushes off the couch and goes to his room.

Jay stares at the spot where he sat. “You can have everything in the box, Bri. Your brother obviously doesn’t want any of it. I’m gonna go start dinner.”

Yeah, she’s starting dinner already. Christmas is for eating in Jesus’s honor.

I sit across the couch. The chain’s draped over my hand, and the hat’s on my head. I hold the pendant up against the living room light, and the diamonds glisten like a lake on a sunny day.

The doorbell rings. I pull the curtain back and peek out. Aunt Pooh’s got on a Santa hat and a dabbing-Santa sweater. Her arm is hooked through Lena’s.

I open the door for them. “Where you been?”

Aunt Pooh slides past me into the house. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“Don’t even bother, Bri,” Lena says. “It’s the same as usual.”

Considering half the stuff Lena puts up with from Aunt Pooh, she’s a saint. They’ve been together since they were seventeen. Just like Aunt Pooh has Lena’s lips tatted on her neck, Lena has “Pooh” on her chest.

“I’m grown,” Aunt Pooh says, sitting on the couch. “That’s all Bri need to know.”

Lena plops down extra hard on her lap.

“Ow! Get your big butt off of me!”

“You gon’ tell me you grown, too?” Lena says. She pinches Aunt Pooh, who laughs and winces at once. “Huh?”

“You lucky I love your annoying ass.” Aunt Pooh kisses her.

“Nope. You lucky,” Lena says.

Fact.

Jay comes in, wiping her hands on a towel. “I thought that was y’all.”

“Merry Christmas, Jay,” Lena says. Aunt Pooh just throws up a peace sign.

“I figured Pooh would show up soon as I started on dinner. Where you been anyway?”

“Dang, can y’all get up out my business?” Aunt Pooh asks.

Jay sets her hand on her hip and gives her the say that again if you’re bold look.

Aunt Pooh glances away. It doesn’t matter how old she gets—Jay will always be her big sister.