The Blackbirds (46 page)

Ericka made it halfway home.

She was turning on Crenshaw, this night being her last, when her cellular rang.

She was about to reject the call, but she took a breath and answered, prepared for negativity, for words that would come as a fit, as an attack, almost like a recurrence of the disease that lived between them. Their silence after the hurricane had been their remission and now that period was over. They had their own cancer, and it had spread over the years, had spread while they had been birling like lumberjacks, each hoping the other fell first.

Ericka anticipated a paroxysm of anger.

But the voice on the other end of the phone was surprisingly soft and kind.

Mrs. Stockwell said, “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

Ericka pulled over.

Seven letters crippled her.

Two simple words being repeated over and over made her break down. Two words. Words she had wanted to hear from her mother for decades.

Now it felt like too much, too little, too late.

Ericka said, “I'm sorry, too.”

“You were a child. I was not a very competent mother.”

“You did as you were taught to do.”

“I should have done better.”

“I'm sorry for not being the perfect daughter. I'm sorry I wasn't a better daughter.”

“If only your father had been part of your life.”

“I'm sorry for putting you in that position.”

“What would you have done?”

“I don't know.”

“I did what your father told me to do.”

“I know.”

“It has burned inside of me every day.”

“You told Dr. Debra things I didn't know.”

“These words Dr. Debra has written, these memories, they have given me so much pain.”

“That is part of our truth.”

“Each word hurts me to read.”

“Those are but a few chapters that make up many chapters.”

“I may not have always liked you, but I have always loved you.”

“Have you, Mrs. Stockwell?”

“Not a day has gone by when I haven't wished things were better between us.”

“I don't like you either, but I love you, too.”

“You don't have to say that. I know you hate me.”

“You're my mother. That is undeniable. That is inescapable. I love you. Even after tonight. I'm glad that one of us didn't end up in the grave before there was some sort of an apology from the other. I was a child. I just wanted love. I've never felt loved, until now.”

“Ericka.”

“The cancer is back.”

“No.”

Ericka smiled. “It's done a boomerang and come back. Outside of Kaiser, no one knows but us, Mrs. Stockwell. I don't know why I'm telling you of all people. But it's back. It's back and it's aggressive.”

“What's the plan?”

“Like you said before, maybe this is God's plan. Fighting makes no
sense. My arms are too short to box with God. He doesn't fight fair. And no matter who He fights, He always wins.”

“This isn't God.”

“What is this, if this is not God?”

“It's a disease.”

“One that has no cure. Billions in research, for what?”

“But what is your plan? Have you started treatment?”

“No. I have not.”

“Why not?”

“I can't go through this again. I made it to my happy place. I finally made it all the way to happy, and I don't want to stick around until I end up back at sad. I made it far enough.”

“What does that mean? What do the doctors want to do at this point?”

“I'm not going to rot on the inside while they put gallons of poison in my body again. I don't want to be cut open, and given chemotherapy and radiation. I don't want to die that way. My life is but a short story.”

“Ericka.”

“Bye, Mom.”

“Ericka.”

“I'm glad we sort of sorted this out the best we could.”

“Ericka.”

“What?”

“Let me take you to breakfast tomorrow.”

“To breakfast?”

“Let's go to Gladstones. We can sit and try to talk. Or not talk.”

“We haven't done that in decades.”

“Not since you were nine or ten.”

“I liked that place when I was a child.”

“Let's sit by the ocean. Let's break bread. Let's figure this out.”

“It's too late for that.”

“Please?”

“Why are you trying to be my mother now?”

“Please? Let me try to be something to you.”

“It's too late.”

“It's never too late.”

“For us it is.”

“Ericka—”

“Bye.”

Ericka pulled up to the gate of their quad and sat outside Little Lagos for an eternity. She parked by the pool. Ericka left her engine humming as she went to her apartment. Inside, she stood for a moment, and looked at material things. She went to the bedroom and picked up Hemingway. Three envelopes were on the dining room table.

One for Destiny. One for Indigo. One for Kwanzaa.

Ericka whispered, “Please don't be angry with me for being the weakest Blackbird. But I am happy now. I should leave when I am happy. Not when I am dying and unhappy. I don't want to become a burden.”

She headed back outside. She didn't lock her door.

Destiny's living room window was open.

Ericka heard laughter, both male and female.

Then Destiny Jones turned off her lights. She closed her windows.

It was Destiny's birthday.

She was the only Blackbird in their nest tonight.

She had never had a man over to her apartment.

She was truly being herself. She had opened up her world.

Ericka smiled.

When she got downstairs, Olamilekan was parking outside the gate.

Shotgun in hand, Ericka went to him. He had the same face Indigo's father had had not long ago. She wondered how many men around the world would wear that same face tonight.

Ericka said, “She's not here.”

“She's with Yaba.”

“She's going to marry him.”

“I don't want her to marry him.”

“You had your chance. Now, be a gentleman and bow out. Even if she doesn't marry Yaba, set her free. You're not husband material. You're not even boyfriend material, not for a girl like her. If you love her, then respect her, and if you respect her, let her go. She is young. She is learning. She deserves better than you, and you know she deserves better than you. You have offered her nothing but confusion. You've made her angry, left her perplexed, and now there is a man who at least wants a second try at being the kind of man she deserves.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box. “I have a ring. I bought her a better ring than the one Yaba put on her finger tonight. Look at this. Look at this ring. It is like the ring Jay-Z gave Beyoncé.”

“You bought that under duress. That blood diamond is your Hail Mary.”

“I bought this for her. They opened a shop after-hours so I could buy it tonight.”

“This isn't a contest, Olamilekan. This isn't a game where she's the prize. She doesn't go to the highest bidder, but to the one who loves her the best. If you love her like you say you do, set her free. If she calls you, don't answer. That is the kind of love she needs from you. That is real love. If she texts you, don't return the text. De-friend her on Facebook.”

He pulled at his face.

Ericka said, “She's with Yaba. She will probably be with Yaba all night, and then maybe the rest of her life. You saw the video. She accepted the ring. She's engaged. You can move on.”

“I've lost her.”

“I hope you have. If she loses you, then she can find herself.”

“I've lost her to Yaba.”

“When you make it a game, someone has to lose.”

“I had her.”

“You did. The problem was she never had you. You wanted all of her to yourself while you were not willing to give her all of you. That's not love, Olamilekan. For her, that was slavery. If not slavery, with all the
women you were seeing, with all your side chicks, she was on your plantation
sharecocking
. She's too good to be sharing any man's cock.”

He paused. “I had the most remarkable woman God ever made.”

“And now you don't have her. Indigo is a true queen. She is royalty. If you don't protect the queen, you lose the queen. Lesson learned.”

Olamilekan went to his car, eased in. A moment later he took off speeding. Right away, an Inglewood cop lit up his siren and pulled him over.

Ericka went to her car, put Hemmingway in the trunk, made sure she had shotgun shells, and drove away. With her antepenultimate and penultimate tasks competed, a numbness did its best to cover her as she headed toward her end, toward her ultimate destination.

Even now she was more worried about Indigo than she was herself.

Ericka didn't know that Indigo's mother had cloned her husband's second phone in order to find out about his affair with Mrs. Stockwell. She didn't know that Indigo had done the same and had cloned Olamilekan's phone and had accessed his messages and social media.

By sunrise, as Indigo rested on a sofa in Pacific Palisades with Yaba, the engagement ring on a table and not on her finger, as too many talks needed to be had and tradition would have to be followed if those talks were indeed productive, she would take a page from Victor Cruz's fiancée's handbook and send messages to the two hundred and forty-five women Olamilekan had on standby. By noon, Tiger Woods would look like a saint. Indigo would delete every email she had written him, would purge every text, and erase every photo of herself first. If Indigo didn't know Destiny Jones, if she wasn't sensitive to what her friend had gone through, all of the porn Olamilekan had recorded between himself and so many women, she would have made it look like it had come from Olamilekan's account and posted it all over social media.

Indigo didn't want to punish the women, only let them know who they were dealing with.

She realized that Olamilekan was a hero to many, as were many celebrities, but in her life he had only been a villain. If Indigo had been drowning in her own tears, he would not have thrown her a life vest, only more lies, each heavier than a blue whale.

*   *   *

Ericka Stockwell had to focus. She needed to continue with her own mission. She would silence the disease that lived within.

With her shotgun named Hemingway, she would do like the writer Hemingway had done in his final moment.

It was time to check out.

This was the promise she had made to herself.

She would leave when she was ready, not when cancer was done playing with her.

In life she had suffered enough.

No more.

The civil war inside her body, she knew that it would be too much.

It would be too much for the body.

Too much for the mind.

She would drive east on the 10 freeway, meet the sun in Arizona, and dare that ball of fire. Then she would load the shotgun and have breakfast with Hemingway. More like have Hemingway for breakfast.

She cried.

She pulled over to the side of the freeway and rubbed her hands over her head.

She had friends.

She had a man whom she loved.

Ericka turned back around, drove past homeless encampments that sprung up each night, paused as fire trucks and emergency vehicles zoomed by, then drove the speed limit with helicopters flying overhead, drove as misogynistic and misandrist music laced with creative rhymes and uncreative profanity bumped in cars all around her.

Tonight it all sounded beautiful. The world she lived in was so alive.

She drove her emotions through danger zone after danger zone, went back to Baldwin Hills, parked exactly where she had stopped before, then picked up her phone and stared at it for several minutes before she blew her nose, wiped away tears, and dialed a number stored as “Beel-Zebub.”

Mrs. Stockwell answered on the first ring. “Miss Stockwell?”

“Mrs. Stockwell. I'll go to Gladstone's with you.”

“We need to try to see if we can get beyond the damage that has been done.”

“But not tomorrow. It's too soon. After what you did tonight, it's too soon.”

“When?”

“Next week. Or the week after. Let's see where I am, both physically and mentally.”

“Okay.”

“Keep away from that man. His wife will kill you, and not because of him, but because of the kind of person you have become. She has seen that. You can't pray yourself out of everything. You smiled in her face and had her husband in your bed. She will kill you.”

“Okay.”

“I saved your life tonight. Which is ironic. There is a lot of irony in there. But I did.”

“And I thank you. I mean that.”

“You need Jesus.”

“Pray for me, Miss Stockwell. Please, pray for me.”

“Sure. Pray for me Mrs. Stockwell, and I'll pray for you.”

Ericka hung up.

Ericka jogged toward Mr. Jones's condo, punched in the code to the gate, then dug her heart-shaped key ring from her purse, a key ring with one key, and used that key to get in the front door. She turned the alarm off, then reset it to alert them if a door or window opened.

She called out, “Mr. Jones?”

There was no answer.

She went to the kitchen, saw dirty dishes, shook her head, rinsed those off, and put those and the dirty plates in the dishwasher. She wiped off the counter, then saw pages on the table by the sofa. Mr. Jones had printed out the twenty-four hottest restaurants in L.A. Cassia. Esters Wine Shop and Bar. Dudely Market. Belcampo Meat Company. Hopdoddy Burger Bar.

He left Ericka a note:

We should go eat at all of these places.

He had made plans for them. He wanted her around in the future.

She had been so preoccupied she had failed to notice something else. There was an African-American themed envelope and a single red rose. Ericka saw her name scribbled on the envelope. She opened it. Inside was a beautiful card. An African American man and woman caressing. She smiled at the image a moment and then opened the card.

Miss Stockwell,

I love you.

I want the world to know I love you.

Don't say anything back.

Let the universe absorb that which I feel for you.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Mr. Jones

She put her left hand over her mouth.

Again there were tears.

She had almost missed this. She felt so stupid.

She whispered, “Fuck you, cancer. Fucking fuck you.”

She headed downstairs. Ericka undressed, reached in her drawer, and pulled out a plain black T-shirt. She went to the bathroom, showered again with her soaps, dried off with her beautiful red towel, put on lotion, gargled with her mouthwash, used the dental floss they shared, then brushed her teeth with her electric toothbrush.

Ericka eased in bed with her lover, her man, with Mr. Jones, crawled in on her side of the bed, the side of the bed away from the door, eased under the covers and relaxed into the queen-size nest where she felt safe.

She gave Mr. Jones baby kisses, awakened him with soft laughs and softer words.

She rubbed his chrome dome.

He pulled her close, kissed her head a dozen times, gave her forehead kisses and told her how much he adored her. They kissed like lovers. From the start, she had always kissed him like each kiss could be the last. She made love to him each time the same way.

He asked, “Why are you crying?”

“Because I'm happy.”

“You see your card?”

“It's amazing.”

“It reminded me of us.”

“What you wrote . . . that was beautiful.”

“Wanted to say that since before Vegas.”

“The rose is beautiful.”

“Are you okay?”

“I'm happy and I don't want to stop being happy.”

Soon she pulled off her T-shirt and he pulled off his T-shirt and boxers. She spooned against him. Skin to skin. Her love for him was strong.

He said, “Your birthday is next.”

“Yeah. My birthday is next.”

“What do you want to do for your birthday?”

Her love for him was worth living for. She wasn't done yet. She wasn't done loving. She wasn't done fighting. She wasn't done winning. She wasn't ready to fade away. She wasn't ready to let this universe go.

Too many people needed her.

A classroom of sixth graders needed her.

And God knew that Indigo, Kwanzaa, and Destiny needed her.

Her mother needed her. Her mother had always needed her.

Mr. Jones needed someone to take care of him.

She had to be here for him. She knew he would be here for her.

No matter how bad, she knew he would be there.

The tears wouldn't stop.

She had to sit up.

Mr. Jones sat up too.

He held her, rubbed her head, and kissed her.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She felt his kisses absorb her angst, fear, and pain.

This was love. This was real love.

Again he asked, “What do you want to do for your birthday?”

She smiled. “I want to live.”