White Lines Read online

  Sheldon had met lots of women in the course of driving in and out of state. But he fell in love with a woman who didn’t want or have the patience for kids. Despite the voice in his head telling him that he was wrong, he abandoned his own daughters and began a life with the woman he couldn’t live without. But it turned out that the woman wasn’t quite divorced, and in an unexpected altercation, he was killed by her jealous husband with a gunshot to the heart. After being contacted as next of kin, Edna and the girls had buried Sheldon in what was the saddest of funerals. As his wife, she had inherited all of his benefits. But Edna was overcome with grief and disappointment. She felt that she had failed as a wife. She wondered what she had done wrong to cause him to love someone else. Was she not pretty enough? Was her cooking not up to par? Had she asked for too many frivolous things? Was she too talkative? Too conservative? She was full of questions and no answers were forthcoming from the dead man she had loved so much, who was stretched out in a casket at Roosevelt Funeral Home.

  Edna seemed not to notice her daughters’ pain. But Jada and Ava both felt a huge void. After Sheldon died, Edna had sold and given away most of his belongings in order to rid herself of all the pain she seemed to grow more consumed by day after day. All the girls had to remember their father by was a five-by-seven-inch picture that he had taken before he had broken out. Jada would always remember staring at that picture night after night, wishing he would come back. Ava mourned her father’s loss in silence, internalizing her pain. And Edna seemed to miss him, too. She was visibly sad and seemed lonely without him. She no longer entertained company, because now that Sheldon was gone she began hearing all the stories about what a ladies’ man he had been. Edna was embarrassed, and felt like a fool. She imagined that everyone was laughing at her behind her back. She hung her head in shame, and withdrew from almost everybody. Her daughters were the only ones with whom she shared an occasional smile.

  Those were the times in her childhood Jada would always reflect happily on. Edna spent time teaching them to play cards. They played Bingo for loose change and baked cakes together. The girls would help her cook, and Edna would let them brush her long hair. It was a time of contentment for the girls. And yet for Edna, those years were so lonely. She felt incomplete without a man to share her life. This wasn’t how she’d pictured life as a mother. Where was the man in her life? What had happened to happily ever after? Edna longed for the comfort of a man—the comfort of not having to work and make decisions. She longed to relinquish her control. Somehow her daughters sensed their mother’s loneliness. So when she met J.D., the girls thought she had found happiness at last. They thought she would have somebody to help her smile more, and they were excited for her.

  Soon Edna seemed like a whole different woman. She started going to get her hair pressed, and started dressing better and putting on makeup and perfume. Every Saturday she played Betty Wright records. Candy Statton and Evelyn Champagne King. She was happier then. She smiled more, and the house was filled with music instead of so much silence and structure.

  Edna and J.D. had met at her job. She had been working several odd jobs to make ends meet, but she met him when she was working as a waitress at a diner in downtown Brooklyn. He flirted with her until he broke down her wall, and then he wined and dined her. She was so shy and so quiet. But he made her smile. He made her laugh.

  J.D. made Edna feel good. And he was good to her daughters, bringing them candy, and talking with them about whatever was on TV. Everything was fine and dandy, until he moved in. Edna let J.D. move into her two-bedroom apartment on Parkside after they had been together for about eight or nine months. And that’s when the truth came out. He started hitting her about a month or two after he got there.

  The first time J.D. put his hands on Edna, the girls heard their mother fighting with him and they ran in to help her. J.D. was instantly remorseful, and he started apologizing to all of them. He was so sorry, so very sorry. But after that time, he was never sorry. He would get drunk, beat her ass, and then if they were lucky, he would go out for a few hours.

  The girls were little then. Jada was ten, and Ava was eight when he moved in. Edna did what she could to explain what he was doing. She always had an excuse, some lame explanation for his unprovoked rage. When he was in bed sobering up the next day, dead asleep and snoring like a fucking madman, she would attempt to explain his behavior. She told them that he was an alcoholic, that he had a sickness, and you don’t leave people just because they’re sick. She said that he had had a hard life, and he was frustrated sometimes. She would tell them that she provoked him. It was her fault that he hit her. She found some way to justify it, found a way to make it her fault. Either it was because she had decided to get her hair done that day, when the money she spent on her hair could have been J.D.’s carfare to go and look for a job, or it was the pressure of being a black man in America, and never being good enough. Or it was his frustration over never having children of his own. Or maybe it was because he didn’t know how to express his anger any other way. Edna had a million excuses for J.D.’s behavior. But excuses are never good reasons, and being a very mature ten-year-old, Jada could tell that her mother was feeding them bullshit. As they grew older, J.D. turned his fury on them. This was the environment in which the girls became young ladies, trying to sidestep a madman living under their own roof.

  Jada proceeded inside the apartment with Ava right behind her. But when they shut the door and locked it, J.D., visibly drunk, and their mother were standing with their arms folded, looking at the two of them.

  “Where the hell were you two?” J.D. demanded. Jada looked at her mother, hoping she would intervene. But Edna stood there humbly, behind her man as he took charge of the situation.

  Jada spoke up. “We were at the park.”

  “What time did your mother tell you to be in this house?” J.D.’s voice was loud, and Ava moved closer to her older sister.

  Jada fought the urge to tell him that it was none of his muthafuckin’ business where they’d been, and that he wasn’t their father and he had no right to question them. Looking at her mother cowering behind J.D., Jada knew that she wouldn’t be able to hold her tongue much longer. She was tired of living in fear of this son of a bitch. She spoke calmly once more. “We always come home when the streetlights come on. But today—”

  “But shit! You two think your little asses is grown. That’s the fuckin’ problem!” J.D. got in Jada’s face, scowling. “Your mother told you to be in this house before it got dark. And here it is damn near nine o’clock, and you two hos come strolling up in here—”

  “I ain’t no ho!” Jada yelled defiantly, in his face, and not backing down.

  J.D. slapped Jada hard in her face. Edna recoiled, as if she herself had been hit, but said nothing in her daughter’s defense.

  “Don’t hit my sister!” Ava yelled, and stepped between her sister and J.D. J.D. felt that Ava was challenging his authority by stepping in front of him like that, and he whaled on Ava.

  “Oh, you wanna challenge me? Bitch!” J.D. shouted, and he slapped Ava so hard that she staggered back.

  Ava looked stunned at first. Then her expression went feral, and she launched herself at J.D., arms swinging and legs kicking.

  “Stop!” Edna and Jada yelled and screamed, as J.D. and Ava fought. Jada pulled at J.D. But rather than let up, J.D. fought both girls full on, while Edna stood cowering on the sidelines, continuing to beg and plead for them to stop.

  J.D. was bigger, but he was also drunk. And it didn’t take long before Jada and Ava had him on the floor, scratching, biting, and punching him. Ava grabbed the broom leaning against the wall and proceeded to knock J.D. all upside his head with it. Finally, Edna rushed forward and pulled the girls off of him.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop it right now!”

  Jada backed away and stared at her mother in outrage, while Ava continued to whale on J.D. J.D. could beat their asses from one end of the apartment to the
other. But the minute they started to stomp J.D. into the ground their mother came leaping to the rescue.

  Jada reached down and grabbed Ava, who was practically snarling like a demon. J.D. lay across the living room floor, almost passed out from the booze and the beating. With Edna crouched over him, Jada had to hold Ava back to keep her from pouncing on him again. Ava turned her fury on her mother.

  “He gotta go, Ma!” Ava yelled. “Put his punk ass out!”

  Jada looked at her sister in disbelief. Ava never cursed in front of their mother.

  Edna shook her head. “Ava! Stop it. Just calm down for a second—”

  “Calm down for what, Ma?” Jada asked, still panting. “You saw him hit us. So what are you gonna do about it? Every time he hits us, you sit there and act like you can’t do nothing.”

  Ava glared at her mother. “I’m not staying in this house if he’s living here! I can’t live like this, Ma!” Ava started to cry. “He’s gotta go. I’m tired of coming home to fights every day. I’m sick of this nigga putting his hands on us, and there’s nothing we can do about it. He has to get outta here tonight.”

  Edna looked into her daughters’ eyes, and they stood there, staring at her angrily. Edna wondered why they were putting her back against the wall. She felt that they were forcing her to decide between them and the man who took care of her. Edna was truly torn.

  J.D. had gotten off the floor by now, and he stood against the wall getting his bearings. Then, turning to glare at Ava, he said, “You can go. Go ‘head. ‘Cuz I ain’t going nowhere.”

  Edna had never felt so torn. She knew she had an obligation to her daughters. But she was so tired of being lonely, so scared of being single. And while J.D. was far from perfect, in her eyes he was better than nothing. So many nights she had longed for the company of a man. She had needed to be held, needed someone’s touch. J.D. had provided these things in the beginning. And even now, when they had good times, they were really good times. The downside was that the bad times were horrible. And this was one of those times.

  “Girls, go to your room until I tell you to come out,” Edna stood up and said, calmly. Jada began to protest, but Edna raised her hand in warning, and yelled, “Now, Jada!”

  Both girls stormed off to the sanctuary of their bedroom. When they got there, Jada plopped down on her bed and began cracking her knuckles, while Ava walked to the bedroom window and stared outside. Jada finally broke the silence.

  “I hate him,” she said. “I don’t know why she don’t throw his ass out! Just get rid of him. He’s a fuckin’ bully. All he does is fight women. But you never see him out in the street fighting no men. He’s a punk. What the hell does she see in him?” It wasn’t long before Jada realized that she was talking to herself. Ava’s mind was somewhere else as she stared out their bedroom window. Jada knew how it felt to be mad to the point of speechlessness, so she allowed her sister several minutes to herself. But finally the silence became too much to bear.

  “What’s the matter, Ava?” Jada sat on the overturned milk crate that doubled as their chair.

  Ava was still crying, but softly now. She turned to her sister. “I can’t take it anymore, Jada. Every fucking day he starts a fight.” Ava spoke each word slowly, deliberately pronouncing each syllable. “Either he’s beating her ass or he’s beating ours. And she won’t make him leave.” Ava looked completely fed up, and Jada wondered if this evening’s battle had finally pushed her sister over the edge. Jada felt that Ava had never been as strong as she, that Ava couldn’t take as much stress and drama as Jada could. True, Jada was also fed up with the bullshit, but not as fed up as Ava appeared to be now.

  “What are you gonna do? Run away again, Ava? What’s that gonna prove? You already tried that, and Mommy let him stay right here. It won’t fix nothing.” Ava was a professional runaway. She took flight whenever the going got too tough, and her disappearances had always ended when she came home to Edna’s empty promises that J.D. would change, and that things would be different. But they never were.

  Ava stared blankly out the window. “Well, I can’t live like this no more. It’s one thing for him to beat on her. If she’s dumb enough to let him hit her, what the hell! But me and you haven’t done shit to deserve what he does to us.” Ava closed her eyes and shook her head. “And lately he keeps making comments about my body, talking about how big my ass is, and telling me that Mommy don’t have to know if I let him fuck me.” Ava’s voice was almost a whisper, yet the force of her words was like thunder in Jada’s ears. “He waits until I’m by myself, and he corners me. And I want to tell her. But I know she’s gonna take his side, Jada.”

  Jada’s blood was boiling. “How long he been doin’ that to you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Ava shook her head. “He’s crazy, that’s why. That nigga will kill you if you confront him. And Mommy would probably even forgive him for doing that!”

  “Fuck him, Ava! He ain’t nobody. You can’t be scared of him. You want me to say something to him?”

  Ava shook her head, looking downcast. “I gotta tell Mommy. I gotta tell her so she can kick him out.”

  Jada walked over and hugged her little sister. She shook her head in dismay. Ava was only fourteen years old. It didn’t matter how well developed she was. She was still only fourteen years old, and that sick son of a bitch was violating her. It was only verbal right now, but Jada knew it was only a matter of time before J.D. touched Ava. And Jada knew that if he ever did that to her sister, she would not hesitate to kill him. Jada consoled Ava, and they talked about what had been taking place. How J.D. had made her too scared to say anything, telling Ava that her mother would never believe her over him. Jada and Ava cried together, frustrated by what was being done to Ava by a man more than three times her age. They talked until J.D.’s snoring could be heard coming from their mother’s bedroom across the hall. By then it was 11:30 P.M., and Ava—still teary and upset—decided it was time to go and try to talk to their mother. Jada wanted to come, too. Wanted to provide some support for her little sister, but Ava insisted on going alone. She insisted on talking to their mother one-on-one. So Jada watched her sister leave the room, and listened as Ava summoned their mother and the two of them walked down the hall toward the living room.

  Jada sat alone in her room, furious about what her sister had told her. She was disgusted, and so confused. She could hear her mother’s and sister’s voices as they rose and fell when their conversation got heated. Jada couldn’t make out exactly what was being said, but she could tell things had gotten out of hand. J.D. was still snoring loudly, passed out from all the liquor, as Jada climbed out of bed and walked toward the sound of her sister’s anguished voice.

  “Why can’t you believe me? I’m telling you, he does it all the time. Why do you think he always insists that I stay home when you go places—when you go to the supermarket and stuff?”

  “J.D. ain’t like that, Ava. You can’t tell me that he would say those things to you. No way. I know you want me to put him out—”

  “Why can’t you believe your own damn daughter?”

  “Watch your mouth!”

  “He told me you wouldn’t believe me. I kept my mouth shut for so long because I didn’t want to hurt you. But you don’t even care that he’s hurting your kids!”

  “No.” Edna shook her head. “You’re wrong. You misunderstood.”

  “No, I didn’t! He told me he thinks about me when he’s having sex with you and—”

  “Ava, go to bed. I can’t do this right now!”

  “He told me that he wants to feel my pretty lips on his dick.” Ava was in tears. “He’s always talking about my body, and telling me that you never have to know.” Suddenly, Ava’s tears of anguish turned to tears of rage, and she began to breathe heavily. “How come you don’t believe me? I’m telling you the truth!”

  “He couldn’t be thinking of you that way, Ava! You’re only fourteen.”

  “He is! And he’s making me n
ervous around him.”

  “Ava, you would have said something then, if he was doing that to you. Why didn’t you tell me when he said it? Why wait till now? J.D. is not that kind of man. No way. Maybe you want him to look at you like that. You just want him for yourself.”

  Ava stood up and walked closer to her mother, towering over her. “What the fuck would I want with a nigga that beats my ass every day?”

  Edna hauled off and slapped Ava so hard that she saw stars, momentarily. “You watch your mouth in this house, you hear me?” Suddenly, Edna was the angry one.

  Ava couldn’t believe that her mother had slapped her. She stood holding her face, the pain throbbing in her cheek. But that pain was nothing compared to the pain of knowing that her mother wasn’t on her side. She never fought J.D. Not even when he was beating Jada’s ass, or when Ava was being emotionally and verbally molested. But here Edna was slapping her so hard that her face stung something terrible. How could she fight her and never fight the monster sleeping in the bedroom? Ava felt so close to the edge. One last time, she told her mother the truth. “I swear to God, Ma.” Ava was crying no more tears. Now she was firm, her eyes locked on her mother’s. “I swear. I’m not lying.” Ava shook her head. “And he said you wouldn’t believe me. He said you would take his side.”

  Edna stood in silence, staring blankly at her baby daughter.

  “Ma!” Jada made her presence known as she entered the kitchen. “What is wrong with you? Why can’t you listen to her?”

  “Go back to your room, Jada. This is none of your business.” Now Edna was crying, her ears ringing with the allegations against the man she loved, the man she had invited into her home, and into her heart. Her tears turned into gut-wrenching sobs, and Edna cried her eyes out. For a few minutes both girls thought their mother might hyperventilate. They watched Edna’s breath come in audible gasps as she clung to the wall for support. She was coming undone.