Page 29 of See No Evil

“I think you told me this before, but just in case. Brothers or sisters?”

“I got a bunch of half brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico. Most of ’em I haven’t met. Just seen pictures. A dead brother. Tarik. Same mother and father. I got my sister. Mel. Same parents as me, too. We’re close. We have our issues, but I know she’d never do something to try and hurt me on purpose. You got any brothers and sisters?” He handed her back the cigarette.

“Mmm hmmm. A lot of ’em.” Her eyes met his, then she began fiddling with her cuticles.

“How old were you when you went into foster care?” he asked, curious about her childhood. He wondered if they had the same scars and bruises. Taken a tumble that messed up their mental health for life.

“Um, the first time, I think I was three. Then, after that, it was off ’nd on. Was in the system for a while. That’s when I learned to cook, and realized I loved it. I was with a foster parent, Ms. Jenkins, who taught me how to make all kinds of food. She was so nice…” She lit up while talking about the woman. “I wished she’d adopted me when I was in her care, but I wasn’t up for adoption, and she was older, in her seventies. The agency didn’t even recommend it to her.” She shrugged. “My mama got custody of me again, but I hated leaving Ms. Jenkins’ house. Most of the foster homes I was in were bad or they didn’t care if I was there or not. The foster care system is broken. Who taught you how to cook? Your mama? Your father?”

He noticed how quickly she switched topics. Let them go. Drop to the floor.

“My mother can’t cook to save her life, and my father was barely around. I taught myself.”

“Were your parents married?”

“Yes, but the marriage was short. They lived together for a while before they got married, but by the time I was six, and my sister, just a toddler, he was pretty much gone. He’d come by. Then, he eventually moved back to Puerto Rico and married some other lady. We barely saw him after that. Were your parents married?”

“Yeah, but they shouldn’t have been.” She laughed mirthlessly.

“Why were you in foster care?”

She looked down at her hands again as if she didn’t know what to do with them.

“Abuse. My daddy was messin’ with me.”

A sickening feeling washed over him, and his stomach knotted up.

“Did your mama know?” He kept drinking his beer, but every sip felt like lead going down.

“She didn’t know until the authorities got involved. I never told her directly back then. My mama wasn’t doing nothing about it when she first found out, because she was on drugs.”

“I bet that motivated you even more to try and be the best mother you can be to your daughter.”

“Yeah, it does. I definitely saw whatnotto do when it comes to being a parent. Sometimes, we accidentally follow our mothers’ and fathers’ footsteps. It’s hard, you know?” He nodded. “Got to break that cycle. Generational curses. I don’t hate my mother though. She was a victim, too.”

She looked away, and he could tell she didn’t really want to get into it. This discussion was taking her somewhere dark and cold. Somewhere she didn’t wish to travel at the mention of her mother’s struggles. On second thought, perhaps, he was reading her wrong. Maybe she in fact was okay with talking about it, but didn’t want to ruin a good time.

“What about your father?” His heart beat a bit faster, and a lump formed in his throat as he waited. Waited for her to explain how she became so strong, in spite of it all.Tell me.

“What about my father?” she repeated, as if needing to hear the question again before answering. “I hated him for a long, long time, Legend. But then, I decided to do something that wasbetterthan hate him.”

“And what was that?”

“I decided to help mentor other little children who’d been abused, too. So now, a few times a year, the organization I’mwith, we volunteer and speak at schools.” He nodded, a feeling of pride now surging within. “I talk about my story with the children, and how I overcame it. We teach the kids how to tell an adult about what is happening, and not keep it bottled in. We talk about the guilt that comes along with it, and share our stories. We discuss the legal system, too. I hated my father for so long, but I hated myself more.”

“Why’s that?” He passed the cigarette to her. She twirled it between her fingers, then puffed.

“I felt like it was my fault that my family was torn apart from the counselor calling the police. All of us were sent to different foster care homes, because I told. I even had a sister who blamed me for it all, and said I made it up. She and I still don’t talk to this day, even though she knows I wasn’t lying, because another of our sisters admitted years later that he’d done the same thing to her.”

“That’s sick… to even look at a child, yo’ own kin at that, and see them that way.”

“It’s a bad illness, and it’s pervasive. Until the system changes, all we can do is protect ourselves and help protect the children comin’ up. That hatred for myself? Nah, I couldn’t let that continue anymore though. I learned to love myself all over again. I wasn’t going to let him stop my shine. Stop me from seeing thebestin me. I was worth lovin’. I was worth saving.”

Chills ran up and down his spine. Right there, she testified. She rose up from the ashes and burned bright.

“I had eyes, I could see. I could see his evil, too, Legend, and when I shined that light on it, they tried to shame me for it. Tried to make me walk in my own shadow, and pretend I hadn’t felt what I felt, heard what I heard, and seen what I’d seen.” He swallowed. “Ain’t nothin’ like losing hope. If you can’t trust your own damn daddy, who can you trust?! Myself. That’s who!”

She smiled big and wide, those dimples deepening and calling to him. Her eyes sheened over—not with anger or sadness, but with pure, unadulterated joy. She swayed her arms in the air and popped her fingers to ‘Track Star,’ a song by Mooski.

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