Legacy- an Anthology Read online

  Sliding into the driver’s seat of my Corolla, I turn the key and make a left out of the parking lot. But instead of making my way toward the causeway to head home, I turn west on US 17. My memory may be slowly fading, but his address is etched on my temporal lobe: 575 Kingsway Drive.

  I have been to the house at least 40 times since I was diagnosed. Each time I park a safe distance away, wearing a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses and sometimes a tattered Braves ball cap. Not that I think Gregory would recognize me. We haven’t spoken since the day of Lila’s funeral. And the last time I saw him was when the parole board approved his early release from the correctional facility in Columbus. The board reduced his sentence from 10 years to less than two for good behavior and for his “exceptional remorse and intent to reconcile his past by helping other inmates achieve their own sobriety.”

  “What a load of horseshit,” I told Allan when I walked out of the hearing, my heels echoing off the walls in the dark, narrow hallway.

  “People can change, Amelia,” Allan said as he put a comforting hand on the small of my back.

  I looked at him, then looked at the ring on his left hand. It may have been 22 years later, but here I was still inserting myself into a relationship where I didn’t belong with another man who couldn’t fully be mine. “No, Allan. No, we really don’t.”

  I ended things with him that night and vowed I would never let Gregory have his wish to reconcile with Gracie. Thank God he didn’t fight me for her. He seemed to know his life’s sentence was to be estranged from his daughter. But now things are different. Now, sitting in my car watching his house like an amateur PI, I realize maybe I did Gracie wrong. Maybe I did Lila wrong.

  Was Gregory really a bad father? He drank too much at that party. So had Lila. The coroner’s report found ample amounts of alcohol in her system too. They both got in the car and made the decision to drive home with Gracie, in the pouring rain, along a stretch of poorly lit highway that was notorious for being dangerous under the best conditions.

  He said he didn’t remember how the accident happened, only that he woke up and found Gracie lying in his lap, crying without a scratch on her, and Lila unmistakably dead, her body balancing grotesquely through the front windshield.

  When the doorbell rang at three o’clock that morning, three days after Gracie’s second birthday, I crept slowly to the entrance, taking a deep breath before peering through the diamond-shaped window in the center of the door. Good news doesn’t knock on the door in the middle of the night. Good news is never delivered by a state trooper who crosses himself before the door is opened.

  I could have lost them both. But by some miracle, a higher power allowed me to have Gracie. Now it was time to let her go.

  I fiddle with my key ring. My legs feel like jelly, and I’m certain I can’t do this, but then I realize there really isn’t a choice. Unless I want Gracie to end up with strangers, bounced back and forth between one home and the next in the system, I have to do this.

  I know he is there. I know he sleeps straight through the 10 o’clock hour and eats breakfast on his back porch at 11 o’clock every morning. This is because he works the second shift at the chemical processing plant. He doesn’t have a girlfriend or anyone else in his life. In fact, if I am being honest, his life is lonely and pathetic. Exactly how mine would have been had I not been blessed with his daughter.

  When I first started watching him, his pitiful existence justified my contempt. It served him right. Why should he get to have the life he wanted while Lila rotted in the Palmetto Cemetery? But as I returned to his street over and over again and confronted my own past, I realized it could have been me. How many times did I repeat the sins of my father? How many times did I get sloppy drunk when Lila was little? How many times did I drive her around town with the windows rolled down, sipping on that hot liquid from a Pepsi bottle?

  When I approach the door, I hear the television humming. One of those ridiculous daytime talk shows that make you feel like you need to live off of supplements and false advertising, feeding you hope in a bottle. I guess we’re all addicts in a way.

  I press the doorbell and hold my breath. A flash of heat works its way from my chest up to my cheeks. Perspiration dampens my forehead. I used to joke with girlfriends saying I’d rather be dead than have to go through menopause. Who knew the universe had a sense of humor?

  The door swings open, and Gregory stands in front of me, his massive six-foot-five frame bigger than the door’s opening. He looks down at me, shock melting into satisfaction.

  “Amelia,” he says. “I was wondering how many times it would take before you finally decided to get out of that car.”

  ~~~~

  Gracie and I quilt on Sundays now. First thing in the morning after she gets out of bed. She brings me a glass of orange juice, and I drink it in one gulp to wash down the tiny blue and white pills I take, meant to keep me on this earth a little while longer. Once I am up and dressed, we sit together in the living room with her Disney shows playing on the television and our fingers working together. We’ve got a rhythm, and it’s comforting.

  I know I won’t be here to see the woman Gracelyn grows into, but I hope she remembers these times together. I try to teach her a little about life during our quilting sessions. Forget fairy tales. I keep it real. I tell her about her great-grandpa and how he didn’t know how to fight the bad moods. I warn her there will be obstacles in life that may seem impossible to overcome and she may be tempted to push away the pain, but I remind her that one of the greatest gifts we have in life is to feel.

  “Love. Pain. Joy. Sadness. Guilt. Life’s a jumbled mess of feelings, Gracelyn. Don’t be afraid to feel.”

  The evenings are when my symptoms are the worst. It is when the sun sets that I am reminded death is walking toward me. I hope it walks slowly, but some days when the pain is severe and it gets harder to remember the simplest things like what I had for breakfast or my middle name, I quietly urge it to hurry up.

  Gregory takes Gracie in the evenings. The transition hasn’t been as hard as I thought. He’s a natural father. I know he carries guilt with him, and I can’t say I’ve forgiven him entirely. It gives me a little satisfaction to see his shoulders slumped just a bit from the weight of his guilt, but for the most part, I’m learning to let go. I have to for Gracie’s sake. She needs this man in her life. She needs a strong father. One who will guide her through life and help her grow into a beautiful, empowered woman. I only hope that wherever I go, I am allowed to witness her life.

  I’m sitting on the sun porch when I hear the click of the front door. Usually Gracie comes running in at supercharged speed, jumping into my lap. Not tonight. Tonight Gregory carries her in his arms.

  “The fireworks wore her out,” he says.

  I smile. “I could see them from here. Just over the tops of the trees. Fireworks are one of Gracie’s favorite things. Remember that.”

  He smiles. “I’m learning.”

  I stand up and stretch my sore limbs. “There’s something I want to give you.” I reach into the wooden chest near my chair and pull out the quilt. “We finished it this morning. I want you to keep it tucked away somewhere until she is older.”

  Gregory frowns at the colorful collection of fabric scraps sewn together to create a one-of-a-kind pattern. I run my hand over the motif quilting that is really quite impressive for a girl of Gracie’s age. There are a few mistakes here and there, but it’s pretty much flawless.

  “I thought this was an order?”

  “Oh goodness, no. I dissolved the business months ago. This was my gift to my granddaughter, a way for her to remember me and our special times together.”

  Gregory starts to cry, and I step down firmly on his toe. “Stop it. There’ll be plenty of time for crying later. Right now let’s just celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  I look down at the quilt and realize the configuration of our lives is never perfect. That sometimes our colors cla
sh and our patterns may be misshapen, but we do the best we can with what we have. “Life. It’s short. We have to enjoy it while we can. Make sure Gracie knows this.”

  Gregory nods. I walk him to his car and watch him drive away. I don’t know how much longer I have here, but I feel good about moving on. I may not have much to leave Gracie, but I hope she’ll feel my love wrapped around her when she needs it the most.

  Four Days Forever

  J.J. Hensley

  Friday

  A shotgun is a formidable weapon. The pain from the impact in my torso reminds me of that fact. It is also a simple weapon, which can be made ready to fire in one deliberate motion and then discharged with a simple pull of the trigger. Assuming the safety switch is in the correct position, what follows is deafening and eternal. Along with the smoke, the scent of discharged rage fills the living room of this duplex on the east side of Pittsburgh. The neighbors will dial 9-1-1, and the cops and EMTs will try to keep the response time under five minutes. As the effects radiate through me, I realize the cops and medics don’t matter because I’ll be gone.

  In a split second, past decisions became today’s consequences. All of this may seem sudden, but it’s the end of a longer road that had been lined with warning signs. People sometimes see a lightning bolt and forget it’s the knifepoint of what was once a slow, momentum-building storm. I suppose a personal apocalypse is never as sudden as it seems. Somewhere in days past, a fuse was lit and actions began demanding reactions.

  Yes, a shotgun is a formidable weapon.

  24 hours earlier

  Thursday

  I heard it in Jerrod’s voice when he cancelled on me.

  “Can we go some other time? I’ve got this project for school, and it’s due tomorrow.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  His words were fine, but the tone was wrong. When you come from a family of hard men saying hard things while drinking hard liquor, the tiniest hints of sorrow or regret stand out like wounds waiting to be drowned in salt. We build up psychological and emotional walls—it’s what we do. You have to shape and fortify these walls because the kinds of people you deal with are quick to exploit any exposed cracks in your disposition and transform them into scars on your face.

  “We can go tomorrow and get something to eat on the way,” I suggested.

  He paused a beat too long before answering, “Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll call you tomorrow, OK?”

  “Sure,” I said again before hanging up and grabbing my keys.

  I’m not accustomed to following my younger brother around. Even at the age of 16, he’s pretty good at looking out for himself.

  When I was his age, Mom was already long gone, and Pop was spending his nights pounding on deadbeats for a bookie and his days pounding on me. Jerrod managed to avoid much of the violence, and that was OK as far as I was concerned.

  I’d like to think the reason he dodged some of the smacks was because I would do my best to make sure the back of Pop’s hand found my face rather than my brother’s. But the truth is Jerrod has always had a way about him. He’s smart, and not just street smart like Pop and me. Jerrod’s got that spark that threatens run-of-the-mill degenerates. The small-time punks get insecure when they see some kid might be able to do more than break thumbs or run a short con.

  Those guys are a hassle, but it’s the real players who are the threat to my brother. To the players, the spark is intriguing because they see a kid who rose above being an alcoholic knuckle-dragging thug like his father and can become more than a respected, but relatively small-time, operator like his older brother.

  If Jerrod has one weakness, it’s that he’s not a great liar. That’s why I knew something was up when he cancelled on me for the movies.

  I was never great in school, but Jerrod’s always been a good student and he’s talked about college. When I was old enough to defend myself against Pop, I made it clear that Jerrod would be getting an education and making a decent name for himself. But last April, on my 20th birthday, Pop had suggested taking Jerrod on a collection job.

  “It’s just to show him how the world works,” he said. “I did the same thing when you were his age, and you turned out all right.”

  That was when, without a second of hesitation, I slugged my father in the gut. Pop never brought up the idea again.

  Looking back now, I remember glancing at my brother while Pop tried to catch his breath. I’ve been trying to tell myself Jerrod’s expression was one of disbelief, but now I suspect something different and dangerous had been dwelling underneath the surprise. Had there been a trace of disappointment in his face?

  After the punch, Pop had tried to straighten up and play it tough, but then I reminded him about the promise I had made two days prior. That’s when I saw the fear deep behind his eyes—it was something I’d never seen in him before.

  The crack in his wall was visible, and he knew what I’d do if I found out he was dragging Jerrod into the gutter.

  ~~~~

  Nobody makes a postcard of Pittsburgh in November. The chill of the rain hits your bones and sticks with you until March. Windshields fog and blur, the lines on the road fade into the asphalt, and the last thing anyone thinks about is to check for a tail. I watched Jerrod come out of the house and start up Pop’s old Buick. My heart sank when Pop slinked into the passenger seat before the car pulled out into the evening traffic. I followed them down Penn Avenue and then paralleled them as they took secondary streets into Forest Hills. I lost them for a few minutes when I got caught at a light, but then I noticed the Buick in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.

  Finding an inconspicuous spot in an office complex down the street, I parked and shut off the lights of my Dodge. At a diagonal angle, I watched the Buick, the occasional passing headlights revealing two people in the car. The Buick had been backed into a spot in the manner with which I was all too familiar. My mind flashed back to when I was 16 and driving that car with Pop sitting beside me, teaching me the finer points of casing a place we would hit a couple of days later.

  As I watched blue exhaust drift up from behind the Buick, my hands strangled the steering wheel. After a while, Jerrod and Pop pulled away, and I waited 10 minutes before backing my car into the spot that had been vacated. My wipers swept away waves of water long enough for me to see a gold exchange shop on the corner of a strip mall. Not a high-end jewelry store that carries a lot of diamonds or anything like that. Nope. Pop was having Jerrod help him rob what was nothing more than a fucking pawn shop on steroids.

  “Idiot!” I said aloud as I pounded the top of the wheel. After receiving the gut punch on my birthday, Pop had sworn to keep Jerrod out of the business. No cons, no collections and certainly no strong-arm jobs. Now that idiot was looking to get my brother shot or locked up by holding up some nickel-and-dime gold exchange. And for what kind of take? A few thousand in cash—if they could get in the safe. They would undoubtedly pull a smash and grab, and pick up some jewelry while the alarms blared in the background. They’d wear masks, but cameras were all over those joints, and even the slightest shred of evidence can give the cops probable cause when dealing with people like us.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised, because Jerrod’s behavior had changed over the past year. He talked less about school and got in more fights. It’s to be expected. When you are drowning in the life, it’s only so long until you have to take some short breaths. But this job was a deep swallow in murky waters. I had promised my brother I’d look out for him and keep him straight. Pop had promised to not steer Jerrod wrong. Promises must be kept.

  48 hours earlier

  Wednesday

  “Two thousand is the best I can do,” said Marcus from behind the card table he called a desk.

  It was always the same routine with him. He’d try to lowball me, and I’d get the price worked up to within 10 percent of the asking price. Going through this dog and pony show every time with your fence is annoying as hell, but as long as you get clos
e to your asking price you stick with people you trust.

  I leaned back in my chair. “I got this stuff from a score in the North Hills, not a flea market. Thirty-two hundred and I’ll have something else for you soon.”

  I was lying to him, and he knew it. No thief with any amount of sense advertises where he takes scores. This was the usual course of business for the back room of Riverside Pawn. Lies, stolen goods and cash—each having significant value—were exchanged along with words spoken in hushed tones.

  “Maybe I can give you twenty-two,” he said in a low voice, while glancing at a monitor to see if anyone was coming into the shop. “But unloading these coins isn’t like getting rid of flat screens. The cops and insurance people will be looking for them to turn up.”

  “You know I know that, and you know how much they’re really worth. I’m giving you a bargain price because you’re going to have to sit on them or melt them. I don’t really care.”

  Marcus smiled. “You’re an odd man, Ray. You know that, don’t you? You bring in great stuff but never want to shop it around for the big money. Unload and cash out seems to be your motto. You like the high-risk jobs but don’t want to try for the high-risk money.”

  “It’s my call,” I said. “So you don’t need to be talking to my father about our business, understand?”

  He looked mildly ashamed and shrugged a fat shoulder.

  “Three thousand,” I said.