“What are you and Ava doing? I can see. I’m not stupid, JJ.”
“I don’t know exactly,” Jay said unable to keep the smile off his face. “We have to talk it all out.”
“Have you been seeing her since you got here?”
“No, no. Nothing like that.”
“I told you to go slow. I told you she’s not in any shape to be making changes.” Sylvia sighed. “You understand what I’m saying. I know you do.”
“You don’t have to whisper, Sylvia. She can’t hear us.” Jay spoke in a calm way that infuriated Sylvia. She tried to be reasonable but it was all she could do not to rush to Jay and yank his arms off his hips.
“Listen,” Sylvia said not sure what she wanted to say. Ava had always been lonely and sensitive, always taking in stray people, deciding that she could fill up their lack with her lack. Henry and JJ, and now JJ again. Maybe even Sylvia should count herself in the list, but she brushed off that thought—a problem for another day. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things. She’s got a husband. He may not be shit, but he’s hers.”
“I’ve been thinking, Mrs. Sylvia. Why do the good people have to do the right thing?” Jay said. “The assholes don’t care and they get what they want.”
“Who will be the good people then, JJ?”
“I’m sorry. It looks fast, but it’s not for me, Sylvia.”
“Is she pregnant?”
“I shouldn’t say. She needs you.”
“You think I need you to tell me that? You think you’re special because you want something? What happened to you young people? Hell not young, middle-aged brats. You want everything and you think you can get it because you want it.” Sylvia turned from Jay. She needed to get to her own home, put her feet up on her own ancient couch, and watch her own television. People Sylvia’s age didn’t expect so much. They understood limitations. They accepted no, they adjusted to no damn way, even when it hurt, even when it meant nothing else mattered. They made their lives and didn’t worry all the time about what else they could have made if the universe got shook out and emptied and reset. How had all the forty-year-old fools misunderstood?
“Are you telling me life is hard? I think I know that by now.”
“Do you? Don’t listen to me, JJ. I’m just the Negro that sits by the door.”
“What?”
“Pay me no attention. I don’t even exist.” Sylvia raised her hands above her head—a surrender. “I’m going home.”
Jay rushed to her, grabbed her hand awkwardly, an action that surprised them both.
“JJ,” Sylvia began, “this is truly something, honey. You did it.” Tears stung Sylvia’s eyes. She was not a crier. She shook her head no to will the tears away.
“Sylvia, I want you to be happy for me and for Ava.”
Sylvia took a deep breath. She would not be a crier now either. “Y’all have lost your damn minds,” Sylvia said and started back up the stairs. “Ava! Come on,” Sylvia called. She was breathless, much too tired to have just climbed the eight short steps.
Ava slumped in the hall, her shoes and socks off, her hair in a fuzzy halo like a half-sleep child. “Mama, what’s wrong? Are you crying?” Ava looked to Jay for an explanation. He would not return her stare.
“I’m fine. You all need help. Let’s go.”
Ava did not move from the spot. “I’m going to stay here, Mama. Jay will bring me home.”
Sylvia hesitated, not quite sure what to say that would make a difference. “Ava, come home with me. This is not where you want to be right now.”
“I’ll come down with Jay, Mama. I’ll be there soon.”
Sylvia wasn’t sure what a good mother did now. “You want dinner?”
“Mama, I’m fine.”
Sylvia turned to go. She wasn’t sure if she should listen to her daughter or to every warning voice in her head.
“Everything’s okay, Mama,” Ava said.
Sylvia slipped on her beat-up shoes as Ava and Jay watched. She would not return their stares. “Mama, stay for a while,” Ava began. Sylvia turned away from them and opened the massive wooden door. They were still young enough to believe in happy endings. That final thought as she turned from them was the most painful yet. She closed the door behind her.
27
Ava’s head was sweaty and hot on Jay’s chest. He shifted her gently onto the pillow beside him, the bottoms of their legs still touching. He had thought he might make himself a peanut butter sandwich, but he didn’t feel like moving. From the first words out of Ava’s mouth, Jay knew that she would sleep with him. Ava had a scraped-out inside that her voice betrayed—he would know it anywhere over any number of years. Sex was not the only goal, but it was a start, a first step. They could pretend they had the power to fix their lives. The trick was making themselves believe it. That’s what joy is, isn’t it? Belief for a little while that you have the power to mend everything?
Jay closed his eyes and tried to keep still. The house still smelled of fresh paint, chemical and new. He had never lived in a new house or even a new apartment before, always in borrowed rooms, somebody else’s dust to clear away. The rooms echoed his movement, talked to him as he shifted. People thought houses were haunted, but Jay knew better. The ghosts live with the people, slough off little by little into new spaces, reassemble in a quick minute, returned immediately to you if you tried to leave them behind. Let them rest.