“Yes, ma’am. They can stay with me until Sweetie gets herself together.”
The caseworker lifted her eyes from her folder, looked at me, and smiled. “Wonderful,” she said. “That’s just wonderful.” We made a plan that I’d take the girls for the night and the caseworker would come by my place the next day to walk me through the paperwork for getting temporary guardianship. As she turned to go back inside she added, “It’s usually so difficult to find someone willing to take four kids at once. The girls are very lucky.”
In the living room Sweetie was spinning around like a wind-up toy, picking up filthy baby clothes, mismatched flip-flops and broken toys, and shoving everything into a garbage bag. “I got the kids’ things together,” she said. “Clothes and whatnot.”
“I don’t need all that,” I told her. “I’ll get them some new clothes.”
“But I got everything right here.” Sweetie held out the trash bag and I watched a cockroach make its way up the side. “Take it!”
“Okay,” I sighed, setting the bag down by the front door.
Then she handed me the baby. “Her name’s Jonelle,” Sweetie said. The girl was tiny, with milky eyes and dried mucus crusted around her nose. She smelled like she hadn’t been changed all day. Sweetie turned to her older daughters on the sofa. She knelt down in front of them and opened her arms wide like she wanted to give them all a hug. LaDontay pushed the younger ones toward their mama but hung back on the sofa, her eyes darting between me, the caseworker, and her mama, like she was trying to figure out which one of us she should trust. She bit her lip and her eyes filled with tears.
Sweetie didn’t notice. She clutched Diamond and Destiny. “Y’all be good for your auntie,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m gonna see y’all soon. I just need to clean up the place a little. That’s all. I just gotta clean up.”
“Okay, c’mon, let’s go.” I held out my hand for the girls. “Tell your mama you love her. We gonna go see your cousins now.”
I left the trash bag full of filthy clothes and took the dirty kids. Sweetie stood in the middle of her living room, surrounded by garbage, and watched us go.
When I walked in my front door, I was relieved to see my niece Cece had come by and was sitting on the sofa, watching TV. “Thank you, Jesus,” I said under my breath. Then I called to her, “Girl, get over here. I need some help.”
Cece stood up, holding her nose. “What’s that smell?”
I didn’t answer, I just handed her Jonelle, whose shit-soaked diaper was hanging off her like a second booty. “These are Sweetie’s kids,” I explained. “They’re gonna stay with us a while.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Cece asked, holding Jonelle away from her body like I’d handed her a ticking bomb.
“Use your head!” I answered. “These babies need a bath.” I told Cece to put all the girls’ clothes in a trash bag and tie up the top. “And make sure they don’t touch nothing,” I added. Then I went to look for Michael to ask him to run to the store for diapers and formula.
I found him in our bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his shoes. On the floor in front of him was his khaki green army-issue duffel bag, packed up and cinched at the top, like he was moving out.
I knew Michael was mad when I left for Sweetie’s, but I figured he was just being dramatic, like Denzel, putting on a show to make his point. “What the hell?” I said eyeing his packed bag on the floor. Michael didn’t say a word. He just stood up, grabbed his duffel bag, and slung it over his shoulder.
“Wait . . .” I said. “Are you leaving?”
“What does it look like?” he said, walking past me and heading for the door.
“Wait!” I called after him. “You asking me to choose between you and those babies? Is that what you want?”
“I’m not asking you to choose,” he said without turning around. “I’m just telling you this is too much.”
I followed Michael down the front walk and out to his Nissan. He opened the door and got inside. Without thinking, I ran in front of his car with my hands in the air.
“Don’t go!” I yelled.
“Move out the way, Pat.”
“You can’t leave!”
Michael started his car.
“Don’t make me choose!” I yelled again. I could see him behind the wheel, stony faced and staring straight ahead. I realized at that moment I would do anything to make him stay.
Michael and I had been living together almost a year and I’d come to count on him being there like the sun in the sky. No matter what happened on Ashby Grove—if it was a slow night, or I just didn’t feel like going, or even the time I dozed off at my friend Tanisha’s house and got robbed by her crackhead brother who stuck his hand down my bosom and stole fifteen hundred dollars in cash—Michael held us down. He made sure the bills were paid on time and there was always food in the fridge. It was his idea for us to eat dinner together every night and read stories to the kids before they fell asleep. Michael was solid and stable, and with him everything was better. There was no way I was gonna let him go.
I stepped one foot onto the front bumper, then heaved myself onto the hood of his car. “Please don’t go,” I cried, banging my fists on his front window. “PLEEEEEASE!”
Michael was ex-military, but I guess even combat training didn’t prepare him for the sight of me spread eagle on top of his car. He turned off his ignition and stepped onto the curb. “Golly,” he said. “You keep making all that racket, the neighbors gonna call the police. You need to get off that car and get back inside before you get arrested for causing a disturbance.”
“I’m not going unless you come with me,” I said, not moving. Michael grabbed onto the belt loops of my Levi’s and started sliding me off the hood of his car.
“Nooo!” I wailed, clinging to his wipers. “Say you’ll come inside.”
“All right,” he said, finally. “But I’m only staying one day. I’m leaving tomorrow, Pat. I mean it. One day.”
It took me and Cece hours to get the children clean. We scrubbed their bodies, cleaned their ears, cut their nails, and washed all their hair. While we were busy in the bathroom, Michael went to the corner store for diapers. When he came home, he made a big pot of spaghetti. We fed the kids dinner, put the older three girls to sleep on blankets on the floor in Ashley’s room, and took Jonelle into bed with us, wrapped in one of Michael’s T-shirts.
In the dark, Michael said again we couldn’t keep the kids. He said the same thing the next day when he came home from work. He said he didn’t want all the responsibility, and there was no way they could stay.