Hell And Back(18)

“Rushed you out of the store? We were there for four hours!” I open up the box, breaking the slices apart. “Do you think we should take a couple of slices over to Jackson?” I ask, looking down at the eight slices of pizza in front of me.

“If you want to bring him a couple of slices, go ahead. I’ll stay here and have a picnic with Lilah.”

I shake my head no. I’m not going over there. He makes me feel things I shouldn’t. He makes me feel like there is hope. He makes me wish for things I can’t have.

“Lilah, you want to go sit in the yard and have a picnic?” I squat down just in time to see her eyes light up and her head nod. My baby girl has been having lots of firsts these days.

“Wif Ms. Brenda? I don’t wanna use my pink cover.” She shakes her head side to side.

“Oh no, honey, we are going to get the big cover from your Nan’s bed and throw that one outside,” Brenda says from behind me. “And let’s hope birds fly over us and poop all over it so your momma will let me throw it out,” she whispers, making us both laugh.

“We are not using that cover. It was my Nan’s.” I look at her with my hands on my hips. “Don’t even think about it.”

She throws her hands up. “Okay, fine, let me go home and bring out one I have. You guys bring out the pizza.” She heads out the front door toward her house.

“Okay, Lilah, I’ll bring the pizza, you go get some pillows.”

“I rwelly like Ms. Brenda. She said she wants to play Barbie wif me after pissa,” Lilah says as she climbs down off her chair and walks over to the couch, grabbing an old cushion and dragging it behind her while she makes her way to the door. “I rwelly like it here, Momma. Can we stay forever?”

In that moment, tears well in my eyes, making them burn. “We aren’t going anywhere, baby. This is our home now.”

“I no want Daddy.” She looks at me, the fear in her eyes coming to the surface.

I drop down and pull her to me.

“Never ever again. Momma promises you. Never again will we go back there.” I smooth her hair, her tiny hands letting the cushions go so she can wrap her arms around my neck.

We stay like that for a while, the two of us holding each other in the middle of the kitchen, a box of pizza on the floor to one side of us and an old sofa cushion on the other side.

The knocking on the back door has us jumping up, but we hear Brenda shouting, “I hope you two didn’t eat all the pizza in there.”

I pick us up from the floor and head to the back door to unlock it.

Brenda must see the look on our faces but doesn’t question it. “What can I help carry outside?”

“I get a cushion,” Lilah says, pushing off me to grab the cushion.

“I’ll carry the pizza out. How about you bring some napkins, maybe some water for us to drink?”

She just nods, going to collect the things, and we make our way into the back, where the cover is already set up on the lawn. A lawn without weeds thanks to Jackson and his inability to listen to anything I say. Turning my head over to the street, I notice his car is still in the driveway.

I shake my head from the thoughts that want to run through it. The what-ifs are a scary game to play, and I’m not sure the gamble is worth it.

“Now this is what I call a picnic!” Brenda says from her spot on the blanket as she dishes out pizza to us. “Best picnic ever, right, little heart?”

“Hmmm pee-sah,” is all she says, and once again I’m laughing.

I take in my surroundings. I’m sitting on a blanket in the middle of my Nan’s beautiful yard, eating delicious pizza with my girl and a woman who barely knows me, but who I know for certain has my back.

This, to me, is heaven. It might seem normal to most people, but to me and my daughter, this right here is cloud nine.





Chapter Eleven


Jackson





I slam the door harder than I intended, making the picture frames on the walls shake twice.

The anger inside me is almost unexplainable. I want to tear someone to shreds. I want to cause injury and pain to someone whose name I don’t even know.

Someone who had beauty the likes of those two women in his hands, and instead of cherishing them, he terrorized them. I throw myself on the couch and drag my hands through my hair as I look through the window at her house.

I need to let this frustration out of me before I go over there and force her to tell me what happened. I know it will only push her back inside herself.

Seeing her finally smile at Brenda was like the sun breaking out of the clouds after a rainstorm. Hearing that little girl giggle was like listening to money fall out of a slot machine in Vegas.