“Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” Jessie told him.
Ozzy wasn’t eating his sandwich, so I asked, “Are you not hungry?”
“I was just thinking about something,” he replied.
Curious about what a four year-old could think so hard about, I asked him to tell me what was on his mind and he asked, “Do you and Jessie kiss?”
His question caught me extremely off guard and I didn’t know the appropriate answer to give a young child. I looked to Jessie for a little help, but he was too busy laughing as he waited to hear my response to Ozzy’s question.
“We have kissed,” I said.
He looked thoughtful, then continue his line of questioning. “Do you love each other?”
I looked back at Jessie, but he shrugged, letting me know I had this one on my own. Since he wasn’t willing to help me, I wasn’t making him privy to my answer, so I leaned over and whispered in Ozzy’s ear, “I love Jessie very much.”
Ozzy raised up on his knees and pulled me down to his level so he could whisper in my ear. “Will you marry Jessie and be my new momma since mine is dead?”
I felt the blood drain from my face and Jessie must have saw it because he interrupted our whisper session by telling Ozzy to stop stalling and eat. I looked at Jessie with gratitude for the interruption because I didn’t know how to answer this child’s question.
When we finished eating, we went to the playground and stayed until it was time to take the boys back to the Stevens’. “Come on, boys. It’s time to take you home,” Jessie announced and they both groaned, but obeyed without any trouble.
It was heartbreaking to watch Jessie as he was forced to leave them, but I knew it was in their best interest at the moment. He promised them he would be back to see them soon and they knew he would, so it made the goodbye a little easier.
We got into my car to drive away and saw their two little heads in the window watching us as we drove away. “What did Ozzy whisper in your ear today?”
I hesitated because I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him or keep it a secret between me and Ozzy, but I decided to let him in on the secret. “He wanted to know if we were going to get married so I would be his mom.”
“Oh. I’m sorry about that,” he apologized.
“No, don’t be sorry because I’m not. It was very sweet of him to think of me that way.”
“They adored you, but I knew they would. Especially Ozzy. Now you see what my life is going to be like when I get them back. It’s not going to be college parties and having fun with friends. It’s going to be all about taking care of two little kids.”
It suddenly registered with me. That was why he brought me today. He wanted me to see and understand the responsibility he had to those two little boys. He wanted to use them to scare me away, but he was wrong. The responsibility of caring for his brothers didn’t scare me at all.
“This was all about us going to the same college. You don’t want me to get my hopes up about being together.”
He didn’t answer and I continued, “Did you really think your responsibility to them would send me running?” I asked harshly.
“Yeah, I sort of did,” he admitted. “I love them, but they’re a huge responsibility and not one every teenager would want to be tied to, so I thought you should see what it is I have on my plate sooner rather than later.”
“Maybe you were right for showing me what a huge responsibility you have with them, but you were wrong about the other part. You are not going to scare me off that easily.”
34 Kimosabe
Jessie
Seeing Claire with my brothers only confirmed how right she was for me, but it didn’t change the fact that I was wrong for her. She didn’t deserve to go from being a carefree teenager with a bright future to being drug down by someone like me. I thought she would see what getting mixed up with me actually meant and she’d run in the opposite direction, but she didn’t and it only made me want her more.
Harley and Ozzy were crazy about her and she seemed to return the same affection for them. It wasn’t how I expected things to go. She was so natural with them, like they had known each other forever. I laughed as I thought about Ozzy’s peculiar connection with Claire. He didn’t open up to people easily and I think I envied their connection because he seemed to prefer her over me. In fact, he chose to cling to her most of the day instead of playing on the playground.
I spent the rest of the day wondering if I had made the wrong decision by taking her with me to see them. Had I opened a door I couldn’t close by allowing her into that part of my life?
When I pulled into the drive, I saw Rita’s car and cursed to myself. I really wanted to avoid her today because I knew it was about time for her to send me out again.
I walked in her house, which she took every opportunity to remind me of, and saw her sitting on the couch smoking a Camel. “Bout time you brought your ass back.”
“I went to see Harley and Ozzy,” I informed her, not that she cared, and I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t ask how they were.
“I’ve got some dime bags on the table I want you to sell today,” she said, then took a puff on her cigarette.
I always thought being around cigarette smoke after I quit would make me want to smoke again, but something about the sight of her made me wonder why I had ever taken it up in the first place.
I looked over at the table and saw about a dozen bags of dope. “I can’t sell all of that tonight.”
“You can or you won’t sleep here tonight,” she threatened.
I had homework I needed to do instead of out being a thug for her, but that was the beauty of having Rita as a grandmother. She couldn’t care less and that was what was going to make leaving and never coming back so damn easy.
I jerked the bags of dope off the table and went back to my truck. I hit the road on the way to Collinsville because I wouldn’t infiltrate East Franklin with her trash.
I got on my phone and made some calls to line up some sales. I called the same old customers I had sold to for years and luckily had half the stash sold at one stop.
I pulled up at the apartment complex I had frequented a thousand times. I got out and knocked on the same door I had always gone to first. The door swung open and a big, burly guy stood in the doorway.
He put out his fist for a bump and said, “Jess, good to see you. You haven’t been around in a while.”
I didn’t want to be here now, but I didn’t have a choice. “Yeah, I don’t make it over here a lot since I’m in Franklin now.”