The harmony that surrounded me when I visited them shouldn’t have been anything I wanted to share with him. I shared that with Vick, Katie, and the kids.
Yet, the young girl I’d tried to leave behind, who was so scared of the reservation and embracing her own heritage after my mother died, still lived on here.
He knew that girl and knew my fears. I was conquering them; I’d found a way to love where I came from, even if my parents never exposed me to it, and I enjoyed being a part of it.
He, more than anyone, would understand the gravity of that.
I dressed in jeans and a black button-down. I left my makeup behind. I was going to the place where I was most myself, where happiness met fear and triumphed.
Katie, Vick, and I drove to pick up groceries for dinner. We argued over whether our meal should be healthy or delicious.
Vick, believer in all fairy tales, argued we could accomplish both. We ended up buying chicken, pasta, and broccoli with cabbage. Katie eyed the broccoli and I eyed the pasta.
As we walked into Margie’s, Katie insisted, “If we give them broccoli for their first cooking experience, they’ll quit on the whole idea.”
“Or, they’ll be thankful they have energy and aren’t feeling bloated,” I replied.
Margie swung open the door where Ollie, Rodney, Jasmine, and two kids we’d never seen before waited behind her. “You’re early.”
“Early’s a good thing,” Vick pointed out. She’d been back a few times without me, and I could see Margie was warming up to her from the little smirk she hid.
I lifted the grocery bags. “We brought dinner.”
Rodney, just shy of ten years old, stood tall. “I can take those bags and carry them into the kitchen.”
Katie gave him one bag to take.
Ollie danced from purple shoe to purple shoe. “What’s for dinner?”
We all moved toward the kitchen. “Well, let’s lay it all out on the counter.” I started to grab everything. “You can help us make it.”
Margie grabbed some more vegetables from the refrigerator. “Whip these up too.”
Katie looked offended along with the children. Ollie blurted, “I don’t really like vegetables.”
Another boy who seemed her age agreed with her.
“Simon and I were hoping for Chinese,” Ollie announced.
I moved to start washing veggies and ignored their pessimism. “Ollie, you and Jasmine will help me wash and cut the veggies. And maybe if we work really hard at it, they’ll taste good.”
Both Katie and Ollie rolled their eyes.
For the next half an hour, we all fluttered around the kitchen in complete chaos.
Ollie and Jasmine were frustrated I wouldn’t let them hold the knife to cut vegetables.
Rodney claimed he should be in charge of the stove because he was the oldest.
Vick had to talk with the newest member of the home about not crying when she had to share and Katie almost screamed at Jasmine for barreling into her while she held boiling pasta.
The chaos of cooking with five small children helping was probably close to experiencing a panic attack. I literally thought I was going to die more than once. Yet, when we finally wrangled them all in to sit at the table, the accomplishment was beyond worth it.
“Holy shit. This broccoli is good,” Rodney announced with his mouth full.
Katie snickered while Margie laid into him. “Boy, you use that language in my house again, you’ll be eating that broccoli outside. And finish what’s in your mouth before you open it. You think a lady wants to see that?”
Rodney hung his head for all of one minute.
Jasmine nudged the little girl she sat next to who’s name we’d learned was Willow. “You like it?”
Willow nodded but didn’t speak. She’d said only a few words since we’d been there, shier than most who’d come through the home.
Katie wrinkled her nose and pointed to the cabbage mixed in with the broccoli. “Be honest, Willow, that isn’t really that good.”
Willow smiled a little and looked up at Katie. “It’s okay.”
“Nuh-uh. Vick steamed it until it was too mushy,” Katie said back.
Ollie jumped in. “Hey! I helped and I think it’s,”—she took a bite and made a face—“just fine.”
“Oh really? Take another bite then,” Katie egged her on, noticing that Ollie had finished most of the stuff on her plate.
Too stubborn to admit it, she took another bite and tried to say yum but it came out like more of a grunt.
Margie snickered, and Simon chimed in, “The cabbage is terrible!”
Vick started laughing too, and I couldn’t hold it in either.
Ollie glared at the whole table. “These vegetables are good, and you all better clear your plate.”
Willow looked a little horrified, but Margie corrected Ollie. “Ollie, you know you get to eat as much as you want here. What do I always say?”
Ollie looked to the sky and grumbled, “We don’t force-feed. If you want it, eat it. If you don’t, leave it.”
Margie eyed me seriously. Her little lesson was a reminder that these children came here for refuge, not fun.
“Brey, come sit with me in the living room for a bit.”
“She’s in trouble,” Rodney whispered.
Katie grabbed the children’s attention. “You’re about to be in trouble too, if you don’t help me clear this table. And the faster we clear it, the longer we can play Hot Lava in the basement.”
Margie and I walked to the next room and sat on the couch together. She took the long coarse hair of her braid and flipped it casually over her shoulder while she smirked a little. “Well, should we celebrate?”
“Celebrate what?” I squinted at her.
“Don’t act like you don’t know!” she exclaimed.
“Know what?”
“Well, I’m building out the kitchen to four different work stations for the children and adding on an Education Wing to my home.”
I almost sprung off the couch. “What? That’s amazing!”
She practically vibrated with energy. “It should be done in six months and the contractors are going to work around the children. So, no shutting down for the remodel.”
I wanted to ask how it was all possible. Since my mother passed, I’d given annual donations, but there was no way that money could have covered an expansion. I knew my contribution only helped Margie keep things running. I hoped soon enough I would be able to do more, but it seemed someone else already had.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “I know you’ve been hoping for something like this for a long time. The kids will really benefit from it. I’m so happy for you all.”
“Well, we have you to thank.”
“Me?”
“Well, we will thank that pretty boy, Jay, one day when he comes back to visit but he wouldn’t even know we were here if it weren’t for you.”
My heart stopped and then restarted. “Jay did this?” I whispered.
“Of course, he did. I’m convinced he thinks that Ollie is his long-lost spirit child.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “I’m so glad he did this.”
Margie slapped her hand onto her thigh. “Well, me too. With everything, I’ll have to have you look at some numbers, but I might be able to expand further in a few years.”
“Why more expansion, Margie? You keep saying you can’t handle much more.”
Her omens for the future scared me and probably the children even more. Without Margie, they had no place to sleep sometimes, no meals in their bellies other times, and no safe haven to rely on.
“Remember the first day I started showing you each child’s file?”
My gut clenched at the memory. Like a Rolodex, each child’s file flipped through my head—abuse, addiction, neglect.
I nodded my head, too full of emotion to speak.
“Children are resilient. Your mom was too.”
“She tried her best.” I looked away as I said it. Her best would have been leaving my father behind, trying to escape that fire without him.
Margie studied me. “Your mother was one of the strongest girls I’ve ever met.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth to stop from contradicting her but she must have seen the disbelief in my eyes.
“She came to this little house one morning hurt pretty bad.”
I squinted at her, not knowing this story and curious about what Margie knew.
“She didn’t talk about it with me, but she’d been beaten and the blood on her pants, well …” Margie sighed and shrugged as the wrinkles on her face deepened. “Your mother helped clean her own clothes that very day, and we went on as if nothing had happened.”
Each word landed like a brick in my stomach, weighing it down with the gravity they held.
Memories of pleading with my mother to go back to her childhood home jackhammered into my thoughts. I’d cried more than once, telling her nothing could be worse than staying with my father.
My mother stood firm, saying we couldn’t just leave my father and go back to where she grew up. She told me things could always be worse.
I shook my head, not wanting it to be true. “Why are you telling me this?”
Margie shrugged. “This place is for kids. I need to expand so there can be room for women too. Everyone should have a place they feel safe.”
I didn’t say anything after that. I couldn’t. My mind raced, trying to reevaluate everything my mother had gone through, how she’d stayed with my father, how she’d never gone back to her childhood home. I wondered if, for her, he was the only safe haven she’d known.
Afterwards, we sat in the living room listening to the kids in the basement. The giggles and screams about hot lava reinforced their resilience and their ability to stay innocent.
That night, I stared at the colors I had added to my room. I tried to imagine my mother standing there, smiling. I wondered what she would be had the world not been so cruel to her. Would she have let her long hair dance in the wind? Would she have spoken the words of her heritage and shared stories of what it was like to grow up on the reservation? Would she have really lived, bold and bright like the colors in my room?
I tried to imagine her like that. But I couldn’t. The tears that fell for her disappeared into my pillowcase and I wanted the weight of Margie’s words to disappear that way too.
I called Jay and told him everything. He listened but didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t know what to say either. I just knew I needed to tell someone about my mother.
When he couldn’t find a way to cheer me up, he persuaded me to drive with Rome and the girls to Chicago that weekend where he’d be ironing out some financials with Jett.
“We’ll go out. I’ll take you to my new favorite restaurant.”
I nodded like this was what I needed. “That sounds great. I definitely need to see Jett while I’m there too.” I cleared the anxiety from my throat. “I could see Jax too.”
“You could see him or you want to, Brey?”
“I know I should define this for you,” I said.
“You shouldn’t do anything for me, babe. You should do it for yourself.”
I sighed. There wasn’t an easy way to define the barreling heartbreak that I saw coming from a mile away. It was wrapped in a tall, beautiful package that made me want to melt with pleasure half the time and scream with rage the other half.
I saw insanity written across my head in the mirror each morning and still couldn’t define the relationship I was getting into.
“What if I said I am trying to be honest with myself?” And I had to be because for the first time ever, I started to realize my mom hadn’t been honest with me about so much. For so long, I based my feelings on that dishonesty. My past, my views of my mother, my idea on how I was raised had to be rewritten, and I had to start with honesty.
“Sounds like we need to talk over a drink, not over the phone.”
“Can you be easygoing, fun-loving Jay without worrying while I’m there, please?”
“After we have this talk over that drink.”
I smiled. “I miss you.”
When we arrived the next day, Jay had rented hotel rooms for each of us.
As I unpacked in my suite and looked out over Chicago, the city pulsed with life.
In the distance, the Stonewood Tower’s rippling glass windows resembled waves reaching into the sky. It dwarfed other towers and stood as tall as the Sears, like a guardian watching over everyone—a king, reminding them all who ruled.
I shivered, thinking of how Jax emulated the same reaction in this city. This was his territory, and I hadn’t let him know I’d walked into it.
When Jay sent a car for me so I could meet Jett at Stonewood Tower, I weighed my options. Jax would be there too. I didn’t think I should ambush him and show up in his office, but what if he didn’t see me at all or what if he wasn’t in? Then, there was no point in burdening him.
On the other hand, Jay could have told him I was coming, although Jay never really got around to telling people half the things that were going on.
I opted to let it play out. We were friends. Friends in a gray area leaning towards something more but, if anything, that was casual.
Casual. A word I never thought I’d end up hating.
