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  “And I’ve been watching the way things are progressing around here. Some boys think they can take advantage of you because of your homeroom job, but I have been very proud of the way you’ve handled yourself. You’ve stayed true to who you are. I can tell your parents taught you well.” Jessica felt a slight flash of nausea over that comment but continued to listen. “And I can see that you and Paul seem to like each other. I have been watching y’all, well I watch everyone, but you two are obvious. I want you to be careful. Things that seem new and exciting can get old and dangerous with a flick of a switch. I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just letting you in on some wisdom that you may want to use when making choices down the road.”

  Jessica felt privileged that Mrs. Daley would stay after school to help her. “Thank you for caring about me.”

  “Aw, I care about all my students,” Mrs. Daley said as she stood up and started putting on her coat. “Even the knuckleheads.”

  Jessica realized that she was late for home and started to panic.

  “Mrs. Daley, could you please write a note so my parents know I was speaking with you after school?”

  Jessica noticed Mrs. Daley looked at her funny. She figured that Mrs. Daley probably heard the anxiety in her voice, but at that moment, she did not care.

  “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

  “I will be unless I have a note. My parents are kinda strict.”

  Mrs. Daley gave her a look but did not say another word and wrote the note in silence. Just as Jessica was about to run out the door, Mrs. Daley asked if she still had her personal number. Jessica said she did.

  “Good. You use that if you need to, baby girl.”

  Jessica ran all the way home forgetting to pull the Heritage sweatpants and shirt over her clothes. When she entered her house, she realized before she took off her coat that she still had the tight clothes on. At that same moment, her father came out of his office and greeted her with a hello.

  “Hi, Dad,” Jessica said, and made a line to hug him, coat on.

  Her father returned her hug and said he enjoyed the letter she wrote him. “Take your coat off. We’ll talk in my office.”

  Jessica panicked—he could not see the clothes. “Uh, I have to go to the bathroom really bad. I’ll be right back down, okay?”

  “All right,” he said.

  She raced upstairs, praying her mother was not in her room. Jessica changed her clothes quickly behind a locked bathroom door and flushed the toilet so it sounded like she actually used it. When she came back downstairs, her father was sitting at his desk sifting through a stack of papers. He looked up and grabbed her letter off his desk, going through each section and asking her questions, almost like an interrogation with a hint of goodwill. Jessica learned early on that this was the best way to acclimate her father back into her life. In her youth, she tried jumping into his lap, internally begging for his protective arms to engulf her as she regurgitated memories from the past couple of months. But he never responded the way she envisioned and was left with a bigger hole in her already damaged heart. The letter came out of desperation and in the end seemed the most humane.

  Once he concluded his questioning, he pulled out a thinner version of the canister of Mace she already had.

  “The potency is the same, but this will be easier to conceal in school.”

  Mace? Aunt Lodi brought her a beautiful necklace with a cross and dream catcher charms, and here her father sits offering a gift of Mace. Jessica’s curious mind wandered for the moment wondering how her father could think this was a gift a teenage girl would want.

  “Oh, thanks. Yes, a smaller version will definitely be better.”

  That night in bed, Jessica held up the Mace to the light streaming in from the streetlamp outside. She understood the notion of keeping yourself protected, but his ideas were too extreme. Marilee and her sisters got claddagh rings from their parents; that seemed far more normal than Mace. She decided she needed to figure out the puzzle called her father and believed that Aunt Lodi held the answers. On a few occasions when Jessica prodded about their past, Aunt Lodi’s carefree expression would change. She would give a few short answers and then cut it to an end by saying, “It’s not appropriate to speak someone else’s story. That’s for them to tell.” Jessica decided she needed to at least try to collect some information about why her father was this way. It would take some ingenuity, but she felt up for the task, especially when the hopeful payoff would be figuring out how to navigate around the oppression. And lead a life with Paul.

  Chapter 7

  In the morning before school, her father had Jason engaged in a workout consisting of calisthenics and resistance training. Because of Jason’s age, he was a perfect fit for such a workout. He seemed to enjoy the jumping jacks and pull-ups. As her father was ordering Jason to finish another set of twenty, he mentioned that Jessica might want to join in.

  “You’re starting to get flabby around the middle.”

  “What?” said her mother before Jessica had a chance to say anything.

  “Jessica needs to get back on a workout regimen. Bob’s kids are involved in numerous sports. Jessica should be too.”

  Her father had no right to comment on her size, and she did not think she was flabby at all. In fact, she thought she weighed less because of not eating the disgusting school lunch. The only things she really liked were the tater tots and fries.

  “Jim, I would like to speak to you about that in private,” said her mother.

  Jessica caught her father’s surprised expression. It also surprised Jessica how firm her mother appeared. Usually her mother was fine with being second in command, but not today.

  “All right, Katherine. After they go to school, we will discuss it in my office.”

  Jessica could not wait to get out of there. Her worries about Paul all but faded. Now she had to contend with possible flabbiness and how to get out of joining sports.

  Jessica thought about “the jocks,” and she wanted no part of that group. Working that hard in sports did not spark a desire of any kind. She needed a plan and was willing to break an arm, a leg too, if necessary.

  Marilee was equally appalled by what her father said. “I’m sorry, Jess, but your dad’s an asshole.”

  Jessica knew she was right but felt too loyal to agree. “Well, maybe I do need to lose a few pounds.”

  “Are you crazy?” Marilee retorted. “You’re perfect just the way you are. Don’t let those words shake you!”

  But they had. Just like whore and liar.

  “Okay,” Jessica said with a smile.

  Paul approached the girls as they took a shortcut through the green-and-brown spotted lawn in front of Heritage.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “Well,” said Marilee. Jessica shot her a look. “We were just talking about how parents can be a real pain in the butt.”

  “Okay,” Paul said slowly. He started to fidget. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure,” said Marilee. Jessica and Paul looked at her. “Oh, you mean talk to her, alone. Fine, I know when I’m not wanted,” she said with a grin and walked toward school.

  Paul looked around before speaking. “Can you meet me in the park by the swings at lunch?”

  “Uh, sure,” Jessica said.

  “Alone, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “And don’t tell anyone.”

  Jessica’s insides felt loose. Her father had pounded into her the difference between good and bad secrets and right now, Jessica was not sure what side Paul’s request was on.

  “Do you mean adults?” she asked.

  “Yeah, and friends.”

  Jessica’s gut flipped. Both Eddie and Mrs. Daley had warned her about Paul.

  “I want to meet you, but I have to tell Marilee. She’s my best friend and we don’t keep secrets.”

  Paul hesitated. “Okay. But no one else.”

  All day Jessica felt antsy. She sat in
homeroom pretending everything was normal, but she really wanted to whisper the secret to anyone who would listen.

  In Spanish, she told Marilee about the secret and begged her not to tell Eddie.

  “Like are you kidding? He would ruin any chance you and Paul have. I’ll tell him you had to meet with your counselor about classes.”

  When the lunch bell rang, Jessica exited a door that was not being monitored and walked alone to the park. Her insides were a mix of desire and alarm, and she laughed in her head about being thankful for the thin Mace her father had just given her. It fit nicely in the front of her tight jeans.

  The sun decided to take a break, and the gray, which hung heavy above, covered the entire sky as a sharp breeze blew, making the scratching of leaves sound constant. She approached the swings and sat down on one that did not squeak as much as the others. The chains smelled of rust and metal, and she lifted her head so she did not inhale the fumes. Looking to her right, she saw Paul advancing quickly.

  He looked uneasy as he approached and sat on the squeaky swing next to hers.

  “So you must be wondering why I asked to meet you like this.”

  “It crossed my mind,” she said coolly. The tone of her response even surprised her.

  “I overheard what Mrs. Daley said to you.”

  Jessica felt bad, not for herself but for Mrs. Daley, not wanting Paul to treat her badly.

  “Mrs. Daley was talking in general terms, you know. Not so much about you.”

  “Well, I just need to clear something up,” he said and made a sound in his throat. “I was asking you to go out with me. Not like be my girlfriend, but just go out. Maybe it would be cool for us to be together, but I need to go out with you first.”

  Jessica’s heart fluttered. Her dream was coming true.

  “You said you wanted to go out with me, right?”

  “Yes, I really do,” she said, looking at him but then not being able to stop herself from looking past his silhouette and onto the street she turned down to get to her house. “But my parents won’t let me date.”

  “Well, maybe if I come over and meet them.”

  “Out of the question,” she said quickly, never wanting to see Paul’s handsome face with Colt .45 bullet holes. “My parents are extremely overprotective. It won’t happen.”

  They sat with only the squeaking sound of a swing to break the silence. After a few minutes, Paul looked at her. “So we’re finished even before we started?”

  “I guess so.”

  Paul tightened his jaw and squinted his eyes. “What about sneaking out to see me? Or I could sneak into your house to see you.”

  Jessica saw Colt .45s. That was all she could see.

  “Paul, my father’s not the type of man that you can sneak around on. I’m scared to death to even try.”

  “But maybe you can try to see what happens.”

  “What will happen is that you will get a bullet in the back of your head. And I cannot have that on my conscience.”

  Paul’s eyes widened. “Are you joking?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Is your dad a cop?”

  “Something like that,” Jessica said, quietly trying not to let her tears bear themselves. “I’m so sorry.”

  The leaves that had been thrashing around took refuge around their feet, hovering until someone picked up a foot to swing gently.

  “Well, if you decide to take me up on my offer, you know to sneak, I’ll be ready.”

  “And until then still friends?” Jessica asked.

  “Yeah, still friends,” he said and held out his hand to shake. They shook on their friendship but instead of letting go right after the shake, he hung on for a few alluring seconds. Just enough to give Jessica a taste of what it would really feel like to have his skin next to hers.

  The rest of that day, and the weeks and months to come, the pleasure center of her brain would refer to that moment as pivotal in her desire to be with Paul. Pillows were not going to be the standard fill-in anymore now that she was exposed to the real thing. The thought of his touch would make her body feel tingly. Oh, how she wanted more. Sometimes in Humanities, when they sat bunched up in their foursome plowing through their project, she would lean her shoulder to purposefully touch his. He didn’t seem to mind. Sometimes he would give her a gentle nudge back, inviting her in for more.

  Cassandra and Mickey, their partners in Humanities, noticed.

  “Are you guys going out?” Cassandra asked.

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Mickey blurted. “You act like you’re glued to each other.”

  Jessica and Paul would just smile and deny, but inside they held the secret of the swing conversation between them like an umbilical cord. It continued to feed the relationship they wanted but could not have. And for a month or two, Paul seemed satisfied with that. But his boy hormones, which appeared more forgetful and impulsive, soon took over. Jessica would catch glimpses of him holding hands with a freshman for a month or so, then a junior for a while. Jessica and Marilee made up a game—“Paul’s flavor of the month club.” They would rip apart every new girlfriend.

  “So who is the flavor this time? Redhead? Blonde?” Marilee asked.

  “Actually, brunette. I think it’s that girl who wears a jean jacket in winter with cigarettes sticking out of the pocket.”

  “I did see him walking real close to that black girl, Kenyatta.”

  “An equal opportunity dater,” Jessica said. “Impressive.”

  Jessica made light of the situation because she had no other choice. But seeing Paul with a new girl every couple of months was starting to make her feel worthless—a feeling that she knew should not be lost on a boy, but she could not stop herself. Her only shelter was their friendship. They talked all the time in school, even writing notes and passing them during the day. Once in the hallway while they were walking to lunch, one of the “flavors” stopped and asked Paul where he thought he was going with Jessica.

  “To lunch.”

  The flavor eyed Jessica up and down. “I don’t think so. You need to find your own man.”

  Jessica stepped back stunned, and Paul lurched forward into the flavor’s face.

  “You don’t own me. And you don’t tell me who I eat lunch with. Got it?”

  “Fuck you, Paul,” she said and stormed away.

  Jessica looked at Paul. “I don’t want to cause any problems.”

  “You’re not,” he said. “No one tells me who I can hang out with.”

  As they got back onto the track they had just derailed, Paul said, “And truthfully, I’d rather hang with you anyway.”

  They locked eyes for a brief moment. His smell was making her pulse rise—brisk and clean, like a bar of soap. And his eyes appeared fresh and open. It reminded her of a pristine pond where she swam in the UP. Before she knew what was happening, Paul grabbed her hand and rubbed his thumb gracefully along hers. Her body and mind were digesting every second of his touch, so that it could be played out again and again in bed, next to her pillows.

  Paul looked at her longingly. “Are you ready to sneak?”

  Without another thought, her instinct to protect kicked in, and she let go of his hand.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t,” she said in a defeated tone.

  “Jessica, I know one day you’re gonna come to me and say you’re ready. And when you do, I will be.”

  Jessica found Paul’s effort valiant; however, he did not know her father. Besides the whole “shooting a boy who steps foot on the property” threat, Jessica had a lot of self-control. All thanks to her self-control training. Her father would put marshmallows in front of Jessica at the age of two and make her wait before eating one for fifteen, twenty, even thirty minutes. If she tried to reach for it, he would hit her hand. No squirming either. Her father took pride in Jessica’s ability to sit still with her hands folded in front of a marshmallow treat for thirty minutes at age two and a half.

  But in bed that nigh
t, Jessica cried next to her pillows. Her soul was forever being scarred by watching Paul with his slew of girls. The self-control she took so much pride in was starting to wane, and in the dark of the night, her thoughts started to bend toward taking Paul up on his offer to sneak. She thought it would be easier if her father was away on a business trip, but she’d heard nothing about him traveling again. And it had been four months since his return home.

  The only bright spot in her life was Aunt Lodi’s visit. Aunt Lodi always came to Chicago in the spring for a week. Her mother prepared the guest bedroom as if someone was being laid to rest. Jessica loved the fact that this was one of the only times that music was played on the radio in the kitchen. Usually it blasted news coverage 24-7, but with Aunt Lodi around, sounds of peace and yesteryear prevailed.

  Chapter 8

  Genealogy is a word that calls forth memories and stories to be told. Some memories and stories are laden with words like adventure, courage, and hope. Others are represented by stoic faces and muted clothing, framed and hung on the walls of their ancestor’s home. Jessica’s home was lacking in both stories and memories from the past. The only item that was kept was a chest in the attic that her mother said was given to her by her grandmother. It contained some old clothes that did not appear that important; otherwise, they would have found life in the closets of the living. Every once in a while, Jessica would sneak in the attic or into her parent’s bedroom and look around. She was not searching for anything in particular, but the thought of finding clues to their past lives was compelling enough to bypass her fears of possible video surveillance.

  There were two pictures in her parent’s bedroom. One was on her mother’s dresser; a round, shiny silver frame showed a black-and-white photo of a man in a hat and suit holding a baby. He was not smiling even though it looked like a special day. The baby was dressed in all white, with a little bonnet. Even the blanket that wrapped the baby in warmth was white. On her father’s nightstand was a simple black frame with a picture of him and Aunt Lodi on horses in the woods. They looked young, maybe in their twenties. Snowcapped trees and white hills surrounded them as a crisp baby blue sky hung low. It almost looked like they could reach up and touch it with their hands. Jessica was amazed at how beautiful the scenery was in that picture. The natural elements helped, but her father and Aunt Lodi looked so intertwined with it all, like they were one with the earth. It was the type of picture that should be showcased in the office. But as she thought about it further, its mere presence amongst the harsh visuals of war would no doubt drown out its beauty. Maybe that’s why her father kept it in the bedroom, behind the closed door, because it’s too easy for a beautiful memory to be engulfed by a room full of harsh ones.