Chapter Five
 

It was hot. Whitney knew this logically, but her body had a hard time understanding it. She was always cold-natured, probably due to being so small. Her bones were bird-like—that’s what Stacey always said—as if Whitney was poised to take flight. She wished it were true, that she could race atop the trees that surrounded Sunset Village and the road leading out of it. She felt imprisoned in the trailer. It was such a small space, and with Marge’s size and Garrett’s tantrums, it felt even smaller. She knew this was part of the reason she had done it. This was why she and Jamal had decided to have a kid.

That was the part she didn’t tell Marge because what was worse than your teenage daughter getting pregnant? Your teenage daughter getting pregnant so she could fly the coop. There has to be a punchline in there somewhere, Whitney thought.

As she slowly walked the short street that led to Jamal’s house, her stomach flipped. She loved Jamal so much. He was the only person she could be real with and unzip herself from head to toe without worrying about what he’d find inside. He was a gentle soul, someone born before his time. It was like he wasn’t even made for this planet.

As she got closer, she braced herself for Franklin who would inevitably open the front door. Franklin was Jamal’s father. He worked at the Timex factory with his brother and always came off as efficient as the women’s wrist watches he assembled by hand. His face was kind, but Whitney felt there was more to it. Franklin was no dummy. 

She felt like he could smell her sins.

“Come in,” Franklin said and gave her a wary smile. He was in his shirt sleeves already. Even his after-work attire was formal and put together. He had been at the factory for years now and was given the luxury of picking his shift. He chose the second one, which gave him plenty of time to spend with Jamal and eye the white girl who was honing in on his son.

“Thank you,” Whitney said, her hand instinctively covering her stomach. The motion felt heavier than she expected. Soon there really would be something to cover.

Franklin went to find Jamal. He wasn’t the kind of man to shout his requests, so Whitney made herself comfortable on the floral sofa in the front sitting room. It was one of many remnants of a “before” life when Jamal’s mother was still alive. According to the pictures on the wall and on the small mantle to Whitney’s right, the woman was beautiful. She had a type of delicateness that her only child had inherited, which is why Whitney always felt like loving Jamal was a lot like a race—an egg on the end of the spoon in her mouth. One wrong move, and she’d break the only thing that kept her moving forward.

“Oh hey,” Jamal said. Franklin wasn’t with him, having retreated to his bedroom to give them “space.” Whitney swallowed a nervous giggle. It landed hard in her stomach she still had covered with her hand. She had seen Jamal’s room, her other universe, where she could lie with him late at night when she snuck out of the trailer and into his house. She couldn’t read Franklin, if he really knew the truth or just sniffed around it like a Basset Hound. Part of her wanted to be found out and strung up by her toes. She was tired of everything she held dear being some sort of dirty secret.

Jamal’s face asked the question, and Whitney nodded. He sat down beside her, and she was caught in his arms. He smelled the way the feeling of warmth should smell, and his smile was in her mind even as her chin hooked around his neck. Whitney had stopped believing in God a long time ago. There were little fragments of Him growing up when Marge would take her to church in a haphazard pattern or mention something Gammy Ray used to say about Jesus back on the farm, but other than that, the thought of God had fizzled out. But Whitney felt sparks of the Divine when she held onto Jamal, as if God was in the room ordaining this moment. He can’t like what this is all about, she thought, knowing that sex outside of marriage was a sin and deception probably no better. But she hoped the root of herself was worthy of His love if He really did exist—that it outweighed the cost of all her mistakes.

They unlatched from each other, and Whitney took her husband to be in, the father of the child inside her. He was like her, small-framed, but his skin was a deep dark she often caught herself lost in. His hair was something else. It was cut tight but loomed a few inches above his head. There were notches at the side where skin showed. He got made fun of for it. He got made fun of because he was small like her, and they both were tormented because he was black, and she was white. Denise McGovern’s crew would call out names, tell her what kind of lover she was—Denise herself keeping a curious eye on Jamal because Whitney was sure she was smart enough to see the same things Whitney did. And there was no one to call for backup besides Stacey who could only jut her chin out in retaliation. The black kids hated Jamal, too, because he was talented and drew beautiful pictures like some white, starving artist hippy. So, they were alone, on their own.

And the feeling fit perfectly.

“I love you,” he said, his lips dancing against his teeth. She caught a small chill, the fan above them working overtime and returned his smile.

“I told Marge,” she whispered. “And I’m still alive.”

“I noticed that.” He lifted her forearm and dropped it as proof. “I’ll tell Franklin.”

“He’ll flip?”

“Franklin doesn’t flip. He adapts.” Whitney found the truth in this. Jamal’s father seemed to live the sort of tiny life that rolled with the punches. “I get my diploma next week. After that, I’ll get in at Timex. Dad’ll help me snag a job, so don’t worry. We’ll have a place before you know it, and you can get your GED before the baby comes. Everything will be good.” Jamal granted her wishes with a gaze that partly filtered through the back sliding glass door in the kitchen. She noticed him doing that sometimes—caught up in another life in his head, one where she hadn’t built prison walls around his future, around his art.

Don’t think like that, she scolded herself. Before she could let her worry grow wings, she embraced him again, placed her chin back in the hollow between his shoulder and neck.

“I love you too,” she said, the words like mortar.