Warning: Some dark moments in here. Mention of suicide and murder.
Abbie unbuttoned her coat, untied her scarf, shook off her boots, and pulled her gloves from her numb hands. The temperature outside was ridiculous, but she wasn't comfortable waiting with that Crane guy, so she took her chances and walked in the snow instead of rushing onto a trolley. Until today, she never had any contact with the man. Normally, she left work before him. She wanted to keep it that way.
"There's some food on the stove," Jenny said. "Meatloaf and potatoes. It's enough for tomorrow, too."
Abbie smiled. "Mama's recipe?"
"It wouldn't be anyone else's."
She followed her sister into their kitchen, which barely fit two people. She remembered when all four of them—Mama, dad, Jenny, and her— crowded in here for family dinners and dusty board games and birthdays. It was different now. Dad's laugher and baritone no longer squeezed into the scratches on the wooden floor or the crack on the hand-me-down whisking bowl Mama used. Mama's tell-tale brown eyes and witful tongue didn't tremble the ceiling or quiet everything in their apartment anymore. Their parents died.
Jenny put the plate in front of her. "How was the trolley home? How was work?"
Abbie cut her meatloaf into pieces. "I walked. Work was work."
They had an unspoken agreement where they wouldn't talk about the bad things that happened on the job unless these bad things gobbled too much of their peace. Their home deserved to be free of the troubling world. Both of them deserved that much, so they left hate, division, murder, death, and injustice on book shelves, on polished tables, on chopping boards, on baking sheets, and on trolley rides home. The bad things faltered when they stuck the key in the lock.
Her sister's eyes widened. "That's not—"
"I know, Jenn."
She risked her safety, yes. But which was more dangerous? Being within a grip of a white man or trudging home in fifteen degree weather?
"You want to tell me what happened?"
"I want to eat dinner." She tried her beef. It was comfy, how Mama made it. It was crammed with the right amount of pepper and salt and green peppers and onions and other seasonings she couldn't name.
"Abbs?"
Dropping her fork, she said, "Fine," and explained the bump in the library and the Crane man and the handkerchief.
"The library guy didn't try anything, did he?"
"No, but I wasn't sure if he eventually would've."
Jenny reached for her hand across the table. "I'm glad you're safe. That old bastard had it coming. And next time, if you can, please take the trolley."
She nodded, deciding to switch topics. That was enough of that. "What about you? How was the bakery?"
"No scuffles today. Hardly any customers due to the weather." Then she smirked.
There was that look. "What'd you do, Jenny?"
"I made cookies."
Abbie shook her head, chuckled. "Don't even tell me."
Jenny stayed in mischief. That girl was something wild, but Abbie loved her for it.
"I sprinkled cayenne pepper in all the batches. I might've mistaken it for cinnamon."
Oh, how they imagined red faces and flaming tongues and laughed.
As Abbie finished her potatoes, she said, "Mama would love this. She'd be happy."
Jenny learned Mama's recipes after she died a couple of years ago. She knew them by heart: her banana pudding, her chocolate cake, her chicken pot pie, and the remaining others. Jenny sold a few meals and desserts to the neighbors to earn extra cash for rent or for saving. Sometimes, it paid more than the job she has now, especially around the holidays. Not only that, Jenny also liked to ask around for rare antiques or artifacts to sell, too. They needed all the income they could get.
"I needed some part of her, you know?"
"I miss her, too," Abbie said.
Dad died first. He went into a store one weekend to buy some art supplies for them while they waited outside. Abbie watched Mama lose herself in the antique shop's window display next door, where she stuck her fingertips to the glass. While she did so, a not-so-kind white man snatched her arm. She told them to go inside with their dad. Jenny didn't want to; Abbie tried to pull her away.
"Come on," she said.
"Go on, babies. Go," Mama said to them.
And they did. They found dad in line, finishing up a payment, when they rushed to him, rambling simultaneously and breathless. They saw the white man groping their Mama in places he shouldn't when they went outside. Dad ordered them to get back. He charged for the white man; they both shoved and pushed and punched until the man pulled out a gun. Aside from the scrapes they got on the playground, that was the first time Abbie and Jenny saw that much blood. That was the first time they really knew pain, racism, red hate. At eleven and thirteen, it was the first time they really knew who they were as black women, the trouble that could come.
The white man staggered off. Others stared like nothing happened, like their Mama wasn't bent over their dad's bulleted chest, weeping and weeping, like they didn't see their dad's blood splattered on the window display.
"I feel her each time I cook something of hers," Jenny said, smiling.
"Me, too. It's the same with dad."
Their dad taught them self-defense before he died. To bring in extra money, on weekends, Abbie held self-defense classes and trained the women in their neighborhood. She figured it was her duty to make sure other women stayed safe, since her dad constantly protected her and Jenny. Her words were firm, yet calm and gentle, like her father's. His presence was there.
She'd love to be a police officer, but a woman in police work was unheard of. A black woman in police work would definitely be counted out. As of now, she was happy with what she could teach. These women walked away with pulled-back shoulders and high heads, a strength they wore like a colorful, shiny necklace.
Abbie dumped her plate and cleaned it in the sink. She was happy her and her sister were able to continue what their parents left.
"Will you need some help this weekend?" Abbie said.
On some Saturdays, Jenny's boss, August Corbin, called her in if they needed an extra hand. Often, if Abbie had time before or after her class, she'd help out.
"Unfortunately. Someone decided to throw a Winter Wonderland party. They want cupcakes," Jenny said. "My shift starts at 2."
"Okay. My class isn't until noon. I'll meet you there."
"Alright. I'll let Corbin know. I'm heading to bed." Jenny kissed Abbie's cheek. "Love you."
"Love you, too. Night." She pushed her chair up to the table and stored the food in the fridge before heading into the shower.
She didn't take baths anymore. Some days, she could hardly stand the shower. Those grisly images of Mama's stiff body and slit wrist and the bloody water stung. There was no peace from it. It lived in her. They redecorated the bathroom, but it didn't do too much. They still knew its darkness.
When they were on the cuff of their twenties, Mama killed herself. She loved them dearly, but it was just too much for her, which is what the note said on the toilet. Losing her husband and having the responsibility of raising two black girls was heavy. Mama didn't remarry, which meant she had a lot of stress. Between working and trying to protect them from the world, it was overwhelming. Sometimes, she couldn't even protect herself. Yet, she continued to teach them, to make sure they were independent and resourceful, that they had strength and skills outside of housework and baking. That's why Abbie had class and why Jenny sold artifacts. Their Mama pushed them to it, wanting them to be the woman she couldn't be or somewhere close to it, despite society's views on black women.
Abbie wished she didn't give up, that the world didn't beat her down so much, didn't beat black people down so much. Her Mama would still be here with them, watching them take on their late twenties and the rest of womanhood. She'd truly be proud.
After Abbie showered, she went into her room. It used to be her and Jenny's as kids. Now, it's hers. Jenny sleeps in their parents' room; she liked being suffocated in their ghosts. Not Abbie. The entire apartment itself was more than enough.
She emptied her dress pocket, tracing the handkerchief pattern Crane gave her. Why she even kept it this long is beyond her. She should've threw it somewhere on her way home. And here she was, staring at it, at the kindness of the white library man. But she knew he wasn't kind underneath his warm accent. White men were never kind. White people, in general, weren't kind. Her and her family's experience told her so and so did the newspaper and the television and the neighbors.
Lifting her window, she threw the handkerchief out, where she watched to make sure it fell in the snow.