Sunni
Chapter Eight
"Give it your best shot, brother," Raphael snarled, as softly as the hiss of a struck match head.
Leonardo crouched silently, still as ice, controlling his respiration, in a deep, ready stance, every muscle poised for the signal; his eyes fixed on Raphael's with a frosty gaze.
Both had already worked hard for two hours, and shone with sweat. Both could feel their breath clutch painfully in their chests as they recovered from the last effort. They faced one another with a focused intention that scarcely left room for any other awareness. Around them, the broken chunks of concrete, rock and crumbling piles of brick lined the perimeter, piled back along the sides of the large chamber. Three flickering candles served as the only illumination, casting twisted, ghostly shadows along the shattered walls. The only sounds were the trickling of distant water and the heavy breathing of the two other warriors, frozen in position, waiting for the signal.
"Hajime!" came the husky shout, and the spell was broken. The four bodies leaped into motion, in a blur of strikes and kicks and blocks.
Leonardo moved in with a ferocity usually reserved for life and death battles. Raphael was thrown back on the defensive and forced to parry the onslaught of strikes and kicks until he dropped for a lightening fast low spin kick that Leonardo easily evaded. Spinning around, Leo struck Raphael with his elbow in the back of his head with a good bit more force than necessary. Raphael lurched forward, and Leonardo caught him full force in the ribs with his foot. Raphael gasped but recovered before Leo could deliver the follow- up kick, and unleashed a flurry of fast punches. Leonardo had his wrist locked and Raphael twisting shoulder-first onto the floor before he saw it coming. Raphael sprang up from his back and leaped at Leo, who rolled back, catching Raph in the gut with both feet, flipping him over onto his shell again, though only for an instant. Raph knocked Leo's legs out from under him and landed a brutal chop to his chest as he went down. Leonardo's head hit the concrete floor hard.
Splinter tried to keep his focus evenly divided between the both pairs of sparring partners, but he found the energy blazing from Leonardo and Raphael's contest to command an inordinate amount of his attention. Michaelangelo and Donatello were clearly spent from the two hours of non-stop katas that Splinter had put them all through. Or at least, they had no particular investment in ignoring the pain they were feeling. Neither appeared motivated toward any superhuman performance.
Leonardo and Raphael, on the other hand, seemed to have transcended the limits of their mortal bodies. It was clear to Splinter that the emotional investment in this match was greater even than it usually was between the two of them. In truth, pound for pound, blow for blow, Splinter knew they were a dead even match. What usually gave Leonardo the edge was his ability to plot a precise course of action and implement it in less time than it took Raphael to simply react. Tonight this didn't seem to be the case.
Splinter decided it was more than fatigue making Leonardo's work sloppy tonight. He also recognized that if Raphael and Leonardo continued to escalate, striking harder and harder with less and less control, one of them was going to get hurt.
"Hai yame!" barked Splinter. Michaelangelo and Donatello staggered apart, grinning and panting. Mike nearly fell over trying to bow and Don stayed partly bent forward, hands on his sides, sucking in air.
Leonardo and Raphael backed away with reluctance, their eyes still fixed on one another, their breath pumping like the exhaust of a freight train. Leonardo bowed, never taking his eyes off of his brother and Raphael inclined his body forward only the smallest bit.
"Seiza." Splinter ordered and they lined up in a row and sat on their knees, at attention, eyes forward, sides heaving.
Splinter walked in front of each of them and stopped in front of Leonardo. He cocked his head, ears pricked up, gazing intently at Leo for an uncomfortably long time. Leonardo lowered his eyes.
"Anger clouds the mind, Leonardo," Splinter told him. He was well aware of the shame that had to be burning through his star pupil at that moment and knew that there was very little he had to say to drive his point home. Nevertheless Splinter was not about to let him off easy. Splinter turned to Raphael. "If you have no control in here, if even for these short hours you cannot put aside your differences in order to work, how will you master your own minds out there?" Splinter stabbed his walking stick upward, toward the ceiling of their home and the streets above. "Out there, if you allow emotion to blind you, you will die."
Splinter turned away. "We will meet back in here in ten minutes and continue." He glided out of the still-unfinished dojo, and through the sleeping area, to his private chamber.
Michaelangelo groaned and fell over on his side. "Thanks, Raph," he said.
"Hey!" snapped Raphael. "It wasn't me messin' up!"
Donatello swung his legs around and sat cross-legged. "I think Splinter thought it was you."
"You readin' his mind these days, Donnie?" asked Raphael.
"Doesn't matter, really," said Mike miserably. "We're still gonna be stuck in here all night because of it."
Leonardo stared at the ground and shook his head. "Sorry guys," he said, standing up. "I'll go find him and see if I can convince him to just deal with me. There's no reason for Mike and Don to be punished."
"You gonna plead my case, too, Leo?" asked Raphael, his tone laced in sarcasm.
"You can plead your own," said Leo, ducking out through the small doorway.
Mike lay on his side, propping his cheek in his hand. "So you wanna tell us what's goin' on?"
"I dunno if I want to know," said Don.
Raphael stood up. "Leo's just bein' Leo."
"Heh. Right," said Mike, and then shrugged innocently when Raphael glared at him.
Raphael stalked out of the dojo, through the sleeping area and past Splinter's little room. He could hear voices in there and he knew that Leonardo was making good on his word to take the heat off of Mike and Don. Raphael scowled, wondering what else Leo might be telling their sensei.
He went into the kitchen, which now purred with the comforting, civilized sounds of electric appliances, and opened the refrigerator. He took out the gallon of milk that Sunni had given him the day before and chugged down almost half of it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set the container back in the fridge. The stupid thing was, he knew, he was going to have to talk to Leonardo and get this whole mess cleared up. It was he who had something to lose, not Leo.
They reconvened in the dojo, and Splinter ran them through a series of slower katas, slowly cooling down to a tai –chi form and then some ki- breathing exercises. They ended with an hour of meditation. He then sent Mike and Don out and directed Raph and Leo to clean up the heaps of broken rock and brick and concrete they had spent two weeks breaking down from the walls to enlarge the room. They were told to stack it all, larger pieces on the bottom, the smaller ones on top, as compactly as possible, on the outside of the far wall, then sweep the floor. The task was likely going to take hours, and Splinter left the room, satisfied that the outcome of this would be positive on all levels.
They began their labor in silence, hefting the largest of the broken rocks first, and then having to climb over the broken 4-foot tall wall at the back of the room without dropping it, and deposit on the other side. It was painfully obvious that it would work better if one of them stood on the other side of the wall to receive the blocks and stack them. They worked in silence, doing it the hard way, for ten minutes before Leonardo made the suggestion.
"Look, Raph, why don't you stand behind the wall there and I'll pass these to you?"
"Why don't you stand behind the wall?"
"I don't care. It'll just be more efficient if one of us does."
Raphael stood gripping a 60- pound chunk of rock and concrete against his plastron, his eyes burning behind his mask.
Leonardo shook his head in undisguised annoyance and climbed over the wall. They worked in silence for several more minutes, Raphael lifting and carrying, Leo stacking the uneven pieces into a fairly orderly pile.
Raphael wrestled in his mind with how he was even going to broach the subject and break down the barrier of silence he was helping to maintain. Leo's concession to talk to him had been born only out of a practical need to communicate about the rocks. Still, it seemed that some of Leo's outrage had seeped away in the intervening 24 hours. He was pretty sure Leo was waiting for him to say something, too. Then he remembered the last thing his brother actually had told him.
"So, I thought you said you were gonna talk to me at home," he said after passing another heavy concrete block to Leo and then walking away.
Leonardo was quiet for a moment as he set the block on the ground. "Yeah, I was."
"So? Talk." Raphael turned to face him from fifteen feet away.
Leonardo thought again for a moment. "Raph, what the hell did you hope to accomplish by that little stunt?"
Raphael chuckled mirthlessly. "I dunno Leo. I guess I thought I was tryin' to do ya a favor."
Leonardo blinked. "A favor? You were doing me- " He looked away. "You are out of your mind."
"Sorry, Leo. It won't happen again. Believe me. You're kinda socially embarrassing, y'know?"
"I embarrassed you? How did I embarrass you?
Even Raphael knew he was on shaky ground with that one. He could see how Leo might have felt humiliated, but he wasn't really ready to let Leo know he saw it. "Well, yeah," he said. "Walkin' out like that. I mean, how do ya think Tanya felt?"
"How Tanya felt…what do I-?" Leonardo groped for the words. "Raph, that's not the point. I mean, I'm sorry if she felt bad, or thought I was what, I don't know, rejecting her or some damn thing. But really, all that came of that is that there is now one more human out there who knows a lot more about us than she needs to."
"So Leo, that did nothin' for ya, huh? I mean, there was nothing even a little…ah… tempting about havin' a beautiful girl comin' on to ya?"
"No. Nothing. And there probably never will be."
Raphael shook his head in dismay. "Damn, Leo. OK. Whatever."
"And that's not the point. What I felt or didn't feel is totally irrelevant. The thing is, you lied to me. You betrayed a trust."
"I did what,now?"
"You told me one thing and it turned out to be something else. You deliberately misled me. It's a betrayal, Raph. That's all. And we, you, me, Don, and Mike, we're supposed to be on the same team. We have to be able to trust each other. How am I supposed to trust you if you can get in so deep with some…some human girl and conspire against one of us like that?"
" 'Some human girl'?" repeated Raphael.
"Yeah, some human girl. What, is that an insult? That is what she is-"
"You don't know her!" Raphael shouted. "You don't know a damn thing about her and what she does!"
"Hey, whoa. I'm not blaming Sunni. I hold you accountable."
"Accountable for what now?"
"For your actions. You've got your tail tied in a goddamn knot over this girl and you've forgotten who you are, who we are; Splinter, everyone. You are completely out of control. I swear, whatever brains you had up there in the first place have moved down below your belt -"
If he was being baited, Raphael didn't care. With a furious snarl he launched himself at Leo who was only too happy to catch him. He grabbed Raphael by the edge of his carapace and belt and rolled him over his back, smashing him up against the rock wall behind them. Leo leaped clear and dropped into a defensive stance, anticipating the next attack, when someone cleared his throat behind him. He turned around.
Splinter stood in the doorway, his hands resting on his walking stick, his eyes flashing in silent anger.
Leonardo dropped to his knees and bowed. Raphael climbed over the low wall and stood for a moment, rubbing his head, glaring at Leo accusingly. He noticed Splinter's stormy expression and paused, reconsidering what he had been planning to say. Then he knelt and lowered his head as well.
Splinter's whiskers twitched. "Please inform me when your task is complete," he said, turning on his heels and walking out the door.
Leo and Raph each hissed a sigh of relief.
"I'll stack," said Raphael.
Four hours later, when all the blocks of rock and brick were stacked up as tidily as could be expected, and the room was swept spotless, Leonardo and Raphael were instructed to put all the rock back where it had been. Splinter pointed with his walking stick. "Please spread them out evenly all around the walls of the dojo. Neatly."
Three hours later, having accomplished that, they were told to re-stack all the debris behind the low wall again.
Early in the morning of the next day Leonardo and Raphael were finally dismissed from their duties in the dojo. They each drank roughly a quart of water right out of the kitchen faucet, staggered back into the sleeping chamber and collapsed on their futons.
"Well, I thought it was pretty harsh," said Mike, swinging up onto the hard steel grating of the fire escape platform. The small canvass bag he had tied to his belt smacked against his arm as he hung upside down for an instant.
"You don't think they deserved it?" asked Don, following him and landing effortlessly on his feet.
"I dunno. They've never gotten in that much trouble for fighting before. Not even when Raph threw Leo through the barn wall."
"That was different," said Don. " 'Cause of how that came out, with Shredder getting beheaded and everything, y'know?
Mike looked quickly at his brother, checking his expression.
"The fact that they had been fighting was kinda forgotten, I think," Don said dryly.
"Ya think?" Mike grinned.
"Heh."
They scurried as silently as possible up the groaning fire escape ladder to the rooftop, and paused to survey the steel and concrete landscape around them. The city lay glittering, honking, smoking, wailing, her song drifting up to where they stood, on cooling night breezes.
"Not so warm tonight," said Don, drawing in a deep breath. "Air smells good, too."
"I'm glad Splinter let us go early tonight," said Mike.
"Yeah. It's been a while since we made a real patrol of the sewers, too."
"Fer sure. Its funny Leo hasn't been riding us about that."
Don shrugged. "He's been too busy riding Raph. So, you got a new book in there for Miguel?" asked Don looking at Mike's bag.
"Yeah. This one is so cool. It's called Are You My Mother? There's this baby bird who hatches while his mom is out looking for food and he falls out of the nest and goes looking for her."
"Sounds appropriate," said Don.
"Heh. Yeah. I guess so, huh?"
"So how is he doing now?"
Mike looked at his feet as they walked along the roof. "Better, I think. He says he likes it more when I'm there, but even if I'm not, he's not as scared as he used to be. He says that he knows if 'his' turtle isn't there, then his mom's angels are. I still don't like it when I miss a night, though."
"Well, yeah, but you can't be here every night."
"I try to. The problem is his mom's shift keeps changing."
"What does she do?"
"Some kinda housekeeping. It's at a convalescent hospital, I think."
The sounds of a commotion came to their ears as they leaped to the roof of Miguel's building. A woman was screaming in Spanish and a child was crying.
"That's Miguel!" yelped Mike, breaking into a run. He skidded around a sooty exhaust chimney and dropped over the side of the building, followed closely by Don. They climbed hand over hand, fingers and toes, down one story to the broken window that was Miguel's. Clinging to the window ledge, side by side, knees braced against the brick wall, they peered in between the wooden slats that covered the shattered window.
Inside was Carmella, Miguel's mother, crying and shouting at a uniformed police officer and two middle-aged women in calf-length office dresses. Miguel was huddled behind his mother's legs.
"Ms Riez," the officer was saying. "You need to calm down right now. We are going to need to take your son with us. He will be safe. He will be in good hands."
Carmella screamed something else that neither Don nor Mike could understand.
"Carmella," broke in one of the women. She held a large file of papers in one arm. "It is illegal in this country to leave a young child unattended and alone in the house. This is considered child endangerment and you can be arrested and prosecuted for it."
Carmella was nearly hysterical. "I do everything you say! I get off the street! I get off the junk! I work a good job and pay for rent and for food. And now you come and take him? No!"
"Carmella," said the other woman. "You need to provide adequate supervision for your child when you are at work. You need to find child care. I gave you a list of child care providers."
"I don't have enough money!" Carmella raised her hand, fingers pinched together to illustrate her point. "I can not pay rent and for food and for those child care people, too!"
"And besides that," spoke up the other woman, gazing around the apartment with disdain. "This is hardly a safe environment. There are broken windows, exposed wiring- "
"The landlord," said Carmella. "He don' fix nothing! He say that to me. Nada!"
"How long have you been working, Carmella?" asked the first woman again, opening her file. "How long have you been leaving Miguel home alone?"
"He hasn't been alone!" blurted Michaelangelo under his breath. His fingers gripped the window ledge as he started to pull himself up. Don grabbed his arm.
"Mike, you can't."
"They're gonna take him!" Mike looked nearly as distraught as Carmella. "They can't do that!"
Inside the apartment, one of the two social workers bent over, and reached for Miguel. He cowered away from her and Carmella backed away, scooping him up. "NO!" she shouted. 'NO!" The officer stepped in and put a firm hand on her shoulder as Miguel was taken from her arms. He drew her hands behind her back and handcuffed her. Miguel screamed, reaching for his mother.
Outside, Don had his hands full holding Michaelangelo back. "You can't do that, Mike. He'll be ok. They'll straighten it out." Donatello really had no idea how it was going to be straightened out, but he had to say something to keep Mike from breaking down the window slats to explain how he had been watching Miguel for the last month and a half.
Between Carmella's hysterically calling upon the Blessed Virgin in two languages and Miguel's howling, neither of them heard whether or not Carmella had her rights read to her. They all disappeared out the door and down the stairway amid barking dogs and neighbors shouting curses at the disturbance.
Walking back to the lair through the dark sewers Donatello tried to comfort Mike, though he knew it was probably an exercise in futility. The truth was, he had less faith in human beings' ability to care for their vulnerable ones as Mike did. Leo and Mike were generally the optimists about the legal system.
Mike wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "It's not right! It's just not right!"
"Mike…" said Don, and for once he wasn't really sure how to finish the sentence.
"She's a good mom. What's gonna happen to him?"
Donatello thought furiously for a moment, not so much for Miguel's sake as for Mike's. "Well, what do other moms do that have to work? Maybe she could get a roommate, like another mom, and they could share baby sitting, y'know?"
Mike frowned. "That's a good idea." He stopped and looked back over his shoulder down the narrow tunnel. "Someone should tell her that."
"Hold it!" Don had to grab his arm again. "They'll figure it out. She looks pretty smart to me. Besides, you've never talked to her, have you?"
Mike shook his head and scuffed a foot in the shallow sewer water, making a small splash. "No."
Don grinned. "You don't wanna traumatize her with your big green face after everything else she's going through, do you?"
Mike almost smiled. "No. I guess not. But what am I supposed to do?"
"Have some faith."
"Yeah. Ok," said Mike without a lot of conviction.
Ohhhh she may be weary.
Young girls they do get wearied,
wearing that same old funky dress….
Stewpot's deep husky voice competed with Otis Redding's high, sweet tenor, as Sunni swept around the dining room, picking up bowls and plates and used paper napkins. She glided back into the kitchen from whence the music was blasting, swaying to the rhythm. Stewpot was at the sink, hot water roaring into the stainless steel sink, soapy foam rising rapidly into a mountain of suds. His soot and ash-colored hair escaped in wild corkscrews from beneath his rainbow-knit hat.
Stewpot glanced back over his shoulder at her and his bearded face broke into a deeply creased grin. "Ten more today than yesterday," he said.
"Word's gettin' out." Sunni piled the dishes by the sink. "We gonna have more'n we can handle pretty soon."
"Then we handle it however we can," said Stewpot.
Sunni shrugged and tied off the plastic trash bag heading for the back door. She hurried across the alleyway to the nearly-full dumpster and tossed the bag in. The late afternoon sun still struck the upper floors of the buildings around her, but in their shadows it was nearly dusk. Sunni left the back door open to let the cooler air in and the steamy heat of the kitchen out.
I know she waiting
just anticipating
the thing that you'll never, never possess…
Oh no, no, no…
But while she there waiting
You can try just a little bit of tenderness…
"I was thinking," said Sunni walking back into the kitchen.
"I know what you was thinking," said Stewpot.
Sunni put her hands on her hips. "So what do ya say? You know there's only so much Reverend Dahle is gonna be able to do. I got the paperwork from United Way."
Stewpot reached for a towel and dried his hands. He turned down the CD player and lumbered away from the sink. "Come here, Sunni," he said and she followed him out into the dining room. Stewpot went behind the counter and rummaged through a stack of papers on the lower shelves. He set them on the countertop, and pulled his reading glasses out from under his white apron. "Now look at this. You remember the hoops they made me jump through just to get the doors open here? I don't want no more waiting periods, health department inspections. All that," Stewpot swept his hands over the pile. "All that time –consuming crap when there's people hungry out there right now. Besides that, the whole idea of this place is about people feeding people. I don't want some government agency comin' in, telling me how I oughta run things."
"I know, I know," said Sunni. "I feel the same way. But United Way don't work like that. You apply for the money an' either you get it or you don't. You don't have to like, close down while you're waitin'."
Stewpot harrumphed testily and there came from the kitchen the small crash of silverware falling. Both turned and ran back into the kitchen.
Sunni got there first and caught a hold of the skinny arm of the young thief as he was dashing for the door.
"Lemme go! Lemme go!" he yelled, his voice somewhat muffled by the biscuit stuffed in his mouth. He twisted away, kicking at Sunni. Stewpot stepped in and grabbed him by both shoulders.
"Hey, hey there, son. Whatcha doin' here?"
"Nothin'! Lemme go!"
"You hungry, boy?"
The child stopped struggling for a moment and looked up from underneath a tangle of mud brown curls. "No." He quickly wiped the crumbs off his mouth.
"No? Well, I'll tell you what. What we do here is feed people. For free. You don't hafta go be takin' anything here sneaky, 'cause we give it away. Now why don't you go on out to the dining room with Sunni here and I'll fix you up. OK?" Stewpot released him.
The boy scowled up at the tall man for a moment. Then he looked at Sunni.
"C'mon," she said and turned around, walking back through the swinging double doors into the dining room. The kid followed her.
Sunni sat opposite the boy, her chin resting in her hands as he gobbled down the thick, reheated soup and bread. She decided he was around ten- years old, though he could have been older and just small for his age. He was thin as a stick, and dressed in filthy clothes. He smelled only marginally better than the adults who had been eating in the same room a few hours earlier. When he came up for a breath Sunni cocked her head at him.
"So what's your name, kid?"
He looked at her hard for a moment. "Why you wanna know?"
"So I don't have to keep calling you 'kid'."
He took another bite of soup and chewed it, thinking. "Sean," he said.
"'Kay. I'm Sunni. Good ta meetcha."
"Yeah," he said, and to Sunni's surprise, extended his hand across the table to shake hers. He wiped his mouth with the cuff of his long sleeve shirt, and picked something out of his teeth, looking down at the tabletop. "I'm sorry I kicked you back there," he said.
Sunni's smiled, amused. "It's ok. No harm done. You can come back here tomorrow, you know, and eat more."
Sean narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What's the catch?"
"None. If you're hungry, we'll feed ya."
Sean nodded and bit off another hunk of bread. "M'kay," he said. "Maybe."
They had made love for hours. Raphael, his arms around Sunni, had fallen into a deeper sleep than he had since he was a small child. When he finally awoke alone in the bed, with the sunlight streaming in the bedroom window, he was startled by how light it was. He rolled over to look at the clock and saw the blood on the sheets. His heart jumped in his throat and he sat up, tearing the rest of the bedding back to be sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. There was blood everywhere
Raphael leaped out of the bed, snatching his sai up off the floor. Then he heard the water running in the bathroom.
He stood in the hall, listening, sai gripped in his hands, his heart racing. He could hear Sunni singing in her raspy, throaty voice, behind the door.
"Sunni?"
"Yeah?" she answered.
"You OK?"
"I'm in the shower. I'll be out in a minute. You need to use the bathroom?"
"No." Shakily he backed away and stumbled into the living room. He sat on the couch and rubbed his face with both hands, feeling his heart still pounding.
After about ten minutes, Sunni came into the living room, wrapped in her robe, her hair falling around her face in damp, golden tendrils. "Hey," she said. "You want some breakfast?" She halted seeing the look on his face. "Are you shaking, Raphael?"
"There was blood…a lot of blood on the sheets," he said.
"Oh. Oh yeah. I'm sorry, I just started this morning."
Raphael gazed at her blankly. "You started…?"
"My period." Sunni tilted her head at him. "You do know about that, girl's periods, right? They happen every month."
Raphael remembered hearing about something or other. At the time he had done his best to not really know anything about it. "Ah…yeah. Yeah, I knew about that. I just didn't know about the blood part."
Sunni held back her smile. "You didn't really know, did you?"
Raphael tapped a fist against his mouth. "I thought I'd hurt you." His voice was strained.
"Oh, no. No, no, no. You didn't hurt me." Sunni sank down on the couch. "Did that scare you?" she asked.
"Scared the crap outta me."
"Oh, baby, I'm sorry. I guess I shoulda warned you or somethin'." Sunni snuggled down next to him and he put his arm around her, pulling her closer.
"Damn." Raphael snorted, a little half-laugh, and shook his head.
"No sisters, huh?"
"No sisters."
"An' I guess your mom's never bothered to explain-"
"I never knew my mother."
"You never knew her?"
He shrugged. "Or I don't remember. It was like, sixteen years ago."
Sunni frowned. "You know, I never asked you this…how old are you?"
"Sixteen. Well, seventeen this spring. Now, I guess." He glanced over at her and saw her eyes widen. "What?"
"You're seventeen- years old?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"My God." Sunni pressed her fingers to her forehead. "I'm robbin' the cradle."
"What's that mean?"
"I mean, I'm twenty-four!"
"Yeah?" Raphael grinned.
"Oh, you like that, huh?"
"Yeah."
Sunni smiled ruefully. "I'd have never guessed. You don't act like no seventeen-year old. You seem a lot more mature."
Raphael's brows shot up. "First time anyone's ever said that."
"Well, don't listen to them, then." Sunni settled back down against him, tucked under his arm. Her wet hair was cool against his skin.
"Who?"
"I assume you mean your family is calling you immature?"
Raphael shrugged.
"Are you the youngest?"
"No. Well, its not like we really…ah…" Raphael shut his mouth. He didn't think he could explain how they really weren't sure who was older than whom.
"How many of you are there?"
Raphael sighed and said nothing for a moment. He reached over and gently loosened the top of Sunni's robe. She sucked in her lower lip, watching him look at her. "Four," he finally said. "There's four of us."
"What are the other two names?"
"Mike and Don."
"How come you wouldn't tell me this before?"
"I dunno. Old habits."
Sunni rested her cheek against his shoulder. "So what are they like?"
"They're both goofy."
"You get along OK with them?"
"Oh yeah. 'Specially Mike."
"Why him?"
"I dunno. I never really thought about why. He's a good friend. He's fun. He's kinda crazy but he's real…soft-hearted, y'know?"
"Like how?"
Raphael was aware that she was grilling him, and it didn't matter. He wanted to tell her. It made him feel closer to her, and at the same time, gave him some sense of separation from Leo and Splinter. He was still stinging from Splinter's shaming punishment two nights ago. "Like, uh…oh, like there was this kid he was kinda baby sitting at night when the mom went to work. He was reading him stories an' stuff. Then like the Children's Protection somethin' came and took the kid away. Mike was just tore up about it."
"Hm." Sunni tapped her nails on Raphael's plastron. "You know what their name was?"
"I can find out, I guess. Why?"
Sunni shrugged. "I might be able to do something about that."
"What could you do?"
"I know some people."
The phone rang before Raphael could ask her any more questions. Sunni untangled herself from his arms and reached over him to answer it.
"Hullo? Oh, hi Mama."
Raphael listened restlessly to Sunni's half of the conversation. He tried several times to reach under her robe and Sunni playfully swatted his hand away. "You're ignoring me," he whispered in her ear. Sunni finally stood and crossed the room with the phone, her finger in the other ear, grinning at him.
"So you think this'll take like three weeks?" Sunni said. "Ok, well, that might work out ok…Yeah, I'm gonna give notice here. He is gonna raise the rent…. An' by the time we get back, that other place will be available….Um hm…"
"Where you goin'?" Raphael asked her frowning.
"South Carolina," Sunni mouthed the words silently to him. "My aunt….Yeah, Mama. Ok. No, I know they'll hire me back. They need people real bad… Well, if they don't, I'll find work somewhere else. Don't worry."
"South Carolina…?"
"OK, Mama, bye." Sunni hung up the phone and looked at Raphael, giving him a little shrug.
"Why're you goin' there?"
"I got an aunt who needs some help movin'. It's my Mama's sister an' she's been kinda sick. So we're gonna go down there for a little while. Get her settled in."
"Hm." Raphael frowned. "When?"
"First week of June."
"Hm." Raphael thrummed his fingers on the arm of the couch.
"Aww. C'mon," said Sunni with a mock pout. "Won't be for that long."
He shook his head. "That's not it."
"Well, what is it?"
"Nothin' ," he said, and decided not to tell her about the strangely ominous chill that had suddenly washed over him. He looked up at her. "How about that breakfast?"
Sunni's brows drew together uncertainly, but she smiled at him. "Ok."
In the kitchen Raphael sat at the table, watching Sunni toast bread and scramble eggs. She stopped for a moment and set the spatula down, staring at something far beyond the kitchen walls. Then she turned and faced him. Her face was serious. "You know," she said. "Sometimes, the way you make me feel, it really scares me."
Raphael gazed back at her. He swallowed. "Me too," he said.