Chapter 6

Steele

"Tell me about your last relationship," I crooned in her ear. We were lying on her surprisingly sturdy and comfortable bed that her friend made for her as a housewarming gift.

"Huh?" She blinked dazedly at me. I loved that look on her face. It spoke of her complete trust in me. Sheeba didn't play games or put on airs in our relationship. She was so pure…

"We haven't talked about our Exes yet. Have you ever had an adult relationship?" I watched her apply a little more brainpower to the conversation I was trying to have with her.

"Not really. Sort of?" she finally answered, sitting up in the bed. It wasn't that late for a Saturday night, only half past midnight. Back home I'd be out clubbing or running with my cousins. Instead, I was in bed with my girlfriend whom I had yet to take as my lover, asking about her old flames after kissing her senseless. Yeah, life was good.

"What's a 'sort of' boyfriend?" I asked curiously. She seemed to think about it more before giving in with a heavy sigh.

"Walter and I were an internet couple for about a month after being friends for eleven months. Then he met Harriet from Georgia and things between us went to strictly platonic while he fawned over her. That's when I broke things off with him. I'll be damned if I was going to fight for someone who wasn't really mine. They were married a few months later. That's when the problems really started. Harriet refused to support herself up here. She had some bullshit philosophy that the man was the provider and therefore she shouldn't have to work a day in her life. She wasn't going to work, but she was sho nuff going to spend like it was her day job. I believe he knew he'd made a mistake then, but she suddenly turned up pregnant and Walter was trapped. Things only got worse between them; Harriet seemed to think that since she'd given him a child, it justified the way she was treating him. Spending and spending like her credit card didn't have a limit. Plus, she was neglecting the baby. Walter couldn't keep up with immunizations and feeding and basic cleaning 'cause he was working double shifts at two jobs to support her shopping addiction."

"It all came to a head when he returned a bunch of things she bought that she didn't need and they couldn't afford. Little Danny was teething and covered in poop, he was colicky and feverish too, and she'd just… left him there. I do not doubt that there was some postpartum depression going on, but come on! Your son is screaming, crying for hours and you just leave him there to shop? They filed for divorce and she moved back to Georgia and in with an old boyfriend. He's paying her alimony from what I understand. He actually moved into my house for a few months while struggling to adjust to being a single parent. Then his mom moved down and they got a place together so she could take care of her grandson and trade shifts with Walter."

"The grandmother moved in with you?" I asked in shock.

"Hell no," she grinned. "I'd kicked Walter and my godson out by then. It was a temporary arrangement fresh off his divorce and he seemed to be trying to make it permanent. But I wasn't having it. I actually got it in writing before he moved in that it would be no more than 3 months. At month 4 I was done being his emotional crutch."

I couldn't help the bit of jealousy over the situation. Seeing as we were being honest with each other, I decided to ask the question that had been bugging me about her ex.

"Did you ever consider getting back together with him?" I was surprised by her laughter and joined in myself. "What? You weren't interested in Harriet's sloppy seconds, right?"

"You know, almost all of my friends have asked me that in some way, shape, or form. They all thought that we were going to get together after the divorce seven years ago. I squashed that noise right away with a quick 'we don't make sense as lovers, we only dated a month'. But I'll tell you the real reason I refused to take him back." She took a deep breath and looked up at me nakedly. "At some point, we were headed for something special, you know? I would never date someone I didn't have plans - however vague - to marry someday. He decided that I wasn't good enough for him. That I wasn't enough. He chose the first pretty thing to walk by and treated what we had like garbage. Why would I go back to someone who threw my love away like it didn't even matter? I'm not in the habit of moving backward. And taking him back would be the ultimate 'backward'. That chapter of my life is closed. For good and all. And I think we're both good with that, have been for years."

I covered her plush lips tenderly, understanding the emotional damage that came from being second best. At least she was smart enough to cut that shit out right away.

"My first real girlfriend had a wandering eye," I told her, the words burning my heart. "She'd stray and I'd take her back when the guy moved on. This went on for two years. I just kept falling for that… For her lies. How much she truly loved me. How she always came back so we were obviously meant to be. How the fact that she was honest about her cheating should be to her credit. I… I kept taking her back because I couldn't lose her. She was everything to me and I couldn't lose her. She had me thinking that I couldn't make it in this life without her. I honestly don't know why looking back on it." Sheeba's warm arms around me helped me tell the tale.

"What happened to her?"

"One day, she didn't come back." That was the true shame of it all. I didn't walk away from her. She had complete control of me right up to the end of our relationship. I should have walked away long before she cut me loose like yesterday's sewage. My girl reached beside the bed for her phone without releasing her hold on me. She searched for a little bit, and then a Boys II Men song I'd never heard came on. I listened carefully to the words and suddenly smiled at her. "Doin' Just Fine?"

"Exactly," she smiled at me. "However it happened, you got out of that toxic relationship. You got out and the seas didn't boil and the sky didn't fall. You're doing just fine. Better than fine with your relationships with your cousins. And you're that much wiser to boot. You will never allow yourself to fall for her bullshit again. Because…" shorti guided my face back to hers, "you know your worth now. And you know that you absolutely can make it in this life without her. That you're actually better off without her. How long ago did you know her?"

"I was a sophomore in high school. Almost didn't go to college, but I knew if I-"

"Wait a minute, I thought we were discussing adult relationships!" she gasped. "It makes sense that you did that shit in your youth. You were a kid and you didn't know any better."

"I should have though," I snarled. "I should have known that she was no damn good for me! I should have-"

"And here's the part of the conversation where you need to forgive that version of yourself," she said firmly, still holding my jaw tenderly. "The you of your youth is very different from the you that you are now. He was only doing what he thought was right at the time. You know better now. And you know that you will never be that desperate or bereft of choice again. Let that old shame go, Steele. It's over. It's done. You're much stronger than you were ten years ago. Let it go." She soothed me. "Let it go, baby…"

I couldn't help the tears for that young, confused punk who thought that Gloria was my everything. I'd never confessed this to anyone in my family. I'd never told them how much my relationship with her was still affecting my self-esteem. I didn't date much, and those dates never led to anything. It was meaningless sex and gratification. A part of me was still hurting from losing her and therefore losing my world. Only, I wasn't hurting right now. That gaping hole where I always thought she belonged was closing. When had that started? I think it started healing slowly on its own, but talking to Sheeba about it tonight was definitely helping. She was right; it was time to forgive myself. I was just a kid, and now I wasn't. She smoothed away my tears as I thought this through. I was nothing but good to Gloria during our relationship, treating her like Hosea treated Gomer and shit. But it was time to let that part of my life go. I wasn't a prophet and I certainly deserved better than the gaslighting and heartache she gave me over those hectic high school days.

"How'd you get so wise, Babygirl?" I asked her, my voice gravelly from crying. She smiled at me sweetly and gathered me into her arms. We drifted off to sleep.

… …

I woke up alone the next morning. Sheeba didn't work today, but she'd trained us all to be up by midmorning over the last few days. Up, showered, and dressed by noon and ready to leave the house to get to the hospital by a quarter to two. Wondering what my girl was up to on her day off, I showered and dressed for the day. The day after we moved in, Sheeba took us all to the local Walmart for house shoes. It was interesting changing outside shoes the moment we got in the house, but it worked. Especially with all the rock salt on the ground since it snowed almost every day. She kept insisting that it wasn't that cold. I don't care what she said; anything under 40 degrees Fahrenheit was too damn cold!

"I don't know! Life still has to go on while you guys are here, Choyce. And I work Wednesday, so I need to get my scrubs cleaned today." The sound of music playing in the kitchen led me to my woman.

"You don't think it's gonna look funny for the guys to come down and see your draws in the middle of the floor?"

"We're all adults here. I very much doubt that it's anything the boys haven't seen before."

"You… You're not wrong. I tend to wait on doing my clothes until Simeon's out of the house for a few hours."

"Why? It's laundry, not porn. If somebody's going to get all hot and bothered over my funky underwear, then we have bigger problems." The two busted out laughing.

"Girl, you a mess," Choyce giggled as I came into the room to fix myself some eggs and bacon. True to her word, there was a supermarket right down the street. I could walk there if the weather was nicer, but of course, I didn't.

"Good morning. What y'all talking about?"

"Dirty laundry," Sheeba said over Choyce's fumbling. "Today is laundry day for me. I plan to have the machines tied up for a while. Y'all are welcome to wash your things before you leave for the States and we should wash OS's things at some point. But-"

"You'd be cool with us using your machines like that?" I asked as I flipped my eggs.

"It's laundry! I mean… Is there some strange new slang involving dirty clothes that I'm not aware of?" She asked. We fell out laughing at that. "Right. Well, I have no problem with y'all using the machines, as long as you don't leave your things in there until they're about to walk out of there on their own and you don't use all of my detergent. I'll need to get more Tide Pods and Laundry Scent Boosters," She mumbled to herself as if making a list. There were some heavy thuds over our heads suddenly, letting me know that my cousins were up and fucking with each other like when we were kids.

"Sounds like the boys are up," Choyce laughed. Some shouts and more thuds sounded out. We were so busy laughing that we didn't notice Sheeba getting upset.

"Don't y'all break my house," she yelled from her place at the kitchen table. The thuds stopped immediately. I gawked at her openly, but she didn't seem to notice. The homeowner looked towards the stairs as if she was fin ta go up there and sort them two niggas out if they tested her. At the continued quiet, she settled back in her seat. "We're almost out of eggs and bacon. Pasta, oranges, grapes, paper towels… Y'all want bagels to go with- What?" Choyce was looking at her in awe. "What? What did I do now?"

"That was some 'mom-level' shit just now," she said. I nodded. I'd only seen a few of my aunts and Grandma shut down nonsense like that so effectively. She raised an eyebrow at the two of us and shrugged.

"You would know, mom," she said nonchalantly. "I'm going to make a Walmart run before we go visit with Simeon. If y'all think of anything you need, text it to me, alright? I'm gonna go change. I'll be back in a minute." I heard muttered greetings as she went upstairs and grinned foolishly.

"Yo, your girl is dangerous!" Choyce laughed as she cleaned up her breakfast dishes. There weren't a lot of dishes in the house, so we had to keep up with them. She more than made up for it with those thick, warm blankets and quilts she'd given us. She'd even gotten a mountain of pillows for me and my cousins to use while we were in her house. These three would be going home in a few days and Westley, Sherrod, and Seth would be heading up. It would be an interesting visit since Westley and Seth were two of my seven brothers. Little Sheeba might have to use that mom voice of hers a little more often during that visit.

Mirror stumbled down the stairs, headed for the cereal boxes she had in the cupboard. The woman refused to keep adult cereal in the house, opting to buy Apple Jacks, and Honey Nut Cheerios, Trix, Frosted Flakes, and whatever other children's cereal crossed her path. The good thing was she didn't eat cereal often, so it just sat there most times. But the Las Vegas native was cleaning her out.

"Yo, I ain't been shut down like that in years," he whispered as he came to the table with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and milk. "I half expected her to come up and school us this morning."

"Reminds me of that time Aunt Roxy went off on us, but without the ass whooping," I nodded. Mirror and I fell out laughing as we remembered that. Before we could tell Choyce what we were talking about, Des came downstairs, fresh out of the shower. He grabbed one of them nasty protein bars he'd bought and the AeroPress for some coffee. The tea kettle was soon singing for my cousin while he scooped coffee grounds into the filter cup. Once the water boiled, he poured it in the AeroPress chamber, which was settled on top of his chosen mug with the funnel, and pressed down on the plunger to make his coffee. It was an ingenious contraption that kept her from having to buy a coffee maker.

"Morning, fam," he said quietly. Des required coffee to be awake. And he drank it dark and sweet.

"What the hell were y'all two doing up there this morning?" I asked, cutting right to the chase. Neither of those niggas was willing to answer, so we let it go with a laugh. Sheeba came back to the kitchen, using a list app we were all used to seeing when she was ready to shop.

"Text me anything you want from Walmart, remembering that y'all out of here in three days."

"Yes, Mom," Des snickered into his cup, phone out nonetheless.

"Look. Love may cover a multitude of sins, but Imma be pissed if I end up with five different coffees in the house when I don't drink the stuff! I still gotta live here after y'all are gone."

"Don't worry. We gotchu, girl. We won't overdo it," Mirror said to calm her. Then he looked over her Spring dress in disbelief. "I can't believe you're going out in that. It's freezing outside!"

"What are you talking about? It's seven degrees out! It's practically Spring right now. Alexa, what's the temperature right now in Fahrenheit?"

"Right now, the temperature is 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Tonight, expect a temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit." We waited in silence for the machine to power down before thinking. Alexa tended to try and get in on our conversations.

"See? It's fine. It might snow a little tonight, but I'm perfectly dressed for the weather." She grabbed her purse and a light jacket and left before anything else could be said.

"That girl gonna die of pneumonia," Des grumbled into his coffee after adding two squirts of liquid Splenda to it.

"She been in this country for ten years and she ain't dead yet," I defended my girl, even though I agreed with my cousin deep down. Des grumbled more but didn't seem in the mood to argue.

"I ain't seen her workout since we been here," he said into the comfortable silence. I nodded, having noticed the same thing. I could handle my overweight girl, but it would be nice if she were taking proper care of herself.

"Want me to set her up with something in the basement? I looked over her set up down there and it's solid." I nodded permission; Desmond was a personal trainer in his spare time.

It didn't take long for her to return with the groceries. We had a system where she brought the stuff to the door and we put the stuff away. It worked well since it was so damn cold outside.

"We ready to go?" Sheeba asked once everyone was fed and ready. We tended to bring food for Old Man Sim and then sit around clownin' for a few hours until her shift was over. Then we piled into her car and came back to her house. We hadn't used the rental since that first night. My girl paid off the ticket, something about us not knowing any better, so the first one being on her. That's the thing, she was paying for everything out of pocket, as if she didn't have her own bills to pay. I'd spoken to the cousins and we'd be paying the 3 grand a month to use her place. But I wanted to do something for her now. The problem was, if I set her up with a weight loss routine, she might get the wrong idea.

"Hold on, shorti," Des stopped her on her way to the back door. "I noticed that you got all that gym equipment downstairs. Why you not using it on the regular?" She shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "What if I was to help you set up a small routine? How much you weigh?"

"230 pounds or so. I don't weigh myself very often," she admitted after a while. "It would be nice to get in shape, but I just don't have time. You've seen my life."

"Working out doesn't have to take hours, girl. Let me get you down in the gym later, aiight? I'll hook you up. You doing so much for us, let me do something for you, okay?"

"Um… alright," she smiled at him. Slightly jealous of that smile, I moved up to wrap her in my arms.

"Aiiight, that's enough of that. Ready to see OS?"

"O-okay… Do you think I'm fat?" she asked. I shook my head, caressing her cheek. Sometimes she could get so insecure about the strangest things.

"Nah, Babygirl, I don't think you're fat. But, if we can get you healthier while we're here, you know we're gonna do it." Her face lit up and she hugged me. Mirror and Des patted her braids, and she came back to herself, grabbing her purse off the counter. She had attempted to put her purse in her room at first, but the counter habit was strong. We all reassured her that we weren't going to rob her, so she left it there. The ride to the hospital was as lively as usual, Sheeba fitting right in with us. Her proper speech highlighted our street speak; it shouldn't have worked, but it did. I was content to run my fingers through her hair, which triggered humming from her between sentences.

"Look at you two, all content and shit," Mirror smiled. "Y'all make me miss my girl back home." Sheeba blushed but didn't miss a beat.

"I'm glad you're suitably entertained. Should we head in the front door this time? I'm thinking 'yes' since I'm off today."

"I'd love to see the place properly," Choyce smiled, holding her belly happily.

"If Simeon is up for it, we could load him in a wheelchair and I could give you all a tour. This place is huge and there is a lot to see."

"A tour sounds perfect," I put in my two cents. "I'm sure Old Man Sim ain't seen this place from his room." We all laughed as she parked, this time on the first level in the green area instead of on the blue area of the second, employee, level. She'd explained that the blue area, or 'Glacier' parking lot, had the most parking spots in the early afternoon. On day shifts, she tended to park in the green, 'Forest' area for ease of access. I was quickly learning that my Sheeba had a rich inner life that was as fascinating as it was easy to access. You just had to ask. The problem was, not many people in her life were willing to ask.

The next four days went well, Sheeba being her accommodating self. She said goodbye to the cousins before her day shift, making sure she provided food for them for the plane ride back to Connecticut. The next batch of cousins were coming the next day. That left me entertaining Old Man Sim all day.

"You're very bad at this," he told me as I zoned out again.

"I just can't get her off my mind," I admitted. "I've always been a free spirit and shit and now… She's all I can think of. What happens when we go back to Connecticut and I lose her?" He placed a hand on my shoulder in solidarity.

"Does she know how deep your feelings are? Have you told her?" I shook my head sadly. "Then it's time you did. That's the only way you'll lose her, cuz. Sheeba's a deep thinker. She can turn a yes into a no if given enough time. You the same way. Be clear and direct with her. Then y'all can figure out if you're moving out here or she's coming back to the East Coast."

"I don't know if she can handle our summers anymore. And her friends are here."

"Will you listen to yourself? Her friends? Have you seen any of them niggas since meeting her?" I shook my head again. "The girl vibed with our people without batting an eye. I think she'll appreciate hanging out with real people for a change. See, this is what I'm talking about! You rationalizing for her and shit. Just talk to her. Make it clear that you're serious about her. Hell, take her on a date; the house is empty tonight. Even if you don't get your freak on, you can hang out with her without distractions." I thought about it. I have to admit that the idea of being alone with her both appealed to and terrified me.

"What if she doesn't like the me she sees when we're alone?"

Poor Steele! He's in a tizzy over our girl. Let's see if Sheeba can do anything about it. See y'all next week!