GRIT (The Silver Nitrate Series Book 2) (2 page)
She was a widow when I met her and had experienced much pain; yet, I’ll still never forget her smile, wit, and enduring strength. I love you, Mrs. Grace, and I miss you. I can still feel your soft hair between my fingers and your house still smells like your delicious zucchini bread. You have not been forgotten…
Love,
The bad little girl next door
GRIT – Courage and resolve, mental toughness, strength of character… – Merriam-Webster Dictionary
“P
lease understand that
a lot of what I’m about to tell you is hearsay, some of it I know firsthand, and some I filled in from information I found in other ways,” Zenith explained.
Silver nodded. “Okay baby.”
“My… my father had gotten sick. No one knew what was going on. He was only thirty, same age as me, and had been rarely ill. He was healthy. He exercised and took care of himself, so, I don’t think anyone thought it was more than a cold. Anyway, he kept coughing all the time, having cold sweats, and it got so bad, he went to the doctor to find out what was going on.” He ran a hand over his knee, paused, and regrouped. “He came home and I guess told my mother they’d run a bunch of tests and he’d get the results soon. Well, he got the results all right. He had full blown AIDS.”
“Shit.” She squeezed his hand, gripped it hard as she slowly closed her eyes and winced.
“My parents had known one another since they were teenagers. My mother, according to different information I found out later, had been with only my father, you know, in that way. She’d never known anyone else but him. From what everyone gathered, my father had been faithful to her, but then, we all found out that was a lie. He wasn’t a drug user and neither was my mother. I wasn’t born HIV positive and I’m not HIV positive now, as you know. You and I have already been tested; we’re good. So, anyway, he contracted it after my birth. He brought it into our family… He brought that damn disease into our family and
killed
my mother!” A tear streamed down his face as he trembled in his own damn bones.
“No one told me what was going on back then.” He shrugged and glanced away. “I was just a little kid, but I heard about it in school. Isn’t that crazy? A kid at school knew the truth, but not me?”
“Yeah, I get that. Makes the world feel much smaller, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, you could say that. People knew who my parents were. They were always out in the forefront and they’d even made national news a couple of times. So, anyway, one day, I was fighting with a friend of mine; you know how little kids are. We were about ten, maybe eleven. My parents had been gone for a few years by then. We were fighting and I was getting the best of him, right? All of a sudden he blurted, ‘That’s why both of your parents dead, Zenith. ’Cause your father was a phony, preaching to everybody about what they should and shouldn’t be doing but he was out there fuckin’ the city ho and gave your mama AIDS.”
Silver lowered her head and shook it.
“I didn’t know what he was talking about, but it upset me because… well, I was only told that my parents were very sick, and it was due to a bad blood transfusion—but that wasn’t true. The adults around town had been talking though for years, and sometimes kids overhear things… terrible things. That must’ve been how he found out.” He sat a bit straighter and wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead.
“Silver, this is a first for me. Javier, he’s my best friend. He’s the only person I’ve talked to about this and that was years ago. I’ve never said more than the fact my parents weren’t alive anymore to a woman I was, you know, dating. I just… refused. I can’t really explain to you why this is so hard for me… It shouldn’t be, but it is.”
“It’s a part of you. I want to hear it. I care so much about you, baby.” She raked her fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face and tucking a few strands behind his ear.
“I know.” He looked into her eyes and forced a smile. “That’s why I’m doing this. You’re my you-niverse, baby. You know that? Y.O.U.-niverse,” he spelled out. “I
never
want to make you hate me, want me to leave. It hurt me that I was hurting you. I couldn’t let that happen. We’ve come too far to lose one another, especially over something like
this
.” He leaned over and pressed his lips against hers, then continued.
“So anyway, then I thought about what my friend said at school, right? Took me a couple of days. I wanted to save face and not ask him directly; besides, he and I were still not talking. I was afraid to hear the truth if I asked about it, and afraid of not hearing it, too, if that makes any sense.”
“It makes
perfect
sense.”
“But then I just said, ‘fuck it.’ I asked my grandfather about it, figuring he’d deny it and say it wasn’t true. I was sure it was a lie, you know—just something mean said to get under my skin. I said, ‘Paw, a friend of mine said that uh, Dad had AIDS and he got it from fuckin’ some ho, not from a blood transfusion.’ I said it just like that, right? Then I said, ‘Is that true?’ My grandfather looked at me real close, real careful, and you know what? I can honestly say, Paw never lied to me again about this after that. He looked at me, and sat me down.
“He said, ‘Zen, your grandmother and I didn’t tell you the truth because you were so young, and that type of discussion is not okay for small children. Your parents were sick and passed on, yes, that much you know. My son, your father, made a mistake, a bad choice. No, he didn’t get a bad blood transfusion; he cheated on your mother and contracted the disease. But he loved you very much and loved your mother, too.’ You know what?” Zenith kept grinning, right through the torturous pain, forcing himself to keep going. “I wasn’t trying to hear that, Silver. I can’t even describe to you how I felt at that moment.” He snatched his hand away from hers and beat it along his chest, hard, pounding, like a drum sat right against his heart.
“I can’t even
explain
to you how, at five years of age,” he held up five fingers, “I sat there, an orphan, thinking my parents had had a bad twist of luck from a damn hospital or some shit, something that didn’t even make sense. And now this man tells me, like five or six years later, after they’re long gone, that my father messed around with another woman and ruined our entire damn family. He murdered all of us; me in a way, too!” he roared.
Silver leaned over to take his hand once again, this time, holding a bit tighter.
“This man that used to tuck me in at night, explaining to me why we had to stand out in the rain, hungry and tired with signs in our hands in front of city hall. He’d tell me he was raising a soldier, and soldiers are honorable and we protect those that are weak or need help. This same man,” he said, pointing angrily at nothing in particular, “was out with some tramp, no damn condom, and havin’ an affair on a woman who loved him! A woman that was loyal and good to him! How could he, huh? The trick that gave it to my father worked right alongside them. Can you believe that?
“I knew her, Silver. She came to our house and had dinner on several occasions. She ate the food my mother cooked, laughed with her, smiled and played along… all the while she was screwing my father. She even babysat me a few times. He let this woman into our lives, and everything was destroyed! Just gone!” He waved his hand in the air, feeling broken in a million and one pieces.
“When did your mother find out she’d contracted it, too?”
“Well, my mother didn’t have any symptoms initially, or at least none she recognized, from what I understand… but she was tired a lot, that much I do remember. After he got the test results, he came crawling home and begging for my mother’s forgiveness. My mother immediately got herself checked after he told her, but it was too late. They’d both had it for
years
! No medicine, no treatment, nothing. HIV is not a death sentence nowadays, but you have to take your meds.”
“I know… I know, baby. I have a cousin who is HIV positive, but he takes care of himself.” Silver sat there crying, but you couldn’t hear her, only see them coming down her face. And it made him feel some kinda way.
“The disease was so far advanced in their bodies that… at that point, there wasn’t too much anyone could do. That was a long time ago, too.” His shoulders slumped.” They weren’t as progressive as they are now with what works and what doesn’t… no hope… no hope.” He clasped his hands together and rested his attention on an old wooden framed photo of her mother, her two brothers and two younger sisters.
“And you know what the extra messed up part was?” He kept staring at the family photo… the one filled with genuine smiles, unity, and happiness. “There’s more to this story, Silver, but that’s all I want to say about that part right now. Regardless, my mother still loved him until the day she died.”
Silver released his hand, grabbed a tissue box from her dresser, and placed it between them. They both reached out to one another, wiping the other’s tears away… Then they fell into silence for a spell or two.
“I’ve hated him for a long time, Silver. To me and everyone else, my parents had the perfect marriage, you know? Funny what’s done in the dark will eventually come out in the light. Only problem is, the dark still steals a piece of the light anyway…and you never get it back.”
Silver nodded in agreement.
“You were right…and I hate that you were right.”
“Right about what?”
“The guilt part you mentioned. I’ve had guilt for
still
loving him, mixed up with all of this hate. He was a good father, just like l said, you know? He
really
was. I became torn. He would get me up in the mornings, brush my hair, get me ready for school sometimes. He taught me how to read. Paw took over, but those first books, those first stories… that was all my father’s doing. He told me reading is one of the keys to changing the world. He would take me places, all sorts of places. He’d take me to the city, to Manhattan, Brooklyn… take me to Coney Island, all sorts of parks.” He gesticulated to make his point, relishing the memories. “He’d take me to Broadway plays. Isn’t that funny?