“I started thinking about my mother and how I’d grown up. I wasn’t always like this. I used to avoid confrontation and I never bothered people even when they worked hard to bother me. Then one day my best friend…” she looked down at her plate and tried to continue even though her voice was so low that it was barely above a whisper. “…he committed suicide.”
She felt Troy’s hand on hers. She looked up at him and he was silently encouraging her to continue. “After that, I just felt very angry. I thought I was angry at the bullies in school because they made Felix want to do what he did. But then the bullies left me alone and later there was no more school and I was still angry.”
She was able to look at him, the words coming a bit easier now. “I thought I was angry at white people, because that’s who my mother taught me to be angry at. But even when there was no white people to be angry with I still had rage inside of me.”
“Juice, who were you angry at?”
Her brow gathered into a crease in the middle of her forehead. “My Momma.”
“Do you know why?”
She nodded. “Because, my Momma had given up on everything—and even I wasn’t motivation enough for her to do better. Her blood pressure and diabetes had gotten so bad that she died from it. And I was the one who found her.” Juicy felt herself tearing up again and she really didn’t want to cry in front of Troy after all of the tears that they had shed; individually as well as together.
“I’m mad at Felix, too.” She nodded emphatically. “I’m mad because he was my only true friend and he…took himself away from me. He was the one person that I could turn to that understood me completely.” She inhaled. It felt good to unload some of this. “That’s so wrong to be mad at him. He didn’t try to hurt me. It was me that let him down. He tried to talk to me and I didn’t hear what he was saying. He told me what he needed and I just didn’t hear.”
“You mean that you didn’t save him.”
Juicy nodded after a long moment. “I’m mad at myself, too.”
“Why?”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Because I hurt people and I know that I’m doing it. It makes me feel better when I’m hurting. And I let people down…I let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down, babe.”
“When you were in the hospital you needed me and I was too busy having my own pity party that I stopped caring about anybody else.”
“Juicy, the first step is to
recognize
destructive behavior, okay? And you’re doing that. You can’t go back and blame yourself for a period of time before you made these realizations.” She looked at him earnestly.
“I’m sorry that I hurt you Troy. I wish that I could take that back, because I saw the way you looked at me when you first came home. I saw how much I’d let you down.”
His lips purced and then he shook his head. “We have come too far to worry about things that don’t even matter anymore. I…I love you all over again. When I almost lost you, if I had any feelings of animosity left over they disappeared. So Juicy, if that’s bothering you then please, let it go.”
She nodded. “Okay, I’ll try. But Troy, sometimes I get so sad. I can’t stop crying, everything makes me cry.”
“Aww Juicy. Isn’t that something that new mother’s get?”
“Maybe.” She said doubtfully.
“Do you want to talk to someone about it? A professional?”
“Um…I think I need to, I really do.”
“Okay.”
“But will you go with me?”
“Of course I will. Let me do this, I’ll find someone for you; through the Mental Health Alliance and if you want we can do family counseling together, or you can do it alone.”
She nodded, feeling relieved but also scared. What if this didn’t work? What if nothing made her feel good?
***
Juicy went to counseling two days later. It turns out that being depressed right after having a baby had a name. It was called post partum depression and it meant that you had to see a doctor immediately. So even though she didn’t equate her depression to additional hormones or post partum anything, she didn’t turn down the ability to get into see a psychiatrist, either.
Troy sat in the waiting room holding the baby while she talked about things that she had held in for most of her life. It was slow at first, it felt stupid to have this white woman sitting there listening to her talk about how much she’d been taught to hate her kind when her white fiancé was out in the hall holding her multiracial daughter.
Half of her wanted to just get up and go home and say, ‘Yeah, I know it’s a lie.’, but the other half of her understood that she never bought into that lie, she had just used it as a vehicle to express her anger.
When she left she felt better, but knew that she had a ways to go in order to relearn the negative ways that she had been taught to express herself. But just as important, she was given an anti-depressant.
She thought about Troy, who had run away so that he wouldn’t have to take medicine that would make him into something that he wasn’t. Now she wanted the medicine if it could make her into what she should have always been.
***
It was four months, two weeks and three days since ‘that day’, when Troy and Juicy were wed at the Allen Temple AME church. The two had chosen simple bands. Troy didn’t think twice about the money, but Juicy was practical in that she had emphatically expressed that no woman needed to be sticking her hand in someone’s hair when she was wearing expensive diamonds.
Juicy had lost twenty seven pounds and fit comfortably in a champagne colored suit. She wore her golden dreds pulled up into a thick bun at the top of her head. Troy wore a black suit and when she walked down the aisle she had a fleeting thought that he looked so young. His blonde hair were cropped short to his head and his face was clean shaven. His gray eyes were big as they watched her approach him from down the aisle. He looked like he should be in someone’s college class learning about philosophy instead of marrying her. And then that thought left her as she looked back at all that they had done for each other, and in all of the ways that he had been there for her.
She smiled, not seeing any of the other people in the large church, not her ‘soul sisters’ from the salon, or her new In-laws that loved her purely for the fact that she had accepted and loved Troy. She didn’t see the street people that weren’t quite homeless, and weren’t bums but people that loved and hurt just like anyone else. She didn’t even see her baby girl that watched the world around her in open curiosity, or the doctor that had found the key to unlock Troy’s seizures, or any of the other people that had become so important to her life. These people she would see and laugh with, and hug and dance and kiss in a few minutes, once the ceremony was over and the party out back was under way.
For now, her eyes were glued to those of the man that looked at her as if she were a goddess.
EPILOGUE
Juicy put her hands on her hips and stretched her back. She felt it crack and sighed in relief. Oh that was good…
“Mama I want pink bows.”
“Okay, Miss bossy.” Jazzy was bouncing up and down on her butt in the salon chair. She was a bundle of energy. That girl could run from sunup to sundown. Troy was always there, running right beside her.
“She will tire out on her own as long as we let her run it out of her system,” is what he would say when she would get tired just watching the tot run in circles. It was a good thing that the house they’d moved into had a huge back yard and all kinds of play equipment. Troy and Dad had even built her a little play house where no one complained if she wrote on the walls or left her toys on the floor.
Juicy brushed her little girl’s dark hair around her finger until they formed ringlets that touched her shoulders. Then she tied two big pink bows around each of the pigtails.
“Look at me Aunt Eboni!” Jazzy stood up in the chair.
Ebonique reached out to the grab the accident prone child. “Girl, you gonna fall!”
“No I ain’t.” She jumped up and down.
“Jazzy sit down, you’re going to fall.” Juicy said. “And don’t say ain’t.”
“Watch Mama!” Jazzy leaped out of the chair before anyone could react. She almost made it but her little shoe hooked onto the arm and she went splat to the floor. She looked up accusingly with her dark gray eyes, as if her Mama or Aunt Eboni had put a curse on her for not listening. Then the tears began.
Juicy waddled over to her. “Let me see. Girl, you’ve gone and bust your lip open.” Jazzy squeezed out a small tear. “Go into the office and get the little ice pack out of the freezer.” It was one that she kept just for Jazzy’s frequent accidents. Jasmine Hyden nodded her head solemnly and headed to do as instructed, but then the front door opened and her Daddy came in.
“Daddy!” She forgot about the icepack and her minor injury and sprinted to her father.
“Hi beautiful. Oomph!” She caught him in the gut and he quickly put down the carton of pastries and then lifted her in his arm. “Oh, sweetie, your lip.”
“I bust my head open, Daddy.”
“Again?” She nodded solemnly. “How many times has that been this week?”
“A…thousand?”
“Pretty close.”
“What’s up T?” Several people greeted him. No one barely remembered a time when they used to call him Candyman. He had told them that it made him sound and feel like a drug dealer and they had eventually stopped.
“Hey ladies.” He greeted them one by one, passing out their individual pastry orders and collecting money. He didn’t bake for free anymore, but he did leave samples in the reception area to be purchased at a super cheap price. Now if people wanted Troy’s baked goods they had to come down to the little shop that he had in partnership with his brother Bob or come here to pick up a delivery when he dropped off Juicy’s lunch.
Bob and his wife had relocated to Cincinnati after Mom and Dad had moved to help with Jazzy. Lorie still lived in Connecticut but spoke often about selling her home and moving out, as well.
Troy handed a bag of a dozen cookies to a little boy. “Jayron, remind your mother that I won’t be making any more deliveries once Juicy has the baby, okay?”
“Yes sir.” The boy scampered out the door with his purchase.
“Y’all sure y’all want another one?” One of the new girls asked.
Juicy put her hand on her swollen belly. “It’s too late to have second thoughts now.” She gestured to her next customer. “Okay, Miss Johnson, I’m ready for you.”
Troy moved to the salon with a lunch box in his hand. He kissed Juicy’s cheek. “How late are you working?”
“I’ll be home by three.”
“Have you checked your blood pressure?” Her blood pressure had been under control for several years. But they were still concerned with a reoccurrence of the pre-eclampsia. Thus far, she had avoided it. Most of that was attributed to the fact that Juicy took care of herself. Her diet was healthy, she walked and exercised—that came naturally with being a mother to an over active four year old. Even at seven months pregnant she was close to a hundred pounds less in weight then she had been at the end of her pregnancy with Jasmine.
“We all been checking it!” Ebonique barked. “And it’s a little high, but that’s because little Miss Thang over there keeps falling and busting her head open.”
One of the workers had slipped the girl a cookie, as if she needed sugar in her system. They had a system that worked well. Troy’s mom and dad watched her all day twice a week and Juicy took her to work the other two days and then Troy picked her up and took her to the bakery when he brought Juicy her lunch each day. Mondays the shop was closed, of course. It worked well until Jazzy would start school in the fall. And there would be another baby in two more months. When that happened she wanted to stop doing hair and stay home with the kids. She hadn’t announced that yet. But Ebonique had done a great job managing when she needed time away from the shop, and she wanted her to take the position permanently.
Troy’s bakery had great word of mouth popularity. It was small and quaint and the local paper had even done an article about how it was ‘homeless friendly’. It was now a popular hangout for college aged kids and local musicians. Troy even talked about putting in a stage and letting people perform live, just singers and acoustic guitars and such.
Juicy thought he had great ideas and knew that if he claimed it, it would work for him.
“I want you to come home if it keeps rising.” He said seriously, referring to her blood pressure.
She kissed his nose. “I will. When you take Jazzy with you, I’m sure it will go down.” He chuckled. “Okay, I’ll be home by five.” He placed her lunch in the office.
“Come on Princess Jasmine.” He called. “See you ladies later.” Jasmine scampered to him. She had already lost one of her ribbons and they spent a few moments searching for it. It was under the row of seats in the reception area. He didn’t want to consider why she had been crawling under the seats.
“Jazzy, give me kiss goodbye, baby.” Juicy held out her arms and Jasmine sprinted to her, stopping suddenly before crashing into her stomach.
“Bye, Ma+ma.” She wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist and kissed her belly. “Bye little baby brother or sister.”
Troy then took her by the hand and waved to everyone as she pulled him out the door.