“Hi, Monique.”
“Lucky, what you doin’ here?”
“I wanted to see you and Lily. She’s big.”
While Monique and Thomas talked, a shadow came up behind her.
“Who’s this?” a man’s voice said in a tone neither friendly nor unfriendly.
“This is Lucky, Harold,” Monique said.
“What does he want?”
“He’s my friend.”
“He looks like a bum.”
Harold was a tall man with bronze skin, a receding hairline (even though he didn’t look much over thirty), and a large, powerful-looking belly. He had no eyebrows at all, small eyes, and large hands.
“He’s my friend,” Monique said with authority.
“What does he want?”
“Come on in, Lucky, and go have a seat in the living room.”
“Oh, no,” Harold said. “I ain’t havin’ this ratty-lookin’ niggah sittin’ on my new furniture.”
Thomas held back, but Monique said, “Come on in, Lucky. Harold ain’t gonna touch you if he know what’s good for him.”
“Monique,” Harold said. That one word carried a whole chapter of information.
“Don’t you ‘Monique’ me, Harold Portman. I put up with your thievin’ sister, your drunk father, and them three friends’a yours leave my house in a shambles every other Saturday night. Your mother lived with us for six months, so either my one friend is gonna come up in here or you’n me gonna talk.”
1 7 3
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
Harold turned on his heel and walked from the room.
“Wait for me in the living room, Lucky,” Monique said, and then she went after Harold.
They had nice green furniture on a golden carpet. The TV
was tuned to a cartoon show, but Thomas didn’t watch. He sat down on a straight-backed wood chair and clasped his hands on his lap. Looking down, he could see that his hands were dirty and his light-blue pants were stained by alley grease.
The TV tinkled, and Monique’s and Harold’s voices boomed from somewhere in the house.
“Do I know you?” Lily asked. She was standing at a sliding-glass door that led out into the backyard.
“Do you remember me?” Thomas asked.
“How come you don’t sit on the couch?” she asked then.
“It’s more comfortable.”
“I’ve been walkin’ so far and sleepin’ outside,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t want to get your fancy couch all dirty.”
Lily was staring hard at Thomas.
“Did we go to a secret green park once?” she asked.
“You remember that?”
“Was there a big pile of rocks?”
“Cinder blocks,” he said.
“And a secret clubhouse?” Lily’s eyes were open wide at the memory.
“We would go there when your mother was at the super-market working.”
“I remember,” she said. “I used to think about it, but then I would think that it was a dream.”
“No,” Thomas assured her. “We went there all the time when I took care of you while your mother was gone.”
“An’ we used to all sleep in a big bed, and there was a bathtub in the kitchen.”
1 7 4
F o r t u n a t e S o n
“You have a good memory for a little girl,” Thomas said.
“I know.”
Just then there was a loud yell from somewhere in the house.
“Your parents can really fight,” Thomas said.
“Harold’s not my dad,” Lily told him. “Only my mama is my parent.”
“Oh.”
