The Obsidian Collection Page 22

  He then called the wives over. “Brenda, Elena, come share with our friends what you have in your hands.”

  Brenda grabbed the mike and held up the legal document. “Elena and I have in our hands the adoption decrees and pristine birth certificates of our children. Isaiah and I are the proud parents of Shanice Anderson Bailey.”

  Elena said, “And David and I are the proud parents of Trevor Landon Kyle.” Their adoptive parents had decided to use their original names as their middle names, so they would always remember their origins, just in case sometime in the future they wanted to find some of the members of their families.

  The crowd cheered as the Baileys and Kyles shared hugs all around.

  Trevor and Shanice were formally introduced to all the neighbors and the extended families of the Baileys and Kyles. He also met David’s younger brother, Philip. Trevor noticed he looked sleazy, and had his arm around a woman who had almost nothing on and too much makeup. He could also tell Philip didn’t like children, even though he gave Trevor and Shanice a bunch of gifts.

  “Trevor this is my brother, Philip. Your uncle.”

  “Hey, Trevor,” Philip said. “Try not to become the black sheep of the family like me, eh?”

  “Phil. . .” David shook his head. “He’s only eleven.”

  “It’s all right, sir,” Trevor said. “I was the only sheep left in my family until now.”

  Shanice grabbed Trevor’s hand. “C’mon Trevor, let’s dance.” Brenda had put Shanice in a dance class and dancing was all she wanted to do at the time.

  Trevor didn’t consider himself any good at dancing, but Shanice seemed happy with his moves, so he didn’t mind making a fool of himself. For the next four years, they had the best family lives any kid could ask for, and despite their age difference they remained close.

  April 2001

  “Mom and Dad are late,” Trevor said. It still sounded weird to call them that sometimes, even though it was almost the fourth anniversary of his adoption. “They said they’d be back in time for dinner.”

  He eyed the steaming hot dishes on display before him on the Baileys dinner table. His stomach growled an audible displeasure for denying his almost fifteen-year-old digestive system the sustenance it craved. Trevor looked at the clock. David and Elena were already a half an hour later coming back from the church-sponsored marriage retreat than he’d anticipated, and denying himself Brenda’s delicious cooking was a special form of torture.

  Brenda gestured toward the unused place setting Trevor occupied next to Shanice where he had yet to dish out any food. “You could eat just a little bit and save a fraction of your stomach for whatever Elena’s going to prepare later.”

  “You know Mom’s macaroni and cheese is better than anything in the box,” Shanice said, holding a forkful just under his nose to tempt him even further. Trevor gobbled up the pasta so quickly he took the fork from her hand.

  Shanice giggled. “Give me my fork back.” Trevor pulled the tines slowly between his lips, making sure he got ever bit of the gooey cheese off the fork. Shanice then pulled a face, “On second thought, keep that fork. I’ll take your unused one.” She grabbed Trevor’s fork before he could protest.

  Isaiah took another helping and passed Trevor the crock. “Might as well eat something for now. A growing young man like you’ll be hungry again in a couple of hours anyway.”

  “Okay,” Trevor said, and took the dish and ladled out a generous helping of macaroni and cheese onto his plate, plus a little bit of the other entrees as well.

  After dinner, Trevor, Isaiah, Shanice, and Tanya, the Bailey’s current foster child, played a game of horse on the carport in front of the house, while Brenda, who’d just given birth to twins took advantage of napping while the babies were down. They were arguing over whether or not Shanice had been over the line when she made her most recent point when an Orange County Sheriff’s vehicle pulled up in front of the house.

  Isaiah lobbed the ball to Trevor. “Keep playing, and make sure Shanice doesn’t cheat. I’ll be right back.”

  Trevor wanted to keep playing. He also didn’t want to think about what the Sheriff’s car showing up now that David and Elena were almost two hours late meant. Isaiah’s grief-strickened look after one of the deputies spoke to him was enough to clue Trevor in that something was terribly wrong, and even though he wanted to scream and run away from whatever news they were bringing, he was rooted to the spot.

  Trevor took his turn and then another, and then another, arcing perfect shot, after perfect shot into the goal as the Sheriff’s deputies pulled away and Isaiah came back to join them.

  “Dad, Trevor’s cheating,” Shanice complained.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Isaiah said. “Why don’t you and Tanya go get some ice cream while I have a talk with Trevor.”

  “Okay,” Shanice said, obedient although her forehead was wrinkled in confusion.

  The girls were barely at the door when Trevor stopped shooting the ball and turned to Isaiah. “They’re not coming back, are they?” he said, outwardly calm, but enraged inside.

  Isaiah reached for him, enfolding Trevor in his arms as the ball dropped at their feet. “No, son. I’m sorry.”

  When Trevor was able to pull himself together enough not to bawl like a baby, he asked “What happened?”

  “Law enforcement is still investigating, but their car went off the road into some trees not far from Ocoee. They died on impact. Another car was involved, but when the Sheriff arrived no one else was on scene.”

  “What kind of person does that?” Trevor said, but what he was thinking was, I’m an orphan again. His parents had been almost home when someone selfishly took them away from him. Trevor felt worse at twice the age he’d been when he first went into the system, if that were possible.

  Everyone in the Bailey household were in bed, including Trevor. He again occupied the guest room while Shanice and Tanya doubled up, but he was unable to sleep. All he could think of was David and Elena, and how they would never scold him again about leaving his socks all over the place, or about brushing his teeth even after snacks.

  He would miss David writing programs with him, and Elena making her famous Italian dishes, and both of them going to his sports games and school events as his parents. Most of all, he would miss their hugs which he’d tolerated when he first came to live with them, but had grown to expect and require, about as much as he needed air to breathe.

  Since he’d heard the news, the pain of their loss had lodged in his heart and would not budge. He felt as if he were suffocating from it, because nothing and no one could bring them back. Trevor turned, punched the pillow, and settled in another position.

  He was watching the red LED numbers on the clock count forward in time when he heard the door open, then the footprints of a small person walking toward the bed. He didn’t have to turn around to see who it was.

  “Trevor? Are you asleep?” Shanice stage-whispered.

  “No,” he said.

  That was apparently all the invitation she needed. Shanice went around to the other side and hopped into bed with him.

  “It’s way past your bedtime. You’re going to be in so much trouble,” he said.

  “Not if you don’t tell on me,” she said, and snuggled under the cover next to him. They lay side by side in silence for a while until Shanice couldn’t stand it. “Mom and Dad won’t let them take you away again, Trevor. You’ll see.”

  Her confidence was reassuring. He’d been hurting so much for David and Elena he hadn’t thought of where he would go if they hadn’t made some arrangements for him. His uncle Philip had called Isaiah promising to contact them again with the funeral plans, and asking if Trevor wanted to come stay with him, but Isaiah had thankfully declined.

  “I asked Dad if Uncle David and Aunt Elena were in heaven and he said they were,” Shanice said with the certainty of a ten-year-old whose budding faith could not be shaken.

  “You know what I think?”


  “What?” she said.

  “I think it sucks that they’re gone. It sucks that whoever hit their car didn’t even stop to see if they were okay, or to call the police. And it really sucks that I’m never going to see them again!”

  Shanice didn’t call him on getting so loud that he could’ve woken up the whole house. She just scooted closer and hugged his neck. Trevor was so overcome by her offer of comfort his heart unclenched and all the pain lodged there from when he was told of his parents death came rushing out of him. As tears streamed out of his eyes, Shanice held him close, not caring that he was wetting up her pajama top with his tears.

  He wasn’t aware that Shanice was crying, too, until he heard her say through her tears, “You’re still my adopted brother, Trevor, and I’ll never leave you. ‘One for each other and each other for one,’ right?”

  “Right.” Trevor could only agree, because it seemed as if the one thing that would never change would be the commitment they’d made to each other as orphans.

  Trevor hated that the topic of conversation after David and Elena’s funeral became “who will take the orphan boy they adopted?” The Baileys, as his godparents, had been the most likely candidates, but Isaiah and Brenda had inquired and were not qualified to take him since they now had the twins, another foster child, and Shanice in a house that was considered too small to add another adoptive child.

  Trevor’s preference would’ve been the Baileys, if for no other reason than to be spared this conversation. However, David’s and Elena’s parents called the meeting immediately following the gathering of friends and family after the funeral where, like it or not, he was a witness to their heated debate.

  “Connie and I live in a retirement home,” David’s father, Robert said. “Hardly, the kind place for a teenager.” A thin, wiry man with wispy salt and pepper hair, who couldn’t seem to stand still, he paced the floor incessantly as he spoke.

  “Maureen, what about you and Edgar?” Grandma Connie addressed Elena’s parents. She was the opposite of her husband, a matronly woman of average height. “Can you take him?”

  “We already have our daughter Nina and her three children living with us,” Edgar said. “We’re packed to the gills as it is.” Elena’s father was the most grandfatherly of the two, because he actually engaged Trevor when he was around.

  “Can’t you two move into David and Elena’s house and take care of him?” Maureen said. Elena’s mother didn’t look as much like a grandmother as Grandma Connie, because she was still slender enough to look younger.

  “And lose our rent-controlled condo in the city? We can’t go back to taking care of lawns and homeowner’s fees and the like.” Robert was adamant.

  “Listen, I’ll take the kid,” Philip said. “It makes more sense because I have no attachments, and he can move into my condo where there’s plenty of room.”

  “What about the house?” Connie clutched conspicuously absent pearls.

  “We can put the house on the market. This way he’ll at least stay in Orlando, go to the same school, and what not.” For someone who acted as if he could care less most of the time, Philip had a few ideas mapped out in advance, it seemed.

  Edgar was the first adult to speak directly to Trevor about any of it. “So what do you think, Trevor? Would you like to go and stay with your Uncle Philip?”

  The answer was an emphatic no, but Trevor realized he was out of options, especially if there was any hope of him staying close to Shanice and the Baileys. This solution would have to do for now.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Trevor said. He wasn’t quite sure his selfish uncle had the ability to parent anyone. Given his choices now, he’d take what he could get over being fostered by strangers again, and possibly having to move far away from Orlando which had essentially become his home,

  “Then it’s settled,” Philip said with a smile that Trevor didn’t quite believe was genuine.

  When Philip, stepped up, it seemed like the answer to their prayers. In the beginning, he appeared to be just as nice and caring as his brother. He pretended to have empathy for Trevor over losing the only parents he’d ever known, then gave him a bunch of new video games, more computer equipment, and all the material things a teenage boy could want. In return, Philip simply asked Trevor to find some information on certain people from time to time.

  “These are people I’m investigating for my work,” Philip told Trevor when he first asked him to hack into people’s personal information. Philip was a CPA who worked in one of the banks that held the state of Florida’s unclaimed property funds. “They have money sitting in the state coffers that I want to get back to them.”

  Easy peasy. He didn’t think to question anything at the time, since Philip did work at a bank. Besides he was an adult, a banking professional, and must know better about the legality of such things. Uncle Philip was cool. He gave Trevor huge allowances and let him stay up as long as he wanted. He got to hang out at adult parties, where he had his first drinks and learned how to smoke. It’s also where he learned how to French kiss and lost his virginity to one of the young exotic dancers Phil had hired for one of his parties.

  Shanice noticed the change in Trevor first, because she still saw him at school the first year he was in Philip’s custody. She found him hanging out with boys at school who were into the stuff he’d discovered through Phil’s influence, and needless to say, she didn’t like it one bit. At eleven, she was still the same Shanice she always had been. Never afraid to speak her mind. She marched over to them where they were smoking a joint under a copse of trees on the edge of campus and called him out.

  “Trevor!” She stood there with hands on non-existent hips.

  “What do you want, Shanice?”

  “What’s that in your hand?”

  His friends snickered. “Trevor’s getting pwned by his little sister.”

  “She looks like a darker version of that little girl on Drake and Josh with that expression on her face,” another said. They all laughed outright this time and passed the joint around.

  Trevor was mortified that these guys he was hanging out with were going to rag him forever for this, so he was uncharacteristically harsh. “Mind your own business, kid. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  She put her hand on her mouth in shock, because she’d never heard Trevor talk like that to her before. The look of hurt and betrayal on her face made Trevor feel like a first-rate asshole, but he couldn’t take it back in front of his friends. Then she turned and ran away.

  Trevor went by the Baileys after school. By that time, his fleeting high was gone, and he worried Shanice would rat him out to her parents.

  Brenda answered the door with one of the twins on her hip. Ezekiel and Ezra were almost two. “Hey, Trevor! Would you hold Zeke a second until I corral his brother?” She didn’t seem upset or like she didn’t want him to be around, so he figured Shanice hadn’t said anything.

  “Sure,” he said and took the toddler, who squealed. “Twevor!”

  “Hey, buddy,” Trevor said. He closed the door and carried Zeke into the house behind Brenda, who walked briskly into the family room and scooped up Ezra, who was making circles around the furniture, and deposited him in his high chair.

  Trevor sat Zeke in the high chair next to his twin. “Um, where’s Shanice?”

  “Homework,” Brenda said as she set places at the table. “But she’ll be down in a few minutes for dinner.”

  “Whatever it is you’re cooking smells really good,” he said.

  “Pot roast,” she said with a smile. “If you’ll wash your hands and help me finish setting the table, you can join us. I worry Philip doesn’t feed you well.”

  “He doesn’t cook, but I get by. I nuke most of the stuff I want to eat.” Trevor went to the sink and quickly washed his hands.

  Brenda shook her head. “I keep letting you know you have an open invitation for dinner. And you don’t have to stay in that house alone while Philip’s out of town.”
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br />   Trevor followed Brenda’s example and set the rest of the places at the table. By the time he was done, Pastor Isaiah came ambling into the house, booming, “What smells so good?” He walked into the kitchen and saw Trevor. “You don’t look anything like my lovely wife.” Then he gave Trevor one of those guy shakes where they lean in and bump shoulders.

  Trevor grinned. “She’s in the kitchen, and the answer to your other question, is Pot Roast.” Isaiah went over to greet his twins by kissing them each on the top of their heads.

  “Daddy!” they shrieked.

  “You’re staying for dinner, right?” Isaiah said as he left Trevor in the dining room with the twins.

  “Yes,” Trevor said. When he turned back to the twins, he saw Ezra was trying to climb out of his highchair. “Oh no you don’t,” Trevor said and re-seated him and adjusted the tray in front of him.

  Shanice came down, yelling “Mom!” When she saw Trevor, she pursed her lips and refused to speak to him. She sauntered over to her little brothers and handed Zeke his fallen sippy cup then ruffled Ezra’s hair.

  She took the place setting Trevor made next to his own and moved it to the other side of the table by the twins.

  “I know you’re mad at me, Shanice, and you’re right to be mad, but please don’t tell your parents what you saw,” he said quickly, before Brenda and Isaiah came in carrying dishes of food to the table.

  Shanice just glared at him and took her seat then played with the twins as if Trevor weren’t there.

  After Isaiah said the blessing, and they all dug into the meal, there was conversation around the table, but Shanice refused to address Trevor directly, she gave one-syllable answers, or none at all.

  Brenda and Isaiah had to notice what was going on, but they didn’t pry. Trevor didn’t have time to be upset. This was his first home-cooked meal in a long time. Since Brenda offered, he’d make this a habit.

  At the end of the meal, Trevor said, “I’ll help Shanice do the dishes, Ms. Brenda.”