"But can I see her for a moment?" Damali asked, reaching out for Ayana.
Ayana shook her head and buried her face against her mother's neck, clinging to her for dear life.
"Aunt Damali just wants to make the bad man go away from your mind, all right, sweetie?" She looked at Inez for support and had to blink back tears as the child wailed when her mother pried her off her body. "Oh, baby . . . oh, sweetie . . . I'm gonna give you right back to your mother-see, she's only an inch away."
Inez wiped her face with both hands.
"My grandbaby's gonna be scarred in her little mind and heart for life," Mom Delores said in a strangled whisper, closing her eyes tightly and forcing more tears to roll down her cheeks. "Jesus, please hear my prayer . . . just blot this stain outta her mind."
"No, Mom, she's not gonna carry this burden," Damali said calmly, stroking the child's profusion of light brown, silky curls. She kissed the top of Ayana's brow and then rested her cheek on the crown of her head, her hand at the toddler's back, feeling her stressed breathing slowly beginning to relax. "He was a bad man and you called the angels, didn't you, sweetie? I know, because I used to do that when I was a little girl." The child immediately popped a thumb into her mouth and began sucking hard.
"Did you know that angels are real and can really come when you call them for protection?"
"That's right," Inez said. "Auntie Damali's been my angel all my life."
Ayana peeked at her mother and then peered at her grandmother for confirmation.
"Yes, baby, you know how Nana says to pray, right? Angels came, musta sent your mommy just when we needed her . . . and Daddy Mike . . . you remember how he fought, hear. He wasn't gonna let anything happen to you, just like me, your momma, and Auntie Damali chased that bad man away."
"Like the other lady did, too?"
The adults glimpsed each other and Big Mike stooped down. "What she look like, boo?"
The child shrugged and spoke in a soft mumble around her thumb. "Miss Christine angel is pretty. She said keep screaming to make him go away. She didn't let me hit my head on the wall when he pushed me."
Damali hugged the child closer and shut her eyes for a moment so that her voice wouldn't quaver when she spoke. "You remember what Christine angel said, but I want you to forget all about that bad man . . ."
"Uh-uh, D," Mike said, standing. "She need to remember what he looks like-not to haunt her, take that . . . but don't take away her understanding of bad men, bad entities. Christine told her right-fight, scream, run, getsomebody until she's big enough to kill one of them SOBs herself. You better than anybody oughta know that, D. She gotta learn young, they all do. If she coming to live with us, some of her innocence is gonna be compromised."
Mrs. Delores struggled to sit up but couldn't. She dropped down panting as she winced in pain. "What's he talking about?" she gasped. "Her innocence compromised by living with her mother and new stepfather? Y'all better tell me something I can understand.You all selling drugs? Is that why that man came to kidnap that baby-swear to me that-"
"No, Mom, I swear to you-"
"Then tell me how y'all got all this money? Ain't that much touring and showbiz in the world when you allwas off for two years and just got back up on the road. Now you've got hit men climbing through windows in black suits-weain't never had this kinda trouble in our lives, Inez. What is he, a mobster promoter-what are you all into that has brought death, hell, and destruction to this door!"
"Mom, the only way I can explain it to you is to show it to you. That man who came to the door was pure evil . . . and Yaya can see angels." Damali lifted her locks up off her neck to let the air-conditioning cool her nape.
Tears filled Inez's mother's eyes. "I can't breathe, my heart is breaking, and I don't understand how you all can live with yourselves . . . money is the root of all evil, and you kids today just don't care how you make it, do you? I thought better of you, Damali. Inez,you know I raised you better! And, Michael Roberts, if you are the one who got these girls all turned around, don't youever darken my doorstep again. Carlos Rivera was a drug dealer when I heard about him years ago, Damali-years ago. Now you're with his gang and running with allthem rappers?Who you in trouble with?"
"Momma, we are in trouble . . . on the run, but not fromwho you think-it's so hard to explain, and I don't wanna hurt you. I've tried to keep you from it, but now it's at your door and it won't ever go away. I love you, Momma." Inez covered her face and sobbed into her hands.
"Show her, D," Mike said, going to the windows and checking for an intruder, as well as listening to sirens getting closer.
"Inez, I will fight you in court for my granddaughter," her mother shouted, sobbing as loudly as her daughter. Yelling in hiccupping jags, she hollered over Ayana's tears, too, ignoring the child's bleating wails not to make her mommy go away. "I'll take her with me back home to the old country before I see her . . ."
"Let me take the pain, Mom Delores," Damali said as calmly and gently as she could. "Let me heal you."
"D, we need to be on the move before Po Po gets here-ain't no explaining this." Mike looked up and down the street from his post at the window, sure that neighbors who'd seen him would say that some big black man shot up the normally serene neighborhood and abducted an entire family.
"I'm not going nowhere with y'all! Let the police come. Until you have your own, you won't know pain like this . . . to see your child get twisted around and led to the darkness! Every child starts out like my Ayana, every one of them,then this cruel, misbegotten world changes your baby." The older woman sunk even closer to the floor and covered her face and wailed.
Damali yanked up the back of her T-shirt and let her wings unfurl to their full span. Mrs. Filgueiras looked up and slowly covered her heart with her hand. Ayana became calm again as Damali handed her off to her mother. Inez intensely kissed her daughter's hair, rocking her back and forth. As only a child would, Ayana reached out from beyond her mother's clutches, unafraid, and gently fingered the soft feathers in awe.
"Like Christine's?" Damali said, smiling at the toddler.
Ayana shook her head. "I didn't touch hers. They were just sunshine."
"Oh . . . light . . . ah . . . a lot of light. Bright."