“It’s Jesus’s birthday, therefore that rule does not apply since it’s a clear violation of one of the Ten Commandments.”
I tilt my head. “You’re getting religious on me?”
“You didn’t win! I conceded.”
“That’s. A. Win.” I clap my hand with each word. “So do it.”
“Man,” he groans, but he gets down on his knees and worships me. “All hail, the most excellent Bri.”
“Who’s better at MJ than me,” I add.
“Who’s better at MJ than me.”
“And who beautifully kicked my ass.”
“And who beautifully . . .” He mumbles the rest to the point it sounds like gibberish.
I put my hand to my ear. “What was that?”
“Who beautifully kicked my ass!” he says louder. “There? Happy?”
I grin. “Yep!”
“Whatever,” he mumbles as he gets back on the couch. “Be ready next time.”
Jay comes back in the den, holding the phone with her cheek and shoulder. Her hands are occupied with a box. “Here they are. Y’all, say hey to Uncle Edward.” She shifts the box to one hand and holds the phone out.
“He ain’t dead?” Trey asks.
I elbow him. Rude ass. “Hey, Uncle Edward,” we say. He’s Jay’s mom’s uncle, making him my great-great-uncle. I’ve never seen him in my life, yet Jay makes me speak to him whenever they chat.
She puts the phone back to her ear. “All right, you get back to your nap. Just wanted to say Merry Christmas . . . All right, now. Talk to you later.” She ends the call. “Lord. The man fell asleep in the middle of talking to me.”
“You lucky he didn’t die in the middle of talking to you,” Trey says. Jay shoots him a stank-eye. He nods toward the box. “What’s that?”
“Some Christmas surprises for y’all.”
“Ma, we said we weren’t buying gifts—”
“I didn’t buy anything, boy. I was looking through the garage to see if there was anything worth selling. Found some of your daddy’s things.”
“This is his stuff?” I ask.
Jay sits cross-legged on the floor. “Yep. I had to hide it from your grandma. Woman wants everything that belonged to him. Even had to hide it from myself.” Her eyes cast down. “I probably would’ve sold some of it back when I was sick.”
That’s what she calls her addiction.
I stare at the box. There’s stuff inside that belonged to my dad. Stuff he actually touched at some point, that may have been a part of his everyday life. Stuff that made him him.
I pull back the flaps of the box. An army-green bucket hat sits on top. It’s dope, and it’s me. It was obviously him, too.
“Law acted like he couldn’t be seen without a hat,” Jay says. “That man would get on my nerves. Didn’t matter where we were going, he needed some kind of hat. He thought his head was shaped funny.”
I’m the same way. I lower the hood of my Pikachu onesie and put the bucket hat on instead. It’s kinda big and a bit floppy, but it’s perfect.
I scoot to the end of the couch and dig some more. There’s a sweatshirt that still has the scent of his cologne lingering on it. There’s a composition notebook. Every page has something written on it in a sloppy handwriting that shouldn’t really be called handwriting. I can read it though. It’s a lot like mine.
There are more notebooks, a worn leather wallet with his driver’s license inside, more shirts and jackets, CDs or DVDs, hard to tell which. At the very bottom of the box, there’s gold.
I lift it out. A glistening crown pendant dangles from a gold rope chain. Diamonds spell out “Law” at the bottom, like the crown sits on top of his name.
Holy. Shit. “Is this real?”
“Yep,” Jay says. “He bought it with his first big check. Wore it all the time.”
This thing has to be worth thousands of dollars. That’s probably why Trey says, “We need to sell that.”
“No, hell no.” Jay shakes her head. “I want Bri to have it.”
“Really?” I say.
“And I want Bri to have food and shelter,” Trey says. “Come on, Ma. Sell it! Hell, it’s worth more than he was.”
“Watch. Your. Mouth,” Jay growls.
When it comes to Dad, Trey’s not a fan. I don’t mean he doesn’t listen to Dad’s music—he doesn’t do that either—but let Trey tell it, Dad died over stupid stuff he could’ve avoided. Trey never talks about him because of it.