The Realest Ever - By Keith Thomas Walker Page 0,98

gave them back to me. You gotta do the same thing, Leonard. You can start by showing me your arms right now.”

He looked like he wanted to punch her. Instead he said, “Man, fuck you. I ain’t gotta show you shit.”

Kyra shook her head and walked away with a grin. “I guess I’ll see you in court then.”

Her spirits were high when she returned to her room. It upset Kyra to see that she missed two calls from Donovan. But she was excited about the news she had for him: Leonard was most likely out of their lives forever, and she was ready to move out of her aunt’s house.

Donovan didn’t answer when she called him back, so Kyra left him a message. He returned her call, and that’s when Kyra’s life was turned upside down a second time.

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Now she sat afraid and dejected on her bed, trying to comfort her children when she was dreadfully in need of comfort herself. Donovan knew about her drug use, and he knew that she lost her children to the system. The worst part was Donovan had to hear about it from Aunt Ruth.

Kyra thought she handled her first confrontation of the day very well. Leonard was gone. She was pretty sure he was still on drugs, but most importantly Leonard was gone. Kyra’s next confrontation would be a lot worse because afterwards she wouldn’t have anywhere to live. So be it. Because if Aunt Ruth thought she could run her mouth like that and not get a mouthful in return, she had another thing coming.

Kat and Quinell finally stopped crying. Kyra got off the bed, and Kat reached for her. Kyra forced a smile and told her, “Mama will be right back. I have to go talk to your Aunt Ruth.” She told Quinell, “If things get loud, just stay calm and look after your sister. We’ll probably be leaving here as soon as I get back.”

Quinell’s eyes brightened. “We’re going to live with Donovan?”

Kyra’s whole face cracked as she shook her head. She pulled it together right away, but Quinell saw it. “No, but we’ll find somewhere to go. No matter what, we’ll always have each other, right?”

Quinell nodded.

Kyra rubbed the top of his head and hugged both of her children at once. She then turned and left the room. She closed the door behind herself and allowed all of her anger to rise to the surface as she marched to her aunt’s room. Kyra didn’t go to church as much as she should, and she was far less saved than Donovan.

The only thing she promised herself not to do was put her hands on Aunt Ruth. And even that was flexible, depending on how the witch responded.

≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

“What the hell you tell Donovan all that shit for?”

“What?” Aunt Ruth hopped out of bed with a speed and agility that belied her age. She met Kyra head on in the doorway. “Don’t you be coming up in my room with all that noise!”

Ruth didn’t have time to throw a robe over her nightgown, and Kyra saw much more of her skin than she ever wanted to. Aunt Ruth’s chest was sunken. Her breasts hung like the old women in the African tribal videos from the 1930’s. Without her glasses, Ruth looked ten years younger. But she was still hideous, as far as Kyra was concerned; ugly inside and on the outside.

“Why did you tell him that?” Kyra nearly screamed.

“He called my phone!” her aunt screamed back. “I can say whatever the fuck I want on my goddamned phone. You must’ve forgot whose house this is.”

“It don’t matter whose house it is! You still didn’t have no business telling my personal business.”

“What personal business?” Ruth said. “That you was a dopefiend? That them people had to come take your kids? Everybody know that. It ain’t no fucking secret, Kyra. You need to quit lying to these folks, is what you need to do.”

Even Aunt Ruth’s breath was stale. Kyra couldn’t think of one single thing she liked about this woman.

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” she said. “And it didn’t have nothing to do with you anyway!”

“It got everything to do with me,” Ruth countered. “You down here right now because of what you was doing in Little Rock.”

“I changed,” Kyra cried. “I’m not like that no more. And you know it!”

“Then why you scared to tell the truth?”

“Tell the truth to who?”

“Donovan for one,” Ruth said. “That boy didn’t know