Kenney: Still Waters Part 2

Chapter 74

         
            "Jazz!"

            I stared at my aunt. I hadn't seen her in too long. She looked incredible. Her hair was out and wavy like she used to keep it. Her color was all the way back, and she looked like she was finally eating again. She looked good. Her teeth were white and her smile was beautiful. She looked like the Jazz that I used to know. She was calm and confident, upbeat and happy like her old self. Like her old, old self. Before Rico started fuckin' up.

            "Well, hey there my favorite nephew!" She grinned at me.

            I held out my arms to her. She walked over and hugged me for a long time, hard, and then rubbed at my scar. I hated that shit. It always reminded me of the day that I got it, and reminded me that Rico was still out there...alive. That I had never made him pay.

For any of it.

I held both of her hands in mine. "I missed you, Jazz. Where you been?"

            "I missed you, too, nephew." She pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down. I couldn't get over how good she looked.

            We just stared at each other, trying to read the missing time in each other's eyes, on each other's faces, trying to see what each other had been through since we had been apart.

            "I'm walking again." I smiled brightly at her.

            "You are?" She was shocked.

            "Well, no. Not exactly. But I try. I have to use a walker now..." I looked at her, hoping for some kind of answer about whether I would have to use that thing for the rest of my life. Of course she didn't have one.

            Aunt Jazz just smiled at me and rubbed my scar. "Show me later." Then she watched her finger as it trailed down the side of my face. "You can barely see it." She ran her finger down the scar again.

            "I know, Jazz." I took her hand in mine. "So, what's up?" She looked like she had something heavy on her mind.

            "Kenney...I have to tell you something."

            "Ok..." I looked into her eyes. Eyes that looked exactly like Sammy's. It had been a while since I had seen them. My heart pulled a little. I still missed my sister. Every day. I looked away from her.

            "I been in Virgina...." I looked back at Jazz, confused. She nodded. "With Wally B."

            "What?" It wasn't adding up. "But Wallace was just...in here. With me..."

            "Kenney, they tell me you been in and out a lot since you been here. Time probably wasn't...what you thought it was...." She squeezed my hand tighter. "You been in here a long time, son. And I've been gone...a real long time. Months. Wallace took me up to Virginia and stayed with me for some of the time. But he didn't stay too long, because he didn't want to be away from your mama and the babies..." She watched me, reading how I was receiving her story. She could tell that I wasn't taking it very well. At all. "Then after a while, he came back to get me..."

            "Wait..." I stared at her. "Are you sayin' he left you up there? Alone?" I was pissed. What the fuck did I tell Wallace about leaving my aunt alone? What happened to her while he was gone? What the fuck was she getting at?

            "I wasn't alone, Kenney. I been stayin' with Wally B's grandmother. She been helpin' me."

            I was still confused. "You were up there the whole time? After you left here? This whole time?" My brain was on overload. Most of the time I couldn't even figure out what day it was, and now she was telling me months had passed by and I didn't even know it? Enough time for her to look like this?