Kenney: Still Waters Part 2

Chapter 78

"Mama...what are you doing here?" I blinked at her. She was wiping her fingers across my eyes. I took her hand in mine and held it to make her stop.

"You were crying in your sleep, baby." She continued to wipe my eyes with her other hand, and I took that one in mine, too.

"I was dreaming about Angel." She jolted a little and then looked away. "I miss her so much, mamA."

Mama hesitated, then looked directly into my eyes. "I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so, so sorry..." It was the first time that she had ever apologized for that, and the first time I ever realized that she didn't have to. It wasn't necessary for anyone to be sorry about any of that. It was just...what it was.

I reached up to touch her face. "It's ok." Mama was still beautiful. You would never know that she had been through half the things that she had been through. Same with Jazz. And Charity.

Mama smiled down at me and ran her fingers down my cheek again, intentionally steering clear of my scar. She hated that thing.

"Kenney...you have to go with Jazz." I started shaking my head no before she could even get the whole sentence out. Mama nodded her head yes. "You have to."

"But I don't want to. Jazz can stay here. I can't leave you and the girls, mamA. I have to protect you."

"We have Wallace." My eye twitched. Wallace would never be able to hold my family down like I could.

"Wallace may leave, mamA."

"He won't."

"He might."

"Wallace isn't going anywhere, Kenney. We'll be fine. But you...won't be fine if you stay here." She put her hand on my cheek. "You won't survive, Kenney. You won't."

"But ma...just let us stay here with you. Please. Jazz will be fine. I'll take care of her. She won't go back to it. I won't, either. I promise..."

Mama shook her head. "Jazz can't stay here." Her voice was soft and she continued to look directly into my eyes. "And neither can you."

"But..."

"No buts, Kenney." She let go of my hand and took on a firmer tone. "Jazz'll start smokin' again if she stays here. You know that." By the way she was looking at me, I could tell that she was sure of what she was saying, and she knew that I was sure of it, too. "If Rico gets out, she will probably go back to him, too."

I gawked at her. I never told Jazz that Rico couldn't pull the trigger. I never told anyone that it was Chance who shot me, not Rico. I didn't tell anyone because I needed Jazz to think that it was Rico who almost killed me. I needed her to hate him. I needed her to fear him, like she had never feared anyone before. I needed her to be afraid enough, and to hate him enough to never go back to him.

"Do you really think she would do that?"

Mama shrugged. "It's hard to tell. But I know she doesn't...stray too far from what she knows, Kenney. You know your Aunt Jazz, just like I do." I took a deep breath and tried not to show mama how pissed I was. She read it on my face anyway. "She's afraid, son. Afraid for you. And if Rico tells her that he'll finish what he started with you if she doesn't go back to him, then she'll go back. And you'll follow. You know she would, son. And you know you would, too. We all know you would. That's how your uncle works his board, Kenney. Everything with him is just one big game, moving people around like chess." I could see in her eyes that she hated him even more than I did. "That's all he's ever done. And nobody can do a thing about it."

I stared at mamA. A. She was right. But I had never stepped far back enough to see that this was how Rico kept both me and Jazz around, and B) I was shocked that she had been paying that much attention to anybody, let alone watching what we did over there that close. I always thought that she just wanted to close her eyes and...forget about us.

"Jazz isn't going anywhere without you, son." Mama looked at me, her brown-grey eyes locked on my brown-grey eyes, and waited for me to read between the lines. "My sister..." her voice trailed off and she didn't finish her thought.

"Mama..." I reached out for her, and she put her hand in mine. "I don't want them to come back and hurt you again."

"They won't hurt me, son."

"Ma...they will come back."

"Kenney, Rico is in prison. For a long time. Remmey's in charge now. And the rest of them...are unorganized. Or already dead..." Briefly I thought about what Charity and Jazz told me and wondered if Chance was dead.

And then I did a double take.

Who was this? Since when did mama, of all people, have all these eyes everywhere?

"Kenney, you have to go."

"No."

"Yes."

"Charity needs me, mamA. I'm not leaving her." I involuntarily teared up. Mama was trying to split me and Charity up again. She was giving me away.

Again.

For the second time in my life.

"Son..." She read my face. "You know you'll always be my baby boy. My baby. Always. You came from your daddy and me only, and don't you ever forget that. But Jazz needs you more than Charity does. Your sister's going away to college in the fall, Kenney." She smiled proudly. "She's all grown up, now. And it's time for you to grow up too, son. Go out and see what this world has to offer you. There's a whole big world out there, Kenney. Go see it. Embrace it. And don't look back. Kenney...look at me..."

She ran her thumb across my eye and then put her hand under my chin to make me look up at her.

She was a blur through my tears.

"Don't ever come back, son. Don't you ever come back."