Page 5 of Brother to Brother

“I thought you just got home from work,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I’ve discovered you have to work twice as hard at a living when it’s honest,” he said with a frown.

“Oh,” I murmured softly. Back in Arizona I’d known the club to be in less than legitimate dealings. Drugs, money, weapons, you name it and they ran it for the cartels out of Mexico. Still, I wasn’t so dumb that you wouldeverhear me talk about it.

“What am I supposed to do about lunch or dinner?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it for now, that’s what. I’ll bring back some rolls of quarters, since you’ll be here all day you can sort out this mess,” he said, gesturing to the piles of mine and Noah’s clothes.

“Okay,” I was looking at the crib and asked, “Where did that come from?”

“Never mind,” he grated. “I’ll be back,” and with that, he hauled himself onto his feet and left us. I sighed and hugged Noah, eyeing the TV.

“Cartoons, buddy?” I asked and Noah threw his arms around my neck with an enthusiastic “Yah!”

I turned on the TV and looked for the remote, switching channels until I landed on Billy & Mandy, which would just have to do.

“Okay, bud?” I asked but he was already gone, fully absorbed in the happenings on the screen. I sighed, “Right, okay,” I muttered to myself and began sorting through the rest of the mess on the table, sorting laundry by type, whites, coloreds, and darks.

I had no idea how I was supposed to do laundry with Noah, the laundry room beingdownstairs? Somewhere? Maybe?In any case, I wasn’taboutto leave my son alone not even for a minute. Too many things could happen, he could fall, he could choke, and I tried so hard,I tried too hard, to protect him…

Archer returning, opening up the front door, startled me. He froze and I did likewise, my hand pressed to my chest. He didn’t say a word, just finished entering his small apartment, closing the door behind him. He had a couple of bags of fast food clutched in one hand.

“So what happens now?” I asked softly.

“Now you feed the boy and I go to work, I already said that,” he said frowning.

“And after that?”

He sighed, “You both can stay here, for now, until you find something better. In exchange, I expect you to keep this place clean and to fix meals.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, “I’ll find a job as soon as I can, start saving, get an apartment of mine and Noah’s.”

“Whatever,” he grunted and dropped the bags on the coffee table. Noah got down off the couch and started to go through them and I sighed, going over to him and getting him out of the bags so I could take care of him.

“Anything you need, make a list. We’ll get it taken care of tonight. This is the best I can do until I get off. Here’s money for food, and the quarters. Order pizza for lunch or something.” He paused and looked around. “I mean it, I expect this to be sorted out by the time I get back.”

He dropped an envelope and two rolls of quarters onto the coffee table and turned to leave.

“AndImean it, Archer… thank you.”

“The boy –”

“Noah,” I said, and Archer scowled at the correction.

“Noah, is family. Grind ain’t here to take on his responsibility; that leaves me,” he said and it was less than a rousing endorsement, especially given his tone. He left the apartment, shutting the door tightly behind him, and I felt my shoulders drop. Archerclearlywasn’t happy about our being here, but he was giving us a chance, and that was really all I could ask for. If he weren’t awful to Noah, well, then that was really better than I expected. He could treatmepoorly, but to be honest, given his track record thus far, I think both the best and worst I could expect was his cold indifference, which was fine.

Indifference beat getting slapped around, it also beat being derided and insulted on the regular. I didn’t want Noah around either of those things. He needed to grow up understanding how to treat women. It was a big part of why I’d left Arizona in the first place. I hadn’t known what to expect, coming here, to be honest. So far, it was both better and worse than I imagined.

I fed myself with the breakfast sandwiches in the bag, and Noah with the pancakes and syrup cups. There were two things of orange juice in one of those cardboard drink carriers. I poured some into one of Noah’s sippy cups for him, and put the rest into the barren refrigerator. I drank the other, and with a sigh, continued dealing with the piles of laundry.

Once they were all sorted, I had to figure out how to go about carting both them, and my one year old, back and forth to the laundry room with me. It was a daunting task to be sure. I gathered the first load into Archer’s lone laundry basket and was about to open my mouth to tell Noah we were going to go when a knock fell on the front door.

“Melody!” A woman’s voice called from the other side, “Melody, we’re some of the ol’ ladies from the club, can you open the door?”

I peeked out the blinds, through the window over the couch and sure enough, two petite women stood in front of Archer’s front door. I went to it, and unlocked it at the knob, opening it up.

“Hi!” the one who’d called out said brightly.

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