Chapter One

They’ve never met. She’s never even seen a picture of him. But when Shanice opens her door and sees the tattooed man standing in her doorway, she immediately knows that he’s Johnny Cruz.

The process isn’t as long as everyone warns her it would be, but it is incredibly tedious. There are complicated forms to fill out and hearings to attend, but she forces herself to trust the process. She’s patient. And after three months, she officially becomes the legal guardian of the four-year-old girl standing beside her.

Their things are unpacked, yet Shanice keeps the flattened boxes stacked in the storage room on the deck. It’s been weeks since moving into this new apartment, and fear keeps her from tossing the boxes. She’s afraid some technicality will delay the process, or that her best friend, Mel, will change her mind about the whole thing.

But Shanice is awarded guardianship almost too easily, but she wraps her arms around Olivia tightly when it’s official. They hug this way every night after they kneel and send their prayers off with soft ‘amens.’

The embrace comforts Shanice more than it does the little girl whose body has lost way too much weight. Olivia’s much too young for all of life’s uncertainty. She’s already learned not to trust a promise, and her appetite wavers without something definitive. She pushes food around the plate at every meal as the not yets and the soons get old, sometimes forcing spoonsful of her dinner down for Shanice’s benefit.

Olivia’s small hand holds onto Shanice’s pinky and forefinger as she looks up at the man in the doorway. He stares back at her, shoulders suddenly heavy now with what Shanice will later learn is shame. He’s looking down at what has flourished in his absence.

Shanice sometimes tries to imagine his face, but he’s shapeless in her mind, and it’s hard to put a face to something without form. To catch smoke in her hand. Olivia has the same round, expressive brown eyes that give her away, and she has those same ears that are too big for her head.

Johnny’s ears are even more emphasized by his long hair that he tucks behind them. Tattoos peak out from the cuffs of his sleeves and the neck of his sweatshirt like weeds slipping through cracks in a wall.

He clears his throat before taking a half step forward. There are so many features that he and Olivia share, but his are masked in a furtive shadow even as he’s flooded with light from her apartment. Entirely too nondescript. He’s wearing dark jeans and an unmarked black hooded sweatshirt like he’s been trying to stop the darkness from clawing at his back.

Shanice shields Olivia, pulling her back and out of view when he inches forward.

“Sorry to come at you so late at night,” he says, tearing at the silence. “Uh, I’m Coco- I mean, I’m Johnny Cruz, Miss. Can we talk?”

“Go to your room, Olivia,” Shanice tells the girl, but it sounds as though she’s scolding her.

The curt tone is misdirected, meant for the recognizable stranger at the door. She looks behind her and watches as the little girl’s eyebrows weave together with confusion. She retreats to her new room with half her attention still focused on the door. Shanice gives a tight smile, attempting to reassure Olivia as the door pushes in but doesn’t completely shut.

“She’s beautiful,” the man lets fall from his mouth in a small yet untidy heap.

When the doorbell rings, Shanice thinks it’s the pizza she’d ordered for dinner that Wednesday. She still has the money in the pocket of her pajama pants, but she wished she’d brought the metal bat she keeps under her bed instead.

Johnny. She might have heard the name mentioned years ago, but the memory feels like a faded dream or a faint taste of déjà vu on her tongue.

“What do you want?” Shanice nearly pushes the words at him through her teeth as she speaks. She’s asking so much more with her question.

Are you going to take her away?

“You don’t gotta worry about me fuckin’ up your home or nothing,” he starts, clearing his throat more out of apprehension than necessity. He continues his researched speech, “I don’t wanna disturb nothing you got goin’ on here. I’m tryna make some amends in my life, and I’d be grateful if you would allow me to meet her.”

“How is meeting her not a disruption?”

He shakes in head, frustrated. “Naw, I meant…I’m not here to ask no custody or no bullshit like that.”

“You goddamn right, because I’ll kill you before I let that happen.” It’s intended mostly as a figure of speech, but she steps forward with one hand clenching the doorknob and the other clenching the money in her pocket. There isn’t anything figurative about the way she feels then as her hands tremor.

But Johnny doesn’t even seem surprised. This is something he must have expected from the list of imagined scenarios.

Out of the corner of her eye, Shanice sees the pizza delivery boy walking up the stairs with her food, and she suddenly realizes how the scene must look. She’s in a faded UCLA shirt and fuzzy pajama pants as her eyes are wide with every bit of contempt her body can muster. She relaxes her eyes, then her limbs follow as she finally remembers to breathe.

“Um, large pepperoni pizza?” the delivery boy tentatively puts forward the food, extending his lanky arms.

“Like I said,” Johnny begins. “I’m not tryna to inconvenience you or her, so I’m gonna go. If you wanna reach me…”

She watches as Johnny pulls a worn, dog-eared business card from his pocket and slip it in the fold of the pizza box before turning and running down the steps of her place.

It takes a too-long, awkward moment to pass before Shanice remembers the delivery boy is still standing off to the side with containers of food in his scrawny hands. She apologizes as she slips him the money while simultaneously grabbing the boxes and she’s soon back inside the apartment. As Shanice puts the chain on the door, she has the strong urge to barricade it with the couch.

“Mushroom!” Shanice calls out as she washes her hands at the kitchen sink. “Pizza’s here!”

The door to Olivia’s room slowly opens and she looks around the living first before walking out of the room.

“C’mon, come wash your hands,” Shanice beckons from the sink.

Olivia joins her at the sink, pulling her step stool from the corner of the kitchen. She glances up at Shanice, squishing soap suds between her fingers.

“Who’s’at man?” Olivia blurts out.

There it is.

Shanice knows the inquiry must eventually come, but she doesn’t expect it this soon. Not before she has time to think of what to say.

“He’s just…” she shakes her hand, accidentally pumping more soap back on her hands to rinse for the second time. “He’s an old friend,” Shanice manages.

“How come you looked so mean at him?”

“Well, he’s mommy’s friend-”

“Oh,” Olivia’s eyebrows knit again, completely understanding. She’s seen a lot of Mel’s friends- old and new and temporary. “So…” Her face contorts with one eye scrunched as if she’s looking through a kaleidoscope. “…so he bringed a pizza?”

“No, Mush,” Shanice laughs at the conclusion Olivia draws. “I’m hungry, are you hungry?”

Olivia’s attention lands on the warm pizza now on their counter, but her favorite are the garlic rolls. Shanice is fearful that Olivia will go back to pushing her food around every time a meal is presented. Her cheeks are slowly beginning to fill, though. The childish chub is returning to her face as her appetite slowly begins to pick up. She’s less folded into herself, walking more like a child and less like a shadow.

They eat on the couch, watching A Goofy Movie while Shanice is the one who picks at her dinner tonight. Her stomach is in deep twists and doesn’t leave any space for anything else as she thinks of what’s to come from Johnny Cruz.