“Lethal Love” (INTRODUCTION)

Thursday, August 12, 1999

Central California Women’s Facility

I wasn’t a stranger to my grandmother’s fury. I’d seen it up close and personal. No, never, ever against me—against people who she felt wronged her in some way. Since I was well-versed in the change in behavior patterns, as well as the shifting demeanor, I read it immediately. Her shoulders stiffened; her brows knitted into a single stitch, and her pecan complexion began to look flushed. I saw instantly, the look of rage in her piercing dark-brown, doe-shaped eyes. Then I saw dots of dew creeping across her irises, and knew that she had crossed the threshold of rage, and without a break in between, had fallen into devastation and hurt. She understood when I lowered my eyes, the implications of my nonverbal gesture. It was right after she asked me how “it” was going. It, being life with my foster parents, inside of the beautiful Victorian in a section of West Oakland.

I had been with the Harvey’s for two years—since my grandmother was arrested—for murder. Of course, being that my grandmother was the only thing I had ever had resembling a parent, I was broken… devastated, inconsolable, when they plucked her from my tight grasp in the comfort of our second-story living room.

At first, things with the Harvey’s were good. I had been fortunate enough to make out better than most kids who found themselves in “the system.” At least I thought so. Beatrice, the mother, was a gem. She was a churchgoing woman who cooked meals from heaven each and every Sunday, and who always made sure that I had enough for lunch money, and balanced meals to eat after school. The father, Thomas, was a quiet, hardworking man who worked for the city’s electric company as a supervisor.

It was their son, T.J.—Thomas Michael Harvey, Jr., who was the problem.

My grandmother continued reading my expression, her eyes swimming left to right like a person speed reading. And she was doing just that… reading me. After putting on a poker face, she posed the question, “Can you give us a little space?”

Mary, the court-appointed shadow, assigned to accompany me to my bi-monthly visits to Chowchilla, looked up from the Ebony magazine in her hand, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Deneen, you know I—”

“Fine,” my grandmother curtly stated, refusing to allow the rest of Mary’s statement to play out. Deneen Sinclair wasn’t happy. She reached around to the back of her neck to free her dangling ponytail from inside the collar of her jumpsuit. “Baby girl…” she started when she began addressing me. “Strategy, okay? Remember everything that I taught you. Plan everything—down to the wire. That way—”

“You know what?” Mary announced. “On second thought, I do need to tinkle. She stood up from the metal bench, straightened out a few invisible ruffles in her blouse. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched my grandmother roll her eyes hard, and couldn’t help but chuckle beneath my breath. She hated Mary. In fact, I knew with everything in me that if the two women met in a place with no bars, Mary would be six feet beneath a fancy headstone. So, I was smart enough to hold tightly to the words Mary said all too often, whenever we left Chowchilla:

“I don’t even know how she has regular visitation rights, anyway. She’s a lifer. They’re not even supposed to have contact visits. No telling how she got that to happen. Aside from being a killer, I heard your G-Ma was something of a loose woman. Don’t you think you’re better off without a person like that in your life? You know you don’t have to agree to come see her, right?”

Mary had a lot more to say, but I made a habit of tuning her out. I did that, so that Mary wouldn’t end up cussed out, or busted in her mouth—and so that I wouldn’t be removed from the only “home” I’d known since I lost my own.

I needed a little more time…

As soon as my grandmother was sure the coast was all the way clear, she looked into my eyes, tears standing still in her own. “That muthafucka put his dick on you, didn’t he?” she hissed angrily, as a few tears freed themselves, and started a slow trail down her cheek. “This is my fault.” She breathed out a deep, defeated sigh, that was laced with years of guilt. “My God, baby. I’m so sorry. Who else have you told?”

I shook my head. “Nobody. I don’t need to.” A prideful smile crept across my grandmother’s face, as she quickly scanned the room to see if Mary was returning. “… because I know what to do,” I told her.

“Right, baby. Because hurt people… hurt people. And nobody can govern how you attend to pain. No…body.” She nodded. “My careless mistake cost me a life with you, baby. My hunger for revenge was… it was too much. So, do what you have to do, but be careful. You don’t deserve this life,” she said, tapping the hard table with the meat of her forefinger. “You’ve got too much life to live. I just…” She dropped her head low, and I watched as her graceful posture sank, shoulders first. “I just wish you never had to go through it in the first place. A man is never supposed to inflict pain on a woman. Not ever, and not under any circumstances. And when they do, they need to be violated in the wor—”

“I’m back,” Mary sang when she threw her meaty leg back over the bench and locked her thick fingers together. “And right on time, since it seems it’s about time for us to head out, Nova.”

I didn’t want to leave my grandmother. She was the person I loved most in the world, besides my younger cousin Gianna. They were all I had. But my grandmother had made her bed and had to lie in it. There were times over these two years where I just wished she had thought about me more than she did revenge. But like she had always taught me, the mind goes a different place when hurt is inflicted. I finally understood.

“I love you, sweet baby girl. And I wish you the happiest birthday ever,” my grandmother said to me when I stood up to leave.

“I love you too Lady Deneen.” I smiled at her and nodded. “I’m going to make you proud.”

“I don’t doubt it for even a split second.” She smiled, then blew me a kiss.

Each of us periodically looked over our shoulder at the other, until we were gone from each other’s sight.

When I’d insisted on seeing my grandmother today—on my born day—it was more than wanting to spend a special day with her. It was more about her approval. And now that I had it, I knew that with all the planning I had gone over in my sixteen-year-old mind, that I was on the right path. And it was a path that I intended to stay on…

Coming Thursday, October 1, 2020. Available for Pre-order:

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