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“Now that you’ve accepted the bear, it’s yours. No one can take it from you and to make sure it stays with you forever, you have a very important decision to make. You have to name it. Can you do that?”
Without looking away, she nods.
I doubt she believes me and I won’t press to find out the name she gives the toy.
“Will you be alright playing by yourself?” Her lack of response prompts me to offer, “If not, you can keep me company while I make dinner.”
We’re about to enter the kitchen when my doorbell rings. Jinx stiffens and looks around as if searching for a place to hide.
“Zakiya, I know you’re home. Open the door,” Dory calls.
I face Jinx with an aggrieved sigh. “That’s Dory. She’s like the fish from the cartoon except she rememberseverything. If I don’t answer the door, she’ll find a way inside. Give me a minute.”
I pass Jinx to let Dory inside.
My self-proclaimed best friend sails through my house. “You will not believe what happened to me tod—Who’s that?” Dory spies Jinx, her gaze bounces between the two of us. “And why does she look like a mini version of you?” She narrows her gaze at me, and I can see the questions filling her head.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop. In all the years we’ve known each other, I have not hidden a pregnancy from you.”
With a skeptical frown pointed at my belly, she says, “How can I be sure? Maybe you didn’t show.”
“Dory—”
“When will you call me Max or Maxine? Haven’t we been together long enough for you to stop pretending you don’t loveme?” She sidles beside me to hang her arm over my shoulder and squeeze.
I side-eye her, knowing she’ll dismiss every argument I have about being an unwilling hostage in this supposed friendship.
“Anyway, introduce me to our daughter.” She nearly skips toward Jinx whose eyes are wide in fear.
I intercept Max in time and turn her around. “We need to talk first. Jinx, why don’t you play in your playroom? I’ll get you when I finish talking to Dory.”
“Max. Call me Max,” she insists as I drag her out to the backyard. When I free her, she turns on me. “Zakiya, what the hell? All I was going to do was hug the little girl and get to know her. She looks so all alone and needs to know I will be another mama bear in her corner.”
“I get that, but you need to take your energy from here”—I raise my hand to my head—“To here.” I lower my hand to below my hips. “She’s been through it and having a grown adult stampeding toward her like she’s an eighty percent off clearance sale will not help her situation.”
Max steps back and peers deeply into my eyes. “This isn’t your usual, calm the fuck down warning, is it?”
Although Max steamrolls over many of my boundaries, there are some she will respect and defend as if they’re hers. When I shake my head, she nods, saying, “I got you, and that little girl, too. But you realize this hermitic lifestyle won’t work for her?”
“Jinx is with me temporarily until I can find a relative I trust to be what she needs.”
“I don’t know sis, you seem to be what she needs.”
I shake my head, rejecting the spark Max’s words ignite inside me.
“Alright, I won’t make it hard for you.”
“And refrain from calling her my daughter. She’ll be hurt when she leaves.” I turn away from Max under the guise ofreentering the house when I’m hiding the discomfort in my chest.
Distancing myself from Jinx is a survival tactic. I’m damaged goods. And one lesson I’ve learned in my thirty-five years on this planet is I’m not fit to help Jinx heal. How can I be? Damaged people can’t heal other damaged people, and no amount of hero-worship stares can get me to don a superwoman cape to conquer the little girl’s demons. I fight the ones I can see and touch and smell.
Max’s hand on my shoulder halts me. Unlike Jinx, I’ve had many years to train my body not to flinch at sudden movements.
“Are you sure you can’t keep her? Except for the eyes, she looks like a miniature version of you.”
Jinx isn’t the first child I’ve brought home. Maybe that’s why Max doesn’t pester me with more questions about her sudden appearance in my life. But this is new. She’s never suggested I commit to a child I’ve rescued before. I stomp out the questions in my head that agree with her.
“You only say that because you’ll use her as an excuse to force me on shopping trips.” I open the door and enter the house.
