***Mature Content Ahead***

I took my hands away from my ears and opened my eyes when the bedroom door opened and Rico stepped out. Jazz and Rico hadn't fought like that in a long time. I scooted out of the way as Rico stepped over me like I wasn't even sitting there, and then he turned around to face me. He looked past me into the bedroom and started tucking in his shirt. Then he zipped up his pants, buckled his belt and looked back at me.

Smoothing back his hair with his left hand and pointing at Jazz with his right, he said "Handle my shit while I'm gone," and walked out the door.

I watched him until I was sure that he was all the way gone before crawling over to where Jazz was lying motionless on the floor. Her dress was ripped almost all the way off. I had been waiting by the door for them to finish fighting so I could check on her, but by the time Rico came back out, I was almost afraid of what I might see when I went in.

"Jazz?" She didn't answer. I visually scanned her lifeless body and noted that she was bleeding in several places. She was bruised up in others. "Aunt Jazz?" I called her name a little louder.

Nothing.

"Aunt Jazz..." I said it one more time, barely above a whisper.

I thought maybe she was dead.

I was wondering if that's what Rico meant by "handle my shit." I thought that maybe...I was supposed to do something with the body.

"Aunt Jazz..." I crawled closer to her and shook her a little, even though I knew I wasn't supposed to touch her when her dress was ripped like that. "Jazz." I tried to pull the parts of her dress that were ripped closer together so that she wouldn't be embarrassed if she woke up with me next to her. "Wake up, Jazz."

"Stop touching me, Kenney."

I nearly jumped out of my skin when she moved and talked. I had already started trying to figure out how I could get her body home to mama, and where we would put it so that Rico wouldn't find it.

"Jazz," I lightly touched her shoulder.

"Stop it, Kenney," she snapped and tried to sit up. Her back was still to me. I touched her again, even though she said not to, because I could tell that she was having trouble getting up on her own. I walked around to the front of her and covered her, because her dress had fallen open again. Then I grabbed her hand, trying to pull her up.

Jazz let out a scream like I had never heard before. She sounded like...an animal being tortured. And like I was the one torturing her.

"Kenney, get your hands off of me!"

I quickly dropped her hand and backed all the way up against the wall. She cradled her right arm, the one that I had been pulling on, close to her and tried to push herself up with her left. When she finally stood up, she went over to the bed and sat down heavily, her dress barely covering her. I stayed where I was and continued to stare at her. I couldn't look away, even though I knew I wasn't supposed to look at her when her clothes were like that.

"Give me a minute, Kenney," Jazz whispered, breathing hard like we had just finished fighting. When she looked at me, I saw a bruise the size of Rico's balled up fist taking up half her cheek. Rico's hands were huge, like daddy's. Only daddy never hit us. "Go wait in the hall." She watched me until I finally dropped my eyes and started walking towards the door. "Close the door behind you."

I did.

I was back sitting beside the door when she finally opened it. She had a new dress on and her hair fixed, like always.

I stood up and watched her from the open door. She was trying to cover up the bruise with makeup, but she was having a hard time doing it with her left hand. She was still holding her right hand close to her. She looked over at me, annoyed that I was just standing at the door staring at her, but I didn't move and she didn't say anything about it.

When she was finished putting on her makeup, she stood up and looked at me. She looked plastic, like one of Charity's dolls with so much makeup on.

"Let's go cook." I nodded and followed her into the kitchen. She was having trouble lifting things with her right hand, so every time she reached for something I would grab it for her and do what I knew she would usually do with it. When I finally turned the faucet off and pulled out the whole cookie without one crack, she nodded proudly and smiled at me. "Good job, nephew."

That was my first time cooking a whole eight ball by myself.

I smiled back at her. It was the first thing that she had said to me since "Let's go cook." I thought she was mad at me for hurting her.

"Aunt Jazz..." I whispered, because I didn't want her to yell at me again. "I'm sorry I hurt you." Tears slipped down my face, but I didn't mean for them to come all the way out, because I was nine now and mama said I was too old to cry.

I wiped the tears from my right eye, and Jazz wiped the tears from my left. "You didn't hurt me, Kenney." I looked into her honest eyes and knew that I had. That's why she screamed so loud. I just hadn't hurt her as bad as Rico did. "I just..." she looked down at the hand that she was still cradling like a baby. I looked down at it, too, and fought the urge to reach out and touch it.

"You're hurt?" I asked quietly. She nodded. I nodded, too, and we stared at each other some more. "Is it broken?" I looked down and stared at her hand. She shrugged. "I have to take you to the hospital where Sammy is." It didn't even occur to me that "Children's Hospital" meant that they only treated children. I just knew that the hospital was where you were supposed to go if you were hurt. And Jazz was real hurt.

I could tell.

Jazz looked away from me and shook her head no. I nodded yes. We never went to the hospital for anything. I knew that. My eyes strayed expectantly to the front door. I was hoping that Remmey was coming soon. Rico never beat Jazz when Remmey was around, but Remmey always came over after, whenever Jazz and Rico had a really bad fight, or whenever he knew that Rico would be gone for a long time. I guess he could just tell by looking at Rico what was going on at the house. Remmey could read people just like Jazz could.

Remmey didn't come, though, and after watching the door for a few more minutes, I knew that I would have to be the one to take care of Jazz.

"I have to take you to the doctor."

I said it like I meant it and turned to face my aunt. She was already watching me when I turned to face her. After looking stubbornly into my eyes, trying to make me back down first, she finally dropped her own eyes and slumped her shoulders, defeated. Jazz hated it when she needed help.

"Ok, Kenney, but..." She gazed at me, like she was trying to decide whether she could trust me to do what she said. She should have known that she could. I always did whatever Jazz told me to do. "Kenney, you can't tell him. You can't tell the doctor what happened. He's Rico's friend."

I nodded. Daddy had already told me a long time ago that the doctor wasn't really a doctor. He was just who stitched us up, so that's what we all called him. "The doctor."

"You can't ever tell anyone about what happens to me, ok Kenney?" I nodded. I already knew the drill. We looked into each other's eyes. Jazz hesitated for a minute, and then took another step toward me. She bent down further, getting closer to my eye level. "Rico will kill me if you ever tell. You have to keep my secret, Kenney. You can't even tell Remmey." A tear dropped. Just one. I wasn't sure why. "Especially don't tell Remmey. Or your mama. Not even Charity or Sammy. Nobody."

I nodded again. "I won't, Aunt Jazz. I promise." I put my thumb to her lips and she kissed it. Our secret pact.

When we got to the doctor's house, he asked Jazz what happened to her wrist, but he was looking dead at me when he said it. I wasn't sure if he was testing us so that he could tell Rico that we were over there talking, or if he really wanted to help.

I didn't trust him.

"She fell," I blurted out at the same time that Jazz said quietly "I fell." We had told this lie together before.

The doctor nodded and took her wrist carefully into both of his hands. He looked like he might have been trying to feel her bone or something, but then he ran his hand smoothly up her arm and then back down again. He looked into Jazz's eyes for a second too long, and then did it again, running his hand further up her arm this time. Jazz looked uncomfortable, like she wanted his hands off of her.

I read her face and also got uneasy. I was starting to feel like he was touching her too long, so I stood up from my spot on the couch and walked over to stand right next to him. The doctor glanced at me, like I was just some little kid, and then started to ignore me. But something in my face made him do a double take, and he quickly let her go.

Jazz turned red, embarrassed, like I had just caught him doing something wrong to her that she didn't want me to pick up on.

The doctor stood up and walked away from us, just as Jazz cast her eyes downward. She mumbled "Hawkeyes," to me under her breath.

Jazz always called me that whenever I caught something that I shouldn't have seen, so I watched the doctor leave the room and then turned back to her. I wanted to say something and she knew it. But when I opened my mouth to talk, she shook her head no and put her finger to her lips. I nodded. Another secret between us. The doctor came back with a plastic cast that he snapped around Jazz's wrist. She flinched when he snapped it shut, but she didn't cry.

He looked at her face and his face was different now, like he remembered that Rico's eyes...me...were there and he better not do anything stupid.

"It's broken. Keep that on, and then when it feels better, take that off and bring it back to me." He looked guiltily over at me, like he had already messed up and knew it, and then he blinked and looked away. "That's it. No charge for Rico." He backed out of our way as we stood up, and then walked us to the door.

The doctor nodded at Jazz, but didn't smile, when she said "Thank you," and then he nodded at me, too. When he opened the door, he looked one way up the street, and then back down the other way, maybe checking for Rico or my uncles, like he felt like they knew what he did and were already on their way over to his house. Then he closed the door and locked it behind us.

On the way home, I walked on Jazz's left side, even though daddy always told me that men were supposed to walk on the outside, closest to the street. But I didn't want to forget that Jazz was hurt, and accidentally bump into her arm. Jazz and I walked together in silence like that for a while.

After a few minutes, we looked at each other and wordlessly agreed to put on our best smiles and keep our mouths shut when we saw Remmey walking toward us in the distance.