"Hey."

"Hey." I opened my eyes when Charity walked in. They had me so drugged up I never really stayed awake more than an hour or two at a time.

I knew she wanted to tell me something as soon as she sat down.

"'Sup witchya?"

She just stared at me and asked "So...how do you feel?"

I tried to sit up, but of course I couldn't.

"I'm good. What's up?" She knew I wasn't for small talk.

"Does it hurt?"

"Can't feel shit." Her eyes grew huge. I nodded. "I know, right?" My eyes were doing the same thing on the inside, but I knew I had to maintain for the women. I didn't want them to freak out any more than they already were. "They still won't let me try to walk."

"How the hell you gone try to walk if you can't feel shit, Kenney?"

I skipped over that. Charity had been looking agitated since she walked through the door.

"What's on your mind, kid?" I decided to just get straight to it.

"I'm...glad...you're...breathing on your own again..."

"Mm-hmm." I stared at her. I could wait all day, but eventually she was going to tell me what she came there to say.

"Kenney..." She took my hand. "They found Tiana. Mama and Wallace...they found her..."

I blinked at her. "What do you mean found?" I willed my face to stay expressionless.

She stared back at me. "You know what I mean."

"Where?"

"Up the way."

"How?"

She looked away from me. "I...don't know..."

"Don't start that block shit with me Charity. How?" She shrugged. I took my hand away and tried to sit up again. She watched my struggle, then stood up to fix my pillows. "How?"

Charity looked down at me, expressionless. "They say...her body just gave out, I guess."

I stared at her some more and then fell back asleep. Fuck reality. If this was life, God could keep it. When I woke up again, Charity was still sitting by the bed, watching at me. I wondered how long she had been looking at me like that.

"What?"

"Do you remember what I told you?"

"Yeah." I let out a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling.

"Fucked up."

"Yeah." I looked over at her. "What else?"

"Jazz won't leave the house."

"What do you mean she won't leave the house?"

"I mean...she won't go outside. She's scared. Kenney..."

"Yeah?"

"We have to help her. She's doing real bad."

Tears dropped from her eyes, but she didn't make a sound. Impatiently, she brushed the tears away from her right eye. I brushed the tears away from her left.

"She only comes to the hospital. And will only come with Wally B. She won't come with me. She won't go anywhere, Kenney. And Wally B has to work. So she's home all day with mama, and mama's..." her voice trailed off. "Mama saw Tiana like that, Kenney, so she's..." Charity didn't have to say any more. I got the picture.

"Charity." I was so damn tired. "When you go home, tell Wallace to pack Jazz a bag and bring her here, and leave her here with me."

"He's not gonna do that, Kenney. You don't need that right now."

"Just tell him." She stopped fighting me and nodded. "What else?"

"That's it."

"You sure?" I looked deep into her eyes and she started crying again. For some reason, it made me tear up, too. I was turning into a real bitch.

"I just..." She ran her hand over her whole face and sucked it up. My sister was a G like the rest of us. "I just hate that I was so mean to Tiana..."

I looked away. "Yeah."

"But I caught the bitch fucking my twelve year old brother." She relived the memory and looked sick all over again.

I smiled. I couldn't help it.

"Ass." She took a soft jab at my arm. "What the hell, Kenney? She was like your sister."

Now it was my turn to screw my face up. "Naw..." I shook my head. "I never saw Tiana as my sister. Y'all were sisters, but I always liked her. Always." I looked back at Charity, and was surprised by how surprised she looked.

Then she looked confused. "How the hell did you even know what to do? None of us ever taught you about sex. Ew! Was that your first time?"

I grinned harder and looked away. "Nah..."

"What the hell, Kenney?"

"Tiana was my first, though." I read Charity's face. "But I already knew what to do when I got wit' her." I didn't go into detail. Charity didn't want to know that I had been watching people have sex since I was a real little kid. I could see it all over her face that she didn't want to know that. "Tee didn't do anything wrong, sis. She didn't like me that whole time. I just liked her. She didn't start liking me until...later..." My voice trailed off when Charity started looking at me funny. "I...did it. It was me. It was all on me. It wasn't her. I made her like me..."

Charity's face kind of changed real fast and she looked down at her hands. All of a sudden she looked nervous and started glancing at the door, like Tiana used to do every time she thought about Rico. Then Charity looked back at me like I wasn't who she thought I was.

"What, Charity?"

"Kenney..." she back away from me a little, like she didn't want me to touch her. I didn't understand why. "Did you..." She let out a long, deep breath like she was about to ask something that she never in her life thought that she would be asking her little brother.

"Did I what, sis?"

"Did you rape her?" She looked at me accusingly and it felt just like a knife in my heart.

"Why the fuck would I do that? Charity..." I reached out for her hand, but she moved it even further away from me. "I...don't...do that. I wouldn't. I would never do that."

I just stared at her. Obviously she knew about the crew and what kind of fucked up shit they were into, but that wasn't me. Is that what she really thought of me? How long had she been thinking that about me?

"No...sis...in your bed?" I was still confused about what the hell even happened that night. I thought maybe this was why she didn't know who to take it out on when she caught us. "Charity...why did you flip out that night? Did you think I was hurting her, or did you think that she was...doing something to me? I mean..." I ran a hand over my face. "What are we even talking about right now, sis?" With all the drugs the doctors had me on, I couldn't even follow what she was trying to say to me.

Charity shook her head. "No, not that time, Kenney. That time I thought...that she was doing something with you...that she shouldn't have been doing. And she was, Kenney. You were just a little kid. And I snapped." She suddenly looked angry all over again.

I looked at my sister like she had crawfish crawling out of her ears. "Charity...we're damn near the same age."

She gazed at me steadily, trying to understand why I didn't understand. "No we're not, Kenney. And you never did realize that you're just a kid. Even now. You're only fifteen years old." I rolled my eyes at her. "I'm serious."

I read her body language and noticed that she never got any closer to me. "Charity...I don't know how the fuck you're seein' me and Tee right now, but none of it was wrong. She didn't do anything to me and I...didn't...do anything to her..." My eyes shifted and Charity caught it. But I was thinking about the last time that I saw Tiana. Not about...what she thought I was thinking about. "Charity, I wouldn't do that to her. Or anyone. I don't rape girls. What the fuck, Charity?"

"So...when the crew was always running trains and..." her voice trailed off and she gave me that look again.

"I never did that, either, Charity. I don't run trains. That makes me sick. I don't hit girls. I don't do any of that." I thought about Rico beating and raping Jazz in front of me, and my face should have told her everything she needed to know. "I don't rape, sis. I can't believe you think I'm like that."

Charity kept her eyes on me. "Mama thinks you are. When you told her about Tiana. She thinks you...did that to her, too. You said you were there...with them..." She kept steady eye contact with me. She still didn't believe me. "Kenney...what else would you have been doing...if you were there..."

"What..." The word came out like an escaped breath, like she had just punched me in the chest. It felt just like that, too. Like she had just punched me in the chest.

"That's why mama hit you."

I looked over at Charity and suddenly started grinning. She grinned back.

"She slapped the shit out of me."

"I know." Charity giggled.

"In the hospital. After I just been shot up." Charity laughed harder. I kept going because I needed to see her laugh. After Sammy died Charity almost never laughed, unless she was doing that evil cackle. "...can't even feel my legs..."

Charity gasped for air and held her sides. "Stop Kenney!" She laughed harder and wiped away tears. "Damn. I haven't seen her hit you that hard in a long time."

"Yeah." I smiled at her and watched her laugh. Hearing her laughter made me feel better, even if only for a minute. "Tell mama I didn't do it, ok? Tell her I don't do that. That I would never do that."

"Ok, I'll tell her."

"Charity?"

"Yeah?"

"Tiana...was my girl. I loved her. I know you don't understand, but I did. I still do." I dropped tears. Charity wiped them away. "I loved her so much, Charity. I didn't even know it was her. I didn't even recognize her."

Charity nodded and our eyes locked.

"What?"

Charity was staring at me like she had never seen me before. "I just..." she shook her head. "I just never realized you were like that."

"Like what?"

"Like...like you fell in love with girls and stuff. I didn't know..."

"I don't fall in love with girls. I don't have time for that shit, Charity. I just loved her. I only ever loved her. She's...she's the only one I ever been with."

"For real? Kenney...are you serious?"

"Yeah." I looked down and then back up at her. "Charity..."

"Yeah, Kenney?"

"I...treated her like a crackhead." I looked into my sister's eyes and waited for her to slap me, too. The women in my family didn't play that shit. At all. "I...you know..." I looked down when she only stared at me. Then I looked back up at her. "I thought she was just...another crackhead...and...she couldn't pay, so I told her meet me in the cut..."

"You have sex with crackheads Kenney?" her voice came out at a pitch that I had never heard from her before.

"Nah sis, I just told you. I didn't fuck her. I just let her...suck me off...because she couldn't pay..." When I heard myself say it, I realized how fucked up it sounded.

"What tha hell little brother?"

"I know..."

"Stop doing that shit. What the fuck is wrong with you, Kenney? These are people that you're talking about. Stop doing that. Stop doing all that shit."

"I know..."

"I mean it."

"I know..." When Charity was finished ripping me a new one, I told her more. "She...I...was done. And Chauncey was next..." Charity looked disgusted with me and with life. "I didn't know they would come back there, sis. It was just me and her when she started. But then...a bunch of 'em came back there. And I was already finished so I was already walking away." Charity looked like she wanted to spit on me. "The crew was getting impatient by the time Chauncey...by the time...when she...um...was doing..."

We both looked away from each other. This was a hard story to tell my sister of all people. I fucked up so bad, and I was laying it all right out there for Charity to see.

"They started crowding around her before she was even finished with Chauncey, and I knew what they were about to do, so...I...left." Tears started dropping again. "I just left her there, and I think she called my name, but I thought I was just hearing things..." I cried harder. "I let them do that to her, Charity, and she was calling me for help. I just let them do that to her."

"That's so fucked up, Kenney." Charity had no sympathy in her eyes. None. She actually looked like she wanted to punch me in the face. And I wouldn't have been mad at her if she did. I wanted to do more than that to myself.

"Chauncey told me later...who it was. And he thought it was funny that I didn't know. Because everyone else did..." I wiped at my eyes, but the tears kept falling. "I fucked his ass up, sis."

"Good. I hate Chauncey."

I looked at her for a long time. Charity had always hated Chauncey, just like Tiana had always been terrified of Rico. I wondered for the second time in my life exactly what he had done to her before I walked up on them the night she was crying. For years after that, I would just fuck with Chauncey. Just because I could. And he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

"Hey sis..."

"Yeah?"

"If someone ever...hurt you, would you tell me?"

She rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what I was thinking. "Hell no, Kenney."

I guess I couldn't be mad about that. She knew who I was. If any man ever did anything to her, they wouldn't be a problem for long. I stared at her a little while longer, trying to read the truth. She squirmed uncomfortably, but blanked out her face and held my gaze until I finally moved on.

"I really beat the shit out of him, Charity. So bad Remmey tried to step in. He never does that. I...pulled a gun on Remmey, sis." Charity's eyes got huge because she knew Remmey didn't fuck around, just like Rico. Then she just shook her head. "I was going crazy, sis. Right before it all caught up to me. I was really going fucking crazy." Charity nodded, looking sad.

Real sad.

Too sad.

"Kenney...are you really the one who knocked Tiana's teeth out?" She was looking into my eyes, like the thought alone that I could do something so horrible hurt her to her core.

"Charity..."

"Everybody's...been sayin' it was you. That you knocked her teeth out because she tried to steal from Rico..."

"Charity..." I hung my head. "It was me." My sister shook her head disgustedly and looked away from me. I put my hand over hers. She pulled her hand back. "It was an accident sis. I had to get that straight drop back from her before Rico...set her on fire..."

Charity just looked at me like she was done with life. She looked at me the same way Tiana was looking out over the city the night I told her that we had taken care of her stepdaddy for her.

"You're an asshole Kenney. A real. asshole."

"It was an accident, sis." I was so tired. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep. "I swear to you it was an accident. I never meant to hurt her like that."

"Why do you do that shit, Kenney? I mean...all of it. What's wrong with you? That's no way to live."

"I know." I nodded.

"I mean...all the drugs. All the bodies...I know you don't like that shit, little brother. I know you don't like it. Why do you still do it?"

I shrugged. "I guess I just...like to eat." We looked at each other and kind of laughed, but not really. "And I like to feed you and mama. I like to be a man for my family..."

Charity shook her head and hung it low like she was just done with it all. I hoped that didn't include me.

"But you're not a man, Kenney. You're just a boy."

"Charity...I'm fifteen years old. Accept it. I get my license next year."

We both chuckled at the fact that I had already been driving for like six years, and then I guess we both remembered at the same time that I couldn't even walk anymore, much less drive, because we both stopped laughing and looked down at my legs.

"Kenney, we can eat some other way." I looked at her like that had never even occurred to me before. Because it hadn't. I had never known any other way, and wasn't sure that I could make any another way work for us, even if I did know what that way was. "That's what Wallace is for. He feeds us now, Kenney. He can feed you and Jazz, too. I know he can, and I know he would do it. Let him be a man, Kenney, and you just be a kid. You never got to do that, little brother. Just be a kid for once."

I looked at my sister and wished that I could believe in what she was saying. But I couldn't. There was no guaranty that Wallace would stick around, for one, so I had to stay ready to step back in, just in case he disappeared on us, too. Not only that, I had already grown all the way up a long time ago.

And that's one thing that you just can't do backwards.

"Stop doing that shit, Kenney. All of it." She wiped her thumb across my eye. I didn't even realize that I was crying again.

"Yeah..." I took a deep breath and tried to slow my heartbeat down. It started speeding up around the time that she started questioning me about Tiana. "Yeah..."

I sat back and tried to relax.

That morphine drip hit just in time.