"Jazz!"

            I stared at my aunt. I hadn't seen her in too long. She looked incredible. Her hair was out and wavy like she used to keep it. Her color was all the way back, and she looked like she was finally eating again. She looked good. Her teeth were white and her smile was beautiful. She looked like the Jazz that I used to know. She was calm and confident, upbeat and happy like her old self. Like her old, old self. Before Rico started fuckin' up.

            "Well, hey there my favorite nephew!" She grinned at me.

            I held out my arms to her. She walked over and hugged me for a long time, hard, and then rubbed at my scar. I hated that shit. It always reminded me of the day that I got it, and reminded me that Rico was still out there...alive. That I had never made him pay.

For any of it.

I held both of her hands in mine. "I missed you, Jazz. Where you been?"

            "I missed you, too, nephew." She pulled up a chair next to the bed and sat down. I couldn't get over how good she looked.

            We just stared at each other, trying to read the missing time in each other's eyes, on each other's faces, trying to see what each other had been through since we had been apart.

            "I'm walking again." I smiled brightly at her.

            "You are?" She was shocked.

            "Well, no. Not exactly. But I try. I have to use a walker now..." I looked at her, hoping for some kind of answer about whether I would have to use that thing for the rest of my life. Of course she didn't have one.

            Aunt Jazz just smiled at me and rubbed my scar. "Show me later." Then she watched her finger as it trailed down the side of my face. "You can barely see it." She ran her finger down the scar again.

            "I know, Jazz." I took her hand in mine. "So, what's up?" She looked like she had something heavy on her mind.

            "Kenney...I have to tell you something."

            "Ok..." I looked into her eyes. Eyes that looked exactly like Sammy's. It had been a while since I had seen them. My heart pulled a little. I still missed my sister. Every day. I looked away from her.

            "I been in Virgina...." I looked back at Jazz, confused. She nodded. "With Wally B."

            "What?" It wasn't adding up. "But Wallace was just...in here. With me..."

            "Kenney, they tell me you been in and out a lot since you been here. Time probably wasn't...what you thought it was...." She squeezed my hand tighter. "You been in here a long time, son. And I've been gone...a real long time. Months. Wallace took me up to Virginia and stayed with me for some of the time. But he didn't stay too long, because he didn't want to be away from your mama and the babies..." She watched me, reading how I was receiving her story. She could tell that I wasn't taking it very well. At all. "Then after a while, he came back to get me..."

            "Wait..." I stared at her. "Are you sayin' he left you up there? Alone?" I was pissed. What the fuck did I tell Wallace about leaving my aunt alone? What happened to her while he was gone? What the fuck was she getting at?

            "I wasn't alone, Kenney. I been stayin' with Wally B's grandmother. She been helpin' me."

            I was still confused. "You were up there the whole time? After you left here? This whole time?" My brain was on overload. Most of the time I couldn't even figure out what day it was, and now she was telling me months had passed by and I didn't even know it? Enough time for her to look like this?

What the fuck?

            "No, Kenney." Aunt Jazz put her hand on my chest, right over my heart. She knew my head was about to explode, and was probably trying to make sure that my heart wasn't about to do the same thing. "Not the whole time. I had to get clean first. My relapse was...really bad, son. Real bad..." Her voice trailed off and she looked away, but I wouldn't let go of her hand.

            "Was...she nice to you?" I was trying my hardest to stay calm and gather as much information as I could.

            Aunt Jazz looked peacefully down at me. "Yeah, Kenney. She's real nice. You would like her a lot. Everyone loves her. They call her Ma Buck."

I nodded and noticed that her eyes were locked onto mine. She was trying to tell me something, trying to make me believe something, but wouldn't spit out what it was. I tried to read between the lines.

"They call me Jasmine up there. Nobody calls me Jazz..."

            "Oh..." I was starting to get the picture.

            "Because that's my name. Jasmine." I nodded. That it was. "Jazzy Jazz...is gone, Kenney. I don't ever want her to come back."

            I nodded and looked away. What was she trying to tell me?

            "Ma Buck...she...wants to meet you. All of you. I told her all about you, Kenney. Us, the family...everything." She looked at me for a long time so that I would know that by everything, she meant everything.

            "Oh..."

            "And she wants everyone to come up there to meet her. She can't really get around like she used to, so...it's too far for her to come down here..."

            "Ok..."

            "She wants everyone to come visit. But...she wants you and me...to stay. Up there. With her..."

            My eyes got huge. "Jazz...what?" Her face kind of fell, and I tried to make it better. "Jazz...min. Aunt Jasmine..." She smiled a little. If Jasmine was what she wanted me to call her, then I would call her that. Whatever it took to keep her clean.

            "Kenney, she calls you her great-grandson."

            "She does?"

            "Yes, she does."

            "Why?"

            "Because Wally B told her that you're his son. His stepson. He asked her to help us. He wants you to have a new life...a second chance. Like he got to have. She helped him do that."

            I nodded. He told me that.

            "Kenney..." she paused and let go of my hand, then started wringing her hands together. I hated when she did that. It made me feel like she was about to ask me for a rock. "We went back to the house."

            "Who?" I didn't even ask which house. All I needed to know was who. Who the fuck took my aunt back to that damn house?

            "Wally B."

            "Why?"

            "I asked him to."

            "Why?"

            "Because..." she took my hand. "I wanted to get our stuff. So you wouldn't have a reason to go back." My eyes narrowed. She looked different, but I wasn't born yesterday. "I wasn't looking for drugs, Kenney. I'm clean. I promise."

            I nodded. I would have to believe her, like I always did, until she proved me wrong again.

            "A lot of our stuff was gone. You know how that goes..." I nodded. Charity had kept me up on what was happening on the block, and had already told me that Rico moved almost everything out to the stash house that Ruby was staying at. Right before...shit went down. I didn't know if Jazz knew that's what happened, that our stuff wasn't stolen, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell her. "But the money was still there..."

            I tried to keep my face as blank as possible, but my insides were like a whirlpool. I had never thought about all of the things that had been left behind.

I had thought about the money several times, but I was thinking about it differently now.

That kind of stuff...bloody money, things that hadn't been cleaned yet, all my shit, all the baby's shit, things that Rico wouldn't have any need for and could have easily left behind at the house...all that pointed right to me and Jazz.

            "Rico's money was still there?"

            "No nephew," she gave me a stern look like I needed to stop playing dumb. This wasn't that kind of conversation. "Rico kept all his money at the other house. All of it. You know that."

I did.

He had been doing that for years, and had never really been checking for anything that I may or may not have stashed away for a rainy day. Mainly because he already knew, when it came down to it, if he needed it, I would use that money for the family before I used it for myself. Always.

Every time.

Aunt Jazz read the concern on my face. "Kenney, Ruby took care of who's name everything up there is in." She did her finger like she was motioning up the street, just like Charity had done. I wondered briefly if they had talked to each other about this. "Everything. And everything down here...is in...someone else's name, too. Nothing will ever point back to back to us, son." She took my hand. "Nobody will come looking for us. And nobody will talk." I knew she could feel my pulse racing, but I nodded like it was all good, anyway. "Wally B talked to Remmey..."

            My face turned red and my mind began to blaze. What the fuck was really going on here? I wanted mama and Charity to stay out of that shit. Forever. What the hell was Wallace doing in it?

            "...before he took me over there," Jazz finished quickly. "Your uncles still guard the house. Remmey runs everything from there now..." I was getting more heated by the minute. "Remmey knew about the money, but he didn't touch it. He knew it was for you. To get us out. He loves us Kenney. All of us. He loves your mama and Charity, too. You know that."

I just stared at her. Was she banging Remmey again? She couldn't be as clean as she said, if she was. Jazz read my mind.

"Wally B wanted to make sure that we could get in...to get everything. Without any problems..." She looked down. "He didn't want to take me in there if...he couldn't get me back out..." I nodded. "Remmey had already cleaned the house out and started over again by the time we got there. Chauncey took care of everything. There's nothing that would point back to any of us. You, me, Rico...none of us. Rico told them to do that after he...when they found Ruby..."

            A tear dropped down her face. I wiped it away, but I didn't know why she was crying.

            "You couldn't even tell...that a baby ever lived there." More tears dropped. I wiped those away, too. "It's just like a trap house now. It's not ours anymore, Kenney." I nodded and stared into her eyes. Now I wanted to drop tears, too, but I wasn't about to do it in front of her. "Me and Wally B got the money. All of it. There was nothing else to get. Nobody was there but Remmey when we got it. I don't know where Remmey sent your uncles. And your whole crew...I didn't see any of them, Kenney..." I nodded again. "Remmey made us wear latex gloves..." She smiled a little. I swallowed my anger. Aunt Jazz was a fool. She would never stop loving Remmey. Or Rico. "Wally B wouldn't let me talk to him. He asked Remmey to wait outside and guard the house while we got everything out. He...he wouldn't let me say anything to Remmey at all..." She looked real sad about that.

            I wasn't.  

Jazz paused and watched my face. I blanked it out, so that she couldn't see anything that I was thinking. Of course she saw it all anyway.     

            "It was all still there, Kenney. All the money you had in your room under the floor...in the vents...your closet...the TV. The toilet...it was all still there. All of it. Nobody touched any of it. Those were the only things they left in your room. We got it. All the money you had in your mattress, in the baby's mattress...they put that in the floor. And we got it all..." I waited for her to say that she smoked it all, too, but she didn't. "Wally B took me to the bank...and I opened an account."

            Shit.

            "Aunt Jazz..." I caught myself and calmed myself down, "...min. Aunt Jasmine. You can't put that much money in the bank. They'll start watching you."

            "I know, Kenney. I didn't. I only put a little in. Only a little at a time. Wally B showed me how to do it."

            "Where's the rest?"

            "At your mama's house. Nobody will touch it over there, Kenney. I wanted to pay them rent for me and for you, but Wallace...doesn't want that money. He doesn't want me to use it to pay rent to his grandmother, either. He doesn't want any part of it. He just wants us to use it to pay off your medical bills and then start a new life for ourselves. And then he wants us to get legit money. Some other way..." She looked down, and I could tell that trying to think of a way to make "legit money" had been stressing her out. She looked back up at me. "Nobody at your mama's house will touch the money before you come home, son."   

            I knew that.

Jazz was the only one I was worried about touching the money.

She read my eyes and lowered hers again.

            "Kenney...do you remember what your daddy used to say? Greater love hath no man than this..."

            "That a man lay down his life for his friends," I finished quietly and looked at her. "John 15:13."

She looked back up at me and started rubbing my scar again. I took her hand in mine.

            "I laid down my life, Kenney. That old me is gone. And I picked up a new life...in Virginia. For us. For both of us. I want you to come back with me, son. When you get better." I just stared at her. "Please."

            She knew there was no way in hell that I would leave mama and Charity behind unprotected. There was just no way that I would ever do that.

            "I'll think about it Aunt Jazz...min. Aunt Jasmine. I'll think about it."

            "Ok."

She smiled at me, and then backed away from the bed.

"Now...let me see you walk."

Author's note: In the published version of Vol 1 Still Waters (now available on Amazon!) "Hampton" was changed to "Armistead." But it remains "Hampton" in the Wattpad version of Still Waters. Just a heads up for those who read Part 1 on Wattpad before you read Part 2 Kenney 🙂