“All of ‘em,” Zach said laughing as he scooped up LaVon, making him giggle. “And don’t drop your mom’s groceries or my suit, small fry— drop the bag, and I drop you, got it?” he said, releasing the five-year-old for a second and then catching him before his feet touched the marble flooring. Zach jerked LaVon up close in a bicep curl and then snatched Terrence who’d tried to run, but had allowed himself to get caught. “That goes for you, too, pipsqueak.”
“Who you calling a pipsqueak?” Terrence said, laughing hard, struggling to no avail. “I’m a monster— a wrestling maniac.”
“Uh, huh,” Zach said, “we’ll see,” and then let out a big roar as he dashed down the hall and bounded up the first flight of steps.
“Lord have mercy!” Anne Marie shouted from the stairwell. “Zachary Mitchell, put those boys down— y’all get away from your uncle beating up on him like that! They’ll give you a hernia, man— they aren’t babies anymore.”
“Arrrrgggghhhh!” Zachary growled, laughing and stomping up the stairs like a trapped monster, allowing the boys to think they were finally getting the better of him. “Anne Marie, they almost got me this time, I think I’m going down!”
He staggered, making the boys think he was falling backward down the steps and then all of a sudden started running, taking the steps two at a time.
“You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days, Mitchell,” she said, covering her heart with her palm, and then swatting her boys as they fell off their uncle onto the hall floor. “Go in the house and keep the noise down, your father is asleep!”
“I thought I told you guys if you dropped your mother’s groceries, I was gonna drop you? Hang up my suit bag, would ya?”
Kids ran and little boy voices hit a decibel that could have awakened the dead. Zach leaped over the fallen groceries and tackled three children who whooped in utter delight.
“Sorry, Anne!” he yelled over his shoulder as the boys piled on top of him, showing off every move they’d seen on television. His suit was in a luggage heap on the floor.
She just chuckled and shook her head, collecting up the grocery bags and picking up his suit bag as she re-entered the apartment.
“You didn’t have to do this.” Anne stood in the doorway and then looked down into one grocery bag that had produce on the top of it, disguising Wrestlemania figures from Toys “R” Us. “You spoil them rotten.”
Instantly the children sprung up off the pile they’d been in on the floor to run to their mother.
“Oooohhh, ooohhh, lemme see!” LaVon shouted, making it to his mom first.
“I told you Uncle Zach always brings cool stuff!” Terrence said, elbowing his younger brother.
“Wish you could be here all the time, Uncle Zach,” Junior said, running to see what was in the bag.
“Hold it, guys!” Zach said, getting up off the floor with a grunt. “Two conditions of getting those,” he said, eyeing the boys. “One— you listen to your mother and keep it down . . . your dad doesn’t feel good, all right?” He waited until they nodded, watching Anne swish the bag behind her back with relish and then hold her head up high. “Two— you help around the house and pick up all your stuff until your dad is feeling better, so everything isn’t all on your poor mom. Deal?”
“Deal!” Junior shouted and then covered his mouth with his hand.
The two smaller kids giggled and covered their mouths, mimicking their older brother, simply nodding. But everyone laughed when the littlest in the group whispered “deal” and then made the sign of a zipper going across his lips.
“In this house hold, bribery will get you everywhere,” Anne said, giving the boys the bag, but yanking out her lettuce first to save it.
Zach swept up the rest of the groceries and followed her into the kitchen, setting the bags down on the table.
“But, seriously, you really didn’t have to do all of this.” She kept her back to him, slowly putting away the food, and he watched her open half-empty cabinets, knowing that he did.
“It was nothing,” Zach said, leaning against the wall.
“Yeah, it was,” she said quietly. “God bless you.”
Doris Mitchell would have said that, if someone had cared enough about her to do something as simple for his mother and her brood. There was no comment he could make and nowhere comfortable for him to rest his eyes. He soon found his gaze drifting to where the boys played in the clean but modest apartment. For a moment déjà vu rendered him mute. The holidays always conjured up the past, being on leave was a hardship that he admitted to no one, and coming to what he now considered his brother and sister-in-law’s home was the only thing that jettisoned the eerie loneliness of it all.
He had a decision to make, whether or not to re-up and stay in for several more years . . . if he had something like this of his own, the decision would have been clearer. Sad truth was, he didn’t. Reenlistment papers were calling his name. It was easier than trying to figure out what to do with his life beyond the military family.
His mother had once had a small, clean home like this one in Detroit and had kept it up even after their father died, until the mortgage fell too far behind. Yet even having to move them to New York to be near her sister and into the projects, she had rules, church, and clean floors . . . just like Anne Marie did.
Zachary started taking canned goods and pasta out of the bags and lining the items up on the table, lost in his own thoughts. Who looked after widows and women in need, women with children, women with men who’ve fallen on hard times, or have fallen into disrepute? he wondered. He would never allow that to happen to his best friend’s family, not as long as there was breath in his body. But there was no doubt in his mind that Lowell Johnson was a lucky man indeed, wealthy beyond mea sure. Zach watched his best friend’s pretty wife with her thick-bodied curves and good soul unpacking groceries in an immaculate kitchen. This was a home and his buddy was generous enough to share it with him whenever he needed a taste of one.
Watching the mêlée of happy children, the television blaring, a good woman putting up food so reminded him of what had been long ago . . . long before drugs and the streets took his elder brothers, and that loss broke his mother’s heart till it gave out. If he’d had this, he would have maybe come home like Lowell— retired when his commission ended. He smiled as Anne Marie smoothed the front of her hair back toward the synthetic ponytail she wore and walked into the living room with her hands on her hips. The volume of boys roughhousing instantly lowered.
“Don’t make me come in here again,” she said, not even having to raise her voice.