Miss Hattie shot me a sharp look. “I’m old, but I ain’t senile. Besides, I saw him. He was wearing a cap pulled down to his eyebrows and a face mask. If he was a thief, he’d be lurking around. But this one took a key out of his pocket and opened the door like it was his house. If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem. But listen to me and check it. On the landing between the fourth and fifth floor, the building management just installed a security camera for robberies. Ask someone with connections to get you the footage.”
Saying this, Miss Hattie let go of my arm and went on fanning herself as if nothing happened. I got up with trembling legs and walked toward my car. My head was a whirlwind. Miss Hattie’s words echoed inside me. *Not that dead. Walks with a limp. Opened the door like it was his house.*
I put the key in the ignition with shaking hands. A vague but overwhelming fear began to take over me. If Marcus was alive, why had he let me carry this enormous debt for five years? The streets of Chicago at rush hour were chaos, but I felt completely detached from all that. In my head, a movie was repeating in slow motion, connecting fragmented memories of the last five years. I remembered the visits to my in-laws.
Why did Viola always demand the money with such hardness? The $12,000 were their retirement savings; they didn’t need it immediately. Why did they insist I pay them $200 every month without missing a cent? Their combined Social Security checks totaled almost $2,000. Living where they lived, it was more than enough for two elderly, austere people. What did they need $200 more in cash for every month? To save? Or to support someone?
Once last summer, in infernal heat, I brought them a bag of oranges. When Viola opened the door, I saw out of the corner of my eye that inside the house the blinds were completely drawn. They didn’t have air conditioning or the windows open. How did two old people stand the heat like that unless they were trying to hide the presence of someone else?
“Mama! Malik is waiting for you!” The high-pitched voice of my son brought me back to reality. I had arrived at the gate of his school. The boy ran toward me, sweating. I hugged him, feeling a knot in my stomach. Malik’s father. The day I received the news of Marcus’s death, I fainted several times.
Viola only repeated that he had gone to seek a better future for the family. “Now that he’s died, we’re left with nothing and with debts. You are his wife. You have to take charge.” For the love of my son, so he wouldn’t lose his grandparents, I accepted working without rest to pay the debt. But what if what Miss Hattie said was true?
The idea made me swerve, almost crashing into a car coming in the opposite direction.
“Mama, are you okay?” asked Malik, scared.
“Yes, baby. It’s nothing. I’m just a little tired.”
When we got home, after making dinner and putting my son to bed, I sat in front of the computer. The screen glowed, but I couldn’t concentrate. I opened a drawer and took out my budget notebook. The line, “Pay debt, grandparents, $12,000,” was circled in red. I had paid for fifty-eight months.
Only two were left. If Marcus was alive, it meant I wasn’t paying a debt, but that they were scamming me. I remembered the detail of the limp. Marcus had broken his left ankle in a motorcycle accident in 2018. Suspicion, like acid, began to corrode my trust. I needed proof.
I grabbed the phone and looked for a name in my contacts. Dante was a cousin of mine, a young computer genius.
“Kesha, what’s going on calling me at this hour?”
“Dante, are you busy? I need a favor.”
“Tell me, cuz.”
“It’s something delicate. Do you know anyone who manages the cameras in the building where my in-laws live? There was a silence on the other end. The one on the South Side.”
“I got a friend in the security company that installed them. Why? Did something get stolen?”
