Page 181 of 4 Corinthians

Slowly I approached her, not wanting to startle her. “Cori?” I sat next to her, back against the window. “Cori?” I touched her leg. “Baby, what’s wrong?” I looked around the room to see everyone staring at me. My eyes locked with Nine. Cross sat next to him, her left leg bouncing. Mercy sat curled up under Givens, silently crying. Judge sat next to Krude, in deep conversation. Every so often they’d look over at me, but I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. Ex stood leaning against the wall opposite us, his rosary dangling from his fist. Psalms was across from him, standing behind Wednesday. Her eyes locked on me, and I could see the tears she wouldn’t let fall.

Slowly she turned her head and looked at me. “I told them,” she softly said. “About our childhood. About what Robert did to me. Psalms told them what Jonathan did to her. They know it all.”

“Okay.”

“My grandparents told me they killed my parents,” she said, then sadly laughed. “They think we were being abused, just beaten, and they confronted my parents. My daddy told them it would be the last time they saw us. That we were leaving.”

“Cori…”

“When I was little, Madea used to tell me that all I had to do was point at whoever was hurting me and she would handle the rest. The day they did, we were at Mercy’s basketball game. They got into it; we were in the car. I was sore, so damn sore and tried.” She raked her nails through her hair. “When Madea got into the car, I pointed to my parents. Later that night, the police knocked on the door and told them our parents were killed in a car accident. Madea said she didn’t mean to kill everyone, just my parents. But they all ended up in the same car. Everyone died except Cross’ parents, but knowing what she went through, I wish they did too. Robert still got a hold of her, not as much as he did me, but she was still dealt a bad hand.”

“None of that was your fault,” I told her. And I meant it. Cori was the strongest person I knew. She wasn’t responsible for what her parents did or her grandmother’s reaction. Madea was justified in every way possible. Cori turned her head to look out the window. “Cori, look at me. Please.” She looked at me with teary eyes. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was,” she laughed softly and shook her head. “I just wish I would’ve pointed sooner.”

***

Hours after her sister and cousins left, I sat in the closet with Cori curled up in my lap. She’d cried herself to sleep, not out of fear; no, the tears she released were from anger. She was angry at her grandparents, her parents, Robert, Logan, hell even at herself and me. The closet door slowly opened, and I watched as Judah poked his head inside. He looked at me, then down at his mama and came in. He didn’t say anything, just curled up on my other side and laid his head on my chest.

“Four?” his voice was low, like he wasn’t trying to disturb his mama.

“Yeah?”

“She stopped crying when you came,” he yawned.

“I know, man.”

“Four?” he mumbled sleepily. “Can you be my daddy?”

His soft snores filled the closet before I could answer him.

Corinthians

“Get out of the car,” Uri said, standing outside my door. We were at the cemetery. I hadn’t been here since my parents' funeral. I looked through the window at their headstones. “Cori, please.”

Slowly I got out. Uri closed the door, then took my hand and led me to their plots. I felt like that little girl again, the one who was scared to say anything, but this time I felt freedom as well. I wasn’t carrying the burdens of their secrets.

“Why are we here?” I asked, looking at the headstones. “I don’t want to be here.”

“Tell them what you need to say,” he said, standing beside me. “All that anger you're carrying with you, let that shit out.”

“Uri…”

“Let it out, Cori, because we got niggas to kill,” he said. His focus was on their headstones. “Tell them every fuckin’ thing you ever wanted to say. I don’t care what you do. Scream that shit from the top of your lungs for so long that you end up hoarse if you gotta but let it the fuck out.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Everything,” he let out a humorless laugh. “Tell them everything because after today you ain’t ever coming back here. Not to visit them. I ain’t rushing your grandparents to death; please don’t think I am, but the next time you step foot in this cemetery again it’ll be to bury one or both of them, and that’s it.”

I nodded, then continued to stare at their headstones. At one point, I probably had a million and one things to say to them. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them. “I hate you,” I finally said. “Hate you, Daddy, because you were supposed to protect me from all the bad shit. Instead, you willingly pushed me into it. You made sure I knew what danger, anger, and pain were, first by your hands, then by Roberts. You auctioned me off to the highest bidder, knowing the monster that he was. And you, Mommy?” I smiled even though I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. “You’re no better than him. No.” I shook my head. “I take that back; you’re worse than him because you knew what love was. Daddy didn’t know; he was never exposed to it, just the harsh reality of the world. But you? You knew; you came from a home filled with love, yet you turned your back on us too. I was a product of him, but Psalms? She was a product of you. And that’s what hurts me the most. Your actions broke her, and no matter how hard I tried to help her from that pain, you fought against it. You pushed her towards it. You made sure she was hurt to the point of no return. And now her brain is split. I sit and watch her struggle, how she tries so damn hard to be what everybody thinks is normal and knows that she doesn’t think she is. That’s on y’all, not me. And for a long ass time I thought it was my fault. That no matter what I did, what I said, what I prayed for, she would never be what she wanted to be because of y’all.” I tapped my left hand against my thigh. “I thought I was broken. That she was broken, but it wasn’t us. It was y’all. Y’all didn’t love anyone but each other and yourselves, and for that I hope you rot in whatever hell Madea and Granddaddy sent you to.”

“You feel better?” Uri asked. I wiped my tears away and nodded. “Good, now let’s go home.”

We walked back to the car, and Uri started it up. He put his hand on the gearshift but didn’t take the car out of park.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Why didn’t you tell me Trey was at the house that night?” he asked. “I gave you the folder; let you look at the names to verify. Why didn’t you say Trey was missing?” he looked at me, eyes filled with question and fear.