Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz

Author:Dantiel W. Moniz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2021-01-11T17:37:02+00:00

I’d been at my grandmother’s almost a week when my father came by. My mother was always talking about how cool she was even though they weren’t together and he was married now. She let him see me whenever he wanted and they always did holidays together. “I don’t want that boy,” she’d say.

It was the hottest day of that summer and the sun hung in the air—a wax lemon melting, oozing light. “Hey, little girl,” my father said, patting my head. I squinched my eyes tight and batted at his hand. His attention both embarrassed and thrilled me. I was aware, then, of my fortune, of my father there, next to me. Tweet stood nearby, and I could feel her eyes, how intensely she took us in. I shot away from him and hid my face in my grandmother’s side so I wouldn’t have to look at my cousin.

“We’re going to the beach,” my father said. “Chris and Tati, too.” They were in the car outside, waiting with my stepmother.

My grandfather had been what my mother called “busy,” which was supposed to explain why my father had siblings who were one year older and one year younger than me. They were bright as medallions and had soft hair like my grandmother’s fake mink. Tati was the youngest and called me cousin because aunt made her feel too adult, but Chris would lord his title over me if he wanted to ride shotgun or have a longer turn on the boogie boards at the beach. The previous summer I had kissed him at my dad’s apartment pool—in the deep end, angling our bodies down—six feet of chlorinated blue shimmering above our heads. When we broke apart and surfaced, Tati had cut her eyes at us. “You didn’t see nothing,” Chris said.

Whereas my mother kept a close eye on me, didn’t want me to leave the front step, my father believed in cultivating my independence. When I was with him he’d let me ride my bike through a busy intersection to the McDonald’s fifteen minutes away, or drop me off at the Wet ’n Wild water park in Orlando by myself. That summer, I hadn’t seen him too much. I suspected this had something to do with my stepmother being pregnant. She’d pat her big belly and make comments like how nice it would be to finally be a family, like she couldn’t be a family with me. She was having a boy, and sometimes I found myself wishing all that stomach was filled with air, that when it came time to push, nothing but wind would come out.

My dad handed me my green-and-black striped two-piece, my sometimes-swimsuit that lived at his house folded up in a drawer, waiting for summer. Tweet’s head drooped at the prospect of my leaving.

“Can Tweet come?” I gave him and my grandmother my most winsome smile, the one that showed nearly all of my deciduous teeth, their wavy edges and baby sheen.

My dad packed us

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.