Leah's Grace

To Grace and Shiloh,

That watch that your mother says she “bought” for your father isn’t a watch she bought at all. Me and Bootsie boosted it from the Chicago Bulls locker rooms, several weeks before your mother let us all know she was pregnant with ya’ll. Even now, we don’t know what belonged to whom. Bootsie just went in, unzipped those duffel bags and took whatever looked valuable. Chains, blazers, designer shirts, sneakers, backpacks, rings. We’d already made international headlines. Just about nobody had gone untouched. Our first hit was Boston TD Garden, then we made our way downward to the Nets, Philly Cavaliers, then down to the Charlotte Hornets, Atlanta Hawks then Orlando Magic. And we just kept moving up and down in a zig zag. We came real close to losing it all when we hit the LA Clippers. It was me, Bootsie and Solo that go-round. Each time we stuck a team, only one of us went in to boost. The other two would watch the surroundings of the locker rooms. You might be thinking we pretended we were the housekeeping crew. Nope. We always staked a stadium out for, at least, one month before gameday. Planting our cameras in places we could snatch them up from when we got through. Remember that man I told you about who took me to senior prom? Taz? He went to school for computer engineering. That was the genius behind all our equipment. I lied about the purpose and told him I didn’t feel safe at my apartment in those suburbs because it was so spread out. So he hooked me up with his custom security system that he and his friends were getting trademarked. He assured me that I’d be safe if I just married him. We still talk, and I eventually told him what really went down. He says that’s the past; he still wants to marry me. But marriage and kids aren’t and ain’t never been for me. Though I’m not lying when I say that the two of you and your cousin are three of the greatest joys of my life. Thank you for sending me the picture; I’m amazed at how beautiful ya’ll have grown to be. How’s school going? What ya’ll been up to?

Love,

Auntie Leah

***

“So that’s what those drawings were of,” Shiloh gasps. Shiloh. My identical twin sister who was born four minutes before me at 11:59pm. And since I was, technically, born the next day, I’m not sure if we’re actually twins when thinking in terms of time. Our homeroom teacher, Mrs. Washington, says that as long as that egg split in half and made the two of us at the same time, then we’re twins. It doesn’t matter who came out first. I disagree. But whatever. And everybody in school says, “How ya’ll identical twins, and she’s a hundred shades lighter than you?” Devon Morris, our stocky, seventh-grade neighbor, always teases me. He looks at Shiloh like she’s an angel. Whenever he looks at me, it feels like it’s out of disgust. He walked to our house one day while I was teaching Shiloh how to draw on the driveway with chalk. He made a big smile at Shiloh, saying hello. He stared at me blankly and said, “You’re so black.”

“We all are, Devon,” Shiloh snapped. Mom says don’t pay it any mind. Ignorance is generational, just like wealth. Devon’s father is Black, from what Daddy says. But all we see is his white mom. Forever dropping Devon off at football practice or sitting on the front steps of the triple-decker they live in across the street, smoking her Camel cigarettes in ripped jeans and a sweatshirt, hair forever messy in a sagging bun at the top of her head. I thought she was his grandmother when we first met her, she looked so ran down.

The letter we just read is from Auntie Leah, the aunt who, we had been told, went missing around the time we were born. How’d we find out she’s not missing? Mom and Auntie Leah’s older brother, Uncle Dave. His daughter that goes to college, Cousin Paige, told us at a cookout. We were ten, and she claimed that before we were born, she’d met Leah and Leah’s best friends Bootsie and Solo. “Liar,” Shiloh teased. Paige brought us upstairs to her room, popped out an old letter. “How we know you didn’t write this?” Shiloh asked. “Because can’t nobody write in cursive these days but old people,” Paige clapped back. Sure enough, it was from Leah.

“But why would she tell you where she was going? And not Uncle Dave and our Mom?” Shiloh kept questioning.

“Because she knew I could keep a secret.”

“Tell ‘er we wanna meet ‘er,” Shiloh demanded. I nudged her. “We could get in trouble, Shy,” I warned.

“Big whoop,” she waved me off.

Shiloh always needs to prove somebody’s lying. And Cousin Paige always needs to prove she’s cool. So that’s how I ended up caught up in this mess. Paige got her first car last year. She was a sophomore at the local state college, and her plans to party and drive her one million boyfriends around got crushed when Uncle Dave said she had to pick us up and drop us off to school every day. “Hey,” she stopped us one day as we were about to hop out of her car. She held a small white envelope in my face. That was our first letter from Leah. And that’s been the routine ever since. Leah communicates through some name and address only Paige knows, and Paige takes her letters and gives us ours. She promised not to snitch on us if we didn’t snitch on her. “We didn’t even do anything,” I told Shiloh that night as we were supposed to be sleeping. “Who cares; she’s covering for us,” she snapped. “A deal is a deal.” In that letter, Leah told us who she was, when she left and why. She even sent a picture of herself to prove it was her. In other letters, she told us about all the different places she’s been over the years. About her relationship with Mom and Uncle Dave. Her loves, her life. Her two miscarriages. And she confirmed Paige’s tale. The night she vanished, she climbed up to Paige’s window, kissed her goodbye and told her not to tell anyone that she’d write to her. Mom was eight months pregnant. Of course, Shiloh didn’t believe it for a second. That somebody from our family? Disappeared because they were part of the most famous robbery streak in history? Impossible. And I’m convinced she’d never believed it.

Until today. “That’s what those drawings were of,” she repeats. She’s talking about the little black book we found right here in the attic that has a bunch of tunnels, hallways, basketball courts and buildings shaped like arenas drawn inside and a bunch of names and addresses written in the back. I remember Taz is one of them. “They’re maps of the different stadiums.” She paused and said, “We should tell Paige.”

“Why would she care?” I ask.

“Think. Remember when Paige told us that our family took all of Leah’s stuff out of her place after she left? That box we found the black book in must belong to her.”

“Ok, so?”

“That means that some of that stuff she stole is either in our house, Paige’s house or both.”

This makes sense. Leah somewhat admitted it. She definitely didn’t just give Mom that watch to gift to Dad. “And you think Paige is gone help us look for the stuff Leah boosted?

“Nope. We’re gonna get Devon. And tear this attic apart.”

Our parents’ date night, Saturday evenings are when we do our letter reading and scavenger hunting. It’s swelteringly hot up in this attic. And the light coming from the lamp Shiloh brought from our room only makes it hotter. “So what exactly are we searching for?” Devon asks.

“Anything that looks worth finding,” Shiloh says. We’ve spent at least an hour opening and emptying boxes, coming across nothing but women’s clothes and shoes, stuffed animals, revolution books with Leah’s name written in the covers. Devon moves two sets of boxes stacked on one another in the back corner, pushing each set to his sides. Two bigger boxes are behind them, and he lifts the top one but drops it. Doon. It hits the ground hard. He reaches in, and there’s a zipping noise.

“Oh shit. Now this. Is something worth finding.” We walk over to look inside and see a black gym bag full of money. We take out one half and Devon the other, counting twenty thousand dollars altogether.

***

It's Monday, and Shiloh already told Paige, claiming Paige will know what to do. Paige comes to get the money by Saturday evening. “Le’me make this clear, “Paige says standing over the box, “We’re not telling Leah about this.” We know better than to argue. “I’ll figure this out,” she says, before pulling off with me, Shiloh and Devon’s eyes trailing the dust of her tires.

Five years of birthday parties, Thanksgivings and Christmases have passed. Shiloh stopped wanting to write to or hear from Leah after Paige bullied us. By ninth grade, she was spending time with her popular girl gang, perming her hair, wearing thongs and hoop bamboos that Paige gave her. In tenth grade, Devon took me to Orient Heights Beach and said he wanted to make up for how he treated me. It took another school year to forgive him.

***

Dear Auntie Leah,

I know it’s been a while, but I figure Taz will get this message to you since ya’ll still talk. Five years ago, after you sent your last letter, we found that bag. We told Cousin Paige, but she played us and took it. We didn’t hear no more about it until last month; the feds went to Uncle Dave’s saying they’re investigating Paige and one of her boyfriends over some “suspicious” bank account deposits they made. Paige’s man played her. And I’d say it serves her conniving behind right. But he told them that she told him that the money was at our house first. And now Mom and Dad can’t get them out our business. They didn’t find anything at Uncle Dave’s. And when they showed up to search our house, Dad told them to get a warrant. I didn’t trust that anything would stop them. I checked all your clothes, hid all your books, especially that one, you know the one. And sure enough, they got something about drugs on Paige’s beaux and got that warrant. They tore our house up, like they’d already had some predisposition that we were criminals. They found nothing. But they’ll be back though; I know it. By then, I be done had my son. (Yes, I’m an artist, seventeen and pregnant by that aggravating boy who lived across the street and is going to Louisiana State after graduation. And then, hopefully, to the NFL draft.) Shiloh will have graduated and gone into the Air Force like she plans. And Paige be done got her name put in Hell’s Hall of Fame for thinking that feeding you to the feds is gonna keep her from going to jail with that bastard she called a boyfriend. I know you’re probably tired of running. Shiloh’s scared of what might happen. I’m tired of caring about what Shiloh’s scared of, what Shiloh thinks. Believe me, Auntie. Trust Paige, and you’ll find yourself locked up to rot like some animal. She’s got nothing to lose, having already been kicked out of her grad program. I hope you like the oil painting I put in the envelope. It won first place in my school’s art contest. Be safe.

Your Niece,

Grace