Free Love in a Carry-On Bag by Sadeqa Johnson

off the street. ”
    “Just shut the fuck up.”
    “You shut up and show me some damn respect,” she said, continuing to pull him in a back and forth match determined to get the last word.
    Warren found a space right in front of her building. Erica jumped out of the car first and stormed up the front steps of the building. Warren waited in silence while she fumbled with her key. When they reached her apartment, Warren went straight to her bedroom and started shoving his clothes into his bag. He was so mad he didn’t even fold them.
    “What are you doing?” she stood in the doorway.
    “Leaving.”
    “Why?” Even though they were fighting, she didn’t want to spend Sunday without him. How had it gotten this far?
    “Because I need to get the hell away from you.” He threw his bag over his shoulder and pushed past her to the living room, scanning the area to make sure he had everything. His laptop sat on the coffee table and he quickly shoved it in his bag.
    “You haven’t slept all night. You can’t drive to D.C.” Erica was standing in front of the door.
    “Move,” he looked past her.
    “Don’t do this,” she softened.
    “This past Monday I missed one of the biggest gigs of my life providing for you and you still find something to complain about.” He flicked his hand in the air. “The fuck out of my way.”
    “No,” she crossed her arms. Warren was in her face and breathing hard but she couldn’t let him go. “Just stay so we can talk about this.”
    “I said move.”
    She didn’t budge. He asked her three more times, but she held her ground. Warren was smoking hot. Erica really knew how to push his buttons.
    “Get,” he shouted and then without thinking his fist swiped at the table lamp, knocking it to the floor. Porcelain pieces split into jagged edges and the bulb flicked yellow before flashing out.
    The whites of his eyes had darkened, “I don’t want to see you,” he pointed his finger in her face and fear sliced through her like scissors. He pushed past her, leaving the front door wide open.
    “Bastard,” she yelled after him, and then picked up a magazine and flung it at his head, just missing. “Go to hell.”
    Warren’s footsteps pounded down the four flights of stairs as if he was angry with the linoleum.
    Erica breathed back tears, looking at the broken piece of her lamp at her feet. The porcelain pieces could have cut her legs or her feet. They had never fought so vehemently before, and even though he took his anger out on the lamp, it felt very much like he was trying to punish her. While picking up the pieces to see if the lamp could be salvaged, she couldn’t help wondering if this was how the violence between her parents had begun.

Chapter Ten
    The Cusp
    E rica’s parents married in the parlor of her grandmother’s house on a watery day in January. It was the mid-seventies and her mother, Gweny, was twelve weeks pregnant. She stood in a white full lace gown with two button gloves fastened at her wrists. Her father wore his good black suit and shiny wingtip shoes. Bottles of homemade wine, corn liquor, and crème ale were set up on a card table with paper doilies and plastic wedding cups. At seventeen Gweny wasn’t old enough to drink, but her cousin ignored legalities, mixing together wine and beer, which they called boilers. She sipped, laughed, and forgot for one night that she was pregnant.
    Women had babies in her family but very few married. The ones who did ended up cheated on, abused or abandoned. Growing up Gweny didn’t have one positive example of marriage and family, so young and without instruction she picked her way through her own marriage and motherhood with the baton of failure looming overhead. It almost felt as if failing at it was her destiny. Her husband was a decent provider but his new auto mechanic business often kept him away from the house, leaving her alone with two small girls born twenty-two months apart. Confidence was never Gweny’s