Unconditional by Eva Marie Everson

continued.
    Keisha’s eyes turned sad. She folded the cover of the sketch pad back over the drawing.
    Furious, I turned back to Macon. “Well, no one asked you,” I said before placing my hand under Keisha’s chin and turning her face upward to look at me. “I think it’s beautiful.”
    She smiled.
    We continued on, past a large green Dumpster, where someone had recently tossed out several stained mattresses. In the warm autumn air, the odor of household garbage met us without apology. Macon and Keisha didn’t seem to notice at all.
    Just past the Dumpster, we were in sight of Macon and Keisha’s apartment. I looked to the right, toward Anthony’s. His front door was ajar. The mechanic’s rags remained tossed over the wire along with a pair of blue Dickies. I stopped short, staring. Thinking.
    â€œI don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    I was startled back to the children standing in front of me. “What?”
    Keisha held up her notepad. Macon read it, shaking his head. He looked at me. “She wants you to come inside. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
    â€œYou want me to come inside?” I asked.
    â€œShe wants you to see her room. She’s got lots of them drawings in there.”
    â€œYou’ll have to go ask your grandma if it’s okay.”
    â€œShe gonna say no,” Macon said. “She don’t like white people in her house.”
    â€œWha—?”
    Macon smiled. “Naw, I’m just playin’. I’ll go see.” He took Keisha by the hand. “Come on, Keisha.”
    Keisha walked alongside her brother, turned to look over her shoulder, and smiled at me. I returned the gesture.
    Once they’d gone inside I looked around to see if anyone might be watching me. No one was.
    I walked over to Anthony’s front stoop and peered into the slightly opened door. “Hello?” I called.
    No one answered.
    I eased the door open with my foot, inched forward until I stood in the semidark foyer of the apartment. If he was there, I’d politely tell him he’d left his door open. It would be a plausible excuse. If he didn’t . . .
    A flight of shoe-scuffed stairs were directly in front of me, leading to a second floor. To the right was a small living room. Dingy. Paint chipping off the walls. The smell of motor oil and smoked cigars hung heavy in the air.
    A portable television was near the doorway, sitting on top of two old fruit crates. On top of it was a DVD player and on top of that, a short stack of mail. I wanted to look through it, to learn as much as I could about this man named Anthony. This mechanic who owned a red hoodie and wiped grease from his hands with a red rag. I realized then that I still held the box of food in my arms. I set it down on the bottom stair, picked up the mail, and sorted through the envelopes.
    All were addressed to Anthony Jones, 578 Shelby Avenue, Nashville.
    I looked over my shoulder to the door and out to the common area. No one lurked nearby. The open door was surely providential. I decided to venture further into the apartment.
    I peered down a hallway off from the living room, which led to an open back door. Only a buckling screen kept the flies out.
    I moved down the hall, my heart beating like a stallion’s. Fear pulled at me to stop, but I couldn’t.
    The first doorway on the left was a bedroom. It was as dark and foreboding as the living room. The windows were covered by a thin blue sheet stretched across tattered blinds and held up by thumbtacks. A mattress lay on the floor in one corner, disheveled linens and a blanket strewn across it.
    A single lamp, left burning, illuminated a scarred dresser. I walked over to it. The floor creaked beneath my feet as I stopped and noted the items on top. A digital clock. A belt, rolled into a neat circle. A cheap plastic ashtray—the kind one finds on a café tabletop—with only the tip of a