Renee

by Brandie Davis

  “Can I speak now?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything.” Renee’s voice cracked, and her chest pushed in and out. “I brought you this grief. I’m a monster.” The words tumbled out of her mouth. Renee’s lips quivered, and tears slid down her cheeks. Time was fast-forwarding, and the vulnerable, innocent, “couldn’t hurt a fly” Renee had made an appearance in the room. “I just wanted the pain to end. I just wanted it to all go away. But I lost control, I lost my humanity, and then everything spiraled out of control.”

  Julian abandoned his chair and sat on the bed with Renee. He pulled her swiftly into his arms. Her face got lost in his shoulder, and Julian’s shirt absorbed the tears. Her words came out muffled when she spoke, but they still came out.

  “I’m so miserable.” She let out a few more cries, the release a burden off her soul. “The more things that happened to me, the more I lost myself, and it got to the point where I no longer knew who I was. So instead of finding myself, I fell deeper inside Jordan.”

  Julian rubbed her back. There were so many things he wanted to tell her; however, he allowed her to speak. She didn’t need to listen. She needed to be heard.

  “I want to be happy. I need to be happy,” she confessed.

  Julian held her tighter. He tried to squeeze out all her pain and let it seep inside himself. In Julian’s arms, Renee felt vulnerable, like prey being constricted by a python, but she ignored this and willed herself to relax. “I regret the abortion, regret not telling you before I did it. I regret it all.” She hugged him as firmly as she could now. She feared he would remember all she had done and would pull away, but he didn’t. He continued to listen to her. “Please say that you forgive me,” she sobbed.

  “I forgive you. Please say that you forgive me for the secrets.”

  “I forgive you.”

  “I’ll never let you out of my sight again. Whenever I do, something always seems to go wrong.” Both of their bodies bounced slightly from their laughter.

  “Then move in,” Renee proposed. “And put me out of my misery.”

  Julian removed himself from Renee’s embrace long enough to kiss her.

  “No more secrets,” Renee said. The instant the words left her mouth, her night with Jared flashed through her mind.

  “No more secrets,” Julian agreed, his mind lingering on the fact that he was holding on to one more secret.

  * * *

  Julian insisted on staying the night at the hospital with Renee, but she talked him into going home and getting some rest. A lot had unfolded, and she needed some time to adjust. However, her mind wouldn’t allow her to focus on the present because it was too fixated on the past. On and off throughout the night, Renee harped on the disdain she had for hospitals. Since her father’s death, she viewed the place of care in a dark, soul-crunching light. Inside a hospital was where she imagined he had taken his last breath alone, without a loved one near. She never had the chance to say goodbye, never had the opportunity to live a normal life and be the better version of herself had her father had a hand in her upbringing. Now she sat in a hospital, banged up and bruised, with nothing to do other than sit and pinpoint exactly where her life went wrong.

  “You look pretty,” Renee told her mother. The accurate, clean way Sheila applied her makeup had always mesmerized Renee, and she adored her mother’s taste.

  Sheila turned to her daughter, her bob bouncing with every movement of her head, a smile so heavy on her face, she blushed. “Thank you, cupcake. I’m going out with Curtis tonight.” She blinked her eyes, placed the liquid eyeliner back in her makeup box, and moved on to her lipstick application.

  Cupcake? Wow. She hasn’t called me that in forever, Renee thought.

  “I thought he went back to New York.”

  “Not until tomorrow. He stayed a day longer after his business meetings to spend more time with me,” Sheila said.

  “You really must like him. You’ve been going out a lot with him.” Renee forced a smile. She hadn’t met the guy, but she already didn’t like him. He had become the potential new man in her mother’s life far too soon after her father’s death.

  “I do.” Sheila looked in the mirror and removed the excess lipstick on the corners of her mouth. “It looks like you may have a new daddy.”

  “I don’t want a new daddy,” Renee spit.

  She looked at her daughter’s reflection. “That isn’t up to you, now is it?”

  Renee’s eyes became enlarged, and her teeth smashed together in her attempt not to cry.

  “I deserve love too,” Sheila snapped. “All that mattered to your father was you. I think I deserve someone to love me.” She used the palm of her hand to slap the top to her cranberry-red lipstick back on. “I thought you would be happy for me, Renee.”

  “I am,” Renee lied. “But I think your dating too soon. Daddy hasn’t been gone for a year.” Renee’s palms were outward, and a deep frown was on her face.

  Sheila’s hands were flat down on her vanity table. “You always were too grown for your age, little girl. Always just too damn grown.”

  “I just feel—”

  “Renee, enough! This is not up for discussion!”

  Maybe I should shut up, Renee thought. She’s been a lot nicer since she started dating him. Maybe he is good for her. Maybe it’s me.

  “I’m sorry. Where are you going tonight?”

  Sheila was packing away some of her cosmetics and putting inside her purse the makeup she was bringing along. “We’re going to dinner, then out dancing.”

  Soft and low, Renee responded, “You always were a good dancer.”

  Sheila zipped up her purse and stood in front of her only child. For an eleven-year-old, Renee was tall, so Sheila didn’t have to look down at her much. For the first time in a long time, she got a good look at her daughter. A little of the baby fat in her face had disappeared, and her eyes held not 100 percent ignorance but . . . knowledge.

  “I miss him too.” She tucked in the tag sticking up on the back of Renee’s shirt. “I would like it for you to do something for me.” She gave Renee a small smile.

  “Yes?”

  “Trust me. Trust that I can find not only love but also a father figure for you. I have a good feeling about this one.” Her hands were on each of her daughter’s shoulders, and her eyes were pleading with the child to give her a chance. “Trust me to find us happiness.” She smiled and waited for her daughter to smile back.

  Renee let her guard down and this time gave a genuine smile. “Okay, I’ll trust you.”

  Sheila pulled Renee in for a hug.

  I can’t remember the last time she hugged me, Renee thought.

  “We’re going to be okay, and when the time comes for you to meet him and if you don’t like him, I’ll call it quits. Deal?” Sheila held out her pinkie finger for her daughter to wrap hers around.

  “Deal,” Renee told her. Her smile as wide as the ocean, she held a make-pretend glass in the air. “To happiness!”

  “To happiness!” Sheila clinked her pretend glass against her daughter’s and chuckled.

  “Happiness, my ass,” Renee mumbled now. She slammed her eyes shut, trying to kick the memory away and avoid the one that followed, but it was too late. It had already taken her over.

  “Mommy, what are you doing?” Renee looked around her room and out the window. It was still dark outside, and her closet doors were wide open. Her mother was hand deep inside her dresser drawers, pulling out everything they contained. Quickly, she refolded whatever she pulled out and dumped it in a suitcase.

  “We’re moving, Renee.”

  “Moving? What time is it?”

  “Two o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Yes, Renee. It’s two in the morning.” She moved faster to pack Renee’s things. “Curtis asked me to move in with him, and we’re going.”

  She never
turned around to face her child. Renee rushed out of her bed, stepped on her slippers, and immediately kicked them out of her way.

  “I don’t want to move!” The bow that had once held Renee’s hair together clung to the tips of her hair.

  “Not now, Renee.” Sheila moved from the second drawer down to the third. “Why are these drawers so messy!”

  Renee stood beside her mother. “Ma, I don’t want to move!”

  Denying her eye contact, Sheila continued folding. Renee pushed her head in front of the drawer so Sheila was forced to see her. Sheila tossed a striped shirt in the suitcase, cocked her hip out, and threw her hand on it.

  “What did we discuss, Renee? What did you tell me you’d do?”

  “I don’t—”

  “I’m not asking what you want, Renee. I’m asking what you told me you’d do for me.” Sheila pointed her pointer finger at Renee, then at herself.

  “That I’d trust you,” Renee replied. She wondered if the red she felt inside showed on the outside.

  “Then why the hell aren’t you?”

  “Because you want to move! I don’t want to move, Ma! I don’t want to move in with Curtis!” Renee felt the tears well up and struggled to keep them at bay.

  “Why not! He’s good for us, Renee! Why the hell don’t you see that!”

  Talking to Sheila was like talking to a wall. She was missing common sense, and even though she was a child, that gave Renee a headache. She stomped her way over to her desk and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Answer me, damn it! You don’t get the luxury of not explaining yourself to me.” Sheila raced across the room and pulled Renee by the arm so that she would look at her.

  Her face full of tears, Renee screamed, “I don’t like him, Ma! I don’t like the way he looks at me!”

  “What the hell are you telling me?” Sheila released her daughter’s arm and stepped back a little.

  “He’s always looking me.” Renee didn’t understand what she was saying, but she understood the discomfort and uncomfortable emotions she experienced when Curtis was around.

  Sheila turned her back on her daughter and stuck the tip of one of her nails in her mouth. Biting down on the acrylic cracked it. She snatched the nail out of her mouth and spun around. The back of her hand met Renee’s cheek, pushing her backward. The bottom of Renee’s back banged against the desk, and her left arm attempted to restore her balance while her right grabbed her face.

  “Take it back.” Sheila filled in the space between them. Her breath in Renee’s face, she snarled, “Take it back!” She slapped Renee again, harder.

  Shaking, Renee tried to back up but was forced to remain face-to-face with her mother by the wooden desk she wrote on daily. “I can’t.” Renee’s voice trembled, and it felt like a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around her heart.

  Sheila pushed herself farther into her daughter’s personal space, her hand around Renee’s neck. “Say it,” she hissed. Renee looked in her mother’s eyes.

  This is a test. It has to be. This can’t be happening. She doesn’t want me to lie. She can’t. She hates liars, she thought.

  Renee stayed silent. Then her mother’s eye color grew darker, and her hand squeezed tighter. The feeling that had taken over Renee’s heart moved to her throat, and she fought to decide which felt worse. Renee pulled at her mother’s hand, and when that did no good, she balled her small hands into fists and punched at her. Nothing changed, not the look on her mother’s face or her grip on Renee’s neck.

  “I take it back.” Renee forced out the words in a raspy, low tone.

  “Apologize to me.”

  Additional tears wet Renee’s face. “I’m sorry.”

  Sheila didn’t let go right away. Her clasp loosened, but she didn’t let go.

  What is she thinking? Renee wondered.

  As soon as the question made its way into Renee’s mind, Sheila dropped her hand. Grabbing her hair with both hands, she was halfway out the door when she yelled to Renee, “Finish packing! We’re leaving in two days.”

  Renee sank down on the desk chair, her lips quivering and her hands holding her neck and shaking. Her brain told her to close her door, create a barrier between her and her mother, and hide underneath the covers. After standing to her feet, Renee slowly walked to her bedroom door. She closed it, careful not alert her mother of her actions. She slid the dresser drawers closed and moved to the closet. Inside it, nothing hung from the hangers except two shirts. Her favorite shirts, one her father had surprised her with at Disney World and one that had a picture of her and her dad printed on it. Renee ripped them off the hangers and hugged them. She held them so close, they almost melted on her skin. “I don’t want to go.” She hugged the shirts once more, then placed them inside the suitcase. Moving or not, she would not leave her father’s memory behind.

  Next, she bent down, reached under her bed, and pulled out the family photo album she’d rescued from the trash after Sheila tossed it out a week after she began dating Curtis. As she carried it over to her suitcase, a picture sticking out from a corner of the album poked Renee in the hand. She pulled the photo out and saw her and Ms. Pam at the beach, posing for the camera in their matching bathing suits. Renee stuffed the album in between her clothes, grabbed the cordless phone, and sat inside her closet, with the door shut. She dialed a number.

  “Hello?” said a drowsy, heavy-toned Ms. Pam after she picked up the phone.

  “Ms. Pam?”

  “Renee?” Renee could hear Ms. Pam shuffling around on the other end of the line. She pictured her removing a sleep mask from her eyes, her head covered with a silk head scarf. “Is everything okay?”

  Renee whispered, “I’m sorry I woke you up, but we’re moving to New York.”

  “Moving to New York? When in the world did this happen?”

  “Mommy just came in the room and told me Curtis asked her to move in. We’re leaving in two days.”

  “Oh, hell no!” Renee heard the sound of a lamp turning on.

  “I don’t want to go, Ms. Pam.”

  “I know you don’t, baby.”

  “Can I live with you?”

  Ms. Pam didn’t respond right away. “Let me talk to your mother, Ree. Let’s figure out what’s going on.”

  “Okay. Ms. Pam?”

  “Yes, Ree?”

  “My mother told me to trust her to find us happiness, but this isn’t happiness, is it?”

  “No, Ree, this isn’t happiness.” Ms. Pam’s tone had changed slightly, and this made Renee question whether she was holding in tears.

  “Even if she’s happy?”

  “Even if she’s happy,” Ms. Pam said, reassuring her.

  Renee was jolted from her thoughts by a voice.

  “Child, you haven’t been in this place for long, yet every time I see you, you’re sitting in that same spot, looking out that window for I don’t know how long. You sure you don’t want to sit in bed and watch television? The idle mind is the devil’s playground, ya know.” Nurse Binge examined another one of Renee’s barely touched trays of food.

  “I’m good, Nurse Binge. For once, my thinking is to benefit me instead of driving me deeper in the ground.” Renee moved her wheelchair back a little and glanced down at her broken leg.

  “Wise words from such a young woman.” Nurse Binge placed the tray of uneaten food on her cart and replaced it with that night’s dinner: mashed potatoes, corn, chicken, and gravy that looked too lumpy. She moved on to work on fixing Renee’s bed to perfection.

  “You’re not on bed duty, Binge. Stop spoiling me.”

  Nurse Binge chuckled. “Let this old lady obtain her happiness by making your bed, since you refuse to let me talk you into doing anything except think. You’re too young to have such a heavy mind, child.” As best as they could, Nurse Binge’s wrinkled dark hands smoothed out the creases in the sheets.

  “Nurse Binge, can I ask you a question?”

  Renee had found a friend in Nurse Binge.
The elderly lady’s personality reminded her of Ms. Pam: the two were outspoken, open minded, and extremely caring. Renee wished her mother hadn’t ruined that friendship. Ms. Pam had spoken up and out against Sheila uprooting her child and disrupting her life by moving from Miami to New York all for a man. She had predicted that nothing but disaster would come from this change and had shared those thoughts with her best friend. Curtis’s true colors had yet to be revealed while they were in Miami, yet Ms. Pam had sensed he was no good. Close-minded, Sheila had accused Ms. Pam of not being supportive of her new relationship and had cut off all forms of communication with her. The night Renee called Ms. Pam from her closet was the last time she’d spoken with her.

  “As long as it’s not about my sex life. There are some things a lady must keep to herself.”

  “Nurse Binge! No one’s going to ask you about your sex life.” Renee preferred not to have such thoughts invade her brain.

  “Good. Then ask away.”

  “What do you think happiness is?”

  “Oh, you want to have a deep conversation.” Slowly and with her hands planted on her knees, Ms. Binge sat down on the chair by the bed. A strand of gray hair escaped from her bun and fell against her cheek. “Now, this is only my opinion. Don’t you go taking things to heart.”

  Renee nodded. She glanced out the window and then looked back at Nurse Binge.

  “Happiness is something designed by the individuals themselves. They know what makes them happy.”

  “Is it worth obtaining?”

  Ms. Binge chuckled as she crossed one small foot over the other. “Damn straight.”

  “Even if it affects those closest to you, even if you know those around you would disagree with what will make you happy, would you still do it?”

  The sound of shoes slapping against the hallway floor echoed inside the room.

  “Child, your actions will always affect those around you. The key is to not base your happiness off others. You have to do what’s right with you. The only way I believe otherwise is if you’re a parent. Then your ass must take the backseat and focus all your energy on ensuring that child’s happiness.”

  Renee’s throat tightened a little. Where were you when I needed a mother, Nurse Binge? she thought.