Chapter Two
How could she tell Karlie she was dying? How could she not? Tiffany asked herself.
A week had passed since her devastating news, and Tiffany had been ensconced in her room in a self-imposed exile. She still had not generated a good lead-in for telling her daughter the cancer had returned.
Winona had called several times, but Tiffany had needed space. She sent a terse text message to Winona, telling her to book her round-trip passage to New York.
When Tiffany got up this morning, she knew she could not let another day pass without telling her daughter the truth. Today, March 24, was the day she would tell her daughter that she was dying. Karlie had given her space, assuming she had a cold or something and was simply recuperating. Now Tiffany was about to shatter that thought.
Tiffany paced back and forth, trying to compose the right words. That had been about a half hour ago, and Tiffany was still hemming and hawing. Her living room, decorated in varying shades of yellow, was sunny and cheerful. Tiffany would read in this room and look out the window to view the spacious backyard, which housed the pool and a man-made pond complete with ducks and fish. But the brightness of the room couldn’t make what she had to tell Karlie any better.
“Mom,” Karlie said softly. “You’re going to wear a hole in the rug. Just tell me what’s going on.”
Instinctively, Tiffany lifted her heel to peek. Her Prada shoes did look a little worn. She shrugged. There was a closet full of replacements.
Tiffany stopped pacing and finally looked into the face so like her own. Karlie had the same skin tone, hair, and body type. She was a mini-replica of Tiffany herself, except for her honey-brown eyes and slightly fuller lips. Tiffany could see Karlie preparing herself, instinctively knowing that whatever it was, she would not like it.
My own gift from heaven—so beautiful and so precious, Tiffany thought. A single tear pricked her eye and ran down the side of her face.
The antithesis of Tiffany at that age, Karlie was smart as a whip and never gave an ounce of trouble. Her teachers doted on her. Tiffany knew that she had lucked out when it came to Karlie.
She just had to do it.
Tiffany steeled herself and collected her thoughts. “Okay, there is no easy way to say this.” She had to give Karlie the straight facts. Wiping her hands on her cream-colored linen slacks, Tiffany sat down and took her daughter’s hands in hers. Karlie trembled beneath her touch.
“Karlie,” Tiffany began, “you know how for the past couple of years I have been fighting this cancer. You know all about the chemo and everything.”
Karlie nodded her head. Fear slowly crept up her spine and chilled her to the core. Karlie broke into tears.
Tiffany started crying at the sight of her daughter’s pain. She hugged her daughter tightly and whispered in her hair, “I am sorry, honey. The doctors tried. They’ve done all they could—”
“No!” Karlie wailed. “You cannot be dying. Do not leave me, Mommy. What did I do to deserve this?” She grabbed her mother, crumpling her linen shirt. “I’m not going to let you go, Mom.”
Tiffany wailed in earnest then. She cried and cried. This was the worst pain she could inflict on a fifteen-year-old. However, Tiffany knew she had to be forthright with her daughter. She needed to prepare Karlie somehow for her impending death.
Karlie pulled out of her mother’s arms and ran into her bedroom. Tiffany let her daughter go, knowing that she herself needed time. She had some tough decisions to make and some dirty linens to dredge up.
Tiffany pulled out her cell phone and quickly speed dialed the one person she knew she could call. When she heard the voice on the other end, Tiffany’s composure cracked. “I need to see you.”
Chapter Three
“Five months?” Winona’s mouth sprung open with disbelief. “You expect me to settle your affairs and your vast estate and share holdings in merely five months?”
Tiffany nodded.
“Impossible.” Winona dragged her hands through her hair. “Tiffany, forgive me, but this is just too much. I’m telling you right now it’s not doable. I can’t get this all done by September.”
“Make it happen,” Tiffany shot back. “I don’t have time. Time is one luxury I do not have. I have to get my affairs in order in an extraordinarily short amount of time. Winona, I need you to be on this, like, yesterday. I need to be settled here in New York by the end of August, early September.”
Leaving Karlie behind while she made this trip had been painful because her daughter was still in the throes of coming to grips with losing her mother. But Tiffany had no choice. She had flown to New York to meet with up with Winona. Winona had moved to New York when she met and married her third husband, Harvey Franks. The distance had not affected Winona’s capability or their relationship.
Tiffany also had another discreet matter that necessitated her trip to New York, but first things first.
“Winona, I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I have to liquidate my assets. It makes sense to me. Karlie is way too young to handle the magnitude of my estate. You know that.”
“Yeah.” Winona’s eyes glazed over. “I’m not even sure that I can handle the task, Tiffany, because I refuse to give your properties and stocks away for pennies. Are you sure you don’t want Arnold in on this?”
Arnold Truitt was Winona’s second husband and Tiffany’s legal attorney. Somehow, after their parting, Winona and Arnold had remained amicable and even lunched together as old friends. Kudos to her, Tiffany thought. Her mind wandered to her own ex-husband, Thomas. She hadn’t spoken to him in years. That was about to change now, too.
Tiffany realized Winona was waiting with a pen and notepad on one leg and her iPad on the other. Tiffany said, “No. At least not yet. I can’t think past six months’ time, Winona. I might not be here.”
“You will be.” Winona scribbled furiously on her notepad before pulling up the calendar on her iPad.
Tiffany sat while Winona finished her notes. She looked around the room, taking in the understated elegance of Winona’s loft, which doubled as her office. Winona had purchased the loft as her temporary home, refusing to live with Harvey until they were married. The rich browns and burgundies were soothing, especially since outside did not feel like spring. It was the end of March, but outside it was a whopping forty degrees.
“What about the house?” Tiffany asked. She could not refer to the place in question as her home, though she had lived there for most of her childhood.
“It is being gutted and renovations have been made, as per your directions,” Winona replied. She removed her trendy shades to peer into Tiffany’s eyes. “I still don’t get why you’re planning to move there.”
Tiffany did not expect Winona to understand why she would leave her elegant million-dollar home to take on anonymity and move back to Hempstead, New York. “Because I am dying, Winona. I want to go home. Correction, I need to go home. I am doing this for Karlie. Believe me, if it weren’t for her, I would not step another foot into that place. When can I go take a look at it?”
Instead of answering Tiffany’s question, Winona asked another. “Did you tell Karlie about the move yet?”
“No. I plan to do that when I get home.” Tiffany arched her eyebrow, indicating she wanted an answer to her original question.
Winona lowered her head to glance at the delicate diamond-encrusted timepiece on her slender wrist. “The workers assured me that you can go over there late tomorrow afternoon. Did you need me to come with you?”
“No.”
Winona’s head popped up at Tiffany’s abrupt response.
Taking a deep breath, Tiffany softened her tone. “No, I mean, that is something I have to do on my own.” Tiffany swallowed after her blatant lie, but she could not bring Winona with her.
Winona got up and walked around her desk to sit next to Tiffany on the small couch. She hugged the younger woman. “Tiffany, I have been with you through chemotherapy and radiation. I
have seen you at your best and at your worst. You are more than a client to me. You know that. You know you could stay here with me until . . . that time came,” Winona gently assured her.
“I know.” Tiffany nodded and pulled out of the embrace to look at Winona. “Winona, you have been good to me. You have stood by me through it all. But Karlie needs family—someone who will be her guardian and take care of her. Winona, Karlie needs her father.”
“Thomas?” Winona sputtered. “Is he the reason you are going home? Even if you’re dying, I do not think a reunion is the answer.”
Tiffany chuckled. Winona was not one to mince her words. “Let’s just say Thomas is a part of the reason.” Tiffany knew she was deliberately being vague, but she was about to delve into a topic that left a sour taste in her mouth.
Winona’s eyebrow arched with inquiry. Tiffany’s subtle remarks did not suit a woman of her disposition. Patience was not her strong point, and brutal honesty was her trademark. “Hit the nail on the head, Tiffany. Quit hedging.”
“I plan to visit my mother,” Tiffany began. Winona prodded her on, knowing that Tiffany had more to share. “Winona, I need the name of a good private detective.”
Winona’s eyes widened as her active imagination took over. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I know the perfect person—Edison Sniles—a retired detective who’s fast, reliable, and discreet. Tiffany, what are you planning to do? Are you going to plot your revenge on Thomas after all these years?”
“Nothing of the sort,” Tiffany quickly assured her. “I just need to conduct a little . . . ah . . . research . . . to determine who is best suited to become Karlie’s guardian.” Father, Tiffany corrected inwardly. Actually, she first had to find out who Karlie’s father was.
Tiffany fretted. She had done a dirty deed and now was going to pay. Not once had she thought she was going to have to reveal her most shameful secret—that she, Tiffany Knightly, had married Thomas knowing that there was a strong possibility that he might not be Karlie’s father. Tiffany turned away from Winona for a moment and closed her eyes. Why had she done it? She exhaled. Why had she gone on a promiscuous rampage and slept with four men? At that time in her life, she thought it was for revenge. But now that she was a little older and wiser, Tiffany admitted that she had only exacerbated a situation that was going to disrupt quite a few lives. Should she just perpetuate the lie? After all, no one would know if she only kept her mouth shut. No, Tiffany reasoned, it was time to come clean. She turned to face Winona again, who had been watching her with a puzzled expression on her face.
“I have to do this, Winona,” she said desperately. That was all she could say without saying too much. “I just have to,” she whispered with tightly clenched fists.
Winona pointed to the goose bumps popping up on her flesh. “I knew there was more going on than you’re telling me. Tiffany, what aren’t you telling me?” she asked with quiet concern.
Gathering her dignity, Tiffany facetiously replied, “Ask me no question, I tell you no lie.”
Chapter Four
“Never say never,” Tiffany chided herself bitterly. She tossed herself on the king-size bed in the expansive guest quarters of Winona’s majestic Park Avenue apartment.
Tiffany held on to her head with both her hands. The demons of her past attacked and whipped her with guilt. Her mind raced about a hundred miles per hour as she contemplated the magnitude of the task before her.
The past she had to revisit.
Tiffany mulled over other alternatives for Karlie and her estate. Sadly, the truth twisted within her being, pushing her to belch it out. She needed to dig up ancient history because Karlie needed family.
Family.
There was always Tiffany’s mother—Merle Peterson.
Tiffany rented an Escalade equipped with GPS to drive to her mother’s home in Baldwin. She had dutifully purchased the home but had never paid a visit. She knew if she ever set foot in her mother’s house, she would regret it, but now she had to.
Merle was blood.
Tiffany hoped her mother would look beyond the past and see that. She purposely went alone because with Merle, well, one could never know what to expect, and it could not be expected that Winona would remain cool when faced with Merle’s rancor.
The traffic was light, and approximately forty-five minutes later, Tiffany pulled up to the curb outside her mother’s house. She sat in her car and studied the two-story structure for several minutes.
Tiffany dreaded this moment. Her palms felt sweaty as she gripped the steering wheel. Exactly two weeks after learning about her imminent death, she was about to break the news to her mother. A woman who couldn’t care less if she ever rested eyes on her again.
Her knuckles were taut and white. Perspiration soaked her Armani blouse. She had not seen her mother face-to-face in over fifteen years. Not that it would matter to Merle. Knowing her, Tiffany anticipated she would not be there long. Taking a deep breath, Tiffany whipped her sunglasses on her face, opened the car door, and stepped out. Her sleek high heels crunched on the gravel as she walked toward the sidewalk.
The kids in the neighborhood stopped playing to stare at the lovely woman. Tiffany was not worried that they would not recognize her. She had been before their time.
Gathering her courage, Tiffany sped up the three steps and rang her mother’s doorbell. Almost immediately, Merle opened the door and stood in the doorway.
“What do you want?”
Tiffany’s demeanor changed with her mother’s abrupt question. “You haven’t seen me in almost sixteen years, and this is how you greet me?”
Merle did not answer. She frowned and gave Tiffany the once-over, which left no doubt how she felt.
Tiffany knew she was the last person her mother wanted to lay eyes on, but this was a matter of life and death. “May I come in?” she pointedly asked, since her mother had not made any motion to invite her into her home. The home she’d bought. Tiffany tried to swallow the bitter thought.
Merle reached into her pocket, took out a pack of gum, and pulled out a piece. She opened the wrapper and stuck the piece of gum in her mouth. She stared Tiffany up and down once more before she begrudgingly stepped aside.
Tiffany bit her tongue to refrain from saying something nasty and entered her mother’s house. She walked into the living room and sat on the edge of the sofa. Painted a soft buttercup yellow with green trimmings, the living room was warm and inviting, opposite to her mother’s temperament. The sofa and love seat were color coordinated, and the decor was impeccable.
Merle sat down and gave Tiffany a look of utter unconcealed disgust.
Tiffany took a deep breath before spitting out her news. “Mama, I thought it best to let you know in person that I am dying.” Tiffany nervously wiped her hands on her dark crimson jeans. She wore a thick black sweater with a matching jean jacket, but the coldness in the room chilled her very core.
Merle remained unresponsive, and her face mirrored no emotion. In fact, she gave no indication that Tiffany had even spoken.
Tiffany sat in suspense as she waited for her mother to cry, say something, or provide some sort of human feedback. Merle displayed none of those reactions. She remained stoic, unaffected as she popped her gum. Then she bit out, “So what did you expect me to do about that?”
“Wow.” This time Tiffany did not hold her tongue. “I tell you that I am dying, and this is how you react? Have you no feelings for me whatsoever?” Tiffany’s chest heaved. Overcome with pent-up anger and hurt, she resisted the urge to rant or pummel her mother with her fists. Tiffany chose instead to dig her heels into the plush carpet to prevent herself from ripping Merle’s eyes from the sockets.
Warring with that emotion, Tiffany sat silently, unconsciously willing her mother to care. She desperately needed her mother to comfort her, but instead she was faced with a cold, aloof, uncaring shell of a human being.
Merle declined to answer Tiffany’s question but asked a
nother instead. “What do you plan to do with the girl?”
Her tenuous rein on her self-control snapped. Her eyes bulged, and she got right into her mother’s face. “You are unbelievable. How can you be so heartless?”
“Heartless? I have got no respect for whores,” Merle hurled back while giving Tiffany a look of sheer contempt. Merle was just as slender as Tiffany and an inch taller. She had once been beautiful, but bitterness had left lines and marks that changed her entire countenance. Her hair and nails were well tended, though, thanks to Tiffany’s generous monthly checks.
“You might see me as a whore, but I am still your daughter, and the girl you are talking about is your granddaughter,” Tiffany passionately shot back.
Though she yelled, Tiffany felt a deep, unfathomable hurt. All the old pain and anger returned with full force. To Tiffany, it felt like it was yesterday instead of fifteen years later. She did not know why she had expected any warm sentiment from her mother.
Merle had never cared about her welfare when it truly mattered. Her actions had consistently demonstrated that. Tiffany had been insane to expect an entirely different response.
Merle scoffed at her daughter’s remark. “You are nothing to me.” She enunciated the words loudly to drive the point home.
“Oh, but my money’s good enough, isn’t it?” Her mother religiously cashed the monthly checks.
Merle merely rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth.
Tiffany watched as her mother stood up, wiped her hands on her pants, and walked to the door.
Merle opened her front door, signaling their impromptu meeting was officially over. “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome and it’s time for you to leave.”
Tiffany picked up her purse and keys and walked out of her mother’s house without a backward glance. She would not allow her mother to see how affected she was by her cold, callous behavior. As she drove off, Tiffany finally let the tears fall. Her vision blurred, so she pulled over at the next block and cried her eyes out, intensely regretting her decision to seek her mother’s help. Seeing her mother had served only to exhume all the past hurt and pain she had so carefully buried.
Sing A New Song Page 2