by Noire
But even through all of that, Pearl still loved Diamond. And while there was no doubt that her sister could be low-down and grimy, she knew Diamond loved her too. When they were younger they used to sing a poem of love and affection together every night before they went to bed, and over the years their feelings had remained strong. They had continued to sing their love words out loud, even as teens.
Diamond and Pearl, two hearts, one world.
I love you my Diamond.
I love you my Pearl.
There was nobody in the world who knew Pearl better than her twin, and even though their personalities were very different, their hearts had always moved to the same beat. But that didn’t mean Pearl got down with everything Diamond did, or co-signed the way her sister shit on their parents, disrespected relationships, or cocked her legs open to strange men.
It had been late on a snowy Christmas Eve when Irish got a call that his youngest daughter had been dropped off in the lobby of a hospital because she was in labor. He hadn’t laid eyes on Diamond in over a month, and both him and Zeta were worried about what she was doing out there on those mean streets. Prenatal care was just a joke to Diamond. Doing the right thing for the sake of her unborn child had never even occurred to her. Even though her sperm donor Scotch had been chased out of Harlem months ago, Irish had gotten word on the streets that Diamond had hooked up with some cat from the other side of town who was ten times worse than Scotch had ever been. Diamond had been seen dancing and drinking in all kinds of strip joints and clubs, wildin’ like she wasn’t even pregnant.
But regardless, it was too early for her to be having that baby anyway. Pearl was the one due to give birth any day, and as far as Irish and Zeta could tell, Diamond was only around seven months pregnant.
Worried by the call, Irish had woken up Zeta and Pearl, then bundled his wife and daughter into his late-model Cadillac and driven through the snow-slushed streets to see about Diamond and her unborn child.
When they got to the hospital’s labor and delivery ward, Zeta broke down crying immediately. Pearl put her arms around her mother, and she wanted to cry too. The sight of Diamond was too fucked up for her to put into words. Instead of seeing an image of someone very similar to herself, a youthful fifteen-year-old expectant mother, Pearl’s twin sister looked like a cold, wet, exhausted dog that somebody had kicked around and starved, then dragged through the ghetto streets for weeks on end.
“What the hell happened to you?” Pearl demanded, rushing over to her sister’s bedside.
Diamond twisted and turned in pain, her hospital gown hiked over her stomach, her slender legs gaped wide-open.
“The same damn thing that happened to you!” she snapped, grabbing her sister’s hand and squeezing it tightly.
“Damn” was all Pearl could say as she looked down at Diamond’s small baby bump. She was naked under her hospital gown and her belly was barely big enough to even say there was a baby in it. Pearl reached for the sheet Diamond had flung off and tried to shield her twin’s nakedness.
“Girl, cover ya ass. Daddy’s standing right there,” she said, eyeing the oddly shaped dark patch of skin directly below her sister’s navel. It was Diamond’s birthmark, and Pearl had one too, a mirror image of her twin’s, in the exact same shape and size, and in the exact same place. It was the one thing they shared that branded them physically, and when they were little kids they used to stand belly to belly, laughing as their birthmarks lined up perfectly, as though they’d been connected in the womb at that very spot.
For years, no one, other than their doctors and their parents, knew about the odd birthmark the twins shared, and the reality of their situation came down on Pearl at that moment. That grimy fuckin’ Scotch knew. He’d been banging both of them, probably kissing and licking Diamond’s birthmark the same way he used to lick and suck and put hickeys all around hers. He’d shot babies up inside both of their young asses, and now Scotch was long gone from their hood, hopefully somewhere dead, and Diamond was about to give birth to her twin sister’s betrayal.
The next several hours were hard for Pearl. She sat quietly and watched as her mother comforted Diamond through her excruciating labor pains. Wasn’t no telling what the hell that wild girl had been doing in the streets, or who she had been doing it with. Diamond had probably been drinking, getting high, fucking strangers … Pearl sat there miserably, going back and forth between being mad about all the bad decisions her sister made, and hurting for Diamond as she actually felt her sister’s labor pains. She could really feel them too. Physically. All in her back.
Pearl might have still been mad at Diamond for fucking Scotch, but she was scared too. Scared about what her own labor and delivery would be like, and hoping the doctors were right when they promised that the gonorrhea Scotch had infected her with had been cured in time, and that her baby was gonna be born healthy and strong instead of blind or deformed.
All of her fears and feelings really had Pearl going, and a few hours later, when Diamond was finally fully dilated and was being wheeled out of the labor room and taken into delivery, Pearl forced herself to kiss her sister’s damp cheek.
Diamond grabbed her hand and pleaded with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Pearl. For real. I am. I can change, Pearl. I can change. I love you. I’m sorry for everything, okay?”
Pearl couldn’t say a word. That shit still hurt. It hurt her all over. She was sick of Diamond and all that “change” shit. Her sister always talked the game but she never walked it. Pearl just nodded as they wheeled Diamond through the doors with Zeta following closely behind the stretcher. She felt her father put his arm around her shoulder, then Irish pulled her close to him. His beard was scratchy as he kissed her forehead.
“It’s all right, baby,” her daddy told her. “Your sister fucked up. She betrayed your bond and it’s still paining you. So whatever kind of way you feeling right now, it’s cool. She earned that shit.”
But everything wasn’t cool in the delivery room.
An hour later Zeta came back to the waiting room with a grim look on her face.
“Diamond had a girl and she’s doing fine. She popped that tiny baby out and didn’t even need no stitches.”
Pearl felt her heart banging around in her chest and suddenly she had to pee like hell. “H-how does the baby look?” she asked. If Diamond’s baby was okay, with no deformities or disfigurements from the disease they’d shared, then that meant her baby was probably healthy too. “Does the baby look okay?”
“She’s cute. She’s real tiny, though. A preemie. But it ain’t her weight that’s bothering the doctors right now.” Zeta turned to face Irish with a tear on her cheek. “Just like we figured, Diamond’s been out there getting high. She lied her ass off every time I asked her, but she just admitted it to the nurse in there. She said she was getting high this morning when she went in labor, and the doctors think the baby might have crack in her system.”
For the first time in her life, Pearl saw her father break down.
“A crack baby?” Irish said, his eyes brimming with enraged tears. “She told me all she was doing was smoking a little weed every now and then! Here I been busting my ass and fighting drugs in this neighborhood for over ten damn years just to have my daughter sucking on a pipe and giving birth to a crack baby?”
Zeta started crying too, and it was at that moment that Pearl knew that no matter what kind of grime her sister was into, there was no way in hell she could turn her back on her precious little newborn niece. Pearl hadn’t even seen her yet, but already she loved her niece with the same fierceness that she loved the baby she carried in her own belly.
“Come on, y’all,” Pearl said, trying to comfort her parents and get them to concentrate not on their pain, but on the important issues at hand. “We gotta focus on the baby now. Diamond can handle her own damn business. The baby is what’s important. She’s gotta gain weight and get healthy. If she’s got crack in her system then social services won’t even let Di
amond take her out of this hospital. It’s all about the baby, y’all. We gotta be there for the baby.”
It would be a minute before Pearl found out that her speculation was right on point, because no sooner than the words were out of her mouth did a big gush of water erupt from her and begin streaming down her legs.
“You all right?” Zeta asked, reaching for her daughter as Pearl grabbed at her lower back and almost lost her balance.
“Dag, I’m wet. I’m peeing. I think my water broke …”
As her mother helped lower her to a chair, Pearl felt a hard knot of pressure swelling in her groin, and the gush of warm liquid drenching her pants was proof that some big things were about to get popping.
“Nurse!” Irish looked scared as he stuck his head out the door and called toward the nursing station. “Yo! Nurse! My daughter! Gimme some help in here!”
The next few minutes were a painful blur for Pearl as she was taken into an examining room right next door to the one Diamond had recently come out of. She held tight to her mother’s hand, just as her sister had done, as she was examined and the labor pains surged through her young body.
Pushing out one baby would be more than enough for her, Pearl had vowed as she fought the wave of contractions that were thrusting her unborn child out into the world. She had locked eyes with her father just as they were taking her into the delivery room and it almost made her cry. She knew Irish had held high hopes and dreams for her. Instead of giving birth to a baby at fifteen, he’d wanted her to go big places and do big things with her life, and above all to escape the street trappings that had claimed so many people he loved. Pearl stared deeply at her father, and what she saw in his soul hurt her almost as bad as the labor pains.
“One day you’re gonna be proud of me, Daddy,” Pearl whispered as they wheeled her away. “One day I’m gonna make you real proud.”
Irish Baines had smiled down at his daughter and said, “I’m already proud of you, Daddy’s Pearl. I’m already proud.”
So as it turned out, two baby girls had been born into the Baines family in the early morning hours of Christmas Day, and both of them were just as beautiful as their mothers.
Pearl had been right about Diamond and the baby girl she’d named Chante. The hospital social worker had filed an immediate injunction suspending Diamond’s parental rights and temporarily transferring them to Irish and Zeta. The only reason Diamond got out of there without getting arrested was because of her age, Irish’s political connections, and the fact that she volunteered to leave the hospital and go straight into a drug treatment program.
Pearl had named her baby girl Sasha, and all her fears about what some nasty disease might have done to her baby flew right out the window the moment she saw her. Sasha was perfect. She weighed six pounds and two ounces, and looked just like Pearl, except her skin was a whole lot lighter.
“That’s just her baby color,” Zeta said as she held her newest granddaughter in her arms. She was full of joy at Pearl’s baby, but that didn’t stop her from worrying like hell about Diamond’s baby, who was upstairs in the neo-natal intensive care unit struggling to kick a cocaine monkey off her back. She held sweet Sasha to her breast and kissed the top of her head. This baby was so much bigger and healthier than the other one. It was just proof of the difference between taking care of yourself, eating right, and getting good prenatal care, versus running the streets, abusing drugs, and drinking beer for breakfast.
Pearl took her baby home to her parents’ house where Sasha was given the utmost love and care. It was several weeks before Chante was strong enough to leave the hospital and go home to join her cousin who the family realized, but never mentioned, was also her sister.
Two active babies made the small house come alive. Irish and Zeta agreed that even though their twins had been young and reckless to get caught up in the street drama and come home pregnant at such an early age, regardless of how and when their granddaughters were born, they loved them with every part of their hearts and would do everything under the sun to make sure that both girls had a good life.
“I’m glad you’re back in school,” Zeta praised Pearl when Sasha was only a few weeks old and Pearl was sitting right back in her high school classes where she belonged. “I just wish we could talk Diamond into going back too. The girl has a mind for numbers that’s borderline brilliant, but she won’t do a damn thing with it.”
Pearl could only nod. Diamond was smart as hell, but sometimes being blessed with book smarts just wasn’t enough out there on the streets. But Pearl, though, knew exactly what was enough for her. Getting pregnant at fifteen was a real wake-up call for her. She was grateful that her parents had taken both Chante and Sasha into their arms and under their care. Pearl knew other girls who’d had babies and were out there on their own with no man, no family, no friends or nothing to help support them. She felt lucky that she had the opportunity to jump right back into her life like she hadn’t really stumbled at all.
The babies shared a room, and slept in cribs that were right next to each other. The room was decorated in pink and brown, with all kinds of cartoon characters and animated figures taped to the walls.
Being born addicted to crack had made Chante a cranky, sickly baby, but Zeta and Irish got up every night with both girls when they cried, chasing Pearl right back to bed when she tried to take Sasha off their hands or offered to help rock and soothe Chante so they could get a little bit of rest or time alone for themselves.
“Nah,” her father would say, pulling the belt to his bathrobe tight as he fed one of the tiny babies in his big, strong arms. “Gone back to bed. You gotta be fresh for school tomorrow, Pearl. You need your sleep so your head can be right for them schoolbooks.”
It made Pearl feel good that despite being so hardheaded and hot in the ass, her father still had high hopes and dreams for her. Him and Zeta were willing to support her and Sasha and do whatever it took to make it possible for Pearl to make those dreams come true.
But Diamond was another story.
About a week after having Chante, she had snuck out of the drug treatment program and was itching to get back out on the street.
“What the hell did you do?” Pearl had screamed on her sister when she showed up at the crib in a miniskirt on New Year’s Eve. “You ducked outta the program? I thought the judge said you had to stay for thirty days?”
Diamond had shrugged and rolled her pretty eyes. “Fuck that judge. He don’t know me and neither do those damned counselors in that program. Just because I hit the pipe a few times don’t mean I’m no crackhead.”
She peeped into the crib where Sasha lay sleeping on her side.
“Oh, Pearl! Look at my little niece. She is just too cute! She looks like me instead of you, though. Yo, you got a few ends I can hold?”
Pearl shook her head. “Nope. All my money gotta go for milk and Pampers. But your daughter is cute too, Diamond. While you busy sneaking up outta places, did you sneak up to the hospital to see Chante? They trying to wean her off that shit you was pumping into her system, you know.”
A look of despair came into Diamond’s eyes and Pearl could see how sorry and despondent her sister was. Their father had made it his life’s business to fight drugs and crime in their community, and Pearl had been around street thugs and addicts her whole life. She recognized that hopeless, helpless look when she saw it, and right now her heart was breaking at the sight of it in the eyes of her twin.
“I don’t know why the fuck I do so much stupid shit,” Diamond muttered softly. She sat down beside Pearl and rested her head on her sister’s shoulder the way she did whenever she had been bad out on the streets and was looking for comfort. “But I can change. I know I can! I ain’t gotta lie to you, Pearl. You the only fuckin’ one I ain’t gotta lie to. Even when I was getting high I was hating myself. Maybe that’s the reason I smoke that shit in the first place. Because I hate myself.”
Pearl forced her anger down and took Diamond in her arms.
There had been many times over the years that they had done that for each other. Opened up their arms.
“You ain’t gotta hate yourself, Di,” Pearl said. She rocked her sister gently, knowing that truly, no matter what happened, nothing, especially no man, could ever really come between them. “But you do have to get your shit straight, ya heard?”
“I know.”
“Well stop knowing about shit and start being about it.” Pearl had mad love for her sister, but she wasn’t past telling Diamond when her shit got stupid neither. “And the first thing you need to do is stop all that bullshit talk about changing! You either gonna do right or you ain’t, Diamond. People don’t walk around ‘changing’ every goddamn day.”
Diamond sat up straight and gave her sister a real hurt look.
“You know what, Pearl? You got a whole lotta shit with you! Everybody got something about them that needs working on! Just because you in school and stuff don’t mean shit. I might be a fuck-up but you’re selfish as hell, Pearl. It’s all about you, all the fuckin’ time. You’s the type of chick who is strictly out for self. But you ain’t no better than me, Pearl! We both got pregnant by a loser, remember? I didn’t do a goddamn thing that you didn’t do too! So instead of riding me for all the shit I do wrong, there’s a lotta things you might wanna check and ‘change’ about your goddamn self.”
Pearl listened to her sister vent and waved all that noise off. “Kill that drama, Diamond. This ain’t about me and what I’m doing, it’s about you and what you ain’t doing! Don’t try to flip the switch on me, because I’m living right and there ain’t shit I need to change about the way I get down. But if you wanna be around your daughter then what you need to do is get your ass back to that damn program and stay there until your head is right and those people tell the judge you can leave.”
Diamond had softened under the truth and nodded. “Yeah, I know. It’s just that it’s New Year’s Eve and everybody else is gonna be out there partying and shit … all my friends …”