by Nikki Turner
Isis took a deep breath and then began to speak. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Pick a place, baby, and we’ll work through all those weeds.”
“Well, it’s my mother,” Isis blurted out.
Samantha was caught off guard but didn’t voice her surprise. “So it’s my sister that has you all flustered.”
“I thought I would never understand how she could just kill my dad, but now I know. I truly understand.” Tears welled in Isis’s eyes. “I feel bad because I’ve been hating her for what she did and never thought how she must feel; how she must’ve felt then.”
“Yes, your mother snapped because of her feelings. She loved your father so much.”
“I loved Bam too, and we were together for only two years. I can only imagine how she felt; she was with Dad for over sixteen years. They had a child and a promising life together.”
“They really did,” Samantha agreed.
“And then to discover all the lies—the side relationship and child. After all she went through, I turned my back on her too.”
Samantha sighed. “I think you need to go see her.”
“She must hate me.”
“She loves you!” Samantha smiled. “And you know every time she calls, she asks about you. I keep her informed about everything.”
Samantha had always known that one day the time would be right for daughter and mother to reconcile. This was definitely the right time. “Her visiting day is Saturday; we could go see her, and you could stay over here on Saturday night. Then I could take you to the airport Sunday morning.” Samantha had the plan all mapped out.
“We’ll see.” Isis didn’t give a definite answer, but she knew that she had to go.
Chapter 9
Love Is a Dirty Game
As Isis parked her seven-year-old Honda Accord outside the women’s correctional facility where her mother was being housed, she made a mental note that when she returned from Vegas, she would treat herself to a new car, courtesy of Bam, of course.
It had been more than ten years since Isis had last seen her mother, and although this was far from her first trip to a maximum-security prison, because of her visits with Dave, she was surprised by the butterflies fluttering in her stomach as she and Sam entered the main building.
Sam somehow knew what Isis was feeling, so she spoke a few comforting words to her niece. “There’s no reason to be nervous, honey. Your mother loves you. She’s going to be glad to see you.”
Isis looked at Sam with questioning eyes. “Are you sure?”
Sam replied with a warm, reassuring smile and then approached the corrections officer at the sign-in desk to get the required paperwork. “May I have two visitation forms, please?” Sam wasn’t in drag today. He had on sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes and wore his shoulder-length hair in a ponytail.
The corrections officer working the desk looked at Sam oddly at first, probably because whether in drag or not, Sam never left home without his extra thick, extra long false eyelashes. But the officer decided to keep everything moving along instead of holding up the line trying to figure out the character before him. Pointing to a black tray, he said, “Here you go, sir. Drop the paper off right there, and someone will call you when we’re ready.”
Sam knew that the officer was watching him as he sashayed over to his niece. “Here you go, baby.” He handed Isis a form.
Isis started to panic. She wasn’t even sure if her name was on her mother’s visiting list.
Sam dropped the sheets off in the tray after they finished filling them out, just as the officer at the desk had instructed. Less than five minutes passed before the same officer said, “Will Isis Tatum please come to the desk?”
Damn. I guess I wasn’t on the list. Isis stood up, wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans, and walked to the desk as she prepared herself to have to come up with a story to get the officer to override the policy. “Yes?” She stared at him.
“I’m sorry, but we have a problem here,” he said, holding the form Isis had just filled out.
I knew it, Isis thought before he could even finish. It was time to go to plan B, but what was plan B? “I would like to see the major, please,” she stated.
“Well, all you need to do is put your license plate number right here.” He pointed to the spot on the paper that she had failed to complete.
As soon as she wrote it down, the officer said, “You two can step right through those doors.”
Isis was relieved. After she and Sam were searched, they proceeded through the steel bulletproof doors that led to the visiting room. Once they were inside, another prison guard directed them to sit at a table that had the number ten written on it.
Isis whispered to Sam, “I can’t believe that I am still on the list.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “Why would you think otherwise, little girl? You are her only baby.”
“But I was so awful to her, for so long. I refused to talk to her and told her that I hated her.”
“Listen, Miss Lady, we’re talking about your mother. A whole lot of shit may change in your life, but the love my sister has for you won’t ever change. You hear me?”
Isis tried to avoid becoming emotional by turning her attention to the visiting room. There were so many children there who were visiting with their mothers and loved ones. A few men were visiting as well. Isis imagined they were there to see women who could have been their wives once upon a time or who still might be if they were holding her down the way she did Dave and had been willing to do for Bam until he betrayed her. Two female prisoners sat at a table across from them. One of the women had a short fade haircut; she looked like a little boy. Growing up with Sam, Isis was used to women like her. The other was a young girl holding a newborn baby. Looking at the mother and child tore at Isis’s heart. The young girl had a proud look on her face as she held her child. The baby’s grandmother, who was over by the vending machine, had brought her. Isis wondered how long the girl would be in prison, separated from her child. She didn’t look old enough to be out of high school. What type of crime did she commit? All kinds of questions about the young girl’s circumstances ran through her head.
Isis sat there, waiting and watching for the door to open through which the inmates entered. Disappointment overtook her each time the door opened and it wasn’t her mother, but still she kept her eyes glued to the door.
An hour passed, which seemed like an eternity, but once her mother entered the room, time seemed to stop. Sandy glided across the room. She was still so beautiful. Her skin was smooth and her hair was still as pretty and silky as ever. It almost felt as if the Ghost of Christmas Past was walking toward her. Everything about her mother was the same as Isis had always remembered, except the prison-issued outfit that she wore. Sandra Tatum would have never worn something like that.
When Sam saw his sister, he stood up and started waving. When Sandra realized that her only daughter was with him, she covered her mouth and tears began to form in her eyes as she walked faster toward them. For ten years, Sandra had been waiting for this day. She’d had no idea if and when it would ever come. She wasted no time getting to the table, almost knocking a few people over in the process.
Without hesitation, Sandra hugged her daughter. She had the same look in her eyes that the young mother with the newborn baby had had just moments ago. “I love you,” she whispered in her child’s ear. Isis was speechless as the tears flowed from her eyes. Until that very moment, she had had no idea just how much she had missed hearing those words from her mother. People stared as they shared their emotional moment.
Women who knew Sandra asked her, “Is that your baby girl?”
“Yes.” She proudly nodded. “This is Isis.”
Some prison guards just can’t stand to see people happy, and Wilma Buster was one of them. She marched across the room until she got in front of Isis and Sandra. “The two of you are going to have to be seated or I’ll have to terminate your visit,�
�� she warned.
Sandra shot a look toward the guard that said, Bitch, please! Then she turned her attention back to her daughter. “Thank you so very much for coming. I’m so glad to see you, baby. I can’t begin to tell you how good it feels to see you.” Tears streaked down her checks.
Isis nodded through her tears. What she thought would be a hard task, turned out to be a piece of cake. The conversation between the two of them flowed so naturally, just as a mother and a daughter’s should. Unless you knew them, you’d have had a hard time telling that it had been a decade since their last time together.
“So how are you, baby?” Sandy asked her daughter.
“Sandra, how the hell you think she is?” Sam butted in. “She needs her damn momma.”
“Listen, Sammie, I know that, you know that, and she knows that—and your point is…?”
“The point is—” Sam began.
Sandy talked over her brother. “The point is, some shit don’t ever change. You still just like the police, in everybody’s business and ain’t saying shit.” She turned to Isis. “Baby, don’t pay that knucklehead no mind.”
“Mommy, God knows that I love Uncle Sam, but I already knew he was crazy.”
Sam finally got a word in, “Oh, Ms. Thang, you turning on me now since you here wit’ yo’ momma, huh?” Isis could only smile. “That’s my cue. I’ll be right back; I’m going to the ladies’ room.”
“You mean the boys’ room,” Sandy said, correcting her brother.
Isis laughed.
Sam glared at his niece. “Keep it up, and you gon’ be walking. It’s a long ways back to town too.” Sam seemed to forget that it was Isis who had driven.
“I know damn well you ain’t gon’ leave my child out nowhere. You know what happened to the last person that left my baby?”
“The bus driver,” both Sandy and Sam said in unison while laughing. Isis didn’t understand the inside joke.
“The media like to say that Sandra snapped when that god-awful incident took place.” Sam shook his head, “Negative, honey. Yo’ momma been crazy long before then.” Then Sam strolled off to the restroom.
Once it was just the two of them, Isis asked her mother, “Ma, what is Sam talking about?”
Sandy saw the befuddled expression on Isis’s face and decided to share the joke with her. Sandra waved her hand as if it were nothing. “Chile, when you were in kindergarten, the bus driver discovered, at the end of her route, that you had missed your stop. And she didn’t want to go out of her way and take you back to school or to your regular stop. So she told you to get off the bus. She just left you there, but you were so smart that you knew where one of my friends lived in that area, and you walked to her house.” Isis looked at her mother as if she were making up the whole story. Sandy added, “It was a long walk, over a mile, and you were only five, but you did it.”
Now Isis was convinced that she’d made it up. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, I remember the way I beat the hell out of that bus driver and got her ass fired,” Sandra said, admonishing Isis.
“You joking, right, Ma?”
“If I ain’t whip that bitch’s behind, my ass ain’t black,” she said. “I wanted to homeschool you after that, to protect you at all times, but Ice wouldn’t let me.”
“Well, Ma, I learned to take care of myself pretty well. It must be in our DNA.”
“Did you really?” Sandra asked, searching her daughter’s face. “A mother needs to know these things.”
“Yes, Momma. Aunt Samantha took great care of me too.”
“I know you probably hated me for what I did, leaving you alone. But I didn’t know what else to do. I loved you and your daddy so much. If I had thought things through, I never would have done it. Not because I’m behind these bars, but because of what it did to you.”
“Ma, you don’t have to explain. I miss Daddy, but I understand that whole thing more than you think I do. I’ve suffered a broken heart a few times myself, but I’m fine. Experience is the best teacher.”
“That’s where you’re wrong at,” Sandra said. “I do need to explain myself to you, and not only that, I need your forgiveness too.”
Isis was happy to hear that she needed something from her, even if it was only forgiveness. “Of course I forgive you, Mother.”
“Baby,” her mother said, “there ain’t no man, woman, or shield that can protect you from a broken heart. You just gots to learn to not wear your feelings on your sleeve.”
“I thought that if I was faithful, honest, and trustworthy, I’d get the same back in return.”
“Baby, don’t be reading those damn romance novels; that shit’ll fuck your head up. Without a doubt, love is a dirty game. But just to keep it on the up-and-up with you: I used to think the same thing myself—until reality showed me love ain’t got shit to do with it.”
Just then the stud with the short hair that Isis had seen earlier walked up to their table on her way back from the trash can. “Sandy, is this Isis?”
“Yes,” Sandy answered with a smile, gloating over her daughter.
“Hi, Isis, my name is Pam; I’m a friend of your mother’s. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Isis said.
“You know you mean the world to your mother, don’t you? I’m glad you came up to see her.”
Sandy cut in. “Well, let us enjoy our visiting. We only got an hour to catch up on ten years.”
When the youthful-looking stud walked away, her mother shamelessly said, “That used to be my lover.”
Isis wasn’t shocked that her mother was bisexual. After all, she had been in prison for ten years, and she had gone in with a scorned heart. But Isis was surprised that her mother admitted it to her so openly.
“There’s no sense in hiding it from you,” Sandy said. “I want you to learn from my mistakes. Don’t do the same crazy shit I’ve done and end up in here. They say, ‘lead by example.’ Well, chile, I’m your living testimony.”
Isis smiled, thinking that her mother could probably school her on quite a few things. The moment was interrupted when the stud returned to their table. “Hey, y’all want some cards? We done playing, and before I put them back, I wanted to ask.”
Sandy gave the chick a cold look this time. “Nah, we straight,” she said dismissively.
“Dang, Mommy, that girl really got the hots for you, huh?”
“What can I say? I look good as a motherfucker,” she teased. “But I ain’t thinking about her fast ass.”
“Then who are you thinking about?”
“None of these penitentiary bulldaggers, that’s for sure.”
There was a brief silence; Isis felt that her mother had more to say.
Sandy was the first to pierce the bubble of silence that had momentarily enveloped them. “The one person I really cared about isn’t here anymore. Praise the Lord for that one. She went home a couple of years ago.”
“Does she keep in touch?” Isis was curious.
“Faithfully…but things between us are complicated.”
“I’m not sure if I’m ready for this.” It was Isis’s turn to tease her mother now.
“Not that complicated,” she said. “It’s just that she sends me money and things, and I don’t want her to feel like she owes me anything.”
“Why would she think that she owes you?”
“Because I saved her life,” Sandy said. “There’s no doubt that I love her and I know that she loves me, but I don’t know if she feels devoted to me because I saved her life or if it’s genuine love. You know?”
Isis was about to respond, but before she could, Sam returned. “You know Ms. Thang is leaving for Vegas tomorrow,” Sam informed his sister as he walked up.
“Really?” Sandy was happy that Isis was traveling and getting out of Richmond. She wished that her daughter had shared the news with her instead of her loudmouth brother, though.
“I just need to go somewhere to get my mind
right,” Isis admitted.
“What has my baby’s mind so not together that she has to go clean to the other side of the country, and when are you coming back?”
“Well, I’m just having boy problems, and I’ll be back in a week or two.”
“Let me be a living testimony to you,” Sandy said. “Boys can be the worst problem a good woman can ever encounter. The best thing a woman can do is to avoid boys at all cost and sit back and let the men find us.”
Chapter 10
Blood Money
Isis sat poolside looking as beautiful as ever. The whiteness of her Christian Dior bathing suit enhanced her brown skin. Her big, walnut-colored eyes and long eyelashes were hidden behind a pair of white Dior sunglasses that she had purchased from the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace just the day before. They were a perfect match for the suit. She had been at the pool for only an hour, and already four people had complimented her.
After writing a postcard to her mother, Isis enjoyed the warm weather. Earlier she had browsed through some of her bills and junk mail that she had picked up from her post office box on the way to the airport. Her intention had been to sort through the mail on the plane, giving herself something to do. But after she’d boarded the aircraft, her sleep-deprived body had other plans for her, and she slept for most of the flight. Now, she figured that while she was chilling in a pool cabana was as good a time as any to read mail. While doing so, she ran across a letter from Bam. She was about to toss it, but curiosity got the best of her. She opened it and pulled the single-page letter from the envelope.
Dear Isis,
I stood in the courtroom last week waiting on those crackers to make a decision about my life: whether I spend the rest of my life in prison or be put to death. When I looked around the room, you were nowhere in sight. I found this to be more disturbing than the outcome of the proceedings, which was life in prison, by the way.
When I first noticed that you weren’t there, I thought maybe you had car trouble or something; I knew the Honda was on its last leg, and I had intentions of getting you another car. I’ve tried calling you several times, to no avail, and a couple of people have said that they’ve seen you riding around town, so I have no other choice than to assume that you have crossed me. You know I’ve never begged anyone for anything—man, woman, child…judge or jury, for that matter—but I’m begging you now: Please don’t fuck me over! Isis, please don’t fuck with me.