Lost Daughters

by Mary Monroe

  “Mel, I think we can go ahead and get married now. Lo’retta’s been behavin’ herself, so I don’t have to worry myself about that anymore.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, baby. I was gettin’ a little worried,” Mel admitted.

  “I figured you would be, but I had to get my mind right about Lo’retta first,” Maureen reminded him.

  “I’m sure that she’ll continue to behave herself. She’s seventeen now and more mature than ever. You’ve raised a fine daughter.”

  “Thanks for bein’ patient enough to wait on me this long to get married. I think we’ll be a happy family. I hope you don’t mind if Lo’retta starts callin’ you Daddy. That would make me very happy.”

  “I would like for her to do so if she wants to. I feel blessed knowing you feel this way, Maureen.”

  “If things continue to go well between you and her, maybe you can adopt her someday so we can all have the same last name. I’m sure Lo’retta would like that. As long as we keep an eye on her and make her realize how much we love her and don’t want some horny boy to make a fool out of her, I bet she won’t have time to be thinkin’ about sex. Me and you gettin’ married could be the best thing that ever happened to her, huh?”

  “Could be,” Mel agreed. “Could be . . .”

  Loretta thought about sex every day and every night. Her most recent tryst with Mel occurred on Maureen’s wedding night. Maureen and Mel had exchanged vows that evening at the courthouse. It was a day they would remember for a long time to come, and not just because it was the day they got married. While they were enjoying a celebratory drink in a downtown sports bar with a large-screen TV on each of its four walls, a news bulletin interrupted the regular program. A disturbing video came on showing several white police officers beating a black man named Rodney King in L.A.

  “Holy shit,” Mel said, looking around the bar. Other patrons, black and white, sat looking at the screens in slack-jawed amazement. “If that brother lives, he’d better take some Italian lessons.”

  “What for?” Maureen asked, her eyes glued to the screen directly in front of them.

  “For when he moves to Rome and buys a villa with all the money he’s going to win in a lawsuit,” Mel said with confidence.

  The black bartender slapped Mel’s palm in agreement.

  “I guess this’ll be all we hear about for a while,” Maureen predicted, shaking her head.

  “This is one way we won’t forget our wedding anniversary,” Mel laughed. Maureen laughed, too, but it was a hollow laugh. The last thing she wanted as a reminder of the day she got married was the image of a black man being brutalized by the police.

  After they left the bar, Mel took Maureen to a French restaurant they both loved, and they had a light dinner and more drinks. Then they went to Mel’s place to collect the rest of his belongings.

  After about fifteen minutes of vigorous sexual activity in Maureen’s bedroom (with Loretta listening at Maureen’s bedroom door with disgust), Maureen was so exhausted all she wanted to do was sleep. What she didn’t know was that Mel had slipped a couple of sleeping pills into her wine at the restaurant so that she wouldn’t be a problem later that night.

  From around 2:00 a.m. until almost dawn, Mel and Loretta wallowed around in her bed like they had just got married.

  This is the life, Mel told himself as he eased back into bed with Maureen. She was sound asleep. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and then he dozed off too.

  CHAPTER 18

  A YEAR LATER, THINGS WERE BETTER THAN EVER. EVERYBODY WAS happy—at least that was what Maureen thought until Virgil brought up a subject that had never entered her mind.

  “Don’t you think Lo’retta and Mel spend too much time alone together?” Virgil asked Maureen during one of her visits to his house, which had become less frequent since she’d married Mel. Virgil didn’t visit her as often as he used to, either. The more he got to know Mel, the less he liked him. Virgil had Mel’s number, and he didn’t care much for it. For one thing, his new brother-in-law was secretive and sneaky. The stupid grin that was plastered on his face every time Virgil saw him was as fake as an aluminum Christmas tree. No man could be so happy that every time a person saw him he was grinning like a country preacher.

  “What? What in the world do you mean by that? Mel’s her daddy now,” Maureen said with an amused look on her face.

  “Stepdaddy,” Virgil clarified, folding his arms. He stood in the doorway of his living room, facing Maureen and his wife, Corrine, who were seated on opposite ends of the couch. A pitcher of iced tea and a plate of tea cakes sat on the coffee table.

  “Whatever. Mel treats Lo’retta as good as a real daddy would, and she loves him the way she would a real daddy. I hear all kinds of stories from other women about how their kids don’t get along with their stepdaddies.” Maureen paused and looked around the room, then back at Virgil. She didn’t like the concerned look on his face, and she couldn’t understand why he was so worried about Loretta and Mel in the first place. Especially since he was one of the people who had encouraged her to marry Mel!

  “Besides, Lo’retta and Mel work so well together. He’s preparin’ her so she will know how to deal with other people in the industry when she hits the big time,” Maureen added with a broad smile. “On top of that, she’s makin’ more money from her catalog work in one day than I make at the lobster factory in a week. Now Mel is talkin’ about takin’ her to the next level. He’s talkin’ to the folks who run the boat shows and fashion shows for the A-list celebrities and those swimsuit people.”

  “That ain’t what I meant. I’m glad Lo’retta’s gettin’ a lot of work, and I know you appreciate the beaucoup money she makes—not to mention the extra money Mel brings into the house.”

  “Well, what did you mean, then?” Maureen lifted her chin and gave Virgil a guarded look as she waited for him to respond. She didn’t like this conversation and she was anxious for it to end.

  “Mo’reen, I know it ain’t my business, but I’m goin’ to have to make it so,” Corrine interjected. Her light brown face looked tired and thin. Hairy black moles dotted her chin and neck like bird droppings. It was hard to believe she had once been one of the prettiest women Maureen knew. “Lo’retta is a young teenage girl. She ought to be out spendin’ more time with kids her own age.”

  “She does that,” Maureen protested. “Just last Sunday after she came home from church, she went to the movies and the beach with Mona, that Ramsey boy who had a crush on her all through junior high school, and some girl named Toni Jean. She also sees her other teenage friends so much already that sometimes I have to remind her to keep her modelin’ appointments. Thank God Mel stays on top of that.”

  Virgil and Corrine looked at each other, wondering the same thing: What else is Mel staying on top of?

  “I don’t know what y’all are gettin’ at, but I know my child and I know that she is very responsible. As long as she is safe and happy, that’s all I care about,” Maureen stated.

  “Don’t you think you should spend more time with your daughter than you do now? That’s all me and Corrine care about,” Virgil said gently.

  “If you kept closer tabs on her, you’d know for sure she’s bein’ responsible,” Corrine added. “With all that extra money comin’ in now, you don’t even have to work if you don’t want to.”

  Maureen shot a look at Corrine that was so hostile it frightened Corrine. “So what am I supposed to do? Quit my job at the lobster factory after I practically begged them to take me back, and then sit around the house watchin’ talk shows and gettin’ fat?” Maureen’s eyes gazed critically up and down Corrine’s thirty-pounds-overweight body.

  Corrine sucked in her gut and folded her arms across the protruding belly she couldn’t hide. “No, you don’t have to quit your job if you don’t want to,” she replied. “You told us yourself that some days when you get home from work, Loretta and Mel don’t come home until several hours later. They are also gone prac
tically most of the weekend, every weekend. You don’t have a problem with that?”

  “Not really.” The only problem Maureen had was Virgil and Corrine meddling in affairs that didn’t concern them. It amazed her how people who had never raised a teenager liked to dole out unwanted advice to people in her position.

  “Mel is a man, honey child,” Corrine said with a sour look on her face.

  “So?” Maureen refused to even consider what Corrine was insinuating. The idea of Mel and Loretta together was ludicrous. “For one thing, if Mel ever said or did anything inappropriate to Lo’retta, that girl would come up to me and tell me in a heartbeat. I know y’all still remember how she told on that college boy and that church deacon when they got out of line with her?”

  Virgil and Corrine nodded, but Corrine still had that sour look on her face. The look on Virgil’s face was not too sweet-looking either.

  “I know y’all can find somethin’ else to be worried about—somethin’ that needs to be worried about,” Maureen quipped.

  “That’s just what me and Virgil is doin’,” Corrine said sharply, rotating her neck and puckering her lips like she was about to flood the room with a tidal wave of more ridiculous remarks.

  But Maureen was not about to give Corrine the chance to do that. She checked the time. “Goodness gracious! I didn’t realize how late it was,” she said. She rose with her eyes still on her watch. “I need to haul ass!” She didn’t really want to leave just yet, but she knew that if she stayed around longer, Corrine or Virgil would say something about Mel that would really upset her.

  “You just got here a little while ago,” Virgil reminded her, his hand in the air.

  “You ain’t goin’ to stay for no fish?” Corrine asked, nodding toward the kitchen. “The only reason I thawed out them catfish in the first place was on account of you asked me to.” Corrine didn’t even bother to try hiding her disappointment. There was a pout on her face that belonged on a toddler.

  Even though Maureen’s mouth had been watering for some deep-fried catfish for days, she was too agitated to eat any now. She couldn’t wait to leave. “Fast Black told me she was goin’ to slide through here later on tonight. She can have my part of the catfish,” Maureen mumbled, moving toward the door with her car keys already in her hand. “If y’all have any left over, maybe me and Mel can come over tomorrow and finish it off.”

  “Mo’reen, I know it sounds like we tryin’ to get all up in your business—”

  “Sounds like?” Maureen hollered, cutting Virgil off. “If you think it just sounds like y’all tryin’ to get all up in my business, I would hate to see what it feels like if y’all really did get up in my business. I wish both of y’all would get your minds out of the gutter and cut poor Mel some slack. He had a real unhappy life in Chicago, and he don’t need to go through the same thing here. He is my husband and I . . . I . . . uh, he is my husband.” Even though she was defending Mel, Maureen could not bring herself to say she loved him. She knew she probably never would, but Mel had given up his freedom to be with her and help her raise Loretta. For that reason alone, he deserved some respect and credit. If he couldn’t get it from her loved ones, he would definitely get it from her. Her hand was on the door and she was about to open it when Virgil padded over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “I don’t like to see you this upset, baby sister,” Virgil told Maureen, rubbing her back. “We just tryin’ to look out for you and Lo’retta, that’s all. We want to make sure you stay on top of things.”

  Stay on top of things? Maureen had a great relationship with her daughter and her husband. Neither one of them had said or done anything for her to be concerned about. What things was she supposed to stay on top of?

  Maureen didn’t want to antagonize Virgil and Corrine any further, and she didn’t want them to antagonize her any more. She had reached her limit of tolerance, but to keep the peace, she offered them a huge smile and said what she thought they wanted to hear. “I will stay on top of things from now on,” she said, her voice cracking. She glanced at her watch again. “I better skedaddle. I don’t like to be out drivin’ too much after dark.”

  It was a long, slow, and difficult drive home for Maureen.

  Instead of going directly to her apartment, she drove around until it got dark. She even cruised all the way into the heart of downtown Miami, shaking her head at all of the luxury cars lined up along the streets and the garishly dressed women strutting around like peacocks.

  Maureen meandered down one unfamiliar street after another, trying to organize and make sense of the numerous thoughts occupying her tortured mind. Whenever her thoughts got as jumbled as they were now, they always included Mama Ruby.

  “What will you do when I get married and leave home?” Maureen, seventeen at the time, had asked Mama Ruby that question one Sunday afternoon after they had come home from church.

  Mama Ruby had rushed into the kitchen and started humming her favorite spiritual, “I Been in the Storm Too Long,” as she stirred a pot of Chinese mustard greens on the stove. She didn’t even bother to turn around as Maureen fidgeted in a chair at the table, wondering how she was going to tell Mama Ruby that she was pregnant.

  “You ain’t goin’ no place,” Mama Ruby casually told her. “As long as you got me, you don’t need no husband. Marriage is too much trouble. How many times do I have to tell you that, girl?” It was hot and they were in the house alone, so all Mama Ruby wore was a half-slip that looked more like a white tent and a matching bra. She had draped the crisp white usher’s uniform that she had worn to church around her shoulders like a cape.

  When Mama Ruby turned around to face Maureen, Maureen could see the handle of the switchblade she always carried—even when she was in bed asleep or making love to one of her men friends or in church—sticking out of her bra.

  “Don’t you want grandchildren?” Maureen asked, swallowing hard. She touched her belly and pressed her lips together to keep from moaning, knowing that what lay in her belly, getting bigger each day, could mean certain death for John French. It didn’t matter that Mama Ruby adored John. As a matter of fact, she used to look after him when he was a baby, so she regarded herself as a “mammy” of sorts in his case. Had she known that John had raped Maureen, she would have chastised him severely. It made no difference that John was white. Mama Ruby jokingly referred to herself as an equal-opportunity enforcer, and she had proven that on more than one occasion.

  “What’s wrong with you, girl?” Mama Ruby asked. “You know how much I love kids! I want me a bunch of grandbabies. You don’t need no husband for that!”

  “So how do I make those babies for you, then?”

  “The same way I made . . . uh . . . you. Now, I know you human and bound to make mistakes. I sure did. You might get drunk and forget your religion and end up in some man’s bed and get pregnant a few times. I won’t have no problem with that. That could happen to anybody, and if you ask me, that’s the best way to get a family. You don’t need no husband to be cookin’ and cleanin’ for just so he can pester another woman after you done trained and groomed him!”

  “You had a husband when you got pregnant with Virgil and another one when you got pregnant with me,” Maureen reminded. “Two different men.” Ruby had been married only once—to Virgil’s father. The story that she and Virgil had concocted about Maureen’s father had become so vague and inconsistent over the years that Maureen rarely asked about him. All Maureen and everybody else knew was that the “low-down, funky black dog” had deserted Mama Ruby before she gave birth to Maureen. The latest version of the story had him living in a foreign country with a Jewish woman.

  “You see what that got me! Neither man was man enough to stay with me. Both of them mangy dogs left me while I was still pregnant, and even after I had y’all, neither one of them came to see his child.”

  “I know my daddy just up and left with that Jewish woman, but you shot and killed Virgil’s daddy,” Maureen piped i
n.

  “That’s another thing! It’s on account of a husband that I got a police record. Me—a child of God! I bet Jesus wept when they threw me into jail that time.” Mama Ruby snorted and began to speak more gently, even though she was still fired up and ready to condemn every man on the planet if she had to just to make Maureen see things her way. “See, marriage is like havin’ your bowels blocked. Once you get that mess out of you, you’d be a fool to let it happen again. That’s why I ain’t in no hurry to marry Slim after all these years that me and him been engaged. I just let him think that we gettin’ married so he’ll keep bein’ generous to us. Come taste these greens and tell me if they need more seasonin’.”

  That was the day that Maureen knew for sure she could never tell anybody the truth about how she got pregnant. Not even Virgil. He had enough problems of his own, so she couldn’t understand why he was so worried about Loretta and Mel. She wasn’t! Mel was a good man and Loretta was a good girl.

  The biggest problem that Virgil had these days was trying to decide when he should tell Maureen that Mama Ruby had kidnapped her. With the way things were going in her life, he had gradually changed the “when” to an “if,” and that made him feel better about the situation.

  Despite his concerns about Mel’s relationship with Loretta, Virgil was still pleased that Maureen was married. She seemed happy. She had everything she needed. Therefore, Virgil asked himself again, What good would it really do if I tell her?