Snapped

by Tracy Brown

  Frankie headed to the kitchen with Mayra. He looked in Camille’s direction and waved, happy that she had kept her distance all night even though she was holding court at the bar like a lush. She waved back, but as soon as he went into the kitchen, her smile faded. She was miserable, and the alcohol in her system was giving her some much-needed liquid courage. Camille grabbed her drink and headed over to the couch where Gillian was seated.

  Camille plopped down on the sofa right next to Gillian and seemed to catch her by surprise. “Well, hello, Gillian.” Camille had a grin on her face like the cat who ate the canary. “I’ve seen you sitting over here all night, but we haven’t had a chance to talk.”

  Gillian smirked at Frankie’s wife, wondering why she was there. “I was just surprised to see that you came,” she said honestly. “This is a first.”

  Camille nodded, crossed her legs, and tried to fix her shirt to disguise the belly fat that was spilling over the top of her jeans. Gillian’s flawless figure never ceased to intimidate Camille. “I just couldn’t stand to not be around Frankie on Thanksgiving.” Camille thought she saw Gillian roll her eyes, but she wasn’t sure. Since she had been drinking, she didn’t want to jump to conclusions and cause a scene. So she overlooked it. “I hardly get to see him anymore since he’s always with you.”

  Gillian looked directly at Camille and had to admire her straightforwardness. For several moments she didn’t know what to say. Unexpectedly speechless, she smiled at Camille. Finally, she managed to ask, “How was Thanksgiving at your house?”

  Camille sipped her drink. “It was nothing like this.” She watched as Tremaine staggered through the living room, and shook her head.

  Gillian looked at Frankie’s wife as if she was crazy. Was this stuck-up bitch looking down her nose at them? “Really? Well, Frankie seems to be enjoying himself.” Gillian gestured toward the center of the room, where Frankie was battling Mikey to see who could do the robot the best. Mayra stood close by, holding Frankie’s plate of cobbler and egging them on.

  Camille had to admit that she hadn’t seen her husband have this much fun at home in months. She stared at him so long that she forgot that Gillian was sitting beside her until she spoke again.

  “You’re a very lucky woman, Camille. Frankie’s a good man.”

  Camille wanted to throw her drink in the bitch’s face. “I know that.”

  Frankie appeared suddenly, and could sense the tension between the two women immediately. He wondered what had possessed Camille to strike up a conversation with Gillian. The sight of the two of them seated side by side made him cringe. “Hey,” he said. “What y’all talking about?”

  Gillian grinned. “We were just talking about you, actually. I think Mikey’s robot was better than yours.”

  Frankie laughed. “Whatever!”

  Camille didn’t say a word and instead sipped some more of her drink. The doorbell rang and Gillian rose to answer it. Frankie sat beside Camille and smiled. “Having fun?”

  “Yeah. This is a real experience.”

  Frankie sensed the sarcasm in her voice and shook his head. “You could’ve stayed home, you know. This ain’t really your scene.”

  Camille’s feelings were hurt. She felt that Frankie didn’t want her there. Before she could respond, Gillian came back into the room with her boyfriend, Sadiq, in tow. He greeted Nobles and Mayra and then came over to where Frankie sat on the couch.

  “Mr. Bingham. How are you?” Sadiq had a big smile on his face as if he and Frankie were old friends. Frankie had to battle the urge to punch him in his mouth.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” he said instead. “You’re getting here kinda late, aren’t you?”

  Sadiq sighed and looked at Gillian. “I had to spend the day with my mother. I’m her only son, so I couldn’t get around it.”

  Gillian scrunched her lips up at Sadiq’s excuse. “I told him to invite his mother over here, but he chose not to,” she said.

  Sadiq shook his head. “She likes to spend the holidays close to home.” He looked at Frankie and Camille. “My mother lives all the way out in South Jersey.” The truth was that Sadiq’s uppity mother refused to come to the home of a drug lord for the holiday. They were an upper-middle-class family, and the criminal aspect of the Nobles family didn’t sit well with her. Sadiq enjoyed spending time with Gillian, but his mother was waiting for the day when he’d find a woman who was better suited to their lifestyle.

  Camille chimed in. “I can understand her wanting to be closer to home. I’m the same way. But Frankie wanted to come over here, so . . . here we are.” She sipped her drink again.

  Frankie cut a glance at his wife, and Gillian watched the exchange. Clearly, there was trouble in paradise.

  “Okay, guys. I think Sadiq and I are gonna head home now,” she said.

  “Home?” Frankie asked, as if that was the last thing he wanted. “Everybody’s just getting started. Why would you leave?”

  Gillian looked Frankie in the eye and then looked down at his wife still seated on the couch. She turned back to Frankie. “I’m tired. I’m sure Sadiq is, too.” Sadiq nodded in agreement. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Sure has!” Camille agreed.

  Gillian bit her lip to keep from saying something slick. “Frankie, call me tomorrow.” Gillian smiled at Camille. “Have a good night.”

  “You, too.” Camille managed a fake smile and watched as Gillian and Sadiq said good night to her parents and to the guests scattered around the opulent home. Camille was thrilled to see her go and hoped that Frankie would be ready to go soon as well. She was sick of this whole scene and anxious to get back to the comforts of her own home.

  Frankie sat and watched as Gillian sauntered out of the house with Sadiq. He thought about what she had said—that she had known all along that Camille wasn’t right for him. As he watched Gillian leave and then glanced at Camille, he wished that he had figured that out a long time ago.

  Daddy’s Girl

  “Blake Realty,” Toya answered her desk phone as she composed an e-mail to a prospective home buyer. She had just returned from out of town. First, she’d gone to Brazil with Alex to celebrate her thirtieth birthday. Then she’d come back to the States and gone directly to Atlanta to spend Thanksgiving with her mother and her brothers. Now that she was back in New York, she was exhausted, but had a ton of work to get to. She cradled the phone on her shoulder as she typed away.

  “Don’t hang up this time, Latoya.”

  That voice was back again—that same voice that terrorized her in nightmares when she slept and in her worst memories when she was awake. With her teeth clenched, she hissed, “How the hell did you get this phone number?”

  Nate took a deep breath. “I called your mother and—”

  Toya hung up on him in midsentence and immediately dialed her mother in Atlanta. When she answered, Toya wasted no time getting to the point.

  “Ma, why the hell would you give Nate my phone number?” Normally, Toya would have never spoken to her mother, Jeanie, this way. But today’s circumstances were exceptional.

  Jeanie sighed. “Toya, he’s your father—”

  “That crazy bastard ain’t shit to me!” She was furious. “Are you kidding me right now?”

  Jeanie’s voice rose. “Now, listen here! I’m your mother, Toya. I don’t care how grown you are.”

  “Exactly! And as my mother, you should understand why I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “There are things you don’t know about your father, Toya. You should listen to what he has to say.”

  Toya felt like she was in The Twilight Zone. “Are you hearing yourself? What could he possibly have to say to me? In fact, why are you talking to him? Don’t you remember what he did to this family? How could you listen to anything he has to say? And how dare you give him my information? I was wondering how that bastard got my cell phone number when he called me a few weeks ago. Now you done gave him my office number, too? He came to my house! You mus
t be crazy if you think I’m gonna talk to him.”

  Jeanie had known that her daughter would react this way. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I know how you feel, Toya.”

  “Obviously, you don’t! ’Cuz if you did, you never would have betrayed me like this.”

  “Betrayed you? You’re overreacting.”

  “I don’t have nothing else to say to you right now. Call me back when you come to your senses and, until then, stop giving my phone number out!” Toya slammed the phone down, irate that her mother was being such a sucker. Toya vowed that she would never forgive her father, regardless of what he or anyone else had to say about it.

  She paced her office, feeling frustrated, angry, and disgusted by both of her parents. Her father for the ways he’d hurt her in her lifetime, and her mother for being such a damn sucker for love.

  Dominique was seated at her desk when she got a call on her cell phone. She didn’t recognize the phone number, but answered it anyway. What she heard on the other end made her heart stand still.

  “This is Diane, Mr. Bill Storms’s dialysis nurse. Is this Dominique Storms?”

  “Yes.” Dominique was on the edge of her seat.

  “I’m afraid there’s been an accident. I’ll need you to come to the emergency room at Staten Island University Hospital immediately.”

  Dominique hurriedly turned her computer off and within seconds was racing down the corridor headed for the elevator. “What happened?” she asked, panicking. “What happened to my father?”

  “Dominique, the graft in your father’s arm where we hook him up to the dialysis machine was compromised. Your father has gone into cardiac arrest. Please hurry. It’s very serious.”

  Dominique quickly ended the call, jumped on the elevator, got in her car, and sped off to Staten Island in tears. In the car, her legs trembled as she drove, her hands gripped the wheel tightly, and her vision was blurred by tears. All she could think about were the words the nurse had said— “cardiac arrest,” “serious.” She felt like traffic was at a complete standstill even though she was zipping up the FDR Drive at seventy miles per hour. It occurred to her that it was a Monday and that Octavia would be expecting her to pick her up from dance class. While maintaining her speed, she dialed her daughter’s cell phone number and got her voice mail. She left a frantic message explaining that Bill was at the hospital and that Dominique would send someone else to pick her up. Next, Dominique called Toya at work.

  “Blake Realty, how may I help you?”

  “Toya, my father was rushed to the emergency room from dialysis and I’m on my way to the hospital now.”

  “Oh my God!” Toya could hear the urgency in Dominique’s voice and could tell that this was serious. “You need me to come there?”

  Dominique switched lanes. “No. But I was wondering if you could pick Octavia up from her dance class on Eighty-sixth Street for me?”

  “Of course,” Toya said. “Give me her cell phone number and I’ll pick her up and keep her with me until you get home.”

  Dominique recited the information for Toya as she neared the tunnel. “Toya, thank you so much for doing this.”

  “Girl, please! This is what friends do. I got you. Just go see about your father. And calm down. You don’t need to be frantic while you’re driving. Be careful and call me and let me know what’s going on.”

  Dominique hung up and sped through the tunnel, her heartbeat racing just as fast as the car she was in. Every mile seemed longer than the last. She kept thinking about her father and the things they’d been through as a team throughout her lifetime.

  She recalled the day she told him that she was pregnant at the age of seventeen. Whitney had called her dumb, crazy, and every other negative adjective she could think of. She had urged her sister to “get rid of it” and shaken her head at her stupidity when Dominique refused. Dominique had known that it wouldn’t be easy being a young mother. She knew that the odds were stacked against her and that her dreams may have to be deferred because of the decision she was making. But more than anything, she was afraid of being the recipient of her father’s disappointment. She was scared to death it would change the way he felt about her. But Bill had listened as she laid out her reasons for not wanting to abort her child. He listened as Whitney berated her sister, and then he spoke at last.

  “Leave her alone, Whitney,” he had said. “She’s keeping the baby. That’s it.” Looking at Dominique, he had smiled. “It’s okay, baby. I got your back. We’ll figure it out and everything is gonna be all right. You know that Daddy loves you.”

  Dominique had burst into tears, relieved that her father was still on her side, that he still loved her and that he was supporting her decision. Throughout the months that followed, as her belly swelled more and more, Bill hadn’t hidden his head in shame as the neighbors stared and whispered about his child. And he hadn’t allowed Dominique to hide her head in shame, either. Each day, he’d walk with her to the store in their neighborhood, walk her to the bus stop on her way to school each morning, and smile at the nosy neighbors who stared at them. “You see?” he would say to them. “I’m about to be a grandfather for the first time! I hope it’s a boy!” His support of Dominique had helped to erase some of the shame she felt as a young lady with a baby face and a baby on the way. And that was typical of Bill Storms. No matter what mistakes or missteps his children made in their lives, he was supportive and didn’t judge them harshly for it.

  Even now, as Dominique saved her love for a man doing time for drug offenses, though Bill had clearly expressed his disapproval of the man she’d chosen to give her heart to, he never withdrew his support of her. He happily cared for her daughter while Dominique visited Jamel in prison. Although he would shake his head in amazement, questioning the wisdom of giving her all to a career criminal, he still supported her decision. “Be careful, Mimi,” he would say. “I don’t want to see you get your heart broken. But just remember this. If for whatever reason it doesn’t work out, just know that it’s his loss. Not yours. He may wind up right back in jail again after he’s released. When men go to jail, they’ll tell a woman whatever she needs to hear in order to get what they want from her. They’ll promise you the world. So don’t feel like it’s your fault if he doesn’t live up to what he promised you.”

  She thought about her struggles over the years as a single mother. Despite having Octavia at such a young age, Dominique had graduated on time, gone on to college, and carved out a remarkable career for herself. And while earning her high school diploma and her degree had been a great source of pride for her, Bill was most proud of the mother she had become. He watched the way that his daughter cared for Octavia and how his granddaughter thrived. Bill constantly told Dominique that she was a good mother, that she was a great daughter, and there had never been a doubt in her mind that she was loved. Even though her mother had been gone for most of her life, Dominique had never felt in any way deprived thanks to the wonderful father she’d been blessed with.

  When she finally reached the emergency room, she parked her car and ran inside, stopping at the security desk outside the ER to explain who she was and why she was there. They had been expecting her, and the security guard ushered her inside, where a doctor greeted her as she entered.

  “Miss Storms, my name is Dr. Yang.” He extended his hand to her and she shook it, eager for more information on her dad’s condition.

  “Hello.”

  He led her into a small room. “Your father is in a coma right now.”

  A sob escaped Dominique’s lips. “How did this happen?”

  “One of the new technicians at the clinic had been using the graft in your father’s arm to hook him up to the dialysis machine despite the fact that there was a clog in the graft. Normally, there’s very little bleeding as a result of a clog like that. What they’ll usually do in such a situation is bandage the site and use extra caution when hooking the patient up to the machine in order to avoid compromising the graft. Un
fortunately, what happened today was that the tech removed the bandage from your father’s arm in order to prepare to begin the process. But when the bandage was removed, the graft came out of his arm, which caused a massive flow of blood from both the main artery and a vein in your father’s arm.”

  Dominique was trembling and shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Before the nurses were able to stop the bleeding, your father went into cardiac arrest and his heart stopped.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “They managed to revive him, and we got him here in the ER and repaired the site where the graft had been. We gave him three bags of blood, and we’ll give him some more soon. That will, hopefully, bring his blood pressure up. However, he hasn’t regained consciousness at this point.”

  “Where is he?” Dominique’s eyes scanned the room full of gurneys as she searched for her father.

  The doctor led her to a bed in the far corner of the room, where she saw a figure lying beneath a white sheet. Machines beeped and buzzed, and a myriad of tubes ran from those machines to the patient. Dominique stood at the foot of the bed, refusing at first to believe that the slight, frail figure lying there was her father—the man whom she’d seen as larger than life for so many years. She slowly inched forward, and tears flowed heavily once she gazed down at her father’s face. Bill was unconscious, with tubes in his nose, probes on his chest, and a respirator breathing for him.

  “Oh, Daddy . . .” She moved to the side of the bed and touched his face, praying that he would wake up at the sound of her voice. She looked at all the machines, listened to all the beeping and buzzing, and squeezed her father’s hand. “Daddy, what happened?”

  The doctor stood nearby, watching her crying and feeling extremely sympathetic toward her. It was clear that this was a daughter who adored her father, and as she dissolved into sobs that shook her to her core, he stepped forward and patted her on the back to comfort her.

  She rubbed her father’s hand, stroked his face, and spoke in a soft voice. “Daddy, it’s me . . . Mimi. I’m here. I got here as fast as I could. I need you to open your eyes now. Please. Open your eyes or squeeze my hand. Come on.”