“Have you told your mother all of this?”
She shrugged. “Some of it, but then she starts to look all sad, like she’s going to cry, and I give up. She’s never going to tell me.”
“Don’t give up on your mother, Monika. Talking about your father may be hard for her. It may bring up painful memories. She may not know how to tell you. Ask her again and tell her how you feel.”
“It won’t help.”
“You won’t know unless you try.”
Monika was silent the rest of the trip home. Francine turned onto the girl’s street and then followed her directions to her driveway. The lights were on in the two-story colonial, so she assumed Monika’s mother was home. “Are you okay?” she asked Monika. “About what happened at the store?”
Monika nodded.
“What about your mother? Are you going to talk to her again?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“And you’ll tell me what happens?”
Monika nodded and reached for the door handle.
Francine reached for hers too.
“I’m not a baby. You don’t have to walk me to the door.”
Francine was about to respond when the front door of the house opened and a woman about her age, or a little older, came out. When Monika got out of the car, the woman walked forward. Francine got out of the car.
“Francine,” the woman said. “I’m Dolores King. Thanks for giving Monika a ride home. Mother Harris called and told me you’d be bringing her home some evenings.” Dolores draped an arm around Monika’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “She didn’t give you any grief about her math tonight, did she?”
“Momma!”
Francine laughed as Monika rolled her eyes and broke free of her mother’s embrace. “See you tomorrow, Francie,” she said, heading for the door.
“Teenagers,” Dolores said, looking fondly after her daughter. Francine had no doubt the woman dearly loved Monika.
“She’s a great kid,” Francine said.
Dolores beamed and her resemblance to Monika was so stark that Francine wondered how the teenager could not see it. “Yes, she is.”
“We had an incident at the store tonight,” Francine said, feeling a bit awkward but knowing Dolores deserved to know so that she could talk to Monika. “George Roberts came by.”
“That couldn’t have been good.”
“So you know about me and his sister?”
Dolores nodded. “I’m so sorry for what happened.”
“Thanks, but you should know that George said a lot of things, some of which Monika overheard.”
“What did he say?”
She took a deep breath. “The two biggies were when he accused me of killing his sister and pimping her to my pastor.”
“He actually said that?”
“Those words exactly. I’m so sorry Monika was anywhere around. I sent her to the storeroom but I’m sure she overheard a lot of what he was saying, since he was yelling most of the time.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“We talked a little on the ride home about the suicide, and she mentioned some girl from school who had almost died trying to abort her baby.”
Dolores sucked in her breath. “So awful. Kids.”
Francine debated whether to tell Dolores the other things Monika had said, but she didn’t feel she had any choice. Toni’s suicide was too fresh on her mind. If she could offer any help to this family, she had to do so. Trying not to betray Monika’s confidence, she said, “Monika also talked about her father tonight.”
The other woman’s face fell.
“I know this is none of my business,” Francine rushed on, “but I thought you’d want to know. He’s weighing heavily on her heart.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Francine smiled. “I knew you would.”
Dolores backed toward the house. “Thanks for bringing Monika home and thanks for telling me what she said.”
“Not a problem at all.”
“You’ll have to come to my spa, Kings and Queens. Your sister’s one of our regular customers. She was in this morning and made an appointment for you to come in with her next time. We give first-time-customer discounts.”
“I look forward to it. Talk to you later. And tell Monika good night for me.”
Chapter 8
Dolores forced herself to go upstairs to her daughter’s room. This was a conversation she didn’t want to have, she had avoided having, but she’d known that one day she’d have to tell her daughter the truth. Was tonight the night? Monika’s door, as usual, was closed when Dolores reached the teen’s room. Knocking, she called her daughter’s name.
“Come in,” Monika said.
Dolores opened the door and found her daughter sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading a book—or pretending to. She looked like an African princess on a punk rock throne. The loud purple and pink that covered her walls set off the hot pink comforter dotted with royal-purple throw pillows. Yet these bright colors clashed mightily with the Afrocentric sisterlocks covering her head, the spattering of African prints on her walls, and the antique figurines scattered across every available surface. How she loved this multifaceted child! Dolores thought as she moved to sit on the bed next to her daughter. She rubbed her hand across the sisterlocks the teen had worn for the last year. “Tough day, huh?”
As was her way more and more often now, Monika shrugged.
“Francine told me what Mr. Roberts said. Do you want to talk about it?”
Monika put her book down and gave her a militant stare. “I want to talk about my father, my grandparents. Why won’t you tell me?”
Dolores stopped rubbing her daughter’s head and gave a heartfelt sigh. “What do you want to know?”
Monika sat up in reaction to her mother’s question. Dolores knew it was because mother had surprised daughter for a change. “You’re going to tell me? Really?”
“I’m going to try.”
Monika looked skeptical. “The truth this time?” she asked.
Dolores nodded. “What do you want to know?”
Monika hugged one of her royal-purple pillows to her chest. “Is he really dead?”
Dolores closed her eyes and breathed out a soft “No.”
“I knew it,” Monika said, tossing the pillow away. “I knew it. Why did you lie to me, Momma?”
Dolores smiled at her teenager whose voice now sounded as if it belonged to a five-year-old. “I thought it was the right thing to do. A lie was much easier than the truth, so I took the easy way out.”
“You’re always telling me not to lie, and you lied.”
Dolores didn’t flinch from her daughter’s accusatory tone. “You’re right,” she agreed. “You shouldn’t lie and I shouldn’t have lied to you. My only excuse is that I told myself I’d tell you the truth when I thought you were old enough to handle it.”
“When would that have been?”
Dolores smiled at the challenge in her daughter’s voice. “The time seemed to change every year. This year I decided to tell you when you graduated from college. Probably next year, it would have been when you got married.” Monika’s lips turned up in an almost smile, and Dolores seized the small encouragement.
“Whatever I did, whatever lies I told, you have to believe that I love you, Monika, and I did it because I thought it was best for both of us.”
“Well, it wasn’t best for me. I want to know my father. Who is he?”
Dolores latched onto her daughter’s hand and held it tightly in her own. “I promise to tell you the truth, Monika, but just because I tell you the truth doesn’t mean you’re going to get to know your father.” Dolores so wanted to say “sperm donor,” but she couldn’t hurt her daughter that way.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that life is complicated. You’re only fifteen and I worry even now that you’re not old enough to handle this.”
“I can handle it,” Monika sai
d defiantly. “Tell me about him. Who is he?”
“Your father is a man I met when I was a young woman. He was very handsome, but much older than me.” She tightened her hold on her daughter’s hand. She’d promised the truth and she prayed the truth wouldn’t ruin her daughter’s opinion of her. “He was married, Monika.”
Monika only nodded. “I figured it had to be something like that.”
“How did you figure that?”
She lifted her slight shoulders in a shrug. “I’m not a baby, Momma. I know stuff. I knew it had to be something like that. Did he have other children?”
Dolores nodded. “Three sons. They were in middle school when I met him.”
“So what happened?”
“Two years after I met him—I was twenty-three—our relationship changed.”
“You mean you started having sex with him.”
Dolores nodded. “He was my first, and even though I knew it was wrong, I convinced myself that it was right because we loved each other.” Only he hadn’t loved her, but how did she explain this to the daughter who was the fruit of that relationship?
“Did he?” she asked. “Love you, I mean?”
“He cared about me, I think,” Dolores added, “but no, he didn’t love me.” She hoped this one little lie wouldn’t come back to haunt her, but how could she explain to her daughter that he hadn’t cared for her at all?
“What about me?” she asked.
Dolores debated another lie. “I told him, but we decided it was best if nobody else found out. So I never told anyone but him that he was your father.”
“Not even your foster parents?”
Dolores nodded. “Not even them. By that time, I was living on my own and we didn’t really keep in touch.”
“But you never told anyone who he was?”
Dolores shook her head. “He had a wife and children. I couldn’t hurt them that way. I knew he was married, Monika. I was hurt, but I knew he was married.”
“He wasn’t a very good guy, was he?”
Dolores hated the pain in her daughter’s voice. “He was young then, Monika, even though he was much older than I was. I like to think that he’s grown into a better man. We both know that God can change a person’s heart; I can only pray that He’s changed your father’s.”
“Did he see me when I was a baby?”
Dolores nodded. “He took care of us when I was pregnant and for a while after you were born. He loved holding you.” Another lie, but for the right reason.
“So what happened to him?”
“He was married, Monika, and I couldn’t continue to live that way and neither could he. He had big plans for his life and you and I didn’t fit in with them, so we ended the relationship.”
“Just like that?”
Dolores shook her head. “No, it was much harder than it looked. He got a better job and he and his family moved away.”
“Did you keep up with him over the years?”
“Not really.” Another lie.
“Do you know where he is now?”
Dolores nodded.
“You haven’t told me his name. What’s his name?”
“Edward.”
“Edward what?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, it matters. He’s my father. He’s alive and I want to meet him.”
Dolores shook her head. “He’s married, Monika. He has a family. You can’t go meet him.”
“Why not? He wasn’t thinking about his family when he was having sex with you. Why should he be worried about them now? I want to meet him, Momma. I need to see him. Please.”
The anguish in Monika’s voice tore at Dolores’s heart. She hadn’t known how much this meant to her daughter, or more truthfully, she hadn’t wanted to know how much it meant. She pulled her daughter close to her and said the words she hadn’t wanted to ever utter, “He may not want to meet you, Monika. He has a family, position in the community. He’s not going to want that upset.”
Monika pulled back. “How do you know? Like you said, God could have changed his heart. He may want to see me. I bet he’s thought about me over the years. I’m his only daughter. He didn’t have another daughter, did he?”
“No, he didn’t. Just the three sons.”
“I have to meet him, Momma. Just one time.”
Dolores pulled her daughter into her arms again. “I’ll see what I can do, Monika, but I can’t make any promises.” She kissed her daughter on her head. “I love you, Moni. I love you so much. I don’t want you to ever forget it.”
Dolores felt her daughter’s arms tighten around her, and took comfort in the girl’s neediness. “I love you too, Momma.”
~ ~ ~
Francine was near tears when she walked into the living room of the Amen-Ray home later that night. She’d only been home one day and already her past had come back to slap her in the face. She’d known she’d have to face Toni’s family, known it would be difficult, known they were still hurting. She’d even thought she was prepared for it, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t prepared for the crushing brutality of George’s words, or the pained look on Monika’s face, or the aching concern on Dolores’s when she learned what her daughter had overheard. The past had reached out and dirtied somebody else’s life, a child’s, and it wasn’t fair. All that, after the day had gotten off to such a good start. Mother Harris. The job. Monika. All in all a great day, and then the past had ruined it. It wasn’t fair!
“What’s not fair?”
Francine looked up at the sound of Sly’s voice, surprised to learn she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. “It’s nothing,” she said, rushing to the stairs, hoping she could get to her room without more questions. She couldn’t handle them tonight. Tonight she wanted to give in to the despair she felt. She wanted to cry tears of self-pity. What she didn’t want was to burden Sly or Dawn.
Sly’s arm caught hers as her foot hit the bottom step. “Hey,” he said, turning her around. “What’s the matter?”
She shook her head. “Let it be, Sly, it’s nothing. I want to go to bed.”
He looked at her more closely and she lowered her eyes. “You’ve been crying,” he said.
She tried to give him a smile. “PMS.”
He smiled in return, remembering the times in the past when he’d teased her about her moodiness, labeling it PMS. He’d only done so because he knew it teed her off. “Not you,” he said. “Tell me what’s wrong. You know I’m not going to give up until you do.”
Francine breathed deeply. “You have better things to do than listen to my problems. I was serious when I told you and Dawn this morning that I didn’t want everything to be about me.”
He tipped her chin up and she looked directly into his caring eyes. It was almost her undoing. “We’re family, Francie. You need help. We’re there for you. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s—” she began, trying to deny her pain, but then Sly shook his head slowly back and forth, and she collapsed in his arms. His arms tightened around her and she took comfort in the strength of them. “Oh, Sly,” she said. “It was awful. Just awful.”
Brushing a soothing hand up and down her back, Sly led her to the living room sofa and sat down next to her. He continued to rub his hand across her shoulders. “Tell me,” he said.
The entire sordid story tumbled out between her tears. “The worst was that Monika had to hear all of the ugliness George spewed. I know he’s hurt and I feel for him, but he didn’t have to say those things in front of Monika. She’s a child. He should have known better.”
“He wasn’t thinking, Francie.”
“I know, but that doesn’t help Monika. I had to tell her about Toni’s suicide. Then I had to tell her mother that I told her. Now her mother’s going to have to talk to her. Why should a fifteen-year-old have to deal with that filth? Monika and I didn’t even get into the ‘pimping’ comment that George made. I know she’s going to ask about it, though. She’s a bright girl.”
&n
bsp; Sylvester continued to rub her shoulders. “She’ll ask and you’ll tell her in a way that she understands.” He tipped her chin up again. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Francine. You have to remember that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Francine stared at the brick fireplace that dominated the north wall of the living room, noticing that Dawn had replaced the old silver fireplace screen with a bright gold one. “Maybe I shouldn’t even work at the bookstore. I told Mother Harris that something like this might happen, but even I didn’t expect it to happen the first day, and I never expected it to be so loud and ugly.”
“Like that would matter to Mother Harris. Do you really think she’ll want you to quit because of this?”
Francine knew Mother Harris wouldn’t want her to quit. That wasn’t the older lady’s style. She’d want Francine to stay and she’d stand by her, but was it fair to subject Mother Harris, Monika, and the bookstore customers to the hatred directed solely at her? She thought it wasn’t.
“If it’s taking you this long to answer, you must not know Mother Harris as well as I thought you did.”
Francine wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “I know her, but that doesn’t mean she’s always right.”
Sly arched a brow. “She’s right more than most people I know, including you. Look, you had a rough day. Don’t try to make any decisions right now. Things will look better in the morning.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Sylvester dropped his hand from her shoulder and sank back into the plush cushions of the couch. “When did you become so selfish?” he asked.
She turned back to him. “What? I’m not being selfish. I’m trying to think of other people—Mother Harris, Monika.”
“Not that. I’m talking about your attitude toward your problems. You seem to think you’re the only person with problems, the only person who faces disappointments. Well, I didn’t have the best day today myself, but I can’t quit my job and hide out in my room because of it. You’ve got to shape up, Francie. Everybody has problems. Just because yours sent you to the hospital doesn’t mean you have the market cornered.”
Genesis House Inspirational Romance and Family Drama Boxed Set: 3-in-1 Page 57