Lawd, Mo' Drama

by McKinney, Tina Brooks

  “Those kids are going to be okay; if you will stop smothering them,” Momma stated vehemently.

  “Oh, you’re one to talk. You’re still hovering over me,” I said with a smile. We had such a good relationship. I could not help thanking God for sending me such a special mother. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

  She laughed. “Oh hell, what else do you want?”

  “Momma, I’m serious! I really appreciate your support. I couldn’t have dealt with this without you.” I stopped smiling, turning serious. “Do you know that just last week, I contemplated killing us all?”

  The room grew silent and, as much as I didn’t want to, I forced myself to gaze into her eyes.

  “You can’t mean that?”

  I nodded my head. “It’s true. If I’d had a gun, I really think I would’ve done it. I can’t stand to be a burden on anyone. The mere fact that that bastard left us to fend for ourselves made us a target. At the time, I thought it was my only solution. Now, I’m glad that I held on to my faith that God would bring us through this.”

  “I am too, sugar. I would’ve hated to have to dig your body up to whip the tar out of you!”

  “Oh, I’m better now, but it was rough going. Things seem to be turning around.”

  “So, do you want to tell me his name?” Momma asked.

  Blushing, I lowered my head, avoiding her eyes. I did not realize my emotions were so transparent.

  “How could I not notice? This is the first time I’ve truly seen you smile in years. Whoever he is, he is doing you some good!”

  “I just met him, but he seems really nice. He’s the police officer who pulled me over the day when I got the job. He wants to come over tonight and watch some movies, but I told him I’d have to let him know. Lord knows I don’t want him to see Mya acting out so soon.”

  “Why not let them stay here with me? I’m not doing anything tonight, and they need to start breaking away from you.”

  “Momma, you do enough for me. I don’t want to take advantage of you!”

  “Let me be the judge of when I’ve had enough. Feed them first and bring them over after they’re through. You can get them tomorrow after lunch,” she said, giving me my last Saturday free before I started work. I was happy enough to sing but, unfortunately, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, so I simply left to go pick up the children.

  SAMMIE

  Porsche was talking to someone who had her back to me. She was my height, but she was a slimmer version. When she turned around it was like staring in the mirror at a woman who was at least forty pounds lighter than me. With the exception of the weight, she could have been my twin.

  “Holy shit!” we said in unison.

  “Damn,” Porsche said. “Sammie?” she asked of my double.

  “No, my name is Jasmine!”

  I started to feel weak in the knees, and looked for something that would support my weight. “Damn, you look like me,” I croaked, wiping the perspiration gathering on my forehead.

  “Well, I’ll just be dipped,” Jasmine said, shaking her head. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “I’ve been talking to her for the last fifteen minutes, thinking she was you! Are you two related?” Porsche asked. Clearly Porsche had had one too many apple martinis if she mistook the lady she was talking to for me.

  “I’ve never seen her before in my life!” we both exclaimed. I scratched my eyebrow; a nervous tick I’d had since childhood.

  “Excuse me, but we need to talk.” Without waiting for Jasmine to reply, I grabbed her elbow.

  “Wait, I wanna know, too!” Porsche screamed, starting to follow.

  “No!” we said at the same time.

  “Sorry, Porsche. We have to figure this out ourselves,” I said as we inched our way through the club until we reached a quieter spot. Neither of us wanted to be the first to speak. The shit was so weird that I didn’t know where to begin. Then, at the same time, we blurted out, “When is your birthday?” It was so funny that we both burst out laughing.

  “Mine is November third,” I said.

  “Oh shit, so is mine,” Jasmine replied. Suddenly this coincidence went to a whole different level.

  I felt like I walked into an episode of The Twilight Zone. “You look just like me; except about forty pounds lighter.”

  “What’s your mother’s name?” Jasmine asked.

  “Althea Davis,” I responded.

  “Nope, that ain’t it. Who’s your father?”

  Tears welled up in my eyes. “To be honest, I don’t know. I didn’t discover that my stepfather wasn’t my father until after his death. I never questioned my mother about my real father.”

  Jasmine led me from the club. We did not talk again until we got to my car.

  “Will your mother answer the question? I think we need to know!” she said.

  “I doubt it. What about your mother?”

  “Let’s go see. Can you take a ride?”

  I was eager to get to the bottom of the puzzle. “How about I follow you?”

  “No problem. I’m in the next row.”

  She turned around and got into a really fly convertible. My mind was reeling as I followed her to her mother’s house. This was something that you heard about on television but never experienced in life. Simply by looking at Jasmine, I realized that she was related to me, but I still couldn’t think of an explanation.

  We only drove fifteen minutes before she pulled over in front of a lavish home that sat on at least three acres of land. We parked side by side in the circular driveway. She had to practically pull me from the car to go inside. Jasmine used her key and we entered a wide foyer. I was shaking both inside and out. A woman who was smaller in size hurried out of what I assumed was the family room, took one look at Jasmine and me, and fainted.

  “Shit,” Jasmine and I said together.

  “We’re going to have to stop that,” Jasmine said, laughing. I think she was enjoying our little episode, but I was having a hard time with it.

  “I’ve been the black sheep for so long, it’s time I rubbed some dirt into Momma’s face,” Jasmine said as she fanned her mother.

  The woman’s eyes blinked open, and she alternated looking at Jasmine and me. The only word that slipped from her lips was “Fuck!”

  That was when I grew convinced that Jasmine was my half-sister. Andrea did not have to explain the story to me; I already knew. It explained why my mother had never told me who my real father was. It also explained her hatred toward me.

  “That bastard,” Jasmine’s mother hissed at me.

  “Momma, that’s not nice. Sammie never even knew. We only met tonight. She doesn’t even know who Daddy was!”

  “It doesn’t matter. He told me that the bastard died at birth. It’s bad enough that hussy went into labor the same day and at the same hospital as me,” she spat. If words were weapons, hers could have drawn blood.

  “Momma!” Jasmine yelled. ”She doesn’t deserve this. She’s a victim; just like me! We were both deprived of each other when we clearly needed one another. How dare you not tell me that I had a sister! All these years of loneliness and you could’ve done something about it! You know how much I wanted a brother or a sister, and you deliberately withheld that information from me. I blame you as much as I blame him! I knew something was missing when you kept buying me shit!”

  Stunned, I listened to them go back and forth. I have a sister after all these years?

  “I didn’t tell you because it still hurts me, even though your father is dead! He had an affair with our next-door neighbor and threatened to leave me! It wasn’t until he found out that I was pregnant with you that he decided to stay!” she wailed.

  “Althea had an affair with a married man?” I asked.

  “Yes. She used to be my best friend until she tried to steal my husband,” Andrea cried. “I made the mistake of telling her that he wasn’t the love of my life, and she stole him. When he was dying, he didn’t call out m
y name, the person who had been here with him for the last thirty-some years of his life. He called hers!”

  Shit became clear as she uttered those words. My bitch of a mother had decided to punish my real father by not allowing him to see me. She had not only hurt him, but she had also hurt me. I was never given the chance to know my father, and now they were telling me that he was dead. Althea had some fucking explaining to do, and I intended to catch her ass off-guard the same way I had been.

  Jasmine left the room, leaving me alone with Andrea. I was at a loss as to what to say to her. She wore her pain all over her face, and I fought against the impulse to rush her and give her a big hug. Silent tears rolled from her eyes as she glared at me.

  “Truth be told, I’ve hated you ever since I knew that you were going to be born. But, I was wrong. The sin wasn’t yours; it was my husband’s and your mother’s. I was wrong to take my anger out on you. You weren’t a willing participant.”

  “Yeah, I could’ve used a little sisterly support, but that’s in the past. I only want to address the future,” I said.

  Jasmine came back in the room with a large photo album. “Can I show her pictures?” she asked her mother. Andrea nodded her head in agreement. I saw pictures of a little Jasmine who looked like me, with a father who I never knew and would not get the chance to know.

  It was a very emotional moment for all of us. I cried for the man I never knew, and they cried for his deception and their loss as well.

  As I was leaving, Andrea stopped me.

  “If it means anything to you, he was never the same after he broke up with Althea. I believe he grieved losing her and the fact that he never got the chance to meet you.”

  “Thanks, that means so much. You have to understand; I was brought up in a home full of hate. The only love I ever received was from my stepfather, but I was deceived. All my life I thought he was my father until he passed away. This whole ordeal is a total shock, and all I really want to do now is punish my mother like she has continuously punished me over the years.”

  “Uh, I don’t know what to say. Part of me wants to inflict the same type of pain on your mother that she bought on me, but I have to ask myself, what purpose will it serve? Daniel is gone. For me, it’s over. I lost my husband twice. First time with your mother and second when he died. Now all I want to do is make it right. Can I spend some time with you?” she asked.

  Stunned, I didn’t know how to respond to her unusual request. I nodded my head as I turned to leave. We had talked until the sun came up and now it was time to get more answers.

  “Where are you going?” Jasmine asked.

  “To see my mother,” I responded, snatching the door and stumbling down the two steps that led out of the house. My eyes were filled with tears born of deprivation. I wanted to crawl into a corner and have a gut-wrenching cry.

  “I’m coming with you, and I’m driving. You’re in no condition to drive. Plus, I want to meet the heifer who stole a part of our lives!” Jasmine paused and then exclaimed, “Oh, shit!”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry about calling your mother a heifer. That wasn’t nice.”

  “But it’s true. You’ll see; she’s a heifer and a bitch!”

  I grabbed the handle of the passenger side door of her two-seated convertible. I wanted to sink into the soft leather seats, but I was so angry that I could feel the smoke coming out of my nostrils and ears.

  “We missed so much!” Jasmine said, and that was an understatement.

  My jaw snapped shut, biting back the hateful comment that was about to spill from my lips. If only she knew, I thought to myself. Her childhood was a cakewalk compared to mine.

  “Look, I need to prepare you for Momma. I haven’t seen her since my daughter’s funeral.”

  “What? You had a child, and she died?” Jasmine shouted in the close confines of the car. Her voice echoed and each reverberation produced another wave of pain.

  Dejected, I replied, “Yeah, my fourteen-year-old daughter killed herself. Momma blames me.”

  “Wait, hold up. Fourteen? We’re the same age. When did you have her?”

  “I was fourteen when I had my son. Sixteen when I had my daughter. My son is currently in the army.”

  She shook her head. “Dayum!”

  “Anyway, we can talk about that later. My mother called about a month ago to rub it in my face that my son was expecting a child. Luckily for me I wasn’t home. My son and I hadn’t spoken since he left for the army, and she only called to hurt me. So I promise you, it won’t be a happy reunion. She might even cuss at you and throw us both out of the house!”

  “I don’t have time for that drama. I’m going to support you, and if the bitch says something that I don’t like, I’m gonna call her on it. I hope that you won’t get mad at me! We have a lot of catching up to do, but I refuse to pussyfoot around with one of the people who kept us apart! They created this shit; not us.”

  “I agree, but my mother’s a different animal. Let me give you some background, so you won’t be left with your lip hanging on the ground.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Momma and I have always had a difficult relationship. I thought she hated me, but I could never prove it. I moved out of her house with the first guy who asked me, and left for California. She convinced me to leave my children with her, which was my initial mistake. They grew up thinking that I was a family member instead of their mother. I’ll carry that mistake to the grave with me. It took a long time before they called me Mom!”

  “Damn, gurl!” she replied.

  “Wait, I ain’t finished. While I was away, my husband dragged me through hell. That story is too deep to get into now but I returned to Atlanta when the only father I had ever known passed away. Momma called and demanded that I come home to sign what I assumed was his will. He was dead for six months before I found out.

  “Shit.” Jasmine turned to look at me, barely missing a car approaching in another lane.

  “Gurl, you’re just driving away, and I ain’t even told you where she lives!” We both burst out laughing. I was such a happy passenger that I didn’t even realize we were headed in the wrong direction. “We’re going the wrong way. We need to go to Lithonia. Althea lives off South Harriston in Lithonia.”

  “My bad. I was headed to Boulevard Street, which was where my parents lived before we moved out here. I assumed Althea lived in the same house.” Jasmine turned the car around and headed in the opposite direction.

  “My dad won this big settlement when he damn near got killed on his job. Instead of investing the money in the bank, my mother insisted that we move out to Stone Mountain. It’s not much, but it made her happy at the time.”

  “I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings, but your mother seems like a real bitter pill to swallow,” Jasmine said.

  “That’s an understatement. She’s a bitch on wheels; pure and simple. I won’t even bother to lie to you about it because you’re about to find out firsthand.” A few minutes of silence passed before I had the nerve to continue. “She treated me like shit from the moment I was born. I never understood why, but it became clearer over the years. When my father died, she told me that he wasn’t my daddy. All those years I worshiped that man, and he didn’t even belong to me.”

  “Oh, he was yours. He was the only father you knew!”

  “Yeah, but it’s not the same. I still love and respect him since he was the only person in my immediate family who showed me love, but he wasn’t even related to me. I just wasn’t sure that his motives were pure. He knew that one way to piss my mother off was by showing me love!”

  “That sucks, for real!”

  “What was our father like?” I asked, choking up.

  “He was a kind and gentle man. He was attentive and loving. I could tell that the relationship with my mother wasn’t that strong, but he stuck around, so I guess that counts.”

  “Yeah, it does.” I pouted, feeling sorry for myself. “You kn
ow what? I don’t want to do this. Confronting my mother is only going to piss her off, and she isn’t going to answer any questions. Maybe I should get her alone,” I said, fear dissolving my desire for answers.

  “Oh, hell no! I want to meet the woman who almost ruined my life and kept my sister from me!” Jasmine angrily declared.

  “Your mother had a hand in the deception as well,” I said, starting to get mad myself.

  “But my mother was a victim. Our father and your mother were the real culprits here. Don’t beat yourself up about that! You didn’t ask to be born, and that’s what you’re going to tell your mother, if I have to squeeze your head to make the words come out of your mouth!” she yelled back at me.

  When I thought about it, she was right. I had been fighting all my life for my right to live and be happy. Every turn I made, my mother had been obstructing traffic. It was about time I started acting like my life belonged to me. I was going to stand up for me for a change.

  “Yeah!” I yelled back, sitting up straight in the passenger seat. I looked over at my half-sister and felt a surge of pride. I had survived against the odds. She didn’t know my pain and the things I had to do to survive, but that didn’t make me any less worthy.

  “Hey, we’ve got about a fifteen-minute drive. Tell me about you. Momma’s surely going to tell you every little nasty detail that I’d like to avoid, so I might as well learn all I can from you.”

  “Hey, my life ain’t been a fairytale, either. I’ve got my own dirt,” Jasmine stated.

  “Like what?” I was intrigued by the new twist to the conversation.

  “We’ll talk about it later. Let’s take one drama on at a time. Okay?”

  “Bet. I made all my drama, and I can only hope that Momma allows me to tell you myself, in my own time. I don’t want to lose you, now that I’ve found you.”

  “Fine, we have a pact. If your mother starts off on some dumb shit, other than what we came for, I’m gonna shut her up any way I can. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “And you can’t get mad at what I say because I hate ignorant-ass women!”