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  “Knowing Chili, I doubt it. She’s still too pissed and embarrassed. But you know Diamond was wrong acting like that at Chili’s sweet sixteen party. She should have just walked away instead of dealing with that drama. Getting caught kissing Chili’s boyfriend at her own party was too wrong.”

  “She said that fool grabbed and started kissing all over her and that he wouldn’t let her go.”

  “I can see that, you know he had a thing for her and the only reason he started with Chili was ’cause he couldn’t get Diamond, but still, she should have known Chili was gonna blame her for her boyfriend’s stupidity.”

  “I’m telling you, Chili is getting crazy.” I nodded. “But I’m glad Diamond stopped by. She said that she’s going to the, you know, funeral, so I’m gonna catch a ride with her and her mom and grandmom. My mom and Nat are coming, too, but I’m gonna stay at Diamond’s house, so…” I nodded again. She picked up a cookie, broke it in half and handed one half to me. I took it and smiled. It was good to have my girls back. “I saw your new boyfriend downstairs.”

  “What new boyfriend?” I asked, knowing exactly who she was talking about.

  “You know who I’m talkin’ about. He was downstairs and I swear he was waiting for you to come down.”

  So just as we started talking, my grandmother called me downstairs. “There’s a young man down here who would like a word with you,” she said when I got to the top of the stairs.

  I looked at Jalisa. Both of us were thinking the same thing, lawn mower guy. I could feel my face starting to get warm. “Go get your new man, girl,” Jalisa said.

  When we got to the top of the landing, I saw lawn mower guy standing in the foyer getting ready to leave. I had to admit, it was really good to see him. I started smiling, and he smiled back and nodded his head. I got to the bottom of the stairs, then I felt Jalisa pluck me in my back and I stopped and turned around. She opened her eyes wide in warning, but I was totally confused.

  “Okay, Kenisha, I’m gonna meet Diamond at Freeman. I’ll catch up with you later. Call me.” Then she looked behind me. “Hey, LaVon, how you doing.”

  I turned around just in time to see lawn mower guy walk out the front door and LaVon come out of the living room toward me.

  “Bye,” I said, glad Jalisa had stopped me from walking over to lawn mower guy with LaVon standing right there.

  “Hey, shorty,” he said, then walked over to me, completely oblivious of my almost mess-up. “I was gonna call you, but I decided to just stop by.”

  “Hey,” I said, closing my eyes and folding myself into his arms and trying to remember all the good times we’d shared. When I opened my eyes, I saw that other people were looking at us. So I suggested that we step outside.

  “How she die?” LaVon asked as soon as I sat down on the front step beside him. Then a couple of women came up the front path.

  “You must be Barbra Jean’s daughter, you look just like her, bless her soul. How you doing, baby? I’m Mrs. Coles. I knew you mommy when she was just a baby, too. I’m so sorry to hear about her passing, she was a blessing.”

  I smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Where are Jade and your grandmother?”

  “Grandmom’s inside. I think Jade is still out.”

  “Well, let me go say my piece with them. I brought a dish of sweet potato soufflé with marshmallows, pecans and honey. Come in and get a plate, it’ll put some meat on you.”

  “I will, I promise. See you later.”

  She continued past us after a brief nod to LaVon.

  We scooted back together, then someone came out and gave me a hug and told me to be brave. When they left, we moved together again.

  “I guess it hasn’t hit me yet that my mom’s really gone. I kinda don’t remember stuff.”

  “How she die?” LaVon asked again.

  “They have to do more tests, but they said that it might be an aortic aneurysm.”

  “What’s an aortic aneurysm?”

  “Um, it’s basically when a part of the aorta, the main blood vessel close to the heart, swells up. The bulge got so big that it eventually ruptured, she hemorrhaged, dying almost immediately. They said that the buildup of pills in her system might have helped weaken the blood vessel. It’s rare, but some people are affected like that.”

  “Damn, that’s messed up,” he said.

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “So what are you gonna do now, live with your dad?”

  “I don’t know, maybe, probably.”

  “Good, you should come back to Virginia.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, I miss you.”

  I looked into his eyes and felt his sincerity. It felt good hearing him say that, but just when I was about to say something, somebody walked by, so we scooted over to let them pass.

  “Come on, let’s go upstairs and talk in private.”

  As soon as I walked back inside, I saw Jade talking to one of the women who had just walked in. She nodded her head and I returned the greeting.

  LaVon and I went upstairs, but didn’t talk long. As soon as we got to my bedroom, we started kissing and then touching and I could feel him getting all excited as usual. So I started pushing him off. “Okay, LaVon, stop.” But he kept kissing me and feeling all over me. I panicked. “Come on, stop, I can’t.”

  “Aw, come on, not this shit again. Come on, Kenisha, your mom is gone, we can do it now,” he said.

  “What you think, it was my mom that was stopping me before?”

  “Yeah, I know she didn’t like me, so fine, she’s out of the picture. We can do it now.” He reached out to me and I swatted his hand away.

  “Do you realize that my mom just died?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And there’s a house full of people downstairs, including my grandmother and cousin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you don’t care?”

  “I’m trying to make you feel better,” he professed.

  “LaVon, you gotta go.”

  “Shit, I’m tired of this on-and-off-again with you. You’re just a tease and I’m tired of it, do you know I got girls lined up around the corner to get with me? I don’t even know why I bother with you. I guess I just felt sorry you.” He stood up and stomped over to the door. “Don’t come looking for me when I blow up, begging for this, ’cause you lost out. The NBA is hard on me and you could have gotten a free ride.”

  “You know what, LaVon, I don’t want a free ride. I don’t need a man to cash my check. I might just meet your ass at the NBA as an owner and fire your butt.”

  “You know, you can be such a bitch sometimes,” he said.

  “That’s right, and proud of it,” I said.

  “I’m out of here. You call me when you’re ready to step up and be a woman.” He walked out, leaving the door open. I heard him going downstairs. I could tell he was still pissed. But I really didn’t care.

  I wanted to lash out. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream and yell and throw things. I wanted to cry. But really I just wanted to feel something, anything. Two days and I’m a blank. Why couldn’t I cry?

  CHAPTER 15

  Too Damn Bad

  “When your back’s up against the wall and you don’t know which way to turn, you lash out and anyone who gets in the way, for them, well, that’s just too damn bad.”

  —myspace.com

  I stared at the open door for a while and even considered going back downstairs to catch up with LaVon, but I knew I didn’t want to deal with all that. So I decided instead to slip out the back door and just leave. I went out into the hall, then heard a typing noise coming from Jade’s bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, so I peeked inside. She was sitting at her computer desk with her back to me. I opened the door more. “Hey,” I said, peeking farther in.

  She turned around. “Hey.”

  “Are you busy?”

  “Just instant-messaging a friend,” she said, signing off, “but they have to go anyw
ay.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Yeah, come on in,” she said as she logged off, got up and sat down on her bed while I went over and stood by the front window, looking out. I saw a car pull up and several people get out and walk toward the house.

  “There are a lot of people downstairs. I didn’t know Mom had so many friends.”

  “Everybody liked her.”

  “I know you and my mom were close…” I started, but realized that I didn’t know what to say to finish the conversation. “I mean, she talked to you a lot, right?”

  She looked up at me. “Yeah, I guess we do. Did.”

  “I don’t know what to do anymore,” I heard myself confess to her. “It’s like I want to go to her and talk to her and ask her what to do, but I can’t and I’m lost.”

  “I know, I am, too,” she said.

  “I miss her.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I miss her, too.” Then she started crying, tears just started falling nonstop. I went over to her and wrapped my arms around her and together we sat there. She cried and I held on, wishing I could.

  “So I guess we finally have something in common. Both our moms died young and unmarried.”

  “She told you,” Jade said after grabbing a tissue and wiping her eyes dry.

  “Yeah, she told me the night she died. I can’t believe that all this time I didn’t know, but I guess it doesn’t matter now that she’s gone.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Since my mom and dad never got married, she didn’t have anything in her name. Not the house, not the cars, nothing. I guess I probably have to go back to live with my dad, but he’s got his pregnant girlfriend living up in the house and now all my friends are gonna know.”

  “Is that all you care about, where you gonna live and what your friends are gonna know?” she said, standing up. “I can’t believe you. I am so sick of your whining about what you want and what you don’t have. Oh, poor Kenisha, life is so hard for her. Do you think you’re the only one in pain here, the only one hurting? You’re not. I hurt, too.”

  “But she was my mother. Her death changes my life.”

  “Oh, so you hurt more?”

  “I didn’t say that, it’s just different, that’s all. We had a bond, a mother-daughter bond. She was only your aunt.”

  “My aunt,” she said, shaking her head. “You still don’t have a clue, do you? You’re still the spoiled little brat only thinking of yourself. You just said that she told you.”

  “She did.”

  “Obviously not everything.”

  “What are you talking about, not everything?”

  “Get out.”

  “No, what do you mean, I want to know.”

  “Fine, I’ll leave.”

  She brushed past me, so I grabbed her arm.

  “Oh, you think you can take me?”

  “What is wrong with you? You’ve been on my case since I got here and even before then. Did I do something to you as a kid, call you a name, cut your doll’s hair, spit in your Kool-Aid or something? Whatever it was, you need to get over it.”

  “You need to get out of my face, Kenisha.”

  “Or what?” I asked, too tired of her crap.

  “Or I’m gonna beat you down, hard.”

  “You think you bad, try it, go ahead!” I screamed back at her. She screamed at me and we went at it full force until our grandmother came busting in.

  “Stop it, stop it, stop it, both of you, you hear me? Stop it! What’s wrong with you two, screaming and yelling like you have no sense? This house is in mourning. My daughter is dead, your mother is dead, have some respect for her memory.”

  “It wasn’t me, it was her. I don’t know what your problem is, Jade, but you seriously need to get some professional help,” I said, ready to get started again.

  “Forget you,” Jade said, snapping back fiercely.

  “All right now, that’s enough, I’ve had it, both of you. Jade, get over there. Kenisha, you move over there. I don’t want to hear another word from either one of you,” she said as she looked at each of us.

  “You girls listen to me. My daughter loved both of you, fiercely, completely, unconditionally, without reservation. She did everything in her power to keep you safe. So much so that it broke her heart to separate you. She tore herself apart trying to do the right thing for each of you. So I don’t want to hear this fighting when her body isn’t even in the ground yet.”

  “If you weren’t so blind to everything that doesn’t center around you, you would have known…” Jade sniped.

  “Hush up, Jade. Now, both of you listen to me, families are born, not made. And yes, I know you have your friends that are your family, too. But blood is different. You two share my daughter’s heart, now act like it.”

  Jade walked out.

  I was about to walk out, too, but my grandmother stopped me. “Kenisha, come back here and sit down,” she said. I didn’t. “I said sit,” she insisted. I sat down.

  “We have a funeral to attend tomorrow, and I’m not gonna disgrace my daughter’s memory with this bickering. Do you understand me?”

  I nodded.

  She wrapped her arms around me then took my hand and held on tight. “Oh, baby, I know this is unfair to you, as much as it was unfair to Jade all those years ago, lost. It was wrong to keep this from you, but it was your mother’s wish. She was going to tell you in her time, but time ran out on her.”

  “I know, she told me.”

  “Now that this is out in the open, you need to talk to Jade. Grief has struck her just as hard as you, maybe even more. She didn’t have her mother around all the time, like you did. She feels like she lost a mother twice, once to you and now to death. You both need each other now more than ever.”

  “Why didn’t Mom tell me before? I don’t get it, it’s really no big deal.”

  “What exactly did your mother tell you?”

  “She knew I’d be upset and I was, but really, I don’t care that her and Dad weren’t married all this time.”

  “Oh, Lord, she didn’t tell you.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Enough

  “I remember this song before, about saying goodbye, I don’t remember who sang it or the lyrics or when or where I heard it, I just remember this song before, about saying goodbye.”

  —myspace.com

  I didn’t remember sleeping, but I must have ’cause I woke up cold again. I remember the day being bright and sunny and hot, but I was still freezing. I had goose bumps and chills all morning and I couldn’t get warm. It was Saturday, the day of my mom’s funeral. It was sad. That’s all I have to say about that.

  So later I was sitting there at the grave site next to my family, next to Jade, and we were both just staring ahead, looking at the casket as it was going down into the ground. I felt empty and I guess Jade was feeling it, too. I reached over and took her hand, I didn’t know why, I guess I just needed so badly to touch something real, someone who was a part of my mom. But her hand was limp, wilted and dead, just like my mom’s as she lay there with her eyes closed, locked in her forever place.

  Mostly everybody was there. I talked to Jalisa and Diamond and Chili at the funeral, but LaVon was a no-show. I wasn’t surprised. He was weird about stuff like that.

  So when it was over and the preacher said his words, we stood up and dropped a long-stemmed rose from Grandmom’s garden on the casket into the ground. Mine landed right next to Jade’s. I guess Mom had finally brought us together. ’Cause after that, we didn’t move, we just stood there, both of us looking down.

  Everybody else started leaving. Then I saw my dad. He shook a few hands and hugged some people, making his way through the leaving crowd toward me. He looked old, tired and broken.

  “Hi, baby girl,” he said.

  “Hi, Dad,” I choked out.

  He stood a minute looking down at Mom’s casket. “You must really hate me,” he said, standing there beside me and Jade and my
mom.

  I was just about to answer as Jade turned to walk away. But my dad turned to her. “Jade,” he called out. She stopped and turned, then looked at him as if he were a small child. “I know you must really hate me,” he said.

  “Why would I hate you?” Jade asked in that way she did that made a person feel like they were two inches tall.

  “For what I did to you all those years ago. I was wrong. I realize that I should have handled it differently, but I didn’t and I can’t change what happened, but I want to do the right thing now. I want you to come live with Kenisha at the house. You’ll have your own room, your own things.”

  “I have my own room, my own things,” she said.

  “You know what I mean, I can give you things, things your grandmother can’t, money, an education, a life, a family, a future.”

  “There’s nothing you can give me that I don’t already have, James.” She tilted her head and looked at him with pity then walked away.

  I stood there in silence like it was someone else’s life I was witnessing, ’cause I still didn’t feel anything.

  My dad put his arm around me and I just stood there looking down into the hole. The dark wood, mahogany, and brass looked speckled as a light drizzle started.

  “Kenisha,” my grandmother said, “are you ready?”

  “She’s coming home with me,” my dad answered.

  “Kenisha.” She touched my arm. I turned. “Come on, child, it’s time to go home.”

  “She’s coming home with me,” my dad said again.

  I looked at my grandmother. She stood there in quiet indignation. “I’m sorry, Grandmom.”

  She nodded and half smiled. “Remember your recipes,” she whispered, then turned and walked away.

  Her words echoed in my head. “The recipe to make your own history is to decide what you want, commit to your decision, then be able to live with the consequences. Follow your heart. It’ll never let you down.”

  I turned back to my mother and said goodbye one last time.

  “Come on, baby girl, let’s go.”

  I followed him to his car and got in. I sat there looking at the sea of tombstones as my dad drove out of the cemetery. We were heading home and I realized that I still didn’t get it.