Trusted a man to stand on his word and he failed her. Leaving her to raise two boys into men on her own. He left her to raise a family she didn’t create on her own, alone. A task that so many black women in our neighborhood had been left to do. Trying to put food on the table while leaving their eldest to keep an eye on the youngest. It was the hardest job my mother had ever had, and the one I knew she felt she failed at. No matter how much she tried to keep our heads in the books, the streets calling were louder.
“Mika and em called about sending another barrel back home,” she spoke into the phone, and chuckled.
Since she moved to the states, my mother had been filling barrels and sending them back home to our family. She filled them with all kinds of shit and shipped them back. Even when we barely had enough for ourselves, she would spend whatever to ship something back home or give money.
The only people I cared about were my grandparents, and they never asked for much. It was always the cousins, aunts, and uncles that never contributed shit that had their hands out, always reminding her that she couldn’t forget about her family.
The guilt always worked on her.
She fell into the trap and felt obligated to send things back home, even though I told her to stop. I made sure my grandparents were taken care of, and that was my only concern.
I offered to buy them a new house, and they refused, loving their small home up in the mountains of Jamaica. The home that my grandfather built and raised all his children in. It was the same house that me and Khaos spent summers at.
I lived in Jamaica for the first four years of my life. My mother had me here, and when I was two months old, traveled back to Jamaica with me. She decided to leave me with my grandparents and send for me when she had everything set up back in the states. All I knew was my grandparents and that small shack of a house. That shit was home though, and my grandparents made sure of it.
The house had windows that never closed, no air conditioning, and everything was in one open-planned room. You had to walk down the hill and grab water from this well filtration system within the town.
One would think why they wouldn’t want better but being back in the states and growing up here, I realized that was better.I had to admit, it was peaceful as shit whenever I visited. While I was in prison, I didn’t think about Brooklyn, I thought about my grandparents’ house. The sun on my skin, smell of thetrees and nature. Last year, I finally made time and went for a week. It felt nice disconnecting from the world.
Listening to my grandfather talk shit and having every meal I could imagine from my grandmother.
Shit was nice.
“We not sending no more barrels, Sharon,” I said, and she paused.
I smirked, because I always got on her nerves when I called her by that name. It was something that I did since a teen. Whenever she was on my nerves, or the tension was thick, I would call her Sharon like my grandfather would, his accent as thick as the chewing stick he always kept tucked in the side of his mouth. Her real name was Paulette, so I never knew where the fuck Sharon came from. Everyone in our family called her Sharon, even family friends.
“I’m gonna beat you, Goo-Goo.” She spooned the porridge into a bowl for me, as she listened to my aunt on the other end of the line. “You agree with this?”
“Mommy, you the only one that continued to send shit back there. Where were they when we lost Melle?”
“Nowhere.” I heard Inez’s soft voice, as my mother sat the bowl in front of me.
She was cleaner than she had been when I found her a few nights ago. Her sleek black hair was brushed into a ponytail, while her face was clear and clean. My sweats and shirt swallowed her small, frail frame up.
My mother turned to look at Inez. “Good morning to you, Likkle girl.”
I could tell from the way my mother said uh huh into the phone that my aunt asked if it was Inez. Since Inez was a child, she always called her likkle girl because she was the only girl. It was her nickname that only my mother called her.
“Hi, Auntie,” Inez replied, slipping into the empty chair across from me.
Like Paulette always did, she rolled over and made her a bowl of porridge. Feeding her family was her love language. Even when we were younger, she would come in from work and whip something together, so we didn’t go to bed on an empty stomach.
I watched as Inez avoided eye contact with me. She had been avoiding me since I scooped her ass out that house a few nights ago. She couldn’t stand to look me in the eyes knowing what both me and Khaos had witnessed her doing. It was easy for her to deal with it when she was high, but once she came down, she had to live with the shame of being caught fucking for her next fix.
“Nezzy,” I lowly called, while my mother was on the phone with my aunt trying to convince her not to come over.
Inez continued to purposely avoid eye contact with me, but she answered. “Yeah, Goo?”
I didn’t have the right words that hadn’t been said before. I’ve used every word in the dictionary to convince my cousin to do better. She deserved better, but how could I tell a grieving mother to stop grieving her child?
The shit had me torn and conflicted because this was how she coped. It didn’t make it right, but at the same time, I also knew that this was what took the pain away from her. It allowed her, even for a second, to breathe without the permanent pain in her chest.
“Rehab.”
“When I’m ready.” she replied, as if she had a choice.
I looked away, my hand clutching the spoon in my hand. “Beloved, you don’t have much of a choice.”
