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“Did you love my mother?” I asked, peering back at him.
He looked at his hands, then smiled up at me. “Yes. I loved her very much…I still do.”
I walked back over to him with my arms crossed. “As your lawyer, I wanna make sure I understand you correctly. Let me re-phrase the question. Were yo
u in love with her, or were you just lusting for something exotic. Like a slave master with an affinity for dark meat.”
“No!” he cried. “Jasmine, it wasn’t that way.” He closed his eyes, holding his chest for a moment. I was angry, but a part of me felt like I needed to make peace with him.
“Do you want me to get Dr. Tate?”
He shook his head no as he stared at me. I sniffled and sat down, accepting the fresh handkerchief he’d offered to dab my eyes. “Mr. Rayman, I’m upset, not just from this news, but from wounds of the past. It’s too late for us to start over, but I will always remember the good things you brought to my life, as my mentor and friend.” I slowly took his hand. “I agree that Jake should oversee the proceedings, whenever the need arises. Don’t fret over this anymore. I’ll be fine.”
He smiled after I kissed him on the forehead, seemingly comforted by our truce. I got up and walked towards the door. “Mr. Rayman, I have one more question,” I said, looking back at him. “My mother? Where is she?”
Mr. Rayman looked through tear-filled eyes, but before he could say anything, Gladys appeared at the door. “I’m right here,” she said softly. “I’m your mother, Jasmine.”
“You?” I whispered through trembling lips. A tear rolled down her face as she cautiously wrapped her arms around me. I stood numb, resting my chin on her shoulder as she held me tight.
“I’m not proud of what I did, but I gave you to Frances, so you’d have more from this world than I could offer. Every time you set foot in this house, I wished I could tell you that you was my own.”
I moved away from her. “You could have!” I shouted, crossing my arms over my body.
Gladys wrung her hands. “Tellin’ you then could’ve changed the good future you had ahead, and tellin’ you later, wouldn’t have eased the pain I see on your face right now.”
She reached out to me. “I’m so sorry, Jasmine. Please try to understand.”
Blinded by my tears, I backed out the door in silence, running down the hallway and then down the marble steps.
***
“Start talking!” I shouted after I stormed through Aunt Frances’ front door.
I plopped down in her recliner as she stood in the middle of the living room floor, staring down at the tea steaming in her mug.
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way, chile,” she said, shaking her head.
I snatched the throw pillow from behind me and smashed it between my hands. “I didn’t need to find out this way!”
Frances sighed as she sat on the sofa across from me. She rested her mug on the coffee table, scratching her head. “Gladys say anything to you?”
I swallowed hard. “She tried, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of there.”
“You know Gladys and I been friends for years, don’t you?”
I slowly nodded.
“Well, when we got outta school, I decided I was gonna be a nurse, and she wanted to go off to design school, in New York. When they told her she didn’t get accepted, I reckon because of her color, she was crushed. Eventually, she started working for the Raymans. She said it would be temporary, until she saved up enough to have her own little boutique on the island. Rayman took a liking to her. At first, she thought he just wanted to get under her skirt. After a year of her working there, though, they got close. Mrs. Rayman was into being a socialite more than a wife. Gladys was Mr. Rayman’s confidante. They shared their dreams and decided to be lovers. She had been seeing a young man from Belle Marsh, named Leonard when she got pregnant. Rayman was the only man she’d been with, and when she told him, he didn’t question it. Mrs. Rayman didn’t think nothin’ of it, either. She was expectin,’ preparing a nursery for their boy, Victor. When Leonard stopped courtin’ Gladys, everybody just assumed he was a deadbeat, leaving Gladys in a family way. Rayman offered to send her to Paris. That was her dream. To travel the world and study fashion.”
I raised my hands. “What happened? Did she go?”
“Naw, ’cause she didn’t wanna be no brushed-off mistress, pregnant and alone in another country. Her folks moved to Decatur, and told her to make a life for herself. So, she stayed with me, and I delivered you. When she went back to the Raymans, she asked me to raise you.”
I sucked my teeth. “So, the secret was safe.”
“Jasmine, Gladys has always loved you.”
“Humph, not enough to keep me,” I said under my breath.
