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“No place like it,” I replied, sitting down.
Silence.
But then again, after all these years, what else could we be but silent?
“How is your family?” she asked.
I couldn’t stop the smile on my face. “Amazing. I have two kids, a baby boy, and a seven-year-old girl. She’s a chatterbox and always excited. Declan says she’s just like me…even though we adopted her, it really does feel like she is ours. They mean more than the world to me.”
“I can tell you are happy…” She didn’t finish her statement. “While I was in a mental institution, you were living the dream.”
“I would hardly call my life a dream, Imani. Let’s just leave the past in the past.” I didn’t want to talk about this.
“Whatever you say…after all, I’m supposed to be the grateful one. I have no money, my father’s now dead, and my mother is God knows where with all of our money.”
My money. The money they’d lived off of all their lives was the Wilson family money given to me by my father. It was theirs, I had said it a hundred times, and yet they still didn’t get it.
“We should head back inside. It’s cold,” I said, getting up.
“What’s cold is ditching your family for a bunch of white people,” she muttered under her breath; I again ignored her. You would think after all these years, after everything we had gone through, she’d just shut up by now. “You sold out, Cora—”
“No. I chose my happiness over yours. You think you are the first person who tried to make me feel guilty? Why? Because I’m not living to the standard they want? Because you are unhappy? Sorry. I chose me, and it might not be perfect, it might not be a dream or a fairytale, but my good days outweigh the bad. That’s all we can hope for in life, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer, so I just pushed her back. That was enough Wilson family bonding to last us another decade. I’d make sure she got her treatments and then I was done.
DECLAN
“Where are you?” she said into the phone, and I watched as she spun around searching for me. The tulip I had given her was now braided into her hair.
“I’m kind of hard to miss, love,” I said to her as I honked the horn. Her head whipped back as I stepped out.
“Oh my God.” Her mouth dropped open, her brown eyes taking in every inch of the bright red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible in front of her.
“Hi, Mommy!” Helen popped her head out the window like a groundhog, grinning from ear to ear.
“Hi, sweetie, what is going on here?”
“We’re going to movies!” Helen cheered, lifting up the bag of kettle corn in her hands, which she had already started to eat. I was trying my hardest not to think of the crumbs that most definitely were on the floor of an honored American classic.
“You heard the lady.” I smiled, holding the passenger side door open for her. “Come on, we’ll miss the movies!”
“I’m coming. I’m coming!” She giggled, sliding into the red and white seat. “You brought Darcy?”
Sliding over the hood of the car, I could hear them laugh when I got in. “Of course, I brought Darcy, it can’t be a family movie night if the whole family isn’t here.”
“Daddy said we are celebrating!” Helen stuck her head right between us. Her hair, which was split into two big puffs, brushed up against my cheek. “I got to pick the movie too. We are watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
She was so excited she was bouncing.
“Helen, seatbelt.” She pouted and I pouted back, turning around and pressing my face right up against hers until she broke out in a fit of giggles.
“Do classic cars even have seatbelts?” Cora questioned, reaching back to check on Darcy, who sat comfortably in his car seat, happily sucking on his pacifier and gripping on to his own toes.
“They were added. This car is one hundred percent road safe.” I winked, glancing back at Helen. I coughed before pretending to grab a speaker from the radio, holding the imaginary microphone to my lips. “Last call, last call for the Callahan family. Please check to make sure all members of your party are safely buckled in…Helen?”
“Check!” she cried, pulling on the top of the seatbelt.
“Darcy?”
