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“Gotta use what you got to get what you want,” Sarah chuckled.
“I won’t say no. I will say let me think about,” I reluctantly replied.
“Okay, while you are thinking about it, what size t-shirts should I order for you and the girls? Even if you don’t come, I want to make sure you have a shirt,” she quickly said.
“I need two XL. Fee needs a seven, and Skye needs a ten.”
“Awesome. Love you, baby bro. I will see you soon.”
“I didn’t say yes, Rah…”
“Yeah, okay. I will let you know what dish you need to bring,” Sarah quickly replied before disconnecting the call.
Sarah knew that there weren’t too many things that I would say no to if she asked me. I’d already told my other three siblings between Sarah and me, that I would not be attending our family’s reunion.
My mother had ten children. The first five, me being number five, were raised by our grandmother. My mother fell into substance abuse, and the state took us from her. My grandmother, Madear, moved back to St. Louis from Florida, found all of us in the various homes we’d been placed in, and was awarded guardianship. Madear didn’t adopt us because she always held out hope that my mother would get her life together and come back for us.
The most vivid memory I had of my mother from childhood was her laying in a puddle of her own vomit while my older siblings ran around the house trying to figure out what to do for her. I recalled the white foam bubbling from her slightly opened mouth and the blank stare in her eyes. It was a rare time that Madear thought she was well enough to spend some time with us alone. I remember the paramedics rushing in and pushing me to the side to get to her. After her almost fatal overdose, she disappeared for a while. When she finally showed up again, she was sober and pregnant. Instead of taking us from Madear, she had five more kids and raised them without the help of the state or Madear.
When I was in high school, I invited my mother to my sporting events. I was on the swim team and I threw the shot put on the track team. She never showed up even after she said she would. My siblings, Sarah, Leroy, Dinah, and Vera, came to as many of my sporting events as they could. Even Madear made it to one or two games, and she had no idea of what was going on. One time I invited my mother and she told me she couldn’t make it my event because it conflicted with one of my younger siblings’ games, and she had to be there for them. That gutted me, and I never asked her for anything else. At first, she loved drugs more than me; then she had more kids to replace the first set and loved them more.
My mother tried to make amends with my older siblings and me, but my relationship with her was still strained. For years I wouldn’t even speak to her and counted her among the dead in my life. I couldn’t understand how a mother could love drugs more than her children. More recently, after speaking to a pastor friend, I decided to stop hating her. I still didn’t like her, but at least I was cordial.
The idea of a family reunion centered around my mother – we would be celebrating her birthday – spent in the park with all my siblings and going to church the next day made my head hurt. I’d never spent that many hours with all of them at once. I could tolerate all of the younger ones except my brother, Karlos. Karlos was the oldest of the second set. He had a rare talent of being able to get under my skin in seconds. Unlike Rah, I didn’t have that warm and fuzzy feeling about spending time with my whole family, all I felt was dread.
“Morris, the McIntyres are here,” Anna, the receptionist, said after poking her head into my office.
“Great. I’m coming out to get them.”
I stood and put on my suit jacket before stepping out of my office to retrieve my clients.
“Mr. McIntyre,” I extended my hand.
Brooks McIntyre shook my hand.
“Mr. McIntyre,” I said, extending my hand to Brooks’ brother, Azariah. We shook.
“Please, follow me into my office.”
Brooks and Azariah were identical twins with distinct personality differences. Brooks was the more analytical one while Azariah was visceral; he acted more on feelings than data. Both were great at business and made excellent business partners.
They dressed differently and had different haircuts, but to look at one was like looking at the other. I was sure in their youth they were able to fool a lot of people.
The McIntyre family came to the firm through Azariah’s son, August, who’d been Samuel’s surgeon. August recommended the firm after the family started encountering roadblocks with the law firm that represented them.
The McIntyres were the proprietors of the first and largest, black-owned supermarket chain in the country. They had plans to expand its brand into megastores and offer big-box items. They also planned on opening more smaller local neighborhood stores that were unique in content and style to the community they served.
“Morris, how did the contracts look?” Azariah, the older of the twins asked.
“I’ve printed copies of them for both of you, and I’ve highlighted some of my concerns. With you putting these markets in these new neighborhoods, the property value will increase because they won’t have to go so far for fresh groceries. This developer is trying to undersell the potential money fall that your presence will create. Putting the smaller stores there will make these areas much more desirable. I sent these current numbers in this contract to our financial manager, Kerem. He re-ran the numbers and came up with a totally different story. I’m not saying that at the time this contract was drafted by your former lawyer that the numbers weren’t good, but now we can get a lot more.”
“That’s what I said,” Brooks responded.
“That’s one of the reasons we came toValentine and Belle. We know that Samuel is all about the community. We need someone in our corner that understands where we are trying to go and where we’ve come from. No offense to our former law firm, but they don’t know,” Azariah said.
“No, Jerry and his colleagues are clueless. We stayed with them out of loyalty. When our father started McIntyre’s, he hired their firm. When we were a small mom and pop company, they served us well. Now we have fifty-five locations, and this expansion plan will add twenty-five more locations. They tried with all their might to deter us from this deal,” Brooks explained.
“We have to think larger than where we are. It is time for us to grow,” Azariah declared.
