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That was another story, one I hated even thinking about. I had a past of being problematic in many ways and with many of the people I loved most.
Britta was now talking to Robbie, another of the waitresses, so I took a moment to take in the familiar surroundings. Britta named the placeGeneva’s, after her mother who was also my grandmother. Geneva died shortly after I was born, but Britta schooled me on her and made me love her as much as she did. The place was just as unique and classy as I’d learned my grandmother was, draped in shades of red and cream with dim lighting, a state-of-the-art sound system, and a small stage. It provided entertainment befitting kings and queens of discriminating taste in my opinion.
Her attention back on me, Britta smiled and asked, “You dropped Bailey off with Gramps?”
Shaking my head while wearing a smile of my own, I said, “Yes, I took her to herfather.” After hesitating, I added, “Ma answered the door.”
Her perfect eyebrows lifted. “Oh? How is dear Fee?”
I shrugged, smiled up at Kam as she delivered my drink, and replied, “The same, I guess. Still beautiful and…and she seemed kind of, I don’t know, remorseful? Not sure if that’s an emotion she’s even capable of experiencing, though.”
Nothing from Britta.
Rolling my eyes, I said, “I know you’re not going to talk bad about her. You never do.”
“No, I won’t,” she said, her voice flat. “What I will say is life hasn’t been easy for her. I know that more than anyone.”
“Yeah, but who hasn’t had it hard? That doesn’t excuse what she did any more than it excuses what I did.”
“True, but she loves you. You know that, right?”
“Empress!” a booming male voice interrupted our conversation, thank God. The last thing I wanted to do was embark on another session of unpacking how my mother both loved and betrayed me at the same time.
“Shit, let me go see what Vell’s ass wants. I’ll be back,” my aunt muttered.
I chuckled. Vell was Britta’s long-term, embattled man friend and club manager. She hated him almost as much as she loved him, although he adored her, only referred to her as “Empress,” and would slay a dragon for her. I suppose not appreciating good men ran in the family. That sobering thought led to me ordering a real drink, and by the time the show started, I was good and relaxed.
VANN
I’d visited here once before but still couldn’t get over the size of the place. This house was huge, hidden behind a stone wall and a wrought iron gate complete with a keypad and intercom for entry. The driveway was made of cobblestones, and the lawn was immaculately manicured. This was a damn estate, not a house, and it made me damn proud to see it, just as it did the first time I glimpsed the majesty of it all.
Pulling to a stop in the driveway behind two SUVs, I killed the engine of Old Rusty, a name my baby sis had assigned to our mother’s old truck, and blew out a breath. I had no idea what I was doing. I’d driven here on autopilot, hoping for...I don’t know.Peace? A damn escape from reality? Help lifting the weight off my chest that had been sitting there...forever? Hell, I had no clue, and now I was exhausted from the drive, the most activity I’d had since the procedure and the treatments and the so-called recovery.
I hadn’t recovered shit.
Squeezing my eyelids tightly, I dropped my head and sighed, thoughts filling and troubling my mind so intensely that I damn near screamed like a bitch when there was a knock on the window right next to me. Snatching my head around, I saw a face that never failed to make me smile. She tugged on the door handle, pulling it open and grabbing me in a hug while shrieking, “Vann! You came to see me!”
Hugging my baby sister back, I whispered, “Yeah, I did.”
Releasing me, she gave me room to step out of our mother’s truck and took me in, reaching up to rub a finger over the stiff black patch that covered my left eye, or rather, the place where my left eye once resided. “I like it. Makes you look dangerous and not so damn pretty. I was tired of you being more beautiful than me.”
I grinned down at her. “Nah, never that, Cake.” Nodding toward her house, I added, “I still can’t get over this place. Like, damn, y’all really live here.”
She grinned and shrugged. “This is what happens when you marry a famous photographer. This is all Jovani. He was determined to buy us a house of our own although I was fine with the one his dad bought us.”
I shook my head. “Naw, Dr. London-Higgs. This is you, too.”
“I mean, yeah, you’re right. It’s mostly me. After all, I’m...me!”
Chuckling, I asked, “How did you even know I was out here?”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “I heard Old Rusty. Now, did you bring a bag? Grab it and come on inside.”
After kissing my sister’s forehead, I did just that.
I couldn’t erasethe smile I wore as I sat in my sister’s living room waiting for her to return with a glass of water for me. The inside of the house matched the outside, but it also matched my sister. As majestic and obviously expensive as everything in here, from the white sectional sofa—an upgrade from the one she had in her townhouse—to the light fixtures was, Sharla could be seen and felt in the tons of green plants that crowded the space, the incense box with smoke flowing out through its intricately designed slots sitting on the wicker coffee table, and the bookshelf full of books. Undoubtedly, a closer look at the spines would prove they were all by black authors and about the black experience. Jovani, her husband, could be seen in the framed photographs that hung on the walls, many of which depicted my sister and my niece as only his lens could capture them.
“So what do you think? The last time you saw this place it was virtually empty, and pictures sent via text just don’t capture everything,” Sharla said, handing me the water and then plopping down on a love seat sitting to the right of where I sat on the sofa.
