The Case Manager

by Latoya Chandler

  “Wait, am I missing something? You two know each other? No, please don’t tell me. This cannot be happening right now. Alonzo, is this . . . the Cee Cee you’ve been telling me about? Was that short for Candice? For my sister Candice?”

  “I am afraid so. I had no idea. You never even mentioned you had a sister, Jenna. Why would you keep such a secret?”

  “I did. I said she passed during childbirth. Oh, my God, and you said the mother of your child was sent away and passed the same way. Why in the world didn’t we put two and two together?”

  “I don’t know, but she isn’t dead. She is right here,” his voice cracked.

  Exposing my shamed face, I stared at them both, speechless. I’d suddenly become consumed by something surging from my gut into my throat. My breakfast of strawberries and oatmeal, unfortunately, came spewing out, covering the oak-looking floor beneath me. Was I dreaming? How could this be?

  “Candice, are you all right?” Jenna came to my aid.

  “I need a wet towel and to rinse my mouth out. I am feeling lightheaded. I may need a seat as well.”

  “Have a seat. I will get you a wet towel. You can rinse your mouth out after you’re calm.”

  “I had no idea, Candice. I am so sorry,” Alonzo said.

  “Not now, Alonzo. Please give her some time.”

  “No, it’s all right. I think I want to hear what he has to say if that’s all right with you.”

  “If you’re okay with it, then I am,” Jenna conceded.

  “I just don’t want to make this uncomfortable for you, Jenna. What happened between the two of us took place many moons ago,” I recognized.

  “What do you think?” She paused, pointing from Alonzo and back to herself. Trying to stifle her laugh, she continued, “I wouldn’t care if you and Alonzo had something going on a minute ago. He and I are friends. He is my bestest friend in the whole wide world. I love him like a brother. Besides, there’s something you need to know about your sister, Candice. I am into females, not penis.”

  “Well, all right then. Now that we got that out of the way.” My face reddened.

  “Honestly, Candice, I haven’t been able to have a successful relationship because I felt it was my fault that you and our child, well, you know. I know we were young, but I was older and knew better. Still, your mother was able to convince—”

  “What did she do? All of this has been one stab at a time in the same place, over and over again: my heart.”

  Dropping into a praying position in front of me, he spoke, “The day you were sent away, your mom called up to Burger King and asked to speak with me. I assumed since she knew you worked late and overtime with me, she was able to put two and two together,” he sighed. “I am so happy to see your beautiful face. I cannot believe it’s really you,” he admired, caressing my face.

  Moving my face away from him, I pushed him away as tears covered my countenance.

  “Long story short, she threatened to have me arrested for statutory rape if I went anywhere near you. My parents were livid and added to the threats. They blackmailed me with my inheritance, so at that time I did as they instructed. When your mother informed us that you passed during childbirth, I began to resent my parents. I felt like it was partially my fault, so I took my savings and moved out of their home. I met Jenna at the hospital while interning. We clicked immediately and have been inseparable ever since. Hence, four years later, it appears I am now stuck with her.”

  “I need a moment. I cannot take much more. Pardon me,” I excused myself to the restroom.

  Splashing water in my face and pinching myself to make sure I was not dreaming, I only came to the same conclusion: this was my life. I was not dreaming and couldn’t make it up if I tried. What kind of mother mentally kills off her firstborn? I was a mother now and couldn’t understand how that was even possible. God, if you’re listening, please explain to me why you felt it was okay for me not to have a heart? For all the days that I have been on this earth of yours, you’ve managed to rip from me everything I love or have come close to loving. All I ever wanted was to be loved. Is this the price of love? If it is, I don’t want it anymore.

  “Candice, are you all right in there?” Jenna called from the other side of the door.

  “At this point, I don’t even know what all right is or means. I just want to get back to my babies. I need them right now.”

  “Babies?” Alonzo interrupted.

  Brushing past him, I confirmed, “You have a daughter. She is five years old now. I just need time to process all of this along with everything else that I have going on before we start making any plans or anything.”

  “Take your time. Candice, I am truly sorry and promise to make it up to you.”

  I barely heard him. “Amiya,” I said. “Her name is Amiya. Jenna, please take me back.”

  “I am ready when you are,” Jenna made known.

  “Now sounds like a good time.”

  “Alonzo, I will call you later. Be sure to lock up behind you,” Jenna requested.

  Walking as fast as I could to Jenna’s car, I managed to either walk past it or forget where she’d parked. I just needed to get out of there. Turning to look for Jenna, I could see her talking to some man. As I walked closer, I could hear her talking. At that very moment, I believed God answered my prayer that fast and decided that a heart was the last thing I needed.

  “Daddy,” I wept as everything was suddenly fading to gray. My heart was beginning to speed up so fast that it almost hurt. I slowly tried walking, but my knees gave out like a ribbon slowly falling to the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The Unexpected: The Past vs. the Present

  Jenna

  Life has a way of handing you things that you didn’t ask for. Even when your plate was full, it would stuff you until you end up vomiting the issues we know as life. When I went to work four days ago, I had no idea my patient would be the direct link to me connecting with my sister Candice: the sister who, per Mother, was supposed to be dead. When I was 15 years old, while in Pathmark with my biological mom shopping, we ran into my dad.

  However, he appeared a little unfamiliar at the time. He wasn’t my dad. Neither I nor my mom was familiar with the guy shopping in the grocery store. He resembled the dad I’d known all my life. But at that time, he was the husband of a white woman and father of infant twins.

  The dad I’d known had a phobia for marriage. I used to hear him and Mom talk and he’d say if Oprah and Stedman could make it work, so could they. He gave her a ring but said he didn’t believe in marriage, that it only made things complicated and ruined relationships. Mom fell for every word that fell from his lips, too.

  Witnessing Dad for the man he said he wasn’t and didn’t want to be to Mom hurt her to the core. My mom, Gloria Eubanks, was livid, and because of it wanted nothing to do with me or my father. She literally gave me away. She said she was tired of struggling and since Dad wanted to be a family man he needed to combine all his families. That meant making sure he included me in his other world. If my dad hadn’t taken me in, I would have become a ward of the State of New York.

  Honestly, foster care might have been better than my teenage years with Camilla Marcellino-Brown. She was a hateful and miserable woman. I honestly didn’t think it started when she found out about me and my mom. Running into Candice confirmed she had always been Satan’s spawn. That woman took her disappointment in life and Dad’s infidelities out on me. I was literally the ugly stepchild. At least that was how she made me feel. My dad worked around the clock, on the side of the clock, and inside of the clock. He was never home. He’d spent more time home when he was with me and my mom than he did in the “Camilla household.” I found that strange, even at a young age. I remembered as if it happened yesterday when my thoughts leaked through my lips and I voiced my point of view or feelings to her.

  “Ms. Camilla, can I ask you something?”

  “First things first, young lady: if you’re going
to be a forced part of this household, you will address me as Mother. Not Camilla and definitely not Mommy. Mommy is for children who are planned and not the seed of adultery. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  “‘Yes, I understand’ is the proper way of speaking. Now what did you want to ask me?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Speak, Jenna. If you’re going to make it anywhere in life, you cannot be afraid to talk.”

  “I just wanted to know, how is it that you’re perfectly fine with Dad never being here? He cannot work that much.”

  “It takes an awful lot to maintain a household. Especially this house. This is not an average-sized home. That means it will require extra hours and income to maintain.”

  “I understand that, but my dad used to spend a whole lot of time with me and my mom. Way more time than he spends here, and I find that strange. Or maybe I am thinking too much. My mom used to say I was too young to think so much and needed to relax. Maybe I need to rela—”

  “You need to learn to stay in a child’s place and not ask grown-up questions. Go to your room and think about how to keep your mouth shut.”

  That conversation must have struck a nerve, because when the twins turned one, Mother had to stare her truth in the face. I had come home from school one afternoon, and she and Dad were in a heated conversation. I almost felt sorry for her.

  “Dale, how the hell do you have another whole family? I forgave you for Jenna, took her in, and went to counseling with you. What more do you want from me? Am I not enough for you? I gave up everything for you. If you wanted a black woman, why did you marry me?”

  “Correction, Camilla, your family threw you away and I gave up everything to make you happy. But that wasn’t enough. You wanted more and more, no matter the cost. I did everything to make sure you were happy. When you were of age, I married you like you wanted and that was never enough either. I let you send my daughter away and now look, she’s gone. So don’t give me that shit. You have everything you ever wanted: a big house, designer clothes, you’re a stay-at-home mom, and everything else that you wanted that would make you happy. The one thing you forgot about is the source of your happiness. Me! Me, Camilla.”

  “I never forgot about you Dale. How can I? You know things have been hard with the twins and making sure Jenna is straight. You have three other children, Dale. Three children all around the same age as Jenna and . . .”

  “Candice, Camilla. Her name is Candice. You can’t even say her name. You did this. The only reason I am still here is because of my girls. I don’t know what I was thinking about listening to you. I must have lost my mind. I am the man around this house, not you. I will tell you one thing: it won’t happen ever again, and I mean that. As long as my name is Dale Edward Brown, it won’t happen, and you can believe that.”

  “Dale, you don’t mean that. Don’t you think I am hurt as well? I lost a daughter with you and I have been depressed about it. You’re not grieving alone. I blame myself. I don’t need you to do it. I know what I’ve done, and I have to live with it.”

  “Bullshit, Camilla! You’re not depressed. You’re selfish. I’ve put up with it long enough. I’m done,” he insulted her, storming out of the door.

  “Dale, please.” She chased behind him.

  “I’ll be back later. I need some fresh air.”

  After that fight, the only time my dad made it home was for dinner and on the weekends to spend time with us. He’d take me over to Ms. Claudine’s house at times, but I felt so uncomfortable that he’d bring me back to Mother. Mother was so caught up with looking like a failure to her family that she allowed Dad to be a part-time lover to her. I didn’t understand why, because her family wrote her off a long time ago. It just didn’t make sense to me.

  Mother started going out more and I became the twins’ sitter. I could tell she had a new boyfriend because she started dressing differently. She also stopped crying about Dad all the time. The only time she would talk to me was when she needed me to look after the twins.

  Other than that, she barely said two words to me. I used that time to study and read. My desire was to get a scholarship so I’d be able to go to college and get away from that house. Dad had three other kids along with me and the twins, plus two households to maintain. I didn’t want any of his indiscretions to interfere with me furthering my education, so I did whatever it took to graduate with honors.

  Mother wanted me to graduate and get out of her house quick, fast, and in a hurry. Trying to talk to her was probably the most unintelligent thing that I could have ever done.

  “Mother, is it possible for us to have a sit-down after dinner?”

  “Jenna, if you’re about to tell me you’re pregnant, you might as well pack up your stuff and head over to Claudine’s with your dad. I am not about to do this with you.”

  “I am not pregnant. I am still a virgin, mother. I don’t even like guys.”

  “What do you mean you don’t like guys? You’re seventeen years old, Jenna.”

  “I have never even had a boyfriend, Mother. I think I am more attracted to girls than I am guys.”

  “What are you trying to say to me? Are you trying to tell you you’re a lesbian, Jenna?”

  “I wouldn’t say that either, Mother. What I do know is, after seeing and being in the middle of all that Dad has gone through with three, well, now two women, it left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to the opposite sex.”

  “Hold that thought,” she ordered, picking up the phone. “Dale, you should be proud of yourself. Jenna is a lesbian because you cannot keep your black penis in your pants.”

  Dad didn’t act any different toward me after finding out. Mother, on the other hand, stopped allowing me to watch the twins. She said, “I don’t need those gay spirits of yours jumping in my girls.” I honestly didn’t remember the last time I was even allowed to be alone with them. Mother insisted Dad was solely responsible for me being “confused.”

  I was not blaming my dad for my lack of trust in men. However, seeing what he had been to my mom, Mother, and Claudine turned me off to men or boys my age at that time. To me, they were all the same. Since I had grown up, I knew now that it wasn’t true. It just didn’t cancel out my desire for women. I had never been with a man a day in my life. They just didn’t do anything for me. Alonzo was the first guy I’d been close to other than my dad.

  When I first met Alonzo, I honestly thought he was gay. I guess we all have a problem with stereotyping people who were different. It was strange to me when I noticed Alonzo in almost all my classes in the nursing program at the University of Connecticut. In my mind, most men went to school to become doctors, not nurses.

  I officially met Alonzo when we were paired up to complete two group projects in our maternal health nursing class. The one thing that was a blessing and a curse was I had never been a shy individual. I wasted no time asking Alonzo the question I was sure everyone wanted to know.

  “Hello, Alonzo, I’m Jenna.”

  “Nice to meet you, Jenna.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “No offense please, I just wanted to know if you were homosexual.”

  “Are you?” he snapped.

  “Well, I guess you can say I am, since I don’t do men and I desire to experience what it is like to do a woman.”

  “Well, damn, Jenna. I was being facetious. You’re different.”

  “Unique is what I am. But back to you. What made you decide to become a nurse of all things?”

  “For one, I lost someone during childbirth. I entered this field in her honor.”

  “I am so sorry to hear that. This is a small world, because my sister passed the same way.”

  “My condolences. This is a very small world. I would think we were talking about the same person, but Cee Cee didn’t have any siblings.”

  “Can we change the subject? I hate talking about this. If you don’t
mind?”

  “Not at all. It’s not my best topic of discussion either. So do you have any other questions you’d like to ask?”

  “Do you feel weird being one of the only men in this program?”

  “Not at all. I am one out of three men in this program with numerous women. What man in their right mind would feel weird or out of place?

  “You definitely have a point. Maybe we can have some fun together with all of the women here.”

  “Now that might be the best thing you’ve said. Sounds like music to my ears.”

  “That’s if and when I get the courage to approach a woman. I am new to all of this.”

  “You’re in luck. I am what you would call a professional when it comes to the ladies.”

  Following our initial conversation and meet and greet, we had been inseparable ever since. Alonzo also stood on his word and helped me become comfortable with who I was and my preferences. He said no matter what, I was still a lady and I carried myself as such, and to act like it. The respect I would want from a woman approaching me was the same respect I was to show when I talked to women.

  Knowing that Candice was the person Alonzo used to mention was scary, but I was a firm believer that everything happened for a reason. What were the odds that I’d happened to be on and Ms. Nancy was my patient? I decided to go to UConn and was teamed up with Alonzo for a project. The guy who took my sister’s virginity. I’d say that sounded like God working things out. There was the other part of me that questioned that, because I didn’t see or couldn’t even fathom any reasoning as to why the sexual abuse had occurred. I was just glad I’d had the opportunity to be there for Candice and the kids.

  Dumbfounded would have been an understatement for how I felt witnessing and hearing what had transpired between Alonzo and Candice.

  As I made strides toward my car, I tried to catch up with Candice. In mid-step, a sudden chill swept through me like a cold wind. Staring at my dad in disbelief, I began to feel queasy.

  “Da . . . Dad, what are you doing all the way out here?”