Family of Lies

by Mary Monroe

  “I’m more worried about Sarah’s homies doing a home invasion, hog-tying us, and cleaning us out,” Cash added. “But I got something for them if they break in while I’m home.” He lifted his denim jacket and revealed a gun in the waist of his jeans that I didn’t know he owned.

  “I hope you never have to use that damn thing,” I gasped. “Uh, have you ever used it?”

  “Not yet. But if I have to protect what’s mine, I won’t have no trouble doing whatever I have to do. I’ll even kill me some niggers if they get out of line with me.” Cash laughed but I knew he was serious. He had come a long way from the street gang in Houston he had belonged to when he was a teenager. But he still had some gangster blood in him, which was why I felt safer with him out in public than I did with Kenneth.

  “Cash, have you ever killed anybody?” I asked.

  “Yep. I blew away a few of them Muslim bad boys while I was stationed in the Middle East,” he boasted.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t mean when you were in the marines.”

  “Oh, you mean around here?” Cash vigorously shook his head. “Oh no. I ain’t never had no reason to hurt nobody here. But like I just told you, I’d kill me some niggers if I had to.”

  Cash’s declaration stunned me. I had no idea that my cousin had it in him to be so cold-blooded. If he thought that he could kill somebody if he had to, I wondered how far I would go if I had to.

  The room remained silent for a few moments.

  Collette looked at Cash and frowned. Then she turned to me and shrugged. “Oh well. Look on the bright side of that girl being here, Vera. She’ll be eighteen in three years, so she can get her own place. Or maybe she’ll get caught up in the crossfire during a drive-by while she’s roaming the streets with her thug friends and get blown away.”

  My mouth flew open. I was so taken aback by what Collette had just said, and the coldness in her voice, that it took me a few moments to respond. “Collette, that’s an ominous thing to say.”

  I was glad to hear that Cash felt the same way. “It sure enough is.” There was a concerned look on his face as he stared at Collette. I decided that maybe he wasn’t so cold-blooded after all. “I’d hate to see the girl get herself killed. She done had enough misery in her life. She lost her mama and her granny. Maybe she’ll find a husband real soon. Then she’ll be his problem.”

  My breath got trapped in my throat. I thought I was having a panic attack. Somehow I managed to contain myself. “Now that’s another thing we’ll have to deal with—her men! Lord knows what kind of porch monkeys she’s going to have coming to this house!” I shrieked. The thought of brooding young punks swaggering into my house with gold teeth, gold chains, nose rings, cornrows, and baggy clothes sent shivers up my spine. I never thought I’d have to deal with a problem of this magnitude. “If she’s not already pregnant, it’s just a matter of time before she becomes another baby mama or worse.”

  “Vera, I feel so sorry for you. You got a mess on your hands now,” Collette decided, giving me a sympathetic look.

  “That’s true,” I agreed. “But I don’t care what I have to do, I am not going to let Kenneth’s child ruin my future.”

  CHAPTER 17

  SARAH

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT MADE ME CHOOSE THE BEDROOM THAT WAS directly above the kitchen. But it was a good thing I did. For one thing, it had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Even though my daddy’s mansion was beautiful and very expensive and full of fancy furniture, it was an old house. It had one of those old-fashioned air ducts on the wall close to the floor near the side of my bed. The vent had to be opened and closed by hand. When I stood close enough to the air duct and opened the vent, I could hear the conversations taking place in the kitchen. If I crouched down and put my ear real close to the open vent, I could hear even better. That’s how I found out just how Vera and Cash and Collette felt about me.

  Grandma Lilly had just been buried a few hours earlier and since I believed in ghosts and stuff, I was sure her spirit was still near me. She had to have heard what Vera and those fools said about me, too, so she must have rolled over in her grave. I wanted to go downstairs and tell all three of them what I thought about them and that they could kiss my black ghetto ass! But I managed to control myself. I didn’t like being in this mansion any more than they wanted me in it. But it was my daddy’s home too. And because of him, it was now my home. However, if I had had someplace else to go, I would have packed up my shit and left that night.

  I was glad I had only three years to go to reach eighteen so I could be on my own. I had never given much thought to going to college before, and I didn’t think I was going to change my mind about that. It was a dream that I had given up on a long time ago. Very few kids in my old neighborhood dreamed that big. The ones who didn’t get killed along the way got dead-end jobs or had a bunch of babies and got on welfare and did whatever else they had to do to make it. I didn’t want to have any babies until I got married. The five boys that I’d already had sex with, beginning when I was thirteen, hated to use condoms. But I had told them all, “No condom, no nookie.” And just to make sure I was doubly protected, I was on the pill too. And I was going to stay on it until I was ready to be a “baby mama.”

  My new bedroom, done up mostly in pink and white, had a lot of other cool stuff. I had a queen-size bed, a TV, a computer on a desk, and a closest full of new clothes. Even with all of that and my daddy paying so much attention to me, I didn’t feel comfortable in this new place. I felt more like an abandoned baby in a basket that somebody had dropped off on a doorstep like in the movies. I slept less than four hours that night. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Vera and those other two assholes had said about me.

  I realized just how phony Vera was the next morning when she knocked on my door. I was still in bed. She entered my room before I could even respond.

  “Good morning, sweetie,” she purred, so much warmth in her voice a rock would have melted on her tongue. Even if I had not heard her trashing me last night, I still would have been able to tell she was as fake as the color of her partially fake hair. “I know you must still be tired from all you went through yesterday, but if you’re up to it, breakfast is ready. Your daddy told me how much you like grits and hot links, so I had Delia go to the market this morning and stock up on them.”

  “Uh, I’m about to get up,” I muttered, sitting up. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was only 8:00 a.m. and this wench had on more makeup than Ronald McDonald. And she was dressed like she was going to be in a fashion show. “You look real nice, Miss Vera. You going somewhere?”

  “Uh-huh. I have an important appointment this morning,” she told me, looking at her watch.

  Both of us remained silent for a few seconds. Finally I shrugged. “Daddy said something about a private school for me?”

  “Oh that. Well, he thought it might be a good idea for you to get away from California for a while and clear your head. You’ve been through so much the past few weeks—losing your mother, your stepdaddy, and your grandmother so close together and now having to adjust to a whole new lifestyle.”

  That bitch! I knew she was lying. Daddy had already told me that she had suggested that I go to a boarding school because it would help “clear” my head. My head was already clear. I knew what time it was and it was not the time for me to act a fool and say what was really on my mind. Vera had a plan. Well, so did I. I was going to prove to her that she was wrong about me. I wasn’t going to cuss her out or do any other crazy thing like she probably expected me to do. But I was still going to associate with some of my old friends and I was still going to fuck the boys I wanted to fuck. I hoped that by the time I turned eighteen, Vera will have changed her mind about me so I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable when I was around her. But I was not going to let her break my spirit. I was prepared to stand my ground, and I didn’t care about the fact that she was my daddy’s wife. I was his blood and as far as I was concerned, that gave me more
leverage.

  The first couple of weeks in the mansion were the hardest. Vera was like an angel to my face. But when she and Cash and Collette got together in the kitchen, they talked about me and the few old friends I still associated with like dogs. They were on a roll today, talking so fast and loud they sounded like they were speaking in tongues.

  “I thought you said she was going away to some boarding school,” Collette spat. That was followed by a loud belch, so I knew they were drinking too.

  “She is. I’m working on the arrangements now,” Vera mumbled. She was usually too demure to belch in front of people, but this time she let out one that sounded like it had come from a buffalo. “Excuse me!” she giggled.

  “A boarding school in another country, I hope,” Cash guffawed.

  “No, it’s in Iowa. Kenneth had suggested one in Switzerland, but I don’t have the patience to wait several weeks for her to get a passport. I want her little ass out of my house now. It’s just as well she’s not going to Switzerland or somewhere else out of the country. That ignorant little bitch would be totally out of her element in a foreign school. Can you imagine her over there asking them to fry her some chicken wings?” Vera howled. “Lord have mercy. I took her to lunch at La Salle’s Bistro last week and she had the nerve to order a cheeseburger!”

  “La Salle’s? You took a jigaboo like Sarah to a place like that? A piece of toast cost ten dollars up in that motherfucker! I can’t imagine what a cheeseburger costs,” Cash hollered.

  “Thirty-five dollars is what that damn thing cost!” Vera screamed.

  I rose up from off the floor and closed the vent, so mad I wanted to cuss out the world. I stumbled to my bed and flopped down, landing on my back. I had heard enough. Yes, I had ordered a cheeseburger—with extra onions—in that fancy restaurant Vera took me to last week. What was wrong with that? If it was so tacky to order a burger in a place like La Salle’s Bistro, why did they have it on the menu in the first place?

  A few minutes later, Daddy opened my door and quietly entered my room. He was the only one in the house who entered my room without knocking. Vera always knocked, but she always entered before I could invite her in. I was glad I had got up from the vent and moved back to my bed in time. Had I not, Daddy would have caught me listening to the conversation taking place in the kitchen and I knew he would have put a stop to that.

  “Baby, Vera tells me you’re all excited about going away to that nice school in Iowa,” Daddy said.

  “Uh-huh. I’m real excited about it,” I said. I was so sad and confused that I didn’t really care one way or the other. My only concern was doing whatever I had to do to keep my daddy happy.

  “It’ll be a big change from the schools I’ve been going to here.”

  “True. And a big improvement I might add! The life you lived before will make your new life with me seem like a totally different culture. Just think of all the fine young ladies you’ll meet in that school. The exposure will do wonders for your future development.”

  I frowned. “Just promise me one thing, Daddy. I do not want one of those stuffy coming-out parties. . . .”

  Daddy laughed. “Oh, you don’t have to do anything like that. I’m just so excited for you, baby! And just think, you’ll learn a lot more than what they teach the kids—or don’t teach, I should say—in your old schools. I just want you to make us proud of you. Your mother feels the same way.”

  “My . . . mother?” Just hearing that word associated with Vera sent a sharp pain through my chest like a butcher knife with a poisonous blade.

  “Honey, Vera is your mother now.” Daddy suddenly looked so tired and hopeless, I wondered just how happy he was. From the conversations I’d already overheard, Vera thought of him as an “old fool” and a “stupid bastard.” Lord how I wanted to tell him some of the things she’d said about him! But I couldn’t. He was obviously madly in love with that woman. And maybe she had loved him at one time and that was why he chose to keep her. “She’s my wife and I love her to death. I caused her a lot of pain by having that affair with your mother, but she was woman enough to forgive me. I promised her that I’d make up for my betrayal. I made a mistake and I intend to pay it off in full.”

  “I was a mistake?” I had been called a lot of things in my life, but nobody had ever made me feel like I was a mistake. Even though my daddy didn’t mean it the way it sounded, he had still hurt my feelings. “You don’t have to let me live with you. I got friends I can live with,” I pouted.

  “Oh no, baby! I didn’t mean anything like that! You are a blessing to me, and I thank God you are in my life. It’s just that, well, you were not conceived under the best of circumstances.” He paused and offered me a smile. I smiled back. “Now let’s look more toward the future. See, Vera loves you just as much as I do.”

  “But do I have to call her mama?” I grunted.

  “That’s up to you. Everybody in this house just wants you to be happy.”

  “I am happy,” I mumbled, looking toward the floor. When I looked back at Daddy’s face and saw his big smile, I actually did feel happy. But the only thing I was happy about was the fact that I was making him feel so good. “I can’t wait to get to that boarding school.”

  CHAPTER 18

  KENNETH

  Two years later . . .

  MY LIFE KEPT GETTING BETTER AND BETTER. I HAD EVEN MORE TO BE thankful for. My daughter and I had an even better relationship now. I was still in reasonably good health, and my business was booming. We couldn’t count the money fast enough.

  But there was at least one thorn in my side.

  Things were somewhat strained between Vera and me. Some days when she didn’t know I was looking out of the corner of my eye, I caught her glaring at me like she wanted to coldcock me. One night after we had gone to bed, I woke up a few hours later and caught her sitting up in bed looking at me with so much contempt in her eyes I was too afraid to say anything. That was a scary moment for me. Vera didn’t say anything to me about it, but I didn’t go back to sleep that night. To my dismay, she spent the next few nights in one of the other bedrooms.

  Even though Vera said she’d forgiven me for having an affair and fathering a child with another woman, I still had some doubts. For one thing, she had not yet accepted my daughter to my satisfaction.

  “I do care about Sarah, and I know that someday she and I will be close, but I need a little more time,” Vera told me in an apologetic tone of voice. She sounded sincere enough, but things were still not the way I thought they should be by now.

  Sarah had been away at school for almost two years. And so far Vera had not gone to Iowa with me to visit her—and I’d made the trip eight times. She had come up with one excuse after another as to why she couldn’t accompany me. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center last year, Vera came up with the excuse that she was now afraid to get on a plane. When Sarah came home for spring break this year in April, which was just a month ago, Vera suddenly decided to go to Houston to visit the sisters she claimed she couldn’t stand. I knew how much she despised her sisters, so her preferring their company over my child’s made me sad. It also made me angry, but I didn’t let Vera know that. I was still trying to make up for my most serious indiscretion. And, I was proud to say, I had not cheated on Vera since we found out about Sarah.

  “Sarah asks about you all the time. The least you can do is send her a card or a letter every now and then. She will be coming home for good next year, and you’re going to have to live with her,” I told Vera.

  “All right. I’ll go with you the next time you visit her.”

  That same day, I made arrangements to visit Sarah the next day. And Vera went with me. From the way she carried on, you would have thought that she and Sarah were best friends. When Sarah came home for good the following year in June, Vera welcomed her with open arms. At least that was what it looked like to me.

  “I’m glad your wife finally stopped treating me like a stepchild,” Sa
rah confided in me during a moment when she and I were alone.

  I chuckled. “But, honey, you are a stepchild to her.”

  She chuckled too. “I know. But you know what I mean.”

  “Baby, just be nice to her and I am sure she’ll be nice to you.” I gave Sarah a firm hug.

  I couldn’t believe how sweet Vera was to Sarah now that she was home for good. Each day Vera seemed sweeter than the day before. Several times a week, she took Sarah shopping at the best stores, lunch at the best restaurants, and she even took her to the theater. As far as I was concerned, I had the best of both worlds now.

  As good as things were, there was still a thing or two going on in my house that didn’t sit too well with me. Vera’s spending habits had gotten out of control. I stumbled upon dozens of large shopping bags filled with expensive items with the price tags still attached. Not only was her bedroom’s large walk-in closet full of these shopping bags, but she had also filled up the closets in two of the other bedrooms, two closets downstairs, and even the laundry room. She purchased a brand-new Ferrari that she drove for only two months. She traded it in on a different one just because she wanted one in a color that would match most of her outfits. She had had so much cosmetic surgery done on her face and body she looked and felt like a mannequin. I came home from one of my business trips last week and she had gotten rid of all the furniture in the house and replaced it with more expensive items. Every time I attempted to scold Vera about her spending, she reminded me about how I had “hurt” her by having an affair with Sarah’s mother and that spending money pacified her. For that reason, it was easier for my peace of mind to let her do whatever she wanted to do.

  Things went on like this for the next four years.

  There was nothing I wanted more than to see my wife accept my daughter completely. I knew Vera was really trying, so I couldn’t say anything or even make any suggestions as to what they could do to improve their relationship. But just knowing that they did go out and do certain things together was a step in the right direction. However, there were flaws in that endeavor too. One of Vera’s complaints was that Sarah got bored on the six- to eight-hour trips to the malls and the boutiques. What was even worse was that when Sarah did want to go shopping, she still went to the same discount stores that she’d shopped in before she came to live with me.