After Charlotte finished the rest of her liquor, she rinsed out her glass and then went upstairs to hide her bottle in the guest bedroom closet. It was the one place she knew she didn’t have to worry about anybody snooping around in—namely Curtis or Curtina—but she’d also told Agnes years ago that there was no need to clean the closets of the guest bedrooms. Maybe a dusting or two every now and then was fine, but that was it.
Charlotte went into her bedroom and stretched her body across the bed, face forward. She felt so at peace and wanted to enjoy this feeling for as long as she could. Then she would simply take a nap, making sure to sleep it off before Curtina got home. Curtis wouldn’t be back until evening, and she would definitely be sober by then. Or close to it.
Charlotte lay there for another five minutes, nearly dozing off, but then her phone rang.
“Ugh. Who is it?” she said, sitting up and looking at the caller ID on their home phone, and saw that it was her mother.
“Hey, Mom,” she answered, trying to sound as though she hadn’t been drinking.
“Hey, dear. How are you?”
“I’m good. And Daddy?”
“He’s doing great, and believe it or not, he’s going along with everything I tell him to do. No arguments about anything.”
“Wow, that’s really good to hear.”
“I know, because I’d sort of thought that, by now, he’d be tired of eating fruits, vegetables, and only baked, broiled, or grilled meat.”
“Yeah, me too. But maybe his heart attack really scared him.”
“I think it did. He’ll never admit it, but it definitely got his attention, and that’s a blessing.”
“Yes. For sure.”
“So how’s Curtis?”
“He’s fine, and actually he’s over there.”
“Oh, okay, and how’s his sister this week?”
“I haven’t spoken to him since he left, but it sounds like she was about the same on Saturday. She’s a very strong woman, though. She’s handling her illness a lot better than I probably would.”
“That’s good. Especially for her husband and children, because sometimes the person who’s dying can end up being the inspiration for the loved ones they’ll be leaving. It’s almost as if they find a certain peace about dying and know that they’ll be okay. Yet they worry about the people who will miss them.”
“I can’t even imagine having to leave my children, MJ, or Curtis, or you and Dad. I can’t imagine dying so young.”
“That does seem to make it harder, and I’m very sorry this is happening. It’s so very sad.”
“It really is.”
“So what’s going on with Miss Curtina?” Noreen wanted to know.
“She’s about the same,” Charlotte said, knowing that things were actually worse now that Curtina had caught her drinking and was using it as leverage to get what she wanted.
“I think she’s just going through something. No different than other eleven-, twelve- and thirteen-year-olds.”
“That might be, but it’s getting on our last nerve, and we weren’t prepared for this. We were very naïve in thinking that we would never have to deal with this kind of drama. I was talking to Alicia one day last week, and she reminded me of the time she started communicating with a guy online. Back when she was fourteen.”
“Curtis was married to his second wife then, right?”
“Uh-huh. We didn’t have social media back then, but she still met him online and somehow he talked her into meeting him somewhere after school and he raped her.”
“I remember you and Curtis talking about that.”
“It was awful for Alicia, and I just hope Curtina doesn’t start texting and sexting with boys. I hope she’s not even thinking about it.”
“I hope not, too. But you know what?” Noreen said. “There’s someone else I’m more worried about.”
“Really, who?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you’ve started drinking again.”
Charlotte wasn’t sure whether to lie or keep quiet. Finally, she chose the latter.
“Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you doing this again, and how did it even start?”
“I’m not, Mom,” she said, and knew she didn’t sound very convincing.
“Charlotte, you are. I know you are. I knew it when I saw you at the hospital, and I could tell some of the other times I’ve talked to you on the phone.”
“Does Daddy know?”
“I don’t think so, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s important is that you stop.”
“I’m not overdoing it this time. I have total control over how much I drink, and it’s not like I drink all day.”
“But you know you had a problem with alcohol before, right? More than once.”
“Yes, but I’ll never go back to being drunk all the time. I’m only doing it as a way to relax.”
“Honey, I know you believe that, but if you keep drinking, pretty soon you’ll be drinking every day again, and then every day will become multiple times a day.”
Charlotte didn’t want to have this conversation with her mother or anyone else, and she wished Noreen would somehow realize that having a few drinks wasn’t that serious. As a matter of fact, the only reason Curtis made such a fuss about it was because of how violent and cruel his father had been to him when he drank. But Charlotte wasn’t Curtis’s dad, and she wished he would understand that. She wished she could make him see that not every drinker was a chronic alcoholic. Not everyone had an addiction problem, and she didn’t, either.
“Well,” Noreen said when Charlotte didn’t respond to her last comment, “I really wish you would quit.”
Charlotte pursed her lips. “Okay, fine, Mom. I will.”
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you do.”
“Mom, I’m really going to stop. You’ll see.”
“Good, because I’ve been worried to death about you driving around and about what it could mean for your marriage.”
“Everything will be fine. I’ll stop drinking, and that will be that.”
“Okay, then, well, I’ll let you go.”
“I love you, Mom, and kiss Daddy for me.”
“I will, and I love you, too.”
Charlotte set the phone on its base, went into the guest bedroom, and pulled out her brandy. She didn’t even head downstairs to get a glass. Instead, she removed the top, turned it up, and drank straight from the bottle.
Charlotte realized she’d fallen asleep because Curtina was in her bedroom waking her up.
“Mom?”
“What is it?”
“Did you talk to Dad about the sleepover?”
Charlotte sighed loudly. “Curtina, please tell me you didn’t wake me up for that.”
“Well, did you?”
“No, I decided it was best to wait until Friday. That way I’ll have time to come up with a good reason why he should let you go and miss church.”
“Maybe you should talk to him about it tonight.”
“No, just trust me. Friday is better.”
“Well, I also want to start going to the mall with my friends on Saturday afternoons. Not just some Saturdays but every Saturday.”
Charlotte sat up, frowning. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but that’ll never happen. And you also need to accept the fact that you can’t do every single thing you want to do.”
Curtina squinted her eyes. “Then why do you get to do whatever you want?”
Charlotte was growing tired of Curtina’s mouth. “First of all, I don’t do everything I want, and secondly, if I did, I’d be doing it because I’m a grown woman.”
“You mean like how you drink because you’re grown? Because I can tell you’ve already been drinking today. Your eyes even look funny.”
“I haven’t been drinking anything.” Charlotte spat. She couldn’t s
tand the way Curtina was using her secret to try to control her.
“I think you have,” Curtina said, taunting her.
“I told you I haven’t.”
“But you were yesterday. I saw you with my own eyes. And anyway, I’m hungry.”
“Then order a pizza, because I’m not cooking.”
“I don’t want pizza. I want Mexican.”
“That would be fine except El Molcajete doesn’t deliver, and I don’t feel like going out.”
“Why? Because you’ve been drinking?”
Charlotte was only two seconds from snatching Curtina back to her senses. But instead, she breathed in and out a couple of times to calm her frustration. “Why can’t you just eat pizza, and we can get Mexican tomorrow?”
“I want Mexican today, and I want it from El Molcajete,” she basically demanded and left the room.
Charlotte could barely believe what had just happened, and she definitely didn’t want to drive under the influence. But then again, she had taken a nap, and she felt completely sober. Plus, the Mexican restaurant wasn’t more than three or four miles away at the most. So to keep Curtina quiet, she would go get her the food she wanted. It was either that or once again risk having her blab things to Curtis that Charlotte didn’t want him knowing about.
Chapter 26
It had been twenty-four hours since Curtis had watched Trina record messages for Amber and Eric, but he was just as heartbroken as if she had done so today. Now he was sitting in Jason and Trina’s family room again, waiting for Denise to help Trina finish getting dressed and ready to record a video for Jason. Curtis knew speaking to Amber and Eric had been hard, and he couldn’t imagine how saying her good-byes to Jason would be any different. Still, Curtis was glad she’d asked him to help her with this whole process. All he was doing was setting up her phone and starting and stopping the video, but Trina had been right about this giving them a chance to do something together—one of the last things they would ever be able to do as brother and sister.
Curtis picked up his cell to see if he had any important emails, but most of the messages weren’t very urgent. Then he thought about Curtina and how glad he was to see that she wasn’t texting boys, talking about sex, or visiting web sites that displayed the wrong kind of photos. With the way she’d been acting, he’d half expected to learn that she was, so he’d been monitoring everything she did daily. Actually, she seemed a lot happier, and although she’d recently told him how much she missed her biological mom, she appeared to be on much better terms with Charlotte. Just yesterday, she’d come downstairs to have breakfast before Curtis, and when he’d gotten home last night, Curtina had come to their bedroom and hugged both of them good night. It had been such a long time since she’d done that, Curtis couldn’t remember when she had. So maybe this was a sign of change and proof that better days were ahead.
“Hey,” Trina said, slowly walking into the family room, her arm held by Denise, and Curtis could tell she was much more tired than she’d been yesterday. She still looked good for being as sick as she was, though.
“Hey, good morning.”
“My plan was to be dressed and ready before you got here, but when I woke up I didn’t feel well. It might have something to do with the fact that Amber and Eric were here until midnight.”
“That was definitely pretty late.”
Trina sat down and Denise left the room. “We were watching Eddie Murphy movies.”
“Which ones?”
“Trading Places, Coming to America, and Harlem Nights.”
“Three of his best.”
“Yes, and I haven’t laughed like that in a long time. And for six hours straight.”
“The kids must have come right after I left.”
“They did. They got here around five thirty.”
Curtis usually tried to stay until Jason got home, but yesterday he’d gotten off a little early. So Curtis had left at five.
“Well, I think I’m situated,” Trina said, smoothing back the sides of her hair.
“Ready to roll?”
“Yep, I think so.”
“Okay,” Curtis said, reaching over and turning on the recorder.
“My dearest Jason. The best man I know. The love of my life. Well, I guess I should start by saying that not in my wildest imagination did I ever think I’d be leaving you a message like this one. Not at fifty-seven years old, anyway. Because I don’t think anyone expects that they will say good-bye to the people they love at such a young age. And isn’t it funny how when we were married nearly thirty-five years ago, we thought fifty was old, let alone fifty-seven? Yet now I don’t personally consider anyone to be old until they’re ninety,” Trina said, laughing, and Curtis agreed with her. “But here we are, and all I can think about is how in love I’ve been with you for so many years. We married not long after graduating college, had Amber two years later, and then Eric came along. We’ve been through so much, but even during the toughest of times, we stood by each other, supported each other, and encouraged each other. We are husband and wife, but we are also best friends, and that has been the biggest blessing of all. I used to wonder why our marriage worked so well, but now I know the reason. It’s because we don’t just love each other, and we’re not just in love with each other, but we also like each other. And that makes so much of a difference when you’re married. Even more so when you’ve been married for more than three decades.
“I have also spent these last few months thinking about the way we met, how you treated me like a queen the whole time we were dating and then took Mom to dinner to ask for my hand in marriage. And you wouldn’t let me go with you,” Trina said, laughing. “I still remember wondering what in the world you could possibly have wanted to talk to her about, because not once had you and I had a real conversation about getting married. As a matter of fact, we’d only been dating for six months. But as it turned out, you proposed, and we were married six months later…and Jason…I want you to know that marrying you was, by far, the best decision I ever made. My childhood wasn’t good, and to better describe it, it was a nightmare. But then you came along and showed me a whole different way of living. You showed me how to love and how to be loved, and as much as I loved my mom, Curtis and I never saw that in our home. So my first real example of a great marriage was when I met your parents. They laughed and talked the same way I did with my girlfriends, and I’d never witnessed anything like that before. And then if that weren’t enough, they’ve always loved and treated me like a daughter. Even now when your mom calls me, she rarely uses my name and always refers to me as ‘daughter.’ And I so appreciate that. I’m very grateful to have been blessed with a second set of parents.
“Then there are the two beautiful children we brought into this world. To me, when we got married, our lives were already great, but when Amber and Eric came along, it made our entire world complete. We couldn’t have asked or prayed for better children, and I’m glad that they are the kind of loving, compassionate children who will be there for their father. They love the absolute ground that you walk on, and you have been the perfect example of what a father should be. You are a strong, true man of God, you exemplify great integrity, and you’re always willing to do whatever you have to for your family. So while my hope was to be able to celebrate another thirty-five years of marriage with you,” she said, pausing and swallowing tears, “I’ll now have to settle for quite a bit less. But Jason, my dear, my joy, my love…know that I love you with all my heart and from the very bottom of my soul. You have certainly given me the best years of my life, and I am forever grateful to you for that. I will also be with you from now on. Maybe not here on earth, but I will be with you in every other way possible. And finally, thank you for contacting my dear brother. Thank you for calling him and inviting him to our home, because these last three weeks allowed Curtis and I to make things right. It allowed us an opportunity to spend brotherly-sisterly time together, something we never would have been able to do had you not t
aken matters into your hands. So thank you, my dear. Thank you for just being you, and I will love you always.”
Curtis turned off the recording, and tears streamed down Trina’s face. She cried with her body heaving, and Curtis sat next to her, holding her again, the same as yesterday. He didn’t say anything, but soon he cried just as hard as she did—as though she had already left them.
Chapter 27
It had been a long time since Charlotte had manipulated Curtis into doing something he didn’t want to do. But earlier this morning, she’d done exactly that. She hadn’t known whether he would go along with what she was suggesting, but she’d finally convinced him to let Curtina go to Taylor’s sleepover and miss church tomorrow morning. She’d had to make a sacrifice herself, though, in the process, because in return, she’d told him that she wanted to go with him today to see Trina. Curtis had seemed pretty shocked, but he’d also been happier than she’d seen him in a while. Especially when she’d told him that with everything they’d gone through lately, including her father’s heart attack, she wanted them to spend some time together with just the two of them; which was the reason they were dropping off Curtina now at eleven a.m.
Curtis backed out of Taylor’s driveway and headed down the street. “It’s so good to see the change in Curtina. She seems more like herself.”
If only Curtis knew the reason, was all Charlotte could think. “It really is, and that’s why I thought it might be nice to let her go to Taylor’s right away this morning and stay until tomorrow afternoon. She’s really trying,” she said, knowing that this couldn’t be further from the truth, and that Curtina was only pretending to have changed for the better so she could get what she wanted. If only Charlotte had set that alarm system and had heard her come back into the house last Sunday, Curtina never would’ve caught her drinking.
Better Late Than Never Page 17
