Better Late Than Never

by Kimberla Lawson Roby

  “I don’t know.”

  Curtis frowned. “I got a call from your English teacher,” he said, and then looked at Charlotte. “She tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”

  “Oh, I don’t know how I missed that. I’ll have to check my voice mail.”

  “Well, your daughter here hasn’t turned in two of her assignments. Even though she knows that we’ve talked to her about her grades.”

  “I’m only missing one assignment, not two,” Curtina said.

  “So are you calling your teacher a liar?”

  “No, but she’s not telling the truth, either.”

  Curtis folded his arms. “Okay, wait a minute. Are you trying to be funny?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. Both of those papers had better be turned in by tomorrow morning. You also have a reading assignment for tonight, so be prepared to tell me anything I ask you about the first two chapters in To Kill a Mockingbird.”

  Curtina’s eyes widened, and she was obviously shocked that her teacher had also told him about her homework for this evening.

  “And another thing,” Curtis said. “Go upstairs, get your phone, and bring it back down here.”

  Curtina huffed loudly. “Why?”

  “Because I said so, and because you don’t appreciate special privileges. Now go get it.”

  Curtina looked at Charlotte with begging eyes. “Mom, please talk to Daddy.”

  “I will, but just go get your phone and bring it downstairs for now.”

  Curtina left the kitchen.

  “What was that all about?” Curtis asked Charlotte.

  “Well, she’s been doing so well, maybe we can give her one more chance. But only if she turns in all three assignments tomorrow.”

  “But as it is, she’s been suspended, and she’s doing terribly in her classes. So I think we’ve given her all the chances she needs.”

  “I know, but with the exception of today, she’s really been trying to do better.”

  “I agree, but I don’t like this getting-calls-from-the-school thing.”

  “I don’t either, and if she messes up again, then we will take her phone for good.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said, but only because he did want to keep an eye on what Curtina was texting about.

  Curtina came back into the kitchen and gave Curtis her phone, but she looked at Charlotte while she was doing it. “Mom, did you talk to him?”

  “I did.”

  Curtis laughed, but he certainly didn’t think anything was funny. “So you’re going to talk about me in third person like I’m not even standing here? Who is him?”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy, but please don’t take my phone. I’ll turn in my homework from now on. I promise.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, “and I suggest you get upstairs so you can get to work.”

  Curtina looked at both her parents with pitiful eyes, but that had stopped working on Curtis a long time ago. So when she realized that her father still wasn’t giving her phone back to her, she left again.

  “This can’t continue,” he told Charlotte, “and if she doesn’t get better, she might be the first of our children to be sent away to a boarding school. A few years back, one of the elders at the church sent his daughter to a school for all girls, and I think it was faith-based, too.”

  “You don’t think it’s come to that, do you?” Charlotte asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re really serious?”

  “I am. I’ll do whatever I have to if it means getting her the discipline and education she needs.”

  Charlotte walked around the island, and Curtis could tell she didn’t like the sound of what he was saying. But he also wondered why she was placing a K-cup in the Keurig machine and filling the reservoir with water at five p.m., when normally she never drank coffee after noon. He’d brought this same point to her attention on Saturday, so he couldn’t understand what the sudden change was about. But then it dawned on him. Was Charlotte drinking again? Was that the reason she had missed church three weeks in a row and was no longer complaining about the amount of time he was spending with Trina? Did she now want him to go to Chicago so she would be free to drink as much as she wanted? And was that the reason she’d missed the phone call from Curtina’s English teacher? Had she been out at some restaurant drinking? Curtis sure hoped not, because he didn’t need these kinds of problems right now. He had enough to worry about already. His sister and his daughter especially. So there was absolutely no room for alcohol issues. None whatsoever.

  Chapter 30

  Curtis had driven over to Trina’s a little earlier than usual, but it was mostly because he’d needed to think. He’d also tossed and turned all last night, worrying about Curtina and hoping Charlotte wasn’t drinking again. At one point, he’d thought about asking Charlotte, but if it turned out that he was accusing her of something she wasn’t doing, he knew it would mean trouble. Charlotte would become angry and defensive, and one thing would lead to another. And he didn’t want that. So instead of hanging around the house, he’d gotten up at three, worked out on the treadmill, showered, and slipped on a sweater and a pair of jeans. He’d left the house by six, and while he’d half expected Charlotte to ask him why he was leaving so early, she hadn’t. This also made him think that she was glad he’d be gone for the day, but on the other hand, she did now completely support his visits to Chicago to see his sister. So maybe he was just being paranoid.

  Trina tried positioning herself in bed so that she wasn’t lying so far back, and Curtis added two more pillows to help her. For the past couple of weeks, she’d been getting up and spending most of her time in the family room, but today she’d wanted to stay in her pajamas—today, she not only looked weak, she was exhausted, and the circles around her eyes were much darker. Curtis had only missed three days of seeing her, yet her health seemed to have turned for the worse in that short period of time. Her blood pressure was dropping, and her bladder wasn’t producing much output, which meant her organs were slowly shutting down. So much so that Denise had advised Jason that it might not be long before Trina would need hospice services. Curtis hadn’t wanted to hear that kind of news and neither had Jason, but Jason had still decided that today would be his last day of work for a while. He was even planning to get off earlier than usual.

  “So what did you think of the chapter I asked you to read?” Trina asked.

  “I thought it was good.”

  “Then have you considered going to Dad’s grave site to forgive him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But I’d need to come to terms with quite a few more things before I do.”

  “Like what?” she said, covering her mouth and coughing.

  “Well, for one thing, why didn’t Mom protect me from Dad? Why didn’t she take us out of that madness? And why did Dad take all of his anger out on me? Why was I the only one who got beaten? Why didn’t he beat Mom? Because most men who beat their children always beat their wives and girlfriends.”

  Trina stared at him. “I know why. And the only reason I’ve debated telling you is because I’ve been so afraid it would hurt you even more and make you angrier than you already are.”

  Curtis couldn’t imagine what was so bad that Trina didn’t want to tell him, but he wanted to know what it was. He needed to know what it was. “Just go ahead and tell me. It’ll be fine.”

  Trina sighed. “Remember when Daddy used to say to Mom all the time that she’d better be glad he didn’t believe in hitting women or she’d be a dead woman?”

  “I remember every word.”

  “Yeah, well, truth is, Uncle Bradley made Daddy not believe in hitting women.”

  Curtis scrunched his forehead. “How?”

  “Before you were born, even while Mom was carrying you, Daddy would beat her, and then when I was born and you were two years old, he beat her so badly that she had to be rushed to the hospital. Both her eyes were swollen shut, and she had bruise
s all over her body. And that’s when Uncle Bradley and one of his friends came to the house and beat Daddy nearly to death. They left him for dead, and he ended up being in the hospital for a lot longer than Mom. He was there for three weeks.”

  “And Mom told you all of this?”

  Trina coughed again a couple of times. “Yes. She wanted me to know what life was really like for her, and then she apologized for bringing you and me into a violent situation we didn’t ask for.”

  “Gosh, I hate that she had to go through that. And now I’m even sorrier for not seeing her for so many years. There’s still something I don’t understand, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why he stopped beating her.”

  “He stopped because Uncle Bradley told him that if he ever saw another bruise, cut, or anything on Mom ever again, he would kill him. He would shoot him dead and then turn himself in to the police.”

  “Yeah, but Thomas Black was crazy. So it’s hard for me to believe he just up and stopped abusing Mom simply because someone threatened him.”

  “Well, according to Mom, he did. He was really afraid of Uncle Bradley, but Mom also said that she believed it was more about Daddy’s ego, too. By saying that he didn’t believe in hitting women, that made him feel like it was his decision not to hit Mom instead of it being because he was afraid of his brother-in-law. Daddy would never have wanted to be seen as a coward. Not when he was so used to being a bully who controlled everybody. And to be honest, I think Daddy was bipolar. And then by the time we were older, his illness had gotten much worse, which made him more violent than he’d ever been.”

  Curtis wasn’t sure he believed that theory. “Mmm, I don’t know about that.”

  “You said yourself he was crazy, but I think he had real mental issues, because Mom told me that right after Uncle Bradley and his friend beat him up, he tried to change. He even went to see a doctor and started taking medicine. And it was the only time he treated her like he loved her. But after a few months, he told her that he didn’t like the way those ‘crazy pills’ made him feel, and he threw them out. And, of course, all the drinking started up again. But then instead of beating Mom, he took his frustrations out on her in a whole other way.”

  “How?”

  “He raped her whenever he felt like it. And she let him, because she didn’t want us to know about it. She never screamed or did anything. She just let him rape her for all those years.”

  Curtis felt as though he was having an out-of-body experience. “This is totally insane.”

  “I know, but at least it explains why Mom couldn’t leave. She was terrified of Daddy, and she was also afraid that if Uncle Bradley ever found out that Daddy was beating you, he would kill him and end up in prison. So that’s why she never wanted him to know. She said she went out of her way to keep everything hidden from Uncle Bradley.”

  Curtis stared at Trina but didn’t respond to what she’d just told him.

  “I know this is a lot to take in, but you’re never going to be okay until you forgive Daddy,” she told him. “And Mom, too, because I know as a parent, you still feel like she should have protected you before protecting Daddy or Uncle Bradley. But, Curtis, Mom had battered wife syndrome. I know that doesn’t make up for what happened to you, but she did.”

  Curtis heard what his sister was saying, but he still didn’t speak. The reason: He didn’t have words, and he could barely believe what Trina had just shared with him. But what stood out more than anything else was the fact that his mom had been raped repeatedly by his father. The man had raped his own wife and thought nothing of it. He’d terrorized all of them, Curtis, Trina and their mother, and now after all these years, Curtis was still suffering the consequences. He was still hurting like a small child, and he wondered when he would finally get over it. When he would finally be able to leave his past where it belonged and focus on all the blessings God had given him as an adult. Although, sadly, as he looked at his sister, he was reminded of how ill she was and how when she died, he would find himself feeling more pain than he already was. His childhood trauma had been one thing, but losing his sister was the kind of devastating loss that he just wasn’t ready for.

  Chapter 31

  For a while, Charlotte had thought Agnes would never leave. She’d long finished cleaning the house and had even prepared a nice salmon dinner for them to eat this evening, but she’d then hung around talking to Charlotte for more than an hour. Charlotte loved Agnes, but today, she’d wanted her to leave on time so she could go upstairs, pull her vodka out of the closet, and drink it in peace—which was exactly what she was doing now. But then her phone rang, and she hoped it wasn’t the school calling. It rang again, so she took another swig of vodka, finally picked up her phone, and saw that it was Sonya Miller. She had a mind not to answer it, but as it was, she still hadn’t spoken to Sonya about the church’s twentieth anniversary. Worse, the day Charlotte’s dad had gone into cardiac arrest, she’d told Sonya to call her on that upcoming Tuesday, but because Joe had been in the hospital, she hadn’t been able to talk to her. That had been more than three weeks ago, and in all honesty, Charlotte hadn’t thought any more about it. Although, come to think of it, Sonya and a few other women at the church had left her messages, checking to see how she was doing. But what they’d actually wanted to know was why she hadn’t been to church. So she hadn’t bothered returning any of their calls.

  Charlotte set her bottle of vodka down and pressed the Send button on her cell phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Sister Black. How are you?”

  “I’m good. What about you?”

  “I’m doing well, and how is your dad coming along?”

  “He’s doing great. He’s recovering very quickly.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We’ve missed seeing you at church.”

  “I know. But with my father being ill, I’ve spent quite a bit of time over in Chicago. And you know Curtis’s sister is very ill, too.”

  “Yes, we’ve all been praying for her.”

  “We really appreciate that.”

  “Well, the other reason I’m calling is to see if we can talk more about our women’s ministry and the church’s anniversary next year.”

  Charlotte didn’t want to have this conversation, but she also didn’t want to be rude to Sonya. “I liked the four ideas you told me about last month.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll start putting together a meeting agenda. That way we can discuss it in more detail on Saturday.”

  “What’s happening on Saturday?”

  “Our women’s leadership meeting.”

  Charlotte doubted that she would be there, but she said, “Okay, then that sounds perfect.”

  “Well, I won’t hold you any longer,” Sonya said, “but it was good to hear your voice.”

  “Same here.”

  “See you on Saturday.”

  “Take care.”

  Charlotte set her phone on the nightstand and took another large gulp of liquor, then she glanced at her watch. Curtina would be out of school in a couple of hours, so it was probably best for her to take her bottle back to the guest bedroom. But as she walked past Curtina’s room, she thought she heard a dinging sound. So she stopped to listen, but there was nothing. She waited a few seconds longer and then walked down to the guest bedroom, wrapped her bottle in the blanket, and headed back to her own room. However, as she passed Curtina’s room a second time, she heard the same dinging sound again.

  This time, she walked inside and realized that what she was hearing was some kind of phone notification. Either for text messaging, email, or some social media platform. It seemed to be coming from Curtina’s closet, so Charlotte opened it and searched through a couple of shoe boxes. She didn’t see anything, so she searched inside one of Curtina’s storage containers on her top shelf. Then the dinging started up again, and now Charlotte could tell it was coming from the far right of the
closet. So she reached through a few pieces of clothing until she found what she was looking for in one of Curtina’s jean jackets. It was indeed a phone. Charlotte wondered whose it was, because once Curtina had showed Curtis her finished homework assignments last night, Curtis had given her phone back to her. Plus, this device didn’t look like her phone, anyway. It looked similar, but it wasn’t the phone Charlotte had purchased for her. Had Curtina somehow bought another phone without her parents’ knowledge?

  Still, Charlotte took a chance and typed in the same passcode that Curtina used for the phone she and Curtis did know about. But it didn’t work. She tried a couple of others, but when the phone still didn’t open, she stopped trying before she reached the maximum number of attempts allowed. She then debated calling Curtis. But she knew if she did, Curtina would tell her father that Charlotte was drinking again, and she just couldn’t chance that kind of disaster. So instead, she would wait and make Curtina give her the code when she got home.

  Charlotte closed Curtina’s closet and went back down the hallway, then she heard her own phone ringing again. It was the school, and Charlotte was almost afraid to answer it, because there was no telling what kind of trouble Curtina had gotten in. Why wouldn’t she stop all this nonsense? Because if she didn’t, Curtis would follow through on his idea about sending her to a school that could deal with her.

  The phone rang again and again, and Charlotte finally answered it. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Black?” the school principal said.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Mr. Norton, and if possible, we need you to get here as soon as you can.”

  Charlotte panicked. “Oh no, is Curtina okay?”

  “She is for now, but one of our security officers just caught her and another student having sex in the girls’ bathroom.”

  Charlotte dropped down on her bed, speechless. Surely she hadn’t heard Mr. Norton correctly. Either that, or she was simply dreaming and needed to wake up. She knew it had to be one or the other, because there was no way Curtina was having sex at school. There was no way she was having sex, period.