The Johnson Sisters

by Tresser Henderson

  I reached over and put my plate down and replaced it with the glass of wine I had before me. I turned the glass up to my mouth and finished what was left in the glass. Lucky for me, I had brought the bottle into the living room with me. I quickly poured me another and took a large sip before the silence between us was broken.

  “Seriously, Shauna,” Viv said, being the first one to speak. “How could you?”

  I looked at Serena, who dropped her head in disgust, I guessed. The shame and humiliation was taking over.

  “Say something,” Viv demanded.

  “What is there to say?” I finally spoke.

  Nervously pivoting from one foot to the other, Viv said, “Explain yourself.”

  “What can I say? I was wrong.”

  Serena rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms across her chest. Both she and Vivian were blocking me out, while Phoenix was finishing up the last bit of her food.

  “And y’all thought I was the whore,” Phoenix said.

  I glared at her.

  “Well, it’s true. All y’all were worried about how I get my money, and we had two sisters bouncing their ass for the world to see.”

  “You guys. I’m not a whore,” I told them.

  “Then what does this make you look like? You were so quick to call Dawn one a few minutes ago, yet your ass is up on that screen doing the exact same thing,” Vivian said, pointing to the fifty-inch flat panel hanging on her wall.

  I was just as shocked as they were to see myself appear on the television, but what made this revelation even worse was the fact that my debut performance was being performed with Dawn’s fiancé.

  “You slept with Corey?” Vivian asked.

  “It was a few times,” I tried to explain.

  “What’s a few?” Viv asked.

  “I don’t know. Ten. Twenty.”

  “That’s not a few. That’s an affair,” Phoenix interjected, putting her now empty plate down on the coffee table.

  “That’s our sister,” Vivian stressed.

  “She’s our half sister, okay? And one I never asked for,” I said angrily.

  “You didn’t ask for us either,” Viv shot back.

  “True, but at least we came from the same people. She was created through deceit and mistrust.”

  “So that gives you the right to betray her?” Serena finally butted in.

  “I tried to tell her he was no good,” I explained.

  “Why? So you could have him all to yourself?” Serena snapped.

  “I didn’t want him. We just had a sexual thing. I didn’t want to marry him.”

  “Just sex, huh? Isn’t that what it was for our dad?” Viv asked coldly. “Didn’t he sleep with Dawn’s mother for just sex?”

  I couldn’t say anything. It’s funny because I’d never looked at it like that. Talk about a smack in the face.

  “How are you any different than Dawn’s mother?”

  Hearing Vivian say that stung more than I was prepared to receive. I dropped my head in disgrace and clasped my hands in front of me, wringing them nervously. Vivian’s words did hurt, but that didn’t stop me from coming back at her.

  “Dawn and Corey are not married, so what’s the problem?” I asked angrily.

  “But you were going to let her marry him knowing what you two had done together?”

  “Would it have made a difference? I tried to talk her out of it. I mean, look at how many women Corey has been with and she stayed by his side. She accepted his hand in marriage for goodness’ sake, so why should I care?”

  “You don’t think that if she knew Corey stooped so low as to sleep with her very own sister it could have changed her mind?” Serena asked.

  “I don’t know, and to be honest, I don’t care. I’m tired of pretending I have been cool with Dawn joining our family. Looking at her every day reminded me constantly of the betrayal Daddy did to our mom. She died with this burden on her heart. That could have been one less thing Mama had to deal with before she left this world.”

  “Mama was at peace about everything and you know it. If she weren’t, she wouldn’t have taken Dawn in as her own,” Viv explained.

  “How do you know? Mama could have died of a broken heart.”

  “Do you know our mother at all? That woman was so strong. She had the strength to forgive our father and raise the child he had with his mistress. You know Mama never faked anything for nobody, not even Daddy. When she kicked him out, she meant it; but when she took him back, she meant that, too. Mama left this world knowing she was going home to be with Jesus. Her main priority in life was to live the best life possible and treat people to the best of her ability. Mama was a great woman. She knew there was no need to hold grudges because that would hinder her from getting into God’s Kingdom,” Vivian explained.

  I knew she was telling the truth. Mama’s main purpose in life was to live right, because she wanted heaven to be her home once this earthly world was done for her.

  “I think you can’t forgive what happened, Shauna,” Serena said. “You can’t put this on Mama.”

  “Maybe you are right,” I said.

  “And that anger has allowed you to be another one of Corey’s pawns,” Phoenix said.

  “I didn’t know he was recording us,” I said.

  “If Dawn finds out about this . . .”

  Chapter 38

  Vivian

  “Finds out about this . . .” was all I heard when I looked up to see my sister Dawn standing before us. In the midst of our squabble, none of us noticed her enter. And when she did, it was too late. The expressions on all of our faces were ones of shock. I didn’t think my heart could take any more. Looking into my sister’s eyes, seeing the pain radiating through her was enough to destroy me.

  Dawn was glaring at the television as the visual of Shauna and Corey played on my flat screen. We all halted briefly when we saw her. Serena managed to gather her senses, picking up the remote to the television to cut it off.

  “Wait! I want to see this,” Dawn said coolly.

  “Aw, hell,” Phoenix replied.

  Dawn walked deeper into the room as she watched Corey going in and out of Shauna. He was enjoying himself, and so was our sister. The way they looked at one another and kissed one another was enough to devastate me, and he wasn’t even my man.

  “Dawn, let me—” I started to say, but she held her hand up to stop me from talking.

  “What should I do?” Serena asked. I hunched my shoulders.

  “Well, you wanted everything out in the open,” Phoenix said. “You got your wish.”

  “I didn’t want it like this,” I said.

  “Sometimes the way we ask for something is not the way we get it,” Phoenix countered.

  I looked over at Phoenix, who was shaking her head, looking back and forth between Shauna and Dawn. I gave her a look to leave it alone, but I should have known better, because Phoenix began to speak.

  “Y’all need to turn this off, because Dawn doesn’t need to be viewing this. She’s seen enough,” Phoenix said.

  Dawn snapped her head around and glared at Phoenix, asking, “Did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Know the two of them were sleeping together.”

  “No, I didn’t know. We all found out about this today,” Phoenix explained with a frown.

  “Is this why you called me over here, Vivian, so you could humiliate me like this?” Dawn asked.

  “You know I would never do anything as cruel as this,” I explained.

  “It’s on the television. All y’all sitting in here watching it like it’s some X-rated Lifetime movie,” Dawn replied.

  “You have to think very little of me to think I’m sick enough to gather our sisters together to watch Shauna in action. Heck, there’s a disc on you too,” I said, letting her know.

  “What?” Dawn asked, confused.

  “That’s right. We know about your little extracurricular activities. When were you going to tell us?”
I asked.

  “What I do in the confines of my bedroom is my business,” Dawn snapped, pointing at me for emphasis.

  “Well, it looks like what’s done in the confines of your bedroom is Corey’s and Shauna’s business too,” Phoenix quipped.

  “Shut up, Phoenix,” Shauna told her.

  Dawn dropped her head when Phoenix said this.

  I stepped closer to Dawn, saying, “Look, sis. I called you over here to resolve what’s been going on with us. I don’t like this friction we all have had lately. This is not us. This is not the Johnson sisters.”

  “She’s not a Johnson,” Shauna countered. “She had to come from our mother for her to earn that name.”

  “Shauna, please,” I urged.

  “Y’all wanted things out in the open, so here it is. Yes, I’ve been sleeping with Corey. Now what, huh? He caught me out there and taped our little escapades, and I will handle him on that note later, but for now, let’s get things resolved,” Shauna said callously.

  “How could you do this to me?” Dawn asked Shauna, who was sitting back like she didn’t have a care in the world. She seemed unfazed by the fact that Dawn just walked in to see her on the big screen doing her fiancé.

  “It just happened,” Shauna said nonchalantly.

  “I swear if I hear another person say, ‘it just happened,’ I’m going to scream,” Serena interrupted, walking across the room with her hands on her hips.

  “Well, it did.”

  “Sex doesn’t just happen, Shauna. If it were that simple, then you wouldn’t be mad at Daddy and Dawn’s mother for having sex either,” Serena said.

  “That was different,” Shauna argued.

  “How’s it different? Sex is sex,” Serena countered.

  “Dawn is not married to him,” Shauna said.

  “And our parents weren’t married either. Regardless of the fact that we didn’t come from the same mother, we carry the same blood because we all have the same father,” Serena retorted. “Mama was Dawn’s mother too, so don’t sit there and act like Mama would have had it any other way. When you talk like that, you are disgracing the kind act our mother did, so you need to shut your damn mouth about that,” Serena said angrily as water filled her eyes.

  Dawn began to speak. “I always felt like you hated me, Shauna. I tried to look past it and be the best sister ever. I was grateful for what Mama, your mother, did for me. I couldn’t have asked for a better upbringing. I didn’t ask for this path in my life. Our dad and my mother chose that for me,” Dawn said. “Just like we can’t choose our siblings, I couldn’t choose my parents either. You’ve taken your hate and frustration out on me, when the person you should have taken it out on was our dad.”

  Shauna clapped her hands. “Bravo, Dawn. That was an excellent performance.”

  “This is not a performance,” Dawn said, frowning.

  “Come on, Shauna. You are being insensitive here,” I told her.

  “Has everybody forgotten about what this so-called sister did?” Shauna asked as she scooted to the edge of the sofa.

  “Oh, here we go,” Phoenix said under her breath as Serena turned her back on what Shauna was saying.

  “Don’t do this, Shauna,” I warned.

  “Why not? Isn’t this what you wanted, for us to get everything out in the open?”

  “Not like this,” I said.

  “Did you think it was going to go down calmly, with voices composed and smiles on our faces? Please. You know us better than that.”

  “Okay, Shauna. Let me have it. Say it. Say what Vivian’s trying to stop you from saying,” Dawn demanded.

  Everybody in the room looked around at one another. I hoped Shauna wouldn’t say it, but my gut knew this was the moment she’d been waiting for all her life. It was probably why she drank as much as she did. She was trying to forget about the pain our father brought to our family and the end results, which led to us losing our sister.

  Chapter 39

  Dawn

  The words spilled out of Shauna’s mouth so easily, like she longed to say those words to me but she had been holding them in for years.

  “You killed Renee.”

  And there it was. The big elephant in the room was even bigger than the revelation that our father was unfaithful. Hearing Shauna say it with such disgust and rage was gut-wrenchingly hurtful. I could feel my throat struggling to close, as the will of my body fought against the anxiety that was setting in.

  I nodded and said, “Yes, Shauna. I killed Renee.”

  I looked into Serena’s face, which had tears rolling down her cheeks. Phoenix was on the sofa, leaning on the armrest with her head propped against her open hand. Vivian was standing near me with her back to me and her hands on her head in disbelief. Shauna was giving me a look that could kill me where I stood.

  “Finally you admit it,” Shauna said.

  “I never denied it,” I told her.

  “But you never admitted to killing her either,” Shauna said heatedly. “You let our sister Viv take the fall for you.”

  “You are right again, Shauna, but while we are coming clean, let’s be clear. Not only do you resent me for being the illegitimate child of our father, but you hate me because I took Renee away from you.”

  “You damn right,” she spat. “My sisters have been able to walk around like things within our family are okay, but I’ve never been able to forgive you for what you did. I’ve tolerated you for years because of Mama, may she rest in peace.; and I even continued to try to deal with you after her passing, but every time I see your face, I see my sister lying on that floor, struggling to take her last breath,” Shauna said, choking on her words as she struggled to resist the tears from falling.

  “I didn’t mean to—” I started to say, but Shauna cut me off.

  “What? You didn’t mean to pick up the gun? What? Did it fascinate you after you saw how it blew your mother’s brains across the wall, so you needed to see how it worked?”

  “Come on, Shauna, that’s enough. You don’t have to be this heartless,” Phoenix said.

  “If she knew what guns could do, then why would she ever pick one up?” Shauna asked no one in particular, though she was looking at Phoenix.

  No one had anything to say.

  “Exactly. She should have known better.”

  “It was an accident,” I pleaded.

  I was twelve years old when I accidently shot Renee. I was fooling around in Dad’s den and decided to pick up one of the many guns he had in the house. This one was in the gun cabinet, which was usually locked, but this day, it was open for some reason. There was a slight crack in the cabinet door. Being nosy as I was, I went over and picked up one of the handguns.

  Renee walked in, saying, “What are you doing?”

  Startled, I turned and fired the gun at her by accident. It took me a moment to realize I had even pulled the trigger. I didn’t know Daddy kept bullets in the gun. I remember Renee looking down in shock as her mint green T-shirt became crimson.

  She dropped to her knees and fell to the floor. Vivian was the first one to enter the room. She ran over to me and took the gun from my shaking hands, asking me what I’d done. Moments later, Daddy and Mom came running in the room, along with Shauna, Serena, and Phoenix.

  Daddy tried to save her life. He applied pressure, while Mama called 911. Unfortunately for our family, the wound was fatal and Renee died right there in the den from the negligence of me playing with my father’s weapon, resulting in a tragic end for our family.

  For years, Vivian took the fall for that incident, saying that she had dropped the gun and it went off. Why I let her do that, I don’t know. Maybe it was because I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be in their home, and there I was an outsider who had taken someone who was already there and who had welcomed me with open arms. I didn’t want anyone to be mad at me, because they were already dealing with the situation of my father and mother, and me having to move in.

  It wasn’t until Mam
a was on her deathbed that the truth came out. Mama always knew the story Vivian told wasn’t the truth, and she wanted the real story, which Vivian gave her. Mama understood Vivian had taken the blame so the family wouldn’t spend my entire life blaming me. Just like Vivian, she felt I had already been through enough tragedy. It still hadn’t stopped me from blaming myself. I’d always felt like if I had never moved into their home, Renee would still be here today.

  I knew this day would come eventually and I’d figured that with me being an adult now, it would be easier to deal with. But it wasn’t. It was as hard, if not harder, than I could ever imagine. The sheer fact that Shauna was bringing it up and had resented me all these years for it hurt me more than I could put into words. I suspected this was why she took it upon herself to sleep with Corey.

  “How could you live with the fact that Viv covered for you?” Shauna asked. “Our father was so angry with Vivian about that, because he felt like she knew better than to touch his guns. And she did. It was you, but he didn’t know it at the time. Your carelessness cost my sister precious time with our dad, all because of you.”

  “Shauna, me taking the blame was my decision,” Vivian admitted in my defense.

  “Did Daddy not treat you differently after that?” Shauna asked.

  Vivian didn’t say anything.

  “She could have spoken up and said it was her,” Shauna said.

  “She was a child already dealing with drastic changes in her life,” Vivian said.

  “It was drastic for us too, Vivian, but she had to go and make it worse by killing Renee,” Shauna yelled.

  “You act like she did it on purpose,” Vivian replied.

  “I don’t know. Did you?” she asked me.

  “I loved Renee. I never meant to hurt her,” I explained.

  “Yeah, just like your mother never meant to break up our happy home,” Shauna retorted, leaning back.

  “You know what? That’s enough, Shauna. I’m tired of this. You need to let this anger go before it ruins you,” Serena interjected.