All That Drama

by McKinney, Tina Brooks

  Mom was from the old school and she believed that no matter what, marriages were made to last. Only death should break apart two people who were joined by God. Up until my last trip home to Baltimore, I believed that as well. I decided to spend some time with her when I picked up the kids later that evening.

  “Hello,” I yelled when I walked in the door of Mom’s house.

  “I am downstairs,” Mom yelled from the basement. “I’m just putting their clothes up. I will be right there.”

  I realized that it had been a while since I had actually come in the house and sat for a spell. She had redecorated the living room. There was new furniture and she had painted the walls a soft shade of cream. It looked really good. Mom always had a way with decorating. I tried to get her into interior designing after Dad passed away but she said she could not do it for money. She wasn’t hurting financially so I didn’t press the issue. I just thought it would be a way for her to meet more people and keep herself busy.

  Mom finally came up the stairs with the childrens’ clothes in her hands. They had stayed with her over the weekend so she washed everything that I had packed for them. Mom was incredible; she even washed the clothes that they didn’t wear.

  “Mom, why did you do their laundry again?” I asked. “I asked you not to do that!” I wanted to get angry with her for not listening to me, but that was the way she had always been. Even when I was little, she used to wash my clothes every night and put them back in my dresser. It got me so confused that one week I wore the same thing for three days in a row before some of my classmates started teasing me about it.

  “Nonsense,” she said with a wave of her hand. I wanted to argue with her but realized that it was pointless.

  “Where are they anyway?” I inquired about Keira and Kevin.

  “They are down the street at Pat’s house. Her number is by the refrigerator on that little pad,” she said.

  “Oh, well, I’m not in any rush; they can stay down there while you and I visit.” She raised her eyebrows at me but did not say anything as she put their clothes back in the suitcase. I went into the kitchen and turned on the instant pot. I grabbed two cups, the coffee and some sugar. Mom came into the kitchen as the water began to boil. She pulled out a chair and folded her arms defensively across her chest. I did not say anything until I was done preparing the coffee.

  I went up to my mother dropping to my knees and hugged her around the waist. I shocked her as well as myself since I had not given into this luxury in quite a long while. I looked into my mother’s eyes and tears began to form in the corners. We stayed that way for about ten minutes and it felt good.

  “What was all that about?” she said when I finally took my seat.

  “I just wanted to hug you. Dang, can’t a girl hug her own mother?” I said, trying to appear nonchalant about it.

  “Sure you can, honey. You just caught me off guard, that’s all.”

  “Mom, I owe you an apology. I came over to tell you I’m sorry for the way I have been behaving over the last six months.”

  Mom didn’t say anything. She knew what I was talking about and also knew that if she interrupted me before I finished talking there was a good chance that I would clam up and go home.

  “I was angry with you for not supporting my decision to divorce Keith and I just wanted to say I’m sorry. You are entitled to your opinion and I need to respect that.”

  “Honey, I have always supported you,” she interrupted. “I will say that I was disappointed that things didn’t work out for you two, but I have always been in your corner.”

  “Mom, you told me that we should plant a garden together and our love would grow!” I said, starting to get agitated again but quickly lowered my tone. I didn’t want to fight with her; I wanted her to understand where I was coming from.

  “I only wanted you to take your time before you rushed into a decision. It’s hard being a single parent in this day and age. I wanted you to be sure that this was what you wanted to do.”

  “Mom, that’s the point. I am sure. We have been in Atlanta for two years now. Keith has been here once to see the kids and we saw him when I went home. There is nothing left for us. I was unhappy with Keith for eight years. I told myself that I would hang in there until Keira and Kevin were older, but when I got home from Baltimore I realized that I might not have the luxury of waiting.”

  Mom didn’t interrupt so I continued. “I tried to look at Keith in a different light when he came to visit but the feelings were just not there. Remember the first summer we were here when Keira got sick with pneumonia?”

  “How could I forget?” Mom said, shaking her head and holding herself.

  “I considered taking Keith back then. I was tired of carrying the responsibility for the children by myself. It opened a dialogue between Keith and me, and we started talking again. But it wasn’t enough! Forcing it would have been a bigger mistake than marrying him in the first place.”

  “We went through the motions but it just didn’t work, and there is no fault to be placed here. I should have listened to Dad in the first place and never married him.”

  We both sat quietly for a few minutes while our coffee grew cold in their cups.

  “Marie, baby, regardless of what you think, I never judged you. I may not have understood what you were going through but I still supported you. I wanted you to remember you have a responsibility to those children first and foremost,” she said.

  “I know that and I live up to that responsibility each and every day of their lives. They come first but don’t I deserve some happiness, too? Everyone can’t have the kind of marriage you shared with Dad. Sometimes, for whatever reasons, people make mistakes and I’m woman enough to say, I made a mistake marrying Keith.”

  “That man loves you, Marie,” she said.

  “No he doesn’t—not in the true sense of the words. Not like Dad loved you. Keith loves what I brought to the table. He loved the fact that I would provide for him when he fell short. He loved having me around to sleep with, but that’s it. I’m a possession to him—not a wife or friend. I need more than that and the kids deserve more, too.”

  I paused for a cleansing breath and continued. “If we stayed together, I would have resigned myself and them to a life of fighting. Keith and I fought about everything. We could not have a simple conversation about anything without it ending up in a battle. I was sick of arguing.”

  “You could have gone to counseling,” she said under her breath.

  “Keith would never agree to that and you know it. He said he didn’t need anybody, including you, sticking their noses in our business!”

  “You never told me this before,” she said. “You just came back from your vacation, marched in here and said, ‘Mom, I’m getting a divorce’ and walked out. What did you expect me to say?”

  “I am sorry I did not break it down for you, but I didn’t really know what to say to you. I didn’t want to disappoint you, but I also did not want to continue along the same path that I was walking either. Do you remember Cheryl from my high school?” I asked.

  “Sure, the little girl that used to live around the corner from us in Baltimore?”

  “Yeah, she died. She had just gotten married and had another child. It was a boy. I saw her when I went home. I cussed her out for not returning any of my letters since I moved to Atlanta. We made arrangements to go to lunch and catch up and when I called her all that night and the next morning trying to confirm our lunch, she didn’t answer. So I cussed her out again on her answering machine. Her mother called me back and left a message on my voice mail that Cheryl had passed,” I said in a whisper as new tears dropped from my eyes.

  For a few minutes, I could not continue as my body shook with fresh sobs and bitter pain. My mother came over to me and put her arms around me. I grabbed her and we cried together. When I calmed down, I continued.

  “That day when I saw her, she had been complaining of a headache all day long and her husband wound
up taking her to Johns Hopkins Hospital’s emergency room later that evening. The test that they ran did not show anything so they sent her home. Her mother said she woke up during the night and said she could not move. They took her back to the hospital and after further tests, discovered a tumor in her brain. They operated on her immediately and the operation was successful, but the hospital staff dropped her when they were moving her from the surgical table to a gurney. She never regained consciousness.”

  I dislodged myself from mom’s embrace and got up to fix another cup of coffee since the other one had grown cold. Mom still had not spoken. We sat and shared our coffee with each of us lost in our own thoughts. I looked Mom in the face and she retuned my stare. “That’s when I decided that life is not promised to any of us. I could spend the next ten years with Keith and be miserable or I could cut my losses and pick up the pieces. Can you understand that?” I asked.

  “I understand that. But I don’t understand why it took you six months to tell me that. You are my daughter and your pain is mine to share. How could you be so selfish and withhold that type of information from me?” she demanded.

  I got a reprieve from responding when Keira and Kevin busted through the front door.

  “Momma,” they both yelled in unison. They bum rushed me, each pulling on a limb to get their kisses and hugs. I looked over their heads and smiled at Mom. We had reached a milestone and we both knew it.

  “I’m sorry,” I mouthed and she shook her head in understanding and forgiveness.

  Chapter 19

  I opened the front door to find a naked Sammie and immediately pulled the door behind me to make sure the children did not see her.

  “What the fuck?” I said before I could stop myself. Gazing into Sammie’s vacant eyes, I knew that something bad had happened, but I didn’t know what. I eased her onto the porch swing and ran inside for something to cover her up with.

  She didn’t speak as I wrapped the blanket around her and guided her into the house. I tucked Sammie into my bed and allowed her a few minutes to compose herself.

  I didn’t want Keira and Kevin to know that Sammie was there since she was in such a disoriented state. Several times I went to the bedroom to check up on Sammie and she continued to remain unresponsive. She never acknowledged me entering or leaving the room. And for the first time, I thought that maybe I should have dialed 911 instead of offering her a place to lay her head. I prepared a cup of hot tea for us and brought it into my bedroom.

  “Honey,” I coached, “you need to eat something. Here, sit up.” I pulled on her arms until she managed to sit up in the bed. I reached behind her and used all my pillows to prop her up. She still had that vacant look in her eyes but at least she was cooperating. I had prepared some toast for her to nibble on.

  I sat by the bed feeding her tea and toast while coaching her to tell me what happened.

  “Sammie, where are your clothes? Did Jessie do this to you?” I asked.

  “They took them,” she responded.

  “Who took them?” I asked. “Honey, you are not making any sense. Did Jessie do this to you?”

  “No, he didn’t do this,” she said, looking down at her bruised body. “But if he was there, it would not have happened. I was raped, Marie, by two guys,” she said, using the sheet to wipe her face. I handed her some napkins from my nightstand, which she accepted and quickly wadded up into a ball.

  “When I left here, I went to my normal hangout. I was nervous ’cause I was the only one out there. I sat in the car for a full hour before getting out. Those young punks are the worst at hazing us. You never know if they are just kidding or trying to prove something to their gang friends,” she said, pausing to blow her nose. She wasn’t crying but I could tell she was having a hard time trying to keep it together. I patted her hand in encouragement.

  “I was not on the corner long before this young guy, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, approached me. He had long processed hair, which he wore in a ponytail that fell to his shoulders. His face was kind and sweet. Marie, he had the nicest smile that I have seen in a long time. He looked like he just wanted someone to hold him.

  “I couldn’t take him into the car, so the trick told me about a school not too far from the corner that they could go to and be alone. He was cute, so I went with him. We entered the school through the janitor’s door, which was propped open and I followed him down some dark corridors until we got to the gym. It was poorly lit but definitely should and could be classified as a gym. I asked him how he found out about this place and that’s when things got ugly.”

  Sammie said he led her into the gym. She was trying to get into the mood of the seductress and was finding it hard since she was not in an element of her own creation. Instead, she felt nervous and slightly afraid.

  There were some mats already laid out on the floor. Sammie started tugging at her clothes eager to perform the sex and get back to the comfort of her car and the gun that she had concealed in it. She also wanted to hurry up and finish so that she could return to her corner just in case Jessie rolled around to check up on her. Lord knows that if he had chosen that moment to do a drive-by, it would have made things that much harder for her when she got home.

  “What’s the rush, sweetness,” the trick said in a soothing voice—one that was echoed by another male voice coming from behind the partition wall.

  “Yeah, what’s the rush, sweetness?”

  Sammie looked around and saw another guy approaching from the far side of the gym. Paralyzing fear consumed her limbs and crept up around her heart as she began to realize the severity of the situation. Not only was she away from her car and her gun, no one who cared about her knew where she was. Not to mention that there were two men against her. The second guy was short and stocky. Looking into his eyes was like gazing into empty sockets.

  The original trick revealed a knife tucked in the waistband of his baggy pants. When Sammie looked into his face, he no longer had that sweet smile that persuaded her to come with him in the first place. Instead, it was replaced with an evil sneer that jeered at her.

  “On your knees, hoe,” the other guy barked. He was clearly older than the original trick and was much more sinister. There was such a strong resemblance between them that Sammie could tell that they were related. He had a nasty scar down the left side of his face as if he had been on the wrong end of an infected switchblade.

  Guy number two also had a knife but his was open as he came towards Sammie. Silently, she dropped to her knees.

  Crocodile tears formed in Sammie’s eyes as she told me the rest of her story. The thing that tugged at my heartstrings the most was her confession that she was so tired of being scared. She had spent her entire life being scared of one thing or another and she prayed for release.

  “Damn, bro, where did you find this fat bitch at?” the shorter guy complained. “Hell, we should have her paying our asses to fuck her!”

  “Don’t you even complain, nigga; the pickings were slim tonight. I guess Five-O scared the rest of the whores off the block when they did that sweep this morning. She is probably the only bitch that missed the sweep,” he said, spitting a brown stream of spit in between Sammie’s legs.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Sammie pleaded. “I will do anything that you want me to. Just please don’t hurt me.”

  “Well, bitch, then you had better make it good,” said the original trick. For the next two hours, Sammie sexed both men. They were plugged into her at both ends. Neither one of them let go of their knives the entire time they were having sex. When they were done with her, they took her clothes and left her in the school.

  Sammie said she lost all concept of time during the event. All she kept thinking about was whether or not she was going to die and how badly Jessie was going to hurt her if she came home with no money after being gone so long.

  She said that she walked through the streets to her car butt-naked. She did not even attempt to cover herself up as she dr
ove home. Sammie was in shock but that was not enough to wipe away her fear of facing Jessie with no money. Briefly she had considered trying to stay on the corner to earn enough money to satisfy Jessie, but without clothes, she only would have wound up in jail.

  She said she had driven to my house in a trance. Too scared to go home and having nowhere else to go she headed my way.

  It was while I was fixing breakfast that I heard a story on the news about a drug addict getting beat up and molested. Instantly I thought it might be Jessie but quickly dismissed the thought as wishful thinking. When I saw his name flash across the television screen I ran into the bedroom to turn up the television. We listened in disbelief as the newscaster told of the arrest of a man they found in an alley behind the Sam’s Club.

  According to the reporter, the police arrested Jessie Alexander after they found him bludgeoned and left for dead. He was taken to Grady Hospital where he was being treated for his injuries. Stunned, we just stared at each other. Finally, I broke the silence.

  “You need to go home. If they have Jessie, I am sure he is going to call you and until you know what is going on, it would be better for you to be home,” I said.

  “You’re right,” she said, getting out of the bed. She flashed me and I turned away. Seeing Sammie naked twice in one day was enough for me. That was more than I ever wanted to see of Sammie. I handed her a sheet for her to cover up with.

  “Girl, I don’t have anything that will fit you, and the children can’t see you in this sheet!” I declared. I checked to make sure that the kids were still in their rooms and ushered a jubilant Sammie out of the house. She even gave me a faint smile as she left. Dazed by all the morning drama, I sat down on the sofa.