Can You Keep a Secret?

by Mary Monroe

  The following Saturday afternoon, when it had stopped raining and the sun was so bright and warm, Daddy married Bertha in Second Baptist Church with only a few close friends and relatives present. I was pleased when he told me they were not going on a honeymoon. “All that foolishness is for young people,” he laughed. I couldn’t understand why he thought honeymoons were for young newlyweds when he had eagerly agreed to let Bertha have a June wedding, something I had always associated with much younger brides.

  They did agree to have a reception after the wedding, which was at Bertha’s house. The same people who had attended the wedding came to the house right after the ceremony. I was glad that Joan and several members of her family were among the guests. With all the new changes in my life, I needed her support more than ever. But Libby and Marshall and their mates didn’t show up until the reception was almost over. As soon as they walked in the door, they began to gobble up what was left of the food and alcohol until it was all gone. So far, Libby and Marshall had not said anything bad to or about me since our last dinner together. That changed when Libby found out Bertha had given all of her old bedroom furniture to Goodwill.

  “Mama, I can’t believe you got rid of my stuff! Have you lost your damn mind?” she shrieked, ignoring the horrified guests who were still in the house. “What in the world is wrong with you?” I had never heard any child scream at their mother in such a cold, vicious way—especially on her wedding day. Had I raised my voice to my mother on any day, she would have slapped my face.

  “Libby, I’ve been telling you since you got married and moved out that if you wanted that stuff you needed to come get it or I was going to donate it to Goodwill,” Bertha said, sounding more defensive than I’d ever heard her sound with one of her kids. “I wasn’t going to wait forever for you to do that.”

  “Well, like I had told you before I moved out, I was going to put my old stuff in one of our spare bedrooms for when Jeffrey and I have houseguests! I’m going to a furniture store first thing Monday morning to pick out some new stuff to replace it and you’re going to pay for it!” Libby hollered. I almost lost my cool when this “daughter from hell” actually wagged her finger in her mother’s face. “And I’m going to pick out what I want, no matter what it costs!”

  For the next five minutes, Libby yelled at her mother about a variety of things, including her having to wear a “cheap” dress to her senior prom because Bertha had gone to Vegas with some church friends and had forgotten to leave the money for her to get the dress she’d really wanted. Then Marshall, who was sloppy drunk by now, started babbling about how “disrespectable” Bertha was for moving Daddy and me into the house that their father had paid for. Guests began to leave in such a hurry you would have thought the house was on fire. Joan and I remained seated on the couch. Bertha stood by the front door, looking like she wanted to escape. Daddy walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulder.

  Libby whirled around and looked at me. Her eyes were so dark and narrow, she looked like a snake. I was scared but I was not about to let her know that. “Listen here, Lola! You’d better not take any of your thug friends into my room! Do you hear me?” she yelled.

  “You don’t have to worry about that because I don’t even know any thugs!” I yelled back.

  “Uh, let’s remember this is a happy occasion,” Daddy said. Then he steered Bertha to the wing chair facing the couch and she eased down. He stood by the side of the chair, glaring from Libby to Marshall as the rest of us attempted to go on like it was still a “happy occasion.” By now, the only guests other than family still present were Joan and elderly Mr. Fernandez from next door and his lady friend.

  Jeffrey, the fireman Libby had married, came up to me and gave me a hug. “Don’t you worry about your stepsister. She’s had a few too many drinks,” he said, giving me a warm smile. I liked Jeffrey. For a man with such a pleasant demeanor, who turned a lot of women’s heads with his almond shaped eyes, Tootsie Roll brown skin, and sexy bald head; I couldn’t understand why he had married a crude frump like Libby. She had the nerve to wear a purple spandex jumpsuit that day. She looked like a giant eggplant.

  For Marshall to be just as mean, nasty, and homely as Libby; he had a nice spouse too. His cute half-black, half–Apache Indian wife, June, came up to me next. “Lola, you’ve got my telephone number. If you ever want to talk, just give me a call,” she told me in a low voice, winking one of her small, slanted brown eyes. I interpreted the wink to mean that she had her own issues with Marshall and Libby. And, I was sure that Jeffrey realized by now what a fishwife he had on his hands.

  “Thanks, June,” I mumbled, anxious to leave the room.

  I felt somewhat better by the time Joan and I fled to my new bedroom.

  Chapter 12

  Joan

  THERE WERE TIMES WHEN I WANTED TO SLAP SOME SENSE INTO Lola’s head. For her to be almost as fly and smart as me, some days she acted like Princess Dumb and Scared. Other than me and a few hoochies from the Brewster Projects, she was the only other girl in our school I knew of who didn’t take any crap from other kids. Here she was letting Libby talk all kinds of trash to and about her! I was glad that I only came in contact with Bertha’s kids every now and then. I was getting tired of having to hold my tongue around them. I knew that sooner or later, I might not be able to, though. I prayed things wouldn’t get that serious because if I ever lost my cookies and got in Libby’s face, or Marshall’s, they’d take it out on Lola. She had to be the one to get them off her back!

  “Girl, you need to get a backbone and stop letting people walk all over you,” I told her as soon as we got inside her new bedroom and shut the door. “If that bitch Libby had talked to me the way she just talked to you, I would have cussed her out! I don’t care if she is older and bigger than me.”

  “She was mostly mad at her mama, not me,” Lola said, looking so sad you would have thought she was at a wake instead of a wedding reception.

  “But it was because of you.”

  Lola shook her head and gave me a hopeful look. “At least my in-laws are real nice to me. Libby’s husband and Marshall’s wife are two of the nicest people I know. And so is Bertha for that matter. Besides, as long as I still have Daddy, I am not going to worry about anybody else.”

  * * *

  Three months after Lola’s daddy married Bertha, he got sick and had only weeks or months to live. I couldn’t believe one person could have as much rotten luck as Lola. It was bad enough she had lost her mama and become a member in a family of creeps, now she was about to lose her daddy.

  I knew something was wrong even before I got the news because Lola rarely missed school. When she didn’t show up in homeroom that morning in September, I assumed she was coming to school late, another thing she rarely did. She didn’t attend first period science class so when it was over, I went to the pay telephone by our principal’s office and dialed her number.

  “Are you sick or something?” I asked when she answered on the first ring.

  The last words I expected to hear shot out of her mouth like bullets. “My daddy told us last night that he has liver cancer,” she said flatly. “He’d been looking bad for a while, but he kept telling us he was all right. Last week he finally admitted that he had been feeling weird for about a month. Bertha and I fussed at him so he finally went to the doctor last week and that’s when he found out. He didn’t tell us until last night after he’d fainted.”

  “Damn! Well, is it serious? Is he going to be okay?”

  “According to his doctor, the cancer is so aggressive he could be gone before the end of this year.”

  I was devastated. Just hearing that Lola was about to go through another traumatic experience made my stomach churn. Not to mention us attending another funeral so soon after her mother’s. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Your daddy is such a good man. He’ll be missed by everybody.”

  A long moment of silence passed before Lola spoke again. “After he’s gone, I won’t hav
e any family left. Daddy called around this morning until he tracked down that roving brother of his in Anaheim to let him know he was dying. The first thing my uncle said was ‘we all got to go sometime.’ He claims he’s too sick himself to even come to the funeral when the time comes.” Lola let out a heavy sigh. Then, to my surprise, she let out a laugh; not a real one, though. This one was so hollow and eerie, it made me shudder. Was she so overwhelmed with grief that she was losing her mind? I wondered.

  “Lola, are you all right?” I asked. My own voice was cracking and if I didn’t end this call soon, I was in danger of losing my mind.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” She snorted. “Anyway, my uncle said that he just might ‘kick the bucket’ before Daddy does anyway.”

  “What about your mother’s people in New Mexico?”

  Lola laughed again. This time it sounded normal. “Puh-leeze! I can forget about them. How many times do I have to tell you that? They only travel on some kind of old-time buggy with a mule pulling it. Even if they agreed to come for the funeral, it’d take them God knows how long to make it up here.”

  “I forgot all about their crazy religion. What about your aunt in Jersey?”

  “Daddy called her up last night. She told him she had never had kids because she never wanted any and she was not going to raise me. He hadn’t even asked her to take me in when he dies. Bertha told me she’d always be there for me. I’ve always had feelings for her because of the way she jumped in and took over taking care of mama after Shirelle took off. Bertha has been so good to Daddy and me, I care even more about her now.”

  “That’s your grief making you say that,” I mumbled. “If you ask me, that woman is a pig-in-a-poke. You don’t know what she’s really like inside.”

  “She’s always been real nice to me—”

  “Yeah, because she wanted to keep your father happy. Once he’s gone, she won’t have any reason to be nice to you.”

  “Maybe so, but now that I know I’m going to lose Daddy, it’s in my best interest to stay on Bertha’s good side. I have a feeling I’m going to need her more than she needs me . . .”

  Despite the fact that this conversation was not pleasant and I couldn’t wait for it to end, I decided to keep talking. If the news about Lola’s father was affecting me in such a painful way; I couldn’t imagine how it was affecting her. “I feel so sorry for you. You must have been bad to the bone in a past life for karma to be kicking your ass so hard and often.”

  I was glad to hear Lola chuckle again. “I feel the same way.”

  “Well, you know I’ll always be there for you. Do you want me to come over after school today?”

  “No, you don’t have to do that. I think I’d like to be alone with Daddy as much as possible now. Thanks, girl. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  * * *

  I didn’t like being in the same room with a real sick person, but after Clarence got too sick to be cared for at home and had to go spend his final days in the hospital, I went with Lola as often as I could to visit him. It was even harder to be around him than it had been to be around her mother when she got sick. For one thing, Mildred had lingered on for months and it had taken a long time for her to look like a real sick person. Clarence already looked like hell. Within weeks after his diagnosis, he had lost all of that wavy hair that the women had loved so much. His eyes had turned a bluish gray and he drooled so much, he had to wear a bib.

  By the middle of November, he was so bad off I stopped going to see him. It was too depressing. I was sorry that I was not with Lola when he took his last breath two days after Thanksgiving. Later that night when she called me up to tell me about the last conversation she had had with him, I was glad I had not been present.

  “Daddy told me how lucky we were to have Bertha in our lives and he made her promise him that she would always be there for me. She said she would, but she reminded him that she had ‘one foot in the grave’ already herself.”

  “Please don’t tell me she’s sick too!”

  “Other than the usual ailments people her age complain about, she’s fine.”

  “Well, you have only four more years to go before you finish school and can take care of yourself. Then you won’t have to worry about having to deal with those asshole kids of hers. You can pack up and get the hell up out of that house. I’ll help you pack!”

  “There’s one more thing,” Lola said, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. “A few minutes before Daddy died, he made me promise I’d take care of Bertha as long as she lives.”

  “People say a lot of strange stuff when they’re dying. Two days before my grandmother died, she was having conversations with people who had been dead for years. When some people get close to death, their brains go haywire. I’m sure Clarence didn’t realize what he was saying. He doesn’t expect you to give up a life of your own to take care of a woman who is not even your real mother. Especially since she’s got grown kids. She’s their responsibility.”

  Lola sucked on her teeth for a few seconds. “Do you honestly think they would take good care of her; if and when she needs it?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. But you did the right thing by promising your daddy you’d do what he asked you to do. Even though what he asked you to do is unfair and unreasonable.”

  “I know.” Silence followed for a few seconds. It was a very awkward moment so I was glad when Lola initiated the end of the call. “I have to go now. I . . . I have to help Bertha make funeral arrangements.”

  “Don’t forget what I just said. I’m sure your father was too delirious to realize what a crazy thing he was asking you to do. Be good to Bertha, don’t do a bunch of stupid shit that’ll upset her and all that. But you don’t need to give up having a life of your own for her. You do know that, right?”

  “I know that,” Lola told me in a very weak voice.

  Chapter 13

  Lola

  DADDY HAD BEEN SO SICK LAST MONTH WE HAD NOT CELEBRATED my fourteenth birthday. He was even sicker by Thanksgiving, so we didn’t celebrate that either. Two days later he was gone.

  Marshall and his wife were in the Caribbean on a cruise that they had planned and paid for a year ago. We had no idea how to reach them and even if we could, I knew they would not cancel the rest of their expensive vacation and come home for Daddy’s funeral. Knowing how selfish Marshall was he probably would not have even done that for his own mother’s funeral.

  When I called up Libby to let her know about Daddy’s passing, she wasted no time reminding me that she had already made plans to go to Vegas for five days to attend her best friend’s bachelorette party and had purchased a non-refundable plane ticket. “Lola, I’m sorry to hear about your daddy and I’m sorry I can’t attend his funeral. If I cancel my trip, I’ll lose the money I spent on plane fare and the hotel.”

  “I understand,” I muttered. I was glad she wouldn’t be at the funeral. I didn’t really want her to attend anyway. After the callous things she had said on the day Daddy and Bertha got married, there was no telling what she’d say at his funeral.

  “Poor Clarence. He almost looked like a corpse the last time I saw him, so I am surprised he lasted as long as he did. It’s a shame he didn’t hang on as long as your mama did when she got sick.” Libby sounded just as impatient and indifferent as she usually did when she talked to me.

  My chest began to ache and my stomach felt even worse. I moved my tongue back and forth and swallowed hard but I could feel the lump rising in my throat. The pain of losing Mama was still tormenting me and now to hear somebody sounding so nonchalant about Daddy’s death made me want to throw up. “I’m glad Daddy didn’t hang on as long as my mother did. She suffered a lot.”

  “Oh well,” Libby sighed. “First your mother died, now your daddy. People drop like flies around you, girl. I don’t know how you can go on.”

  “I guess I’m stronger than I look,” I said dryly.

  “You must be!” I
couldn’t believe how cheerful Libby sounded. I assumed it was because she thought that with Daddy out of the picture now, she didn’t have to pay back any of the money she had borrowed from him over the years. I was not about to let her off the hook.

  I cleared my throat and spoke in a very firm tone of voice. One thing I didn’t want to sound like right now was a weakling. “Libby, you can use some of the money you borrowed from Daddy and have some flowers sent to the church.” I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “Since he was so good to you, that’s the least you can do for him—”

  “I’ll have Jeffrey take care of flowers,” she huffed before I could even finish my sentence. “I’ll pick up a sympathy card before I leave for Vegas.”

  “That’s fine. By the way,” I continued, still speaking in a firm tone of voice. “I don’t know how much you borrowed from Daddy, but when you figure it out, you can give it all to me and I’ll donate it to charity in his name.”

  I was not surprised to hear a loud gasp on Libby’s end. “Well, once I figure out how much I borrowed from Clarence, I will settle it with Mama, not you, understand? You’re just a child and you have no business even thinking about something that was between me and your daddy.”

  “Okay, Libby.” I knew that there was not a chance in hell that she would give Bertha a plugged nickel of the money she owed Daddy. If anything, she would “borrow” more money from her mother instead.

  Libby let out a mighty belch and, as usual, she didn’t excuse herself. On top of everything else, she was about as well mannered and dainty as an ox. “You just need to worry about yourself and how lucky you are that my mother is willing to finish raising you. Do you hear me, little girl?”

  “I hear you.” The next thing I heard was the dial tone.

  Not only was I stunned by the abrupt way Libby had hung up, I was hurt by her last words. Now that Daddy was gone, my future looked so bleak I didn’t even want to think about it. With him no longer around to “protect” me, I was going to be at Libby and Marshall’s mercy, like a lamb in a lion’s den. I told myself that I would stand my ground with them as much as I could, no matter what the consequences were. Every time I thought about how soon I’d be eighteen and able to be on my own, I also thought about the promise I’d made to Daddy that I would “take care of Bertha.”