A Sister's Survival

by Cydney Rax

  “I don’t know, Shade. Sometimes we say ‘yes’ to things, not really thinking it through and being able to see the damage it can cause. And so you agree to shit and it gets all fucked up and then you try to make a better decision but you never know how anything will turn out. That’s what I’ve learned. Whether I lie or tell the truth, I can’t control what happens.”

  She sighed. Even though he smiled outwardly and seemed to appear calm and supportive, she wondered what was going through Shade’s mind. Some men were difficult to figure out. Men could go ghost on you over the pettiest of things. A woman could do one little thing that irked the guy and, boom, she’d never hear from him again. He wouldn’t call, text, or come by anymore. And she’d want to call him, but pride wouldn’t allow her. Screw him, she’d tell herself. There’s more fish in the sea, and if he ditched me over bullshit then he ain’t the one. She would pretend like she didn’t care that he blew her off, blew off what they’d built up. But deep inside, she’d be hurt and disillusioned. Stunned that the man did not care about her the way she believed he did.

  Alita began to tremble. “Please, Shade, baby. What are you thinking? Tell me!”

  “You’ve been to hell and back. You’ve survived something that could have destroyed you. And your revelation gives me a little insight into your personality. You always seem defensive.”

  “When I no longer had a daddy in my life, or a daddy that wouldn’t stand up to his wife, who else is going to defend me?”

  “Me, that’s who. Because you have me.”

  Alita could not suppress the joy she felt. A big smile spread across her face. She flung herself in Shade’s arms again, plastering his cheek then his lips with tender kisses.

  “It’s going to be all right, Alita. There are people out here going through worse than you, and they’re making it. We’ll just take things a day at a time.”

  “You mean it?”

  “I do. Just stay real with me and we’ll be cool.”

  “Okay,” she promised him. “I’m sorry for just now telling you, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”

  “I know how hard it must have been for you to admit that to me. But never apologize for telling the truth. Truth shines light on injustices, and telling the truth is the impetus for change.”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes truth causes change.”

  “Okay, I get that. But why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

  “I’ll remember that next time,” he said with a laugh.

  “Do that.”

  Shade grew serious. “Truth scares us, Alita. And a lot of times people feel they can’t do it, can’t tell it. They are scared of what might change.”

  “I know that’s right.” Alita nodded. “Because I was hoping you wouldn’t hate me for telling you my truth. I was scared as hell that you wouldn’t trust me anymore.”

  He wrapped his arm around her and hugged her tight. Then Shade lifted her chin and stared into her eyes.

  “I’m glad you trusted me enough to share that with me. But don’t forget. I’m not the one whose favor you need the most. You’ll have to find the guts to share that same info with your kids and other family members too. And if they love you the way I love you, then things will work out in the end.”

  “You love me?”

  “What do you think?”

  She sighed and savored the good feeling of having him in her arms as well as in her life. But at the same time she wondered what might happen if she dropped other truths that she was hesitant to release.

  * * *

  At the May Sister Day, Alita calmly stood before all her family members. They were meeting to review the travel itinerary for their planned girls’ trip that would take place the following week.

  “I wanted to make an announcement,” she told them. “I don’t want to spoil everybody’s good mood and excitement about the trip, but thank God the tickets are nonrefundable.” She laughed.

  “What are you trying to say?” Burgundy asked.

  Alita stared at Elyse; the girl had made such an improvement in the past few months. She hoped she wouldn’t relapse with everything that was about to go down.

  “I want to tell y’all something, but first I need to run it by Elyse.”

  Burgundy frowned. “Elyse? Why her? What’s she got to do with anything?”

  “Burgundy, don’t worry. This has nothing to do with that husband of yours.”

  “I didn’t say it did,” Burgundy replied, but she still was racking her brain to try and figure out what Alita was up to this time.

  They were over at Coco’s. Alita asked Elyse to come to Coco’s bedroom so they could speak in private.

  She grabbed the young woman by the hands. “I’m so proud of you, Elyse. You’ve grown up. You’re beautiful. Strong. You’re handling therapy like a pro. And it seems like being around people doesn’t bother you the way it used to.”

  Elyse shrugged. “I’m glad too. But I still have a long way to go.”

  “Right. Well, Elyse, um, on the other hand, I hate that those bad things happened to you with Nate. The way he violated you. And he was wrong for sure.”

  “Yes, he was. I hate him.”

  “I don’t blame you for hating him. But you should also forgive him one day.”

  “What?”

  “I’m just saying. You’re too pretty of a girl to go around holding all kinds of hatred on the inside. You’ve seen the face of hate. It’s never pretty.”

  Elyse nodded. “I don’t hate him, hate him. But I can’t stand him. I think he should be punished for his sins.” She paused. “Why do some people get punished and others go free?”

  “I wish I had an answer.” Alita shrugged. “But a lot of times things just aren’t right, they ain’t fair, they are totally fucked up, and it makes us so angry that we just want to go and hurt someone when we feel we’ve been wronged. An employee who wants to harm the horrible boss. A man that wants to get back at his cheating ex. ”

  “No one wants to be treated bad for something they did not deserve.”

  “Exactly, Elyse. And see . . . I-I know how that feels too. To be wronged. By an adult. Someone that should know better.”

  “Why did he do that to me?”

  “Elyse, baby, I simply can’t answer. Maybe some of us are messed up in the head, Elyse. Some folks do wrong over and over again and get away with it. Others are just plain evil and they don’t know how else to be. In Nate’s case, I don’t know what his excuse was. But the good thing, the best thing is that you don’t have to deal with that anymore.” She paused. “He hasn’t tried to do that to you again, right?”

  “No,” Elyse said in anger. “I’d kill him if he did.”

  “Elyse, I hope you’re joking. Because two wrongs don’t make a right. I mean, I understand your feelings, but seriously, there has to be a better way to handle this.”

  “What is it then, Lita? What? ’Cause he seemed to go on with life like nothing ever happened. And Burgundy. She ought to be ashamed of herself.”

  Alita loved that Elyse was speaking her mind. Speaking her truth.

  “I agree with you, baby girl. Nate is worse than B, and he’ll get his one day.” Alita coughed and cleared her throat. Dammit, how could she find the words to tell the girl that she was her mother? It wasn’t as easy as she’d pictured it to be.

  “I love you, Elyse, I do. That’s all that matters. You hear me?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”

  “But do you believe me?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you tell me. That’s how you know that someone loves you, ’cause they say it.”

  “But that’s not the only way, Elyse. People also tell you by the way they treat you. The good things they do for you to show you how they feel.”

  “Really?” she asked in wonderment.

  “Yes. So if you get it both ways, count yourself lucky. That’s a whole lot of love rig
ht there.”

  “Hmm, I see,” Elyse told her then sighed. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

  Suddenly there was a sharp knock on the door. Exasperated, Alita told Elyse, “I guess we’ll have to finish this conversation some other time.”

  The two women exited Coco’s bedroom and were met by Burgundy, who had a warning: “Um, Lita, I just thought you’d want to know that I invited someone else to this month’s Sister Day.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who’d you invite?” Alita asked. She got her answer when she walked back into the living room and saw Julianne, Nate’s sister.

  “Hey there, cutie pie,” the woman said and waved at Alita. The two women spoke and hugged. It had been a few months since they’d last seen each other.

  Julianne took a seat next to Burgundy and smiled at everyone. “I feel honored to even be at one of these meetings,” she said. “Now I really feel like I’m part of the family.”

  At first Alita was annoyed by her presence. But after a while she felt glad that the woman was there.

  “What you been up to, Julianne? . . . When’s the last time to you talked to Nate? . . . Um, may I ask you a quick question? Did your mom and dad teach Nate how to respect women?”

  Julianne raised her eyebrows. “What are you asking me that for? Has my brother done something that’s made you feel disrespected, Alita?”

  “Not exactly. I was just curious, you know. Because a lot of times we don’t understand people, or can’t understand them, unless we know the way that they were raised. We need that background info to help us out.”

  “Well, I guess the proper values were instilled in Nate and my other brother, who is now dead. Nate was the baby boy. I was older than him, and I’ll admit I used to beat him up.”

  “Really?” Alita smirked. “I sure would have loved to see that.”

  “Oh, trust me, things got ugly. Because Nate would always fight back. He tried his best to get his licks in.”

  “That sounds pretty normal, though, Julianne. I want to know the dirt. Did he do freaky things like—”

  “How would I know?”

  “Because you’re his family. You grew up in the same house.”

  “That’s true but it’s not like I was with him twenty-four-seven.”

  “I’m sure that things get back to you, Julianne. You had to have heard something.”

  “Look, no one knows what anyone is like when they are alone or behind closed doors. Who are you when no one is looking?” Julianne asked. “It sounds like you want me to spill all my brother’s secrets, and for what? Do you want any of your sisters to spill yours? Because as quiet as it’s kept, you—”

  “Oh, we don’t need to be talking about that type of stuff, now do we?” Burgundy said. “What’s on your meeting agenda? I definitely don’t believe that Nate Taylor is at the top of the discussion.”

  Alita refused to back down.

  “We’ll get to that in a second. I just want Julieanne to answer me this one question.”

  “What?”

  “Does your brother have a history of messing around with little girls? Playing doctor with the neighbors? With you? Playing house and pretending to be the daddy?”

  “Even if he did, just about every kid in America has played those little childish games, even you, Alita.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a big difference between playing house and molesting—”

  “Um, okay. This conversation is going to stop right now,” Burgundy loudly said as she stepped in. “I’m taking over this meeting. This is the reason why Mama wanted me to run Sister Day. We need to stay focused. Okay, we already know that our bucket list is to travel to New York in a couple weeks. But our new assignment is this: Make a decision that you’ve been putting off.”

  “Wow, another assignment that just sucks. Who comes up with this shit?” Alita said.

  “Do you really need to ask? I gotta agree with Lita. We need to shake up the box and come up with some better assignments. Every thang is so damned depressing,” Coco said.

  Burgundy broke out into a smile. “Fine. I give up. We’ll do the July assignment as I’ve just stated it. But after that, you ladies can all come up with them. Since what I’m doing isn’t appreciated or valued.”

  “There you go.” Alita couldn’t help but laugh. “We won’t tease you this time, B. But thank you for letting us have some input for future meetings. We need to liven this shit up, make it more fun and exciting.”

  She went into high theatrics mode, trying to lighten the mood. But she was secretly directing her antics at Dru. Her sister had remained calm, composed, and seemingly unemotional since the meeting started.

  “Hey, Dru Boo, can you get me something good to drink?”

  “Sure,” Dru replied in a clipped tone.

  After ten minutes she couldn’t take it anymore. Alita pulled Dru to the side. “I think we need to talk. We need to keep talking till we get everything off our chest.”

  Dru cocked her head. “Everything? Really, Alita?” “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I had another conversation with Jerrod,” Dru replied.

  “Oh! What did y’all two talk about?”

  “His father.”

  “Okay.”

  “And how he may be getting out of jail next year.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” Dru was no-nonsense.

  “What else did Jerrod say?” Alita asked.

  “He told me that you seduced his daddy.”

  “Oh, that’s a damn lie. Everybody knows that a minor can’t give consent. Plus, wait a second, is this why you acting all funky toward me all of a sudden?”

  “No. I’m acting funky because what happened between you and his dad is something you should have told me. I mean, I’m twenty-six now. How many times have you heard me mention in the past decade how I never got closure from Jerrod? But you, Alita, you knew the whole story all along. And now I feel stupid!”

  “One thing you aren’t is stupid. But you are sensitive, Dru. You are the one person in the family that I know doesn’t like to deal with different types of drama. Who’s the first person to not get involved with mess? You, that’s who. But that’s no excuse. I still could have told you instead of having you wonder all this time.” Alita paused. She honestly did not mean any harm, and she never wanted this issue to come between them. “It might be too late, but for what it’s worth, Dru, I’m sorry. Will you forgive me? Even a little bit?”

  “Forgiveness isn’t something I can simply hand over to you—like someone would hand over a twenty-dollar bill to help you with gas money.”

  “What? Did you really have to go there?”

  “Yes, I did. That’s nothing compared to what you’ve done.”

  “Okay, I get it. It’s ‘crucify Alita’ again.”

  “No, it’s not. Don’t think you’re the only one in the family that’s gotten crucified. Save the dramatics, Alita. Everything isn’t about you, and your pain, and what awful things you’re going through. Get over yourself.”

  Alita looked shocked but tried to play things off. “Oh, c’mon, Dru. Other than this bombshell I just dropped, your life is rosy. It’s freaking perfect compared to mine. You may have a few troubles but nothing like what I’ve been through.”

  “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean that I don’t feel hurt and pain too. I-I can use some help and sympathy. Just because I seem strong and independent and nonchalant about some family issues doesn’t mean I can’t use a helping hand at times. That’s what the family doesn’t know. Everyone assumes because I’m calm and reasonable that I’m doing great. Well, don’t believe everything you see.”

  “You have big problems? Ha!” Alita snickered. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “By the time you see it, it might be too late!” Furious and disappointed, Dru sadly shook her head and simply walked away.

  Chapter 11

  Girls’ Trip

  Alita brimmed with joy. It was early
June. Their plane had just landed at the Newark International Airport. And now she and her sisters were traveling in a huge van that was carrying them over the bridge to Manhattan.

  Shade, who’d been convinced by Alita to join her on the trip, sat next to her in the back row where they were surrounded by an abundance of luggage. Yet the crowded space felt cozy and romantic.

  He placed his arm around her shoulders, and they shared a juicy kiss. Alita stuck her tongue way down his throat and laughed hysterically at the same time.

  “How you feeling, woman?” he asked after he came up for air.

  “Like I’m in a damned dream. Like I’m a Cinderella who just escaped from her evil stepmother.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “It’s all good, as long as this taxi won’t turn into a pumpkin,” she replied.

  “I’ll do my best to keep that from happening.”

  “Will you?” she asked as she searched his eyes. He nodded and seemed quite serious. Alita trembled with happiness deep on the inside.

  “Then I guess it’s okay to say that some dreams do come true. Because if someone would have told me that I’d ever find my ass in the Big Apple, I would have accused them of lying through their crooked-ass teeth.”

  The sounds of the city included honking car horns, big trucks with their yellow flashers popping on and off as the drivers set about to deliver packages and goods to area businesses. Every time they turned a corner, Alita saw and noticed things she’d never seen before. From stretch limos fighting traffic to dozens of school children surrounded by teachers who were obviously enjoying a pedestrian field trip. Street vendors hawking food, artwork, key chains, and t-shirts.

  “Shade, on the real? This is something I’ve only seen on TV or in that movie New Jack City, shit like that.”

  Shade threw back his head and laughed. “There are many good things in life that’s just waiting for us to enjoy. You see, Alita, you’ve been like a lot of other people. Too scared to step outside the house, too caught up in work and family drama. Making a lot of excuses when really there is no excuse. You just got to get out here and live life, no matter what happens.”