“My mom is in a nursing home.”
“She cool?”
“She’s alive,” Tyler answered the loaded question, taking a puff and handing him back the blunt.
“Is that a good thing or bad thing?” Logic asked, picking up on her tone.
“Depends on the day,” she replied evenly.
“We don’t have to get into all this if it’s going to make you sad.”
“It’s fine,” Tyler sighed, cutting him off. “My father’s wife hit my mom in the head with a hammer when I was ten. Shesurvived, but she isn’t the same. She doesn’t know that I’m her daughter, her favorite show isGracie’s Corner, and she loves chicken nuggets.”
“Ah shit.” Logic reached over and grabbed her hand, pulling it into his lap as he drove.
“So, to answer your question, sometimes I’m thrilled that I can still see her, spend time with her, and on good days, she lets me hug her. On the flip side, I miss her. I miss talking to her without pretending she’s not my mother. I miss singing while we cook, and our random trips to the store to buy a bunch of junk food. I miss her picking me up from school early because she’s bored.” Tyler smiled. “We used to drive around Gosse Pointe and pick out houses because my daddy swore he was going to move us out of the projects. I think I miss feeling safe most of all. No matter what she did or how much she drank, my mama made sure I was well taken care of. Now all she does is sit in a wheelchair, wait for a nurse to change her diaper, and watch cartoons. I’m probably about to sound like a bitch, but sometimes I think she’d be better off dead.”
Silence
Logic sat back and digested her confession. Mourning a living, breathing person was in a whole different ballpark. The grief was heavier, and you're always filled with a small amount of hope that things could get better, but they never do, and that’s harder to accept than a dead person never coming back. With death, you knew it was final, but the type of pain Tyler was experiencing would live on as long as her mother was breathing, and Logic understood that 100%.
“I’m sorry to hear that, baby girl.” He brought her hand to his lips.
“It’s cool. I’m over it.” Tyler gave him a small smile.
“Are you though?” Logic cocked his head to the side.
“Yea, why you say it like that?”
“Because I’m sure witnessing that shit came with a shitload of mental issues. That’s not something you move on from. You learn how to live with it, find a few ways to cope with it, but it never leaves you.”
“I deal with it just fine.” Tyler shrugged.
They shared a brief look before Logic focused on the road. He wouldn’t press the issue, but he was starting to see her a little more clearly. She wasn’t just some out-of-control singer with a nasty drug habit. Tyler’s problems were rooted.
“Where your pops at?” Logic quizzed.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since I was eleven. He came to visit me once, and he sent money to my aunt for a while, but that was it. No calls, visits, none of that shit, so he’s dead to me.”
“Damn.” Logic gripped the steering wheel. “That’s some bitch nigga shit.”
“Yep.”
“So if that nigga left, who took you in?”
“My aunt.”
“The mint can hoe?” His eyes doubled in size.
“Yep.” Tyler chuckled at his reaction. “I moved into her basement and Lord, that shit a story all by itself.”
“Wait.” Logic paused to gather his thoughts. “She’s your mom's sister?”
“Yea, but they were distant. Before she took me in, I only saw her like once and I was young as hell. She was supposed totake care of me, but she’s so fucking vindictive and didn’t care what I did as long as she was getting paid. I was fourteen and her hoe ass daughter was getting me drunk off my ass while her boyfriends watched me dance.”
“Them niggas ever-
“No,” Tyler quickly answered. “It never got that far until she introduced me to Dex. He was twenty-two and I was sixteen. By the time we started messing around, I was seventeen and signed to Oakwood. As long as my aunt was cashing the checks, she didn’t care about me laying up with a man six years my senior.”
