“That child wasn’t a bit more Rodney’s than you were. Your daddy got Lahn’s mother pregnant on his last trip to Vietnam after the war was over. He and Rodney made up the lie that Lahn was Rodney’s because Rodney wasn’t the one married with a child. When Rodney died, Keith continued to send money to Lahn’s mother, ‘taking care of his war brother’s child.’ Then Lahn’s momma died, and Keith had to bring Lahn home to live with us, which initially didn’t make sense to me because at that time we were struggling financially with just the three of us.”
Ma Mable shook her head. “But when the two of them walked through the damn front door, I knew just by looking at her, that Lahn was his.”
“I didn’t want a sibling. When Daddy left to pick her up, you made it seem like such a good thing to have a little sister that I started believing it. I remember me and you going shopping and decorating her room. But then you looked so angry the day they came home I thought you were going to hurt somebody. In my head I’d done something wrong because everything changed after that. You were never the mother I remember having.”
“I confronted your father about the truth, and he admitted it. I started packing up your things right after I’d packed mine. Then he told me in no uncertain terms, if I didn’t want to make our family work I could leave, but there was no way in hell I walking out of his house with his baby girl, that he would find another woman to make a home for his children.”
Lauren was stunned by what she heard.
“I stayed, and for a few weeks, I suppressed my rage, my hurt, tried to dote on Lahn fearing that if I ever crossed a line and made her unhappy, he’d take you from me. I wanted to be on some Assata Shakur shit, wanted to leave this whole damn country with you.”
Lauren laughed, because her mother had been a Black Panther, preaching empowerment and Black consciousness all Lauren’s life. She could easily imagine her living and teaching in some Central American country.
“Lahn was such a sweet and scared child it was easy to care for her. I told Keith, if nothing else he would have to be the one to tell you the truth because I was sick of being the bad guy. He said he would. He never did. And a couple of weeks before summer break, I went into his tackle box, and when he was sleeping put his own gun to his head and would’ve pulled the trigger. If not for you, I would have pulled that trigger. I didn’twant to leave you unprotected in this world. And you’d never forgive me for the death of your hero. His saving grace was that he was a good father and protector. The good guy,” she said bitterly. “I left the next day.”
“I remember you leaving. You said you were going to help Aunt Samira, but you were gone for so long…all summer.”
That first week had been pure freedom. Lauren got to do what she wanted with little interference as long as she was home by dark. The second week and beyond she’d been a terror and her daddy’s half-assed whoopings didn’t help. She wanted to go to Aunt Samira’s; she wanted her mother.
“The child in me was glad when you came back, but the woman me wishes you would have stayed gone, because how goddamn dare he!”
“Lauren—”
“No! My heart is over here breaking, Ma, because I never…” She wiped tears from her eyes and took a long Santiago-Stillwater-at-the-bottom-of-the-lake breath and tried to get her emotions in order.Woman to woman.
“It’s devastating to feel your hero perish inside of you, to become a regular ass man who cheated. And worse, he blackmailed you.” Lauren nodded. “You should’ve called his bluff. What was he gonna do? Raise me and Lahn on his own? He could barely last a few weeks. And do you think I wouldn’t have been at all-out war with any woman he tried to bring into our house?”
Her mother laughed. “Lord, I shudder to think.”
Lauren reached for her mother’s hand. “You were always the glue that held us together. Daddy knew that just like I did. At my big age, and after all I’ve done in my life, I think about all you did for us, all the different hats you wore, all the balls you juggled. The corporate world, by comparison seems easy.”
She squeezed her mother’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry that she’d resented her, that she blamed her, that she felt betrayed by her, and made her life harder than it needed to be without even comprehending how her mother had suffered.
“I was so angry that the mother I had known, loved, and depended on, disappeared when Lahn moved in with us. I’m sorry I believed you chose her over me. I’m sorry I?—”
“Don’t be sorry Ren, I made my choices. And this right here is where I hoped we would somehow get back to.”
“It’s crazy how we both taught them that we’d take care of what needed to be taken care of, that we would step in and do the heavy lifting no matter the cost. And they came to expect it, to rely on it. Santi told me once to just stop; be still. To let the world take care of me for a change.”
Her mother looked at her skeptically and lifted her brow.
“I’m working on it! Damn.” She wasn’t working on it that hard yet.
“This Sheriff Santiago, I think I might like him.”
“The first time we met, he threw me over his shoulder, smacked me on the ass, and had me thrown in jail!”
“I’d heard. Can’t seem to recall hearing about what led him to do that though.”
Lauren pursed her lips, certain she had.
“It was because I tried to cave in his ba?—”
“Lauren Gael Green,” her mother warned.
Lauren didn’t finish the sentence.
