Confusion covered her face and she shifted Ami on her chest before she answered me. “I’m sorry?”
“Who told you that you needed to lose weight?”
“I…that’s a complex answer.”
“Must be a man.” And a dumb muthafucka at that. Sterling might be the type of girl that went for dudes who thought curves meant you were fat, though. She was from up north and hung around nothing but rich people given her job as a nurse and a nanny. A nigga like me from Canyon Country in California might be too much.
Her eyes flickered down to the ground before she looked back at me with her face in a blank mask. “No, my mother, actually.”
I could tell by the look on her face this wasn’t something she wanted to talk about but I wasn’t going to have her thinking I agreed with her mother’s stance. “Oh, yeah that is complicated,but she gotta be out her mind. Anyway, come show me what you made, Ling and tell me how baby girl was today.”
The smile that crossed her face made me feel I had been right about switching the subject. “The biggest thing was the doctor doing his house call and nothing remarkable happened with that. Do you want to hold her?”
I almost said no but I wanted to hold her. So, I sucked up the anxiety I was feeling and held my hands out for my daughter. I hated to have missed her doctor’s visit but I couldn’t go back and change that. I’d do my best to make up for it in the future. “Yeah, let me see her if it’s not too much. We can have dinner and you can fill me in.”
She handed the baby toward me and just the brush of her hands against mine had me waking back up. I had to stare down in Ami’s face to keep my eyes off of Sterling as she walked toward the stove. I kissed Ami’s little baby cheek and her little drooly mouth moved like she was looking for a bottle.
“Come on little one, let’s hear Ling tell me how you did today.”
CHAPTER SIX
Evolution
STERLING
“HELLO?”
“Sterling, where are you?”
Her tone was sharp, as it normally was and I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was. I knew she wanted something and still couldn’t be bothered to be kind to get it. I thought she’d have reached out to me much sooner than this. Besides the blowing up when I initially left, there hadn’t been any contact on her part since I’d touched down in Texas. Did I think she knew where I was? Potentially. I didn’t put anything past my mother or her need for control. More than anything, I was sure that she was waiting on me to come crawling back to the fold so that she could berate me for leaving and having to cover for me in front of the family. Something I never asked her to do.
“I’m where I needed to be, what’s wrong?” This was the way of things, giving nothing away but attempting to placate someone who was only in my life to stress me out.
“There is no reason you’re not here for the summer. You told me that when you were done in April that you wouldn’t travel again until the fall. Not like you need a job anyway. I’m not sure what changed but you were here one day. One! Your grandmother is trying to figure out where you’ve gone. There are a number of events you’re scheduled to be a part of that we have had to make your excuses for. I will not be doing it anymore.”
I chuckled because she kept sounding like she was doing me a favor when she just wanted to save face to whomever sheneeded me to be a shield for. “Is there something you wanted, Mother? I am in the middle of doing something.”
“Are you on another assignment? You know what it means to the family for everyone to gather at the family home. How dare you break the tradition!” I kept moving around putting clothes away while Ami finished her first morning nap.
“What does the tradition do for any of us?” I finally stopped and gave her my full attention, wondering if she was going to be honest for once. I’d spent a little more time with Rachelle when she stopped by to drop off Ami’s baby gift. She talked to me more about the tougher skin I would have to develop because of the way people behaved with the team and I had been trying my hardest to let things roll off my back. It was normally easier said than done with my mother but I was too busy and too tired and too far out of her reach to care.
“What do you mean? It’s a way to uphold—”
“—The standards of the family that I will never meet. And I’m fine with that. I decided that instead of sitting around and being miserable all summer I was going to do what I wanted. We don’t gather to share and reminisce, the only memories we have between one another are telling stories about who bested the other last. I don’t want that for myself.” And that was the truth. The backbiting and sniping got old. Even when I did participate in it I felt like shit once it was done.
“So you’re going to leave your family behind for what? Work? To help some random people instead of spending time with the people who know you best?”
I had to muffle my laughter because no one in my family besides Dalton knew much about me. And even then, our relationship wasn’t as close as it should have been. It was too easy for us to be wary of one another just because of the stock we came from. I understood why he would have misgivings about me despite my never having given him a reason. Our sharedbloodlines didn’t inspire loyalty to anything but the brands and the bottom lines. With the addition of our mutual parental issues, I was shocked he talked to me at all, honestly.
“I’d rather be doing what I enjoy. So now that you know I’m not coming back, is there anything else that you need from me?”
When the silence lengthened between the two of us I knew she was shocked that I hadn’t fallen in line or cowered to her request. When she spoke again, her voice was tight and I knew she was trying to keep her control. “I didn’t know you would be so selfish as to leave your mother here by herself. I don’t have anyone here—”
“And that is not my fault. You’ve made it clear that your greatest amusement is making fun of me and I don’t have the desire to spend my time that way. I’m sorry if you’re lonely, but I won’t be coming back. Probably ever. I get no joy there and—”
“So you’ll just let your cousins inherit everything? You don’t even want to spend time with your grandmother in her later years?” My mother always reverted back to this: needing to spend time with her mother so that we could get a bigger share of the pie. None of us could own any of the family businesses outright. They were held in trust for every member as a birthright. My mother simply wanted influence over my grandmother’s accumulated wealth and I had no desire for it. If she wanted to leave me something, that was her business. If not, it wouldn’t change how I lived my life. I’m sure no one else in my family could say the same thing.
“Her second greatest joy next to lambasting you for marrying down is to bother me about everything she thinks I’ve done wrong. She gets on me about my job being too common, my features being too much like his and a whole list of things I’m not in the mood to hear. So, no, I won’t be around for that. I don’t care about the money, I don’t care about the estate. I would never want to live in a house that had caused me so manynegative memories in the first place. You all can take it and do with it what you will. I’m choosing peace. I suggest you learn how to do the same.”
