“Ma, for real? You crying because that nigga going to prison? He killed somebody!” Free snapped, not knowing the real reason why she was crying.
My mom couldn’t even answer Free because she was too busy having her head down, having her moment. My grandma stood there, keeping her hands on her wide hips, and she looked as if she wanted to slap the hell out of her daughter for crying. To her, I’m sure she was looking at it as my mom crying because she felt bad that her ex- boyfriend was going to prison, when it was much deeper than that.
She got up from the couch, prepared to walk out of the family room.
“Tell them ma. At this point, I don’t even care anymore. Just tell them because you’re going to kill yourself internally the same way that I was killing myself with it,” I said, picking Liberty up, so that I could sit up on the couch.
I crossed my legs Indian style, and I cradled my niece in my lap, who was knocked out, probably not going to wake up any time soon.
“Tell us what? What you gotta tell us, ma?” Free wanted to know.
You could hear the urgency all in her voice. My grandma was even standing there, and she was confused too. My mom stood at the front of the room, looking completely heartbroken, as she looked from me to everyone else in the room. She was going to have to get it off her chest because it was going to kill her, andI didn’t want her haunting herself with it the same way that I’d done.
“He… he raped Dionne,” she cried, and the second she said it, Free screamed, and she jumped up from the couch.
Her eyes instantly watered, and she looked over at me. My grandma put her hands over her mouth, and she turned to look at me as well, and you could see the anger, mixed with the disgust all over her face. At one point, you could even see where she’d gotten a little dizzy, losing her balance a bit, as if she was going to fall, but she was able to keep herself up.
“What the fuck do you mean he raped Dionne? When Antoinette, and why the fuck are you just now telling me about this?” my grandma was angry.
She never called my mom by her real name. It was always Anny. She was the only one that would call my mom that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my grandma call her by her real name. It’s almost like my mom was a child again, and she was getting scolded by her mother. I didn’t want my mom to take the heat for this. I didn’t want her to be blamed. I didn’t want everyone to turn their backs on her, so I chose to speak up.
“Grandma, stop. She didn’t know. I just told her this not too long ago,” I spoke up, and at the same time, Free came over, and she squeezed into the little space that was left on the couch, and she wrapped her arms around me.
She was hard down crying. Free was one of the main people that I wanted to keep it away from because although Free wasn’t emotional, she took certain news hard, especially when it had anything dealing with the ones that she loved. She was the one that I was scared for the most when Nivea passed. The two of them were very close.
My grandmother put her hand over her chest, showing that she was completely heartbroken over this. She didn’t cry. You could very well see how sad she was though.
“When did this happen?” she walked over to me, asking.
“Years ago. Back when she was dating him. I was eleven,” I told her.
“And you kept this a secret for this many years? Dionne, why? I would have fuckin killed him!” she screamed, and when she did, her voice cracked a little bit.
I didn’t want to go down the rabbit hole about this anymore. I was pregnant, carrying a beautiful child of my own, and these weren’t the feelings that I wanted to have while I was carrying. I didn’t want my child to feel this. I only chose to expose it now because I could tell what was getting ready to happen. It was about to be another cycle of secrets. I wanted it out there, so that after tonight, we never had to speak on this shit again.
I knew that I couldn’t flat out just ignore my grandmother and not answer any of her questions. I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to them to drop this bomb on them, without telling them anything else.
I told it all, and when I did, only thing you heard after were the cries still coming from Free and the sniffles from Tommie.
“Let’s go outside, and talk,” my grandmother said to my mom.
My mom got up, and she walked out first, going for the patio door, that led to the backyard. Before my grandma left, she came over to me, kissed me on my forehead, let me know that she loved me, and expressed to me how sorry she was for this happening to me. She then followed my mom outside.
Even with the patio door closed, you could hear the way my grandma was going off on my mom.
“This shit is crazy, Dionne. You really fucked me up with this one. So many things just make so much sense to me now. The day you stormed out of ma’s house because we brought up her exes. These past few weeks, ma has been acting weird as hell, and she’s been depressed, but she didn’t want to talk about it.Now, I know why. To know that he’s Tank’s dad, that shit is wild to me. I remember after Nivea died, and I did therapy for a little bit. I’ll never forget what that white lady told me. She said you don’t get a trophy for trying to be strong in silence. When Nivea died, I didn’t know what the fuck that feeling was that I was experiencing. I never had no shit happen to me like that, that caused me to hurt the way I was. Nivea was my girl. My sidekick, and when we lost her, I felt like I’d lost my mind. Just like you, I felt like I could tackle that shit on my own, but I couldn’t,” Free went on to say, and tears dropped from her eyes, as she spoke.
“Think about it… your ass didn’t win shit in the end from holding that in. Just years of hurt. You got sisters, Dionne. We lost one, but you still got two. You got a mama who loves you, two grandma’s that adore you, a best friend that swears she came out of the same vagina as us, and home girls. Take advantage of us. All of us got shoulders, and you can use either one of ours when you need to cry. The next time something drastic happens in your life, which I hope it doesn’t, I don’t want to find out about the shit twenty years later. Let me know right then, and there. That nigga could have been handled twenty plus years ago when it happened,” Free concluded.
Her words made me a little emotional, so I dropped tears as well, listening to her speak.
Tommie said her peace too, and after that, we sat in silence.
“I’m about to go on the porch. I need a fuckin blunt,” Free said, as she stood up.
“I’m coming with you,” Tommie said, standing up.
They left out of the family room, leaving me in here by myself with my niece. From where I was sitting, I could look out of the patio door and see my mom and grandma. My mom was no longer getting yelled at. She was still crying though, as she sat in one of the patio chairs. My grandma was standing on the side ofher, with her hand on her back, rubbing it around in a circular motion.
