“What is going on?”
“Diamond wants to be you! She’s not my mother!”
“Kayla, please. At this point, I don’t even want to be your sister.”
Those words stung her tongue coming out, but she was mad as hell.
“Good! Stand on that, when you see me in the streets, keep walking!”
“You got my word,” Diamond said before storming off to her room and slamming the door.
As soon as she got inside of her space, she broke down. No one had ever hurt her feelings like Kayla had. Her sisters were her babies, especially Kayla, they had always been attached at the hip. Two minutes into her bawling, she heard a knock on the door, she wished it was her sister coming to apologize, but Sherry walked in.
“Diamond,” her mother whispered softly.
“Yeah?”
“You ok?” her mother’s hand grazed her shoulder.
“I’m good.”
Sherry stood there, frail, but still beautiful underneath her addiction. Her eyes and words were clearer than Diamond had seen in a long time. Something was different about her, she wasn’t fixed or healed, but she was present.
“You’re not good. You’ve been carrying this family on your back.”
Diamond shrugged, “Somebody gotta do it.”
Sherry shook her head, “No. It’s not fair to you, you shouldn’t have to and I’m sorry.”
Diamond looked away.
“I know I haven’t been the mama you deserve and remember. You may not see me, but I’m here. I see you. I see how you protect your sisters, how you take care of them even when you’re tired. You’re so tough, I wish I had your fight and strength. Ipromise there are special blessings for people like you, don’t change,” Sherry continued with tears in her eyes.
Diamond loved her mother so much, she believed in Sherry, she knew that woman loved her, it was in her words.
“Youarestrong, Mama, you just have an addiction.”
Sherry forced a smile, “I don’t have an addiction, the addiction has me.”
Her words hit Diamond in the heart, she wished she could save Sherry herself.
Diamond tilted her head to the side because she wanted to ask a question that she had never asked her mother.
“Mama, what happened? How did you get on drugs?”
Sherry fell silent for a moment and looked down at her lap as if she was ashamed, but Diamond lifted her head.
“I was laced. Smoking with people I trusted. The blunt was laced with cocaine.”
Diamond instantly thought about Kayla and the girls she was running with. The thought alone brought tears to her eyes, that and the hurt in her mother’s voice. To know that she was tricked into addiction made Diamond want to kill everyone involved.
“Who gave it to you?”
Sherry looked away and shook her head, “That’s not important. I never even told your father the answer to that question.”
“Why are you protecting someone that hurt you?”
Silence once again filled the room, “I’m not, I’m protecting my family.”
