“Your father is in the clubhouse. Go ask him how I got stuck raising the next bitch’s daughter,” her mother gnashed.
No reply from Remedy, she was off the public path, wiggling her expanding body through the opening of the fence and stomping toward the clubhouse.
“Ma’am, you can’t go in there,” an attendant called out as she rushed past. Adrenaline in full swing, Remedy barged into the clubhouse, finding her father at his favorite table. “Who’s my mother?”
She didn’t care about who he was entertaining or what they were talking about. She wanted answers. She deserved answers.Her whole life had been a lie. Every moment under their roof had been torturous. His eyes lifted to her intense glare and then back to the men at the table.
“Gentlemen, give me a minute,” he requested.
Remedy watched the men rise and wander off toward the bar.
“Sit down, Remedy,” he gritted.
“I’d rather take the blow to my chest standing up,” she fired back. “Answer me, Willis. Who is my mother?”
Dr. Samuel Willis Worthy pulled in a deep breath and looked up at the daughter he failed. From the time she’d came into this world until now. Showing her what a man should be or how he should move were lessons he never outright gave her. What he did teach her was to never depend on anyone to save her. Because the man that should’ve saved her sat on his hands and did nothing but turn his back on her.
He palmed his face. “Please sit.”
“No,” Remedy stated. “Speak.”
Willis stood and motioned her out of the dining room. Remedy followed, finding a wall to prop herself against and folded her arms over her tender chest. “I’m not fuckin’ playing your dumbass games anymore, Willis. Talk, quick.”
He pulled in a deep breath and started. “Your mother was one of Ernie’s girls. Sylvia and I were going through a rough patch and I messed up. I wasn’t proud of it and I promised her that I wouldn’t go back to Trae Way. And I didn’t, until your grandmother called me and told me to come get you. You weren’t even eight weeks old yet. She delivered you in that house and helped your mother nurse you and soothe you until I guess she decided enough was enough and checked out. No one knew where she went. She was gone with the wind. May figured if I could raise Dustyn as my own, Sylvia could accept you.”
“How’d you know I was even yours since my mother was one of Ernie’s girls,” Remedy posed.
“You look just like me. And I’d been the only one your mother had been with since Ernie put her to work. Plus, May knew what I was doing. You are a walking reflection of my biggest secret.”
“So you just let her treat me like shit my whole life because you were ashamed of yourself? That makes sense. Couldn’t control my entry in the world, tried to control my existence.” She heard her voice crack. “Fuckin’ shame that the man who was supposed to help mold my worldview was my number one abuser.”
“I never touched you,” Willis defended.
“You’re right. You let Paul do that. You didn’t have to touch me to abuse me. It was the way you looked at me, the way you talked to me. How you treated me. You loved Dustyn and Gina more than you could ever love me. You know, when I was in prison, I thought about all the ways this was going to go, us talking. I never imagined I’d be sick to my stomach by the sight of you,” Remedy admitted. “You’re a coward. A bitch ass nigga. A weak hoe ass nigga that allowed his bitch whore of a wife to mistreat your child. A fuck ass nigga for allowing your child to be beaten, hit on, spit on, and all the other ungodly things Paul did to me and you stood by. It’s forever fuck you and your excuses and your lies.
“You took so much from me. I had to experience what love and safety was in prison. I had to be taught about my womanhood and self-worth in prison. It wasn’t until a month and a half ago that I saw everything a man should be. I truly, from the bottom of my heart, wish on you every horrible thing. Worse than what you sat back and allowed me to go through. From now until the next lifetime – fuck you, fuck Sylvia, Dustyn, and Gina. You four deserve each other.”
Remedy hawked up and spit and shot it at his golf shoes. “Punk ass nigga. Be happy I didn’t turn your wife’s head around when I saw her. If they so much as look at me, it’s going to take you and every one of those bitch ass niggas you surround yourself with to pull me off of them.”
She pushed herself off of the wall and walked toward the entrance of the clubhouse holding her middle finger up in the air. The walk home coupled with having to hold on to her emotions was nauseating. Head in the toilet, she threw up the contents of her stomach before curling up on the bathroom floor and holding herself.
The familiar shuffle of feet came into the bathroom. With a grunt and few pops of his bones, Ernie got on the floor and pulled her into his side.
Remedy whimpered. “I hate them.”
“I know you do. But you’re so much better than they are. The thing about light is, in order to put it out, you have to kill its carrier. Fortunately for you, you were made tough because you were going to have battles and forge paths so the people coming behind you wouldn’t experience what you had to. May didn’t name you Remedy for nothing. I got a boy who makes shit balance. I got a girl that makes everything better. Remember who loves you and fuck everyone else who can’t. Hear me?”
“Heard.”
“Good. When I get my hands on them, I’m going to show them a thing or two. Take my cane and play Whack-A-Bitch.”
Remedy laughed softly.
“And by the way, your mother and sister…look like they got hit in the face with more than my cane.”
“It’s all their fillers and Botox,” Remedy shared.
“Well, they got one more time to breathe your air and I’ll beat it out of them.”
