I heard the nigga clearly, but my brain just wasn’t registering what he just said.
“I said I think that I’ve found your mother.”
“Where is she?”
Jacob paused for a second, like he was choosing his words carefully.
“She’s been here. In the big apple.”
“Here, where? Hold on.” I replied, dashing out of the shop because of all the loud music playing overhead.
“Okay, I can talk now. Where did you find her?”
“I found her with your stepmother, Amelia. She’s been working in the Quatar family house as a maid. They changed her name to Gretchen.”
For a moment, everything went quiet. The room, the air, even my own breathing felt like it was forced. My mind started flipping through memories I hadn’t thought about ever. But now, I remember that name, and I could even see her face in my head. Her standing near the staircase, eyes following me when she thought I wasn’t looking, and watching me longer than necessary.
“Can you get in contact with her to let her know that I know about her?”
“That’s the thing. I found her location from research of your father’s old connections in Cuba, but they said that they haven’t heard from Erika since she left there with your father.”
When I thought about it, I never saw any of the housekeepers on their phones or even their families outside of the homes. I know they would only be allowed to come home once all of us were sleeping, and they would be back before we woke up, cooking breakfast and taking care of the house. I’m not even sure if they had phones.
“The only breakthrough I can suggest to find her is to go to your family's house, where she is still currently working. I’ve done surveillance on the property because it’s not as heavilyguarded as before, and she is still working at the house daily. Her and about three other staff members. Here I'll send you a picture.”
A second went by before my phone chimed with a picture of the maid that I knew as Gretchen. I looked at the picture so long, I managed to shut out all the noise around me. Everything disappeared but her face on my phone until he snapped me out of my head.
“So, your mother is there and once you go to this house, you can ask her about everything.”
“Shit, that’s if I’m even allowed there with the way things went at the will reading.”
“But you can use that to your advantage. Tell her you want to discuss giving her something. Blow smoke in her face until it clears, and you have the information you want.”
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do, and I’ll call you back if I need more info.”
“Okay, good luck.” He replied, and I cut the line.
I stared out in space for a second, wondering how I could approach Amelia. She was never a big fan of me, and I was sure she wasn’t after everything got left to me. Still, Amelia is a shallow person who can be manipulated with money and promises to make her life better on some materialistic shit.
I dialed her number, and I’m sure my number wasn’t even saved in her phone, but she picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey Amelia, it’s Amir. Are you at the main house?”
“Yes, I’m here. What do you need, Amir?”
“I wanted to uh, come and talk to you about some money. I’ve had a change of heart about some things that I think will benefit you a lot.”
She cleared her throat.
“Oh, you have? Well, come over. I’ll be here all day, because I have not been feeling well the last couple of days.”
“Alright then, I’m on my way.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
I hung up the phone and got in my car to skate that way. I traveled at a steady pace to get there because, for the first time in a while, I was scared of something. I say a while, but it’s honestly been about twenty years since fear ever entered my heart, probably since being scared of what my father would say about us breaking something in the house, or scared that my bedroom was on the opposite end of the house than the rest of my family during storms. But this wasn’t the same kind of fear as back then; this wasn’t the boogie man. This was a fear of resentment, fear of rejection. Fear of being let down.
