“Hello?”
“Paloma.”
“Dove?”
“Yes, it’s me, girl.”
“Oh my goodness! It’s been what, six years!” Paloma exclaimed.
“I’m sorry.”
“That goes both ways.”
We had kept in contact after I graduated high school, and she had left foster care. We used to talk a lot, but as time wore on, we lost touch.
“Is everything okay?”she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I reached out after your relationship with that Neal guy was exposed all over social media last year, but you didn’t respond.”
“I fell into depression and shut the world out. My parents and sister had to pop up at my place just to see me.”
“I saw the live that you and my brother did, and I applaud you for having the courage to do that. I believe your story, if no one else did.”
“Thank you, Paloma. I asked him who would have ever thought we’d end up together, and he said you and Wryn. Do you know what he meant?”
“You two always liked each other, but you acted like you didn’t. We both believed you would find your way back to each other somehow. You were meant to be. I knew that from the day that you got him to speak when he had refused to before then. Now, what’s the real reason that you are calling, girl?”
I laughed. “Daniella.” I told her about everything that happened and followed it up with, “Why did he remain with someone he knew wasn’t good for him?”
Paloma sighed.“As much as we loved our mother, Reigh was the only one who made excuses for her behaviors. He was so young. Our mother could be cruel and apathetic. A lot of times, she withheld affection, using it as something to be earned. Daniella was the same way. She held her affection over his head for him to earn it, and she never gave a damn about Reigh. The difference between her and my mother is that our mother has an illness. She had a lot of ways like our mother, and Daniella became the closest thing he could ever have to our mother.”
That saddened me. “That’s heartbreaking.”
“Yeah. Dove, he’s going to need you in the months to come.”
“Why?”
“Mama is out of the hospital and on her meds. Wryn won’t see her. I’ve been with her a few times, and she seems much different than when we were kids. I just don’t know what type of impact that will have on Reigh’s emotions. Just be there for him.”
“I promise, Lo, I will.”
We talked a while longer before we finally ended the call. The man that I loved carried so much pain, and he kept his head up through it all, trying to appear strong for everyone. I worried that one day, he might break, and I prayed that I could be there to put him together again if that were to happen.
I saton the sofa with my hands clasped between my knees. I was unable to look her in her eyes, because I couldn’t take the confusion resting there, as if she didn’t recall how we had gotten here. As if she failed to remember the pain she’d caused.
“Reigh, baby. Say something.”
“What do you want me to say, Mama?”
She had just finished trying to explain the last few years and the challenges she had faced being in and out of the hospital and why this time would be different. I had gone to see her in the earlier years when she was in the hospital. After she disappeared the last time upon her release, I hadn’t been able to get in touch with her for more than a year.
No one knew if she was dead or alive, as she had cut off contact with everyone. When she was finally found, it was by an old neighbor. She had been living in a tent in a homeless camp. Luckily, the neighbor knew who she was and what her problem was. He contacted her caseworker, who immediately came out to see about her.
Knowing that she had been living on the streets when she didn’t have to and that she had shunned us, hurt like hell. I hated to see Paloma and Wryn suffering too. Although my big brother tried to pretend it didn’t bother him, I knew differently.
I had stumbled upon him one evening in his den, crying into a bottle of bourbon. He hadn’t seen me, and I stayed just out of the way as he cried out, “Mama, why? Why didn’t you love me enough to fight for us? Why did you let us down?”
