“I’m a little sick of your fresh mouth.”
“You wake me up at two AM. What did you think we were going to talk about, the weather?”
“You know what? It’s to the point where I just don’t know what to do with you. Ever since your father died you just act as if I’m the enemy.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. I had bigger fish to fry than this: like losing my boyfriend. “Please don’t act like the victim.” I shook my head. “That’s what you always did; you always acted like the victim when you were always the one to start it. So just go in your room so I can go back to sleep.”
Apparently she didn’t hear anything I just said because now she was screaming. “You don’t tell me what to do! And you don’t talk to me like that, I’m the mother around here!”
“Then act like it. I do everything and what do you do?! Huh? Nothing but work and ignore the hell out of us as if you are on the countdown for us to turn eighteen. So don’t come up in here because I didn’t wash the dishes. Acting as if you are Justine Simmons, mom of the year.”
“What are you guys yelling about?” Hadiah came to my door, wiping her eyes.
“Nothing,” my mother said. “Go back to bed.”
Hadiah stood there.
“I said go back to bed!” my mother said, enraged.
Hadiah looked at me, and I said, “It’s okay, Hadiah, go back to bed.”
“You sure?” she asked with a worried look in her eyes.
“Yes.” I nodded. “I’m sure. I got this.”
My mother’s mouth hung open, and I could tell she was a mix between being extremely pissed and her feelings being hurt. I grabbed my comforter and pillow from the floor, pointed to the door, and said, “That’s called stay home more.” Not that I wanted her around, but Hadiah needed her.
“I will not have you disrespecting me,” my mother said. “I swear ever since your father died everything around here is turned upside down!”
“Oh, now you wanna blame daddy? Here you go again being the victim.”
“I was a victim! Your father beat the hell out of me!”
“Well, now he’s dead so you don’t have to put up with him! All you did was call the cops on him anyway!”
“We had problems, and he had no right to put his hands on me!”
“Then you should’ve shut your mouth and kept quiet. Then he wouldn’t have been stressed behind you, got cancer, and died. You couldn’t even wait for the ink to dry on his insurance papers before you ran and bought this house. And you only bought it so that there would be no memories of him here! You ain’t slick, I know your tricks and you don’t have to hold your breath because when I’m eighteen I’m out of here! Now cut my light off and you’re dismissed!”
WHACK!!!! Have you ever seen shooting stars in the middle of your room? I could’ve sworn that my mother’s backhand across my face sent me to the edge of the Big Dipper, but I’m not sure. All I knew is that my ear was ringing and the left side of my face was burning. The same side that Ameen had left a bruise on.
“Let me tell you something!” My mother walked up so close to me that I thought she was going to push me through the wall. “You don’t know anything about what me and your father have gone through. You don’t know how many nights I cried and begged and pleaded for him to change, for me to change, for us to change! You think I like what we went through?! But you know what, I don’t have to explain anything to you, you’re a child. You will get it together, come hell or high water you will learn to respect me.”
I started to repeat the same things back to her, but I didn’t. I simply turned over toward the wall and within the next few minutes I heard my door slam. The tears that had been haunting me all night had returned and were now sliding down my cheeks. I thought about Ameen and wished for a moment that I could share with him the argument I had just had with my mother. So I picked up the phone to call him, only to be greeted by his voice mail…again.
Don’t look now, but my life was hell.
“Zsa-Zsa.” Hadiah knocked on my door and simultaneously tipped into my room.
“Wassup?” I wiped the crust from my eyes and looked at the clock: six AM. Time to get up and get ready for school. I grabbed my cell phone but there were no missed calls, which meant that Ameen didn’t think about me all night. “Yeah, Hadiah, what is it?”
“Man down.” She placed her hands on her hips. “It’s about to be a man down situation.”
Life according to my sister was always a man down situation. So instead of responding I got out of bed and walked over to my closet to pick out my clothes for today. For a moment the Gucci boots Ameen bought me and took back ran across my mind. “I want you to wear that soft pink Apple Bottoms sweat suit,” I said to Hadiah. “The one I bought you and those white and pink air force ones. I’m wearing my True Religion skinny leg jeans and pink tee with my pearl accessories and Prada heels.”
“Did you hear me?” Hadiah placed her hands on her hips. “I said Mommy is shuttin’ the world down. She’s on the phone with Aunty Grier right now crying and complaining about us.”
“What? Complaining?” Now she had my attention.
“Yeah.” She twisted her neck. “Said something about you being out of control and me being too grown. Can you imagine?” Her eyes bugged out. “Me being too grown? Hmph, she got me messed up.”
“Are you sure she’s on the phone with Aunty Grier, in Georgia?”
“Listen at this.” She handed me the cordless phone she had in her hand. I pushed the talk button and my mother was complaining so much she didn’t even notice we were on the line.
Hadiah and I placed the phone in between our ears and listened. “I just need some help,” my mother cried. “I can’t lose my girls. Derrick is already gone. He’s in the army and he never comes back home. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Stop crying, Jazmyn,” Aunty Grier said. “I know how you feel. When Tre left home I didn’t know what I would do, but I made it and you can, too. You want to come down to Atlanta and move in with me, Noah, Man-Man, Cousin Shake, and his wife? We would love to have you. The girls are in school and they come home every weekend. This house is huge and there is more than enough room.”
“She better not say we’re moving to Georgia,” I mouthed to Hadiah.
“I will die if she does,” Hadiah whispered back.
“You know I can’t do that.” My mother sniffed.
Thank you.
“Okay, well, the only other thing I can think of is Cousin Shake and Ms. Minnie coming up there. I know they’ll be happy to help out.”
Cousin Shake, oh, hell, no.
“You really think they won’t mind?” my mother asked.
Why is she entertaining this?
“I know they won’t. You know how he was when we were little.”
My mother laughed. “Don’t remind me.”
“Well, he hasn’t changed much, except now he has a new wife and unlike when we were young he isn’t stuck in the seventies, it’s now the eighties…. Oh, and the hearse still works.”
The hearse?
I