Authors: Niobia Bryant

Mistress, Inc. (17 page)

BOOK: Mistress, Inc.

2.79Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

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“Yes, I already checked out of my hotel this morning. Thank you,” Jessa said, reopening the folder. “Could you take me to One Hundred Tenth Street in Harlem, please?”

“Harlem?” the driver asked. “They have me routed to take you back to New Jersey.”

Jessa flexed her shoulder a little bit as she felt her irritation spike. “Well,
they
aren’t seeing that she gets home.
I
am. So
you
should let whoever “they” are know that
we
are most definitely headed to Harlem first and then Jersey on
their
dime. Clear?”

He said nothing, but he reached for his cell phone.

Jessa focused her attention back on her mother, eyeing her carefully as she mumbled in her sleep.

Gone was the stylish woman who was always impeccably dressed. Her bright red lipstick was smeared around her mouth, and her mascara ran in black tracks down her cheeks. She resembled a scary clown. Her fingernails were bitten down, and what little polish she wore was peeled and faded.

Jessa’s eyes filled with tears. She was shell-shocked by all of it, and seeing her mother still under the effects of drugs and alcohol—and maybe much more—had her nerves shot to hell.

Had her mother been in Harlem all this time?

When Jessa was small enough to allow herself to care about her mother’s whereabouts, she had imagined that the man in the red car carried Darla so far away that she
couldn’t
get back to her. Harlem, New York, was barely an hour by car.

Feeling her anger rise again, Jessa looked back down at the folder, but there was no other info except her phone number and travel itinerary. Jessa slid the folder into her patent-leather tote.

In a perfect world, a perfect daughter would take her long-lost mother home, but Jessa was beyond hesitant to do that. She didn’t know the scope of her mother’s addiction and didn’t know if she cared enough to help her fight any demons—and that’s if Darla even wanted to.

No, I’ll take her home where she’s been hiding from being a mother any damn way and I’ll call her later to make sure she’s okay. Baby steps.

Jessa felt like she didn’t really know this woman, and how could she after more than twenty-five years?

“Let me see my baby. Please just let me see her,” Darla mumbled in her sleep.

That made Jessa suck air between her teeth.
Darla knew damn well where she left me and there I stayed until college. If she wanted to see me, all she had to do was come home.

For the remainder of the ride Jessa sat quietly in the back lost in her thoughts of her past and future.
Just where does my mother fit into all of this now?

“Stay away from me. Leave me alone,” Darla mumbled.

Jessa started to call Henry and get his take on everything but decided against it. She was too busy trying to grapple with all of her emotions and getting a firm grasp on what she thought to take on someone else’s advice yet.

The only thing she knew for sure was that she needed to get the hell away from everybody and everything and regroup. Period. Point blank.

They were in Harlem when Darla stirred awake, smacking her lips as if she couldn’t stand the taste of her own mouth. She stretched and cleared her throat.

Jessa immediately put on her guard, not sure if Darla was about to show anger, paranoia, or histrionics.

“It’s really good to see you, Jessa,” Darla said, reaching over to pat her hand.

Jessa instinctively covered her belly.

Darla’s eyes filled with anger. “You think I would hurt my grandbaby?”

Jessa stiffened her back. “I never thought you would leave me behind,” she said, then regretted showing any sign that her mother had left her behind wounded.

The driver pulled the SUV into a parking spot in front of a brownstone.

Jessa sat up on the edge of the car seat and lowered the window as her mouth fell open. The entire tree-lined block was lined with renovated brownstones. It wasn’t at all the ramshackle hood she was expecting.

“Home sweet fucking home,” Darla said, picking up her purse. “You coming up or you have to get back to your fabulous fucking life?”

And the sarcasm was back. Jessa felt tired, but she allowed the driver to help her out of the SUV after he helped her mother.

Darla sniffed a dozen different times as she struggled to retrieve her keys from her purse as she climbed the stairs. Jessa motioned for the driver to help her mother, feeling like she couldn’t risk her mother falling or stumbling and causing Jessa to fall backward down the brick stairs. She cupped her hand to her round belly in full protective mode.

As soon as Darla unlocked the door, their driver set her carry-on on the step and stepped back. But Jessa barely noticed because she was completely taken aback by the total disarray of her mother’s home.

Dirty dishes. Piles of clothes everywhere. The smell of rotting garbage. Flies and gnats cruising through the air. A cat suddenly jumped from behind a couch and on top of a floor-model television.

Jessa screamed out and stumbled back.

Darla moved around like her life was not total chaos. She didn’t even flinch at Jessa crying out.

This is madness.

Jessa covered her nose and mouth with her hand and swatted away gnats and flies with her other hand.

Darla swatted the cat away and then picked up a photo album. She whirled to hand it to Jessa and dust flew. “See all the pictures I have of my pretty baby,” she said, opening the book.

Jessa spotted a photo of herself at age twelve. She reached out and took the album from her mother’s hands. With her heart pounding wildly, she flipped through the pages. Nearly all of her school pictures were there.

“Where did you get these?” Jessa asked, her voice soft.

Darla pulled a flask from inside her brassiere as she slumped down on the couch, nearly flattening the cat, who flew from under her just in time. “My mama sent them to me,” Darla said, looking down into the flask before raising it in mock toast.

That had to be true.

Where else would she get them?

Jessa slammed the album closed and let it drop to the floor with a
WHAM.
“So you wanted photos, but you couldn’t be bothered with the real thing?” she snapped, reaching out to snatch the flask from her mother’s hand.

Darla jumped to her feet and started to breathe in and out her nose like a bull.

Not exactly sure she wasn’t about to be run over, Jessa tossed the flask back at her.

Darla caught it and took a healthy swig. “You don’t know nothing about what went on. You don’t know shit about what I been through,” she said, her eyes filling with tears as she bent down and opened the album to the last page.

Jessa looked down as Darla rocked and fell on her ass, her legs splayed out in front of her as she pulled a thin bundle of letters out. “My own mama told me I wasn’t good enough to raise my child,” Darla said, stroking the cat, who moved up close to her side and purred.

Jessa squinted her eyes.

“She bought me this house and give me money every month to stay away from my baby,” Darla whispered in a singsong voice that was eerie.

Jessa felt goose bumps race up her arms.

Let me see my baby. Please just let me see her.

Her mother’s ramblings in her sleep.

“She said I would ruin my baby,” Darla snapped in anger, her fingers balling up into a fist with some of the cat’s skin in her grasp. It cried out and exposed its teeth and claws before angrily swiping at Darla’s arm.

Jessa stood there in shock and horror as Darla cursed and flung the cat away from her. It flew in the air a little before landing on its feet and jetting off down a long hall.

Darla sat there among the chaos of her life crying like a child as she held on to the letters tightly. Jessa bent down as best she could and wrapped her hands around her mother’s wrist. “Come on, Mama,” she said gently. “Come on. I got you.”

Darla struggled to her feet. “I’m so sorry, Jessa. She said I wasn’t no good for you. And she wouldn’t let me see you. I fucked up. I promised you I would come back. I promised you and I knew I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

Jessa’s heart ached to know that after all those years her mother remembered the promise she made. Even if she broke it. She couldn’t leave her mother in this filth and to her own devices. She couldn’t do it.

“Let’s get out of here, Mama,” Jessa said, easing the letters and photo album from her mother’s hand as she walked her out the door.

Hours later, Jessa sat in the chair beside her mother’s bed in the hospital’s psychiatric ward. As soon as they left Harlem, she had the driver take them there and Darla was admitted for her addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine. But the psychiatrist also diagnosed her mother with bipolar disorder. They believe she used drugs and alcohol to defeat the symptoms of the mental disorder, not realizing it created a crazy and vicious cycle, with one further hindering the other.

Jessa had already contacted Keegan to get a cleaning and organizing expert and her team into the brownstone that Monday to get rid of the clutter and the cat. When Darla finished her treatment and got on her psych meds, Jessa wanted her to return to a home as clutter free as her life and her mind.

She felt no guilt about sticking to her decision not to move her mother into her home. Darla would have to prove herself for that, and that came in time. Jessa felt she had to be wary and cautious because more than just her feelings and her life were involved.

Rubbing her belly, she looked over at her mother as she slept peacefully.
Probably the best sleep she’s had in years,
Jessa thought, looking down at an old photo of her mother in a form-fitting dress with curves that made Beyoncé look like a man.

Even then Darla struggled with her mental disease and didn’t even know it.

Jessa swiped at the tears that filled her eyes as she lightly patted the letters. She felt betrayed and lost and confused as hell.

Every letter from her grandmother to her mother confirmed what Darla had said. She was literally paid to stay away. Warned not to call the house or be cut off. Threatened not to show up at Jessa’s school to watch her from a distance. Who gives money and a free place to live to a junkie and not expect them to spiral out of control?

Someone who didn’t know better would think her grandmother was just looking out for Jessa’s best interests. Jessa wasn’t buying it. She had felt the supposed wisdom of her grandmother’s actions, and Frances Jordan looked out for herself first and foremost.

Jessa thought of her pain at her mother leaving—and Darla had some of the weight of that to carry for herself—but Jessa knew firsthand that Grandma Frances had a way of getting anyone to see, and do, things exactly how she wanted.

Aria

I
woke up some time late during the night with Kingston cupping my nude body from behind with his hand warm and secure on my stomach. Before my body became swollen with the baby, he used to sleep cupping my breasts or with his hand snuggled down between my thighs.

Kingston claimed he loved me big and pregnant. God bless his lying heart—although the way he made love to me last night, gently but strong and passionate, made me feel damn sexy even though I was damn big. I smiled, remembering teasing him that we were putting sex on our baby’s brain.

And because we were having a son, Kingston joked he was getting him ready early to please the ladies.

A son.

I smiled in the darkness, letting my hand stroke Kingston’s at the memory of how happy he was to have a boy on the way.

His nursery was done and I knew the baby shower Renee and Jaime were throwing me next month would supply so much of the smaller things he would need like bottles, Pampers, and blankets. Still, I had his drawers stocked.

My mother was already packed to move in for a few weeks after his birth to guide me in the right direction, answer all my silly questions, and keep me from overreacting to the small things most first-time mothers panicked about.

We were all set for his arrival.

The only thing left to do was give birth and then name him ... once we laid eyes on him. Kingston was very adamant that he didn’t want or need to make his son a junior. He wanted him to have his own identity. I agreed.

And even if he was our miracle child and we would never be blessed with another pregnancy, I was happy for him. Our son.

To think I almost threw this—my family—away because of my own fears and bullshit. I thank God every day for bringing Kingston back to me and blessing us with a family. We made it through some tough times, and I had faith nothing could defeat us. Nothing.

Feeling thirsty and needing to pee, I eased free of Kingston’s body and sat up.

“Where you going, baby?” he asked, instantly waking up from his sleep.

“To the bathroom, ” I told him, rubbing his strong arms reassuringly before I padded barefoot and nude to the bathroom.

Soon his snores filled the air again and I just chuckled as I relieved myself and then pulled on a thin cotton robe that hung on a hook behind the door. Pausing by the bed long enough to put on my slippers, I made my way out the bedroom.

Sighing, I pressed to my lower back as I made my way to my office down the hall. Being eight months’ pregnant and having gained nearly fifty pounds, I felt all of my pregnancy in my lower back. I was taking my baby weight in stride and found it funny when my mother teased I looked like I was ready to float up to the sky like a balloon in a holiday parade.

I grabbed my iPad and snuggled down in the oversized chair in the corner. Not feeling too sleepy, I updated my Baby on Board blog site, read a few online magazine articles, and checked a few of my favorite daily blogs, like A Belle in Brooklyn.

Lastly, I checked some industry sites for writers and in a flash my night when straight to hell.

You have got to be kidding me with this bullshit?

Frowning in disgust, I read for a second and third time the announcement for the major book deal Jessa signed.

I have lost all faith in the publishing industry.

BOOK: Mistress, Inc.

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