Unbeweaveable (15 page)

Labor Pains

I refused to get in the car with them; I was too angry. I called a cab while they waited next to me for it to arrive. The air between us was full of secrets, and I was so tired from trying to get answers that I wanted to ball up and cry. It was enough already. I was a big girl, why was everyone hiding it from me?

I knew Renee was concerned for my safety, so she waited for my cab to arrive. Beverly just wanted to make sure I wouldn't go back in and talk to Grandpa. The cab pulled up and I jumped in, ready to get away from them.

“Where to?” the cabbie asked.

Anywhere would be better than here. But Grandpa was right, I am smart. And smart girls hang out at smart places.

“Downtown library, please.”

He nodded and took off so fast it took me a few seconds to buckle up.

This ends today. Whatever this is, whatever Beverly was hiding, it ends today. If Paul was out there, then I deserved as much love as Renee. I deserved to know if someone out there had longed to hold me as much as I longed to hold them.

The library had gone through a renovation since the last time I'd been there. Gone were the worn red carpets and outdated brick entryway. It was replaced with a sleek and shiny interior worth its cards in bragging rights. I must have looked lost, because a woman with a badge on the breast pocket of her jacket approached and asked if I needed any help.

“Yes, I'm doing some research and I need to find a death certificate.”

“That shouldn't be a problem. Do you have the person's full name?”

“Yes.”

“All right, follow me,” she said as I followed her to wall of computers. Her long braids dangled down her back and I tried to look away for fear of crying about my missing weave.

“What date do you need specifically?”

“The summer of 1979. More specifically, July. I tried to do it at home, but it wouldn't let me get past 1985.”

“Our database is more extensive. We shouldn't have a problem.” Her fingers clicked over the keyboard. “There, 1979. Use the mouse to pick what month you need. If you need to print something, it'll come out on printer seven, just behind you. Think you got it?”

“I do. Thanks.”

She smiled and left me to do my business. I hoisted myself on the stool in front of me and clicked on the month of July. Scanning for several minutes I found nothing. An hour passed, and still nothing. How hard could it be to find one measly little death certificate?

“Ma'am?” I said, waving my hand to the woman who had helped me before, like a kindergarten student who needs a restroom break.

“Yes?”

“I can't find what I'm looking for. Are you sure that if I have the date the person died, and their name, I'll find their death certificate? Because nothing's coming up.”

“Let me try,” she said. I slid off the stool and let her have a go.

“Hmm. I see what you mean…Nothing's coming up. You sure this guy is dead?”

“I used to be.”

“Pardon?”

“No, I'm not sure.”

“Well, he might still be living. If you get his social then you can do a background check on him. They do it all the time online.”

“Is it free?”

“No, but the results don't take long.”

“What do you think?”

“About getting the background check?”

“About trying to find out the truth. I mean, you work here, so you know all about this stuff, right? If I can't find a death certificate, then it means he's still alive, right?”

“Or he could have died on a different day. You sure you got all your facts straight?”

I shook my head, and blinked back tears. “No. I don't think I'll ever get all the facts straight.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “You okay? You want me to call someone?”

I heard the buzz of my cell phone and started to ignore it, then decided against it.

“No need,” I said, as I answered the phone.

“Which is weirder, being in labor and calling you, or being in labor with a full face of makeup?” Norma asked.

“Norma! You're in labor?” I mouthed,
I'm okay
, to her and she walked away, helping someone else who was in need.

“Yep. Don't panic, I'm just in the beginning phase. I thought if I called you now you could be here to hold my daughter.”

“Oh, my goodness, Norma, you're going to be a mama! How does it feel?”

“Besides the overwhelming urge to take a dump? Pretty good.”

“You are
so
gross.”

“Well, what do you say? I need you here.”

“Norma, I don't think I can. I in the middle of some things…”

“Well, when do you think you can make it? And don't lie and say it's about money—I'll pay for your ticket.”

I sighed. “I promise the first chance I get I'll be out there.”

“I guess I'll take what I can get. Hold on a sec—”

After a few grunts and deep breathing she was back on the phone, albeit a little breathless.

“Sorry, contraction.”

“You sure you should be on the phone?”

“Yes, I'm sure. Since you're not here I had to take the next best thing. I'm by myself until Chris gets here, so talk to me, calm me down.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything!”

“Well, I'm at the library right now. Still digging for more information about my father.”

“That's what's keeping you from visiting?”

“Kind of.”

She sighed. “Find anything?”

“No. I was looking for his death certificate, but I can't find it.”

“Is that bad?”

“It's just another thing that makes me believe he's out there somewhere. Why am I going through so much fuss? If he is alive, he didn't even want me in the first place. He never contacted me.”

“You're making a fuss because you want to know the truth. And I agree something sounds fishy with all this, but maybe it's because you're missing key information. Maybe you have the wrong date—”

“Maybe. I just need to get—”

“Ouch!”

“Norma, are you okay?”

“Maybe the phone isn't the smartest thing to do right now. Call you when this girl is born.”

She hung up before I could say good bye, but I was thrilled to know she was bringing life into the world.

My phone rang again and I ignored the annoyed stares of everyone and picked it up, expecting it to be Norma again.

“Baby popped out that fast?”

“Baby? What baby?”

“Sorry, Renee, I thought you were Norma.”

“She's having her baby? Already? That's fast.”

“Yeah, seems like it. Is she with you?” I asked, knowing full well we both knew who
she
was.

“I just dropped her off at home. Where are you? I'm coming to get you.”

“I'm at the library downtown. I'll be waiting out front.”

Thirty minutes later I was buckled up in the passenger seat on the way back to see Grandpa.

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” Renee said.

“You're doing this because you feel the same way I feel. You know something isn't right.”

“Even if what you're saying is true, it doesn't make any sense for Mama to lie about something like that. She was really upset this morning. She didn't talk to me the whole ride home.”

“Well, she's going to blow a blood vessel when she learns that we're going back to visit Grandpa.”

“I shouldn't be getting in the middle of this.”

“You're already in the middle, Renee.”

“Why can't you just let dead dogs lie? Why do you need to keep digging? It won't change anything.”

“It changes
everything
. I can't believe you even said that. You're just afraid of what Beverly's going to do. If you were in my place and Beverly had lied to you all your life, you know you'd be making like one of those people on
CSI.
I need to know if my father is alive. If he is…”

“Then what?”

“Then I want to meet him.”

She shook her head. “I'm trying to understand, but—”

“You could never understand what it feels like to be a mistake, Renee. To walk into a room and to have your mother's eyes glaze with regret at your presence. No, you wouldn't understand anything I'm going through, you're too busy being the princess.”

“Princess? Is that what you think of me? That I'm a spoiled princess?”

“If the shoe fits.”

“You don't know me at all,” she said, her voice a few notches above a whisper. “You're going to find out everything you want, Mariah. I know what it feels like to search for peace, for answers. I hope you find it.”

* * *

When we came back to Grandpa's room, he was sitting in the corner reading a book, sunlight pouring in and turning his silver hair blinding white.

“Back so soon?” he asked without looking up.

“Finish,” I said, sitting in the chair across from him. Renee stood near me.

He sighed and closed his book, not keeping his page. He closed his eyes for a long time, and, when he opened them, fresh tears were there.

“Paul Stevens is alive and kicking.”

I blew out a ragged breath, not even realizing that I was holding my breath until then. Renee seemed to crumple into the chair next to me, her eyes wide.

“Why?”

Tears filled his eyes and he looked away.

“The day Paul got into the accident he was driving back to Houston to see your mama. The accident stalled him, but he still managed to get to the house. I saw him first and I knew that Beverly would feel sorry for him because he was all banged up and go back to him. I couldn't let that happen. So I blocked him from seeing her.”

I stood up. “How could you do that? How could all of you lie like this to me? I came to your house crying about not having a father, and you let me believe he was dead when all along he was out there. How could you do this?”

Grandpa stood and tried to reach out for me, but I pulled away. His shoulders seemed to slump lower. “I'm sorry, Cotton Ball. I know it wasn't right, but you have to understand that Paul was no good for your mama—”

“You lied to me.”

I turned to Renee. “Did you know about this, too?”

“What? No! I had no idea about any of this!”

“You're Mama's best friend. There are no secrets between you! If you were in on this, too, just tell me!”

“No!” Renee shouted. “I didn't know!”

A nurse came in and told us that we had to lower our voices. I sat back down and hugged my knees to my stomach and rocked back and forth, feeling my stomach sending the first waves of pain.

“You lied,” I said again, tears running down my face.

“I didn't know what else to do…”

“You could have told the truth!”

“I should have. But the lie became too big, bigger than me. I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't want you to look at me the way you're looking at me now. Please, Mariah—” He tried to touch my hand, but I jerked away.

“Who came up with the lie?”

He paused and then said, in a voice so low that I had to strain to hear him, “I did.”

“You? The lie came from you?”

“I suggested it. I didn't want Paul in your life, so I told Beverly to tell you that. I never thought she would actually follow up on it, but she did.”

“Did he ever try to come back for me?”

“He tried, but—”

“Let me guess, you blocked him from coming by and calling? Grandpa, I can't believe this!”

He started coughing and Renee got him to sit back down. She gave him some water and finally his throat closed.

“I think this is enough,” she said.

“How could you guys have done this? I had a father all these years and you stole that from me. You're nothing but a thief.”

“Oh, baby. You have to understand—”

“Understand what? That my grandfather is a liar? And so is Beverly? The only person who probably would tell me the truth is my father.”

“You don't know that man, Mariah. I know I was wrong, but at the time—”

“At the time you felt like you were doing right. What you did had no right in it, Grandpa.” I had to bite down on my knuckles to prevent myself from screaming.
How
could
he
do
this?

“I need to get out of here,” I said. I looked over at Renee, slumped over in her chair like a bag of wet flour. “Let's go.”

“Beverly did the best thing she knew how to do at the time. We all did. Porsche was the only one who couldn't stand it. She wanted to tell you, but she died before she could. She made me promise that I wouldn't hold the secret. That I would tell you when the time was right.”

“I'm thirty years old. When were you going to find the right time? Forget it,” I said when he opened his mouth to talk. “I don't want to know. I can't listen to any more of this. I need to get out of here.” I walked out of Grandpa's room, ignoring his calls for me not to leave. I stepped outside and into Houston's heat, another thing that slapped me in the face.

He was alive. My father is alive
. Why all the deceit, all the lies? Now I had to get the answers from the one woman who I feared wouldn't give me a straight answer.

Good as Dead

“What are you going to do now?”

“You know what I'm doing. Take me home,” I said, getting into Renee's car.

“You want to talk to Mama, don't you? Grandpa said she made a mistake…”

“Lying about the death of my father is more than just a mistake, Renee. You can't justify her actions. At some point you need to see how wrong she is for what she did.”

“I know she's wrong. But so was Grandpa. You can't put all the blame at her feet.”

“You wanna bet?”

She pulled away from the nursing home and headed back toward her condo.

“This is all just a big misunderstanding. Mama will set things straight.”

“You just don't want her to be wrong.”

“She's already wrong. I just want you to listen to her side of things. That's all.”

Twenty minutes later I was walking into Renee's condo, determined to get answers from Beverly. She was sitting on the couch working on her delicate embroidery when I stormed in. She looked up at us and smiled, but then frowned when she saw the anger in my eyes.

“What's wrong?” she asked. She stood up and reached for me, but I pulled away from her.

“I'll tell you what's wrong, Beverly. When exactly were you planning to tell me that my father is alive?”

Her hands flew to her throat and started wringing the pearls that lay there. “He told you.”

“You bet he told me. How could you lie to me like that? All these years?”

“Baby, please listen—”

“No, you listen. I cried in my bed almost every night wishing I could have a father. And you saw me and did nothing. You could have stopped my pain.”

“I didn't know what to do, I'd already lied for so long, I didn't know how to fix it—”

“You tell the truth!”

Beverly stood back at the forcefulness of my words.

“I know that. I do. But things got out of control so fast, I didn't know how to tell you—”

“Would you have
ever
told me? You would have sat on this secret your whole life if it wasn't for Grandpa.”

“You know your grandfather isn't the saint you make him out to be. He's one of the reasons I divorced Paul in the first place.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Go on.”

“I told you girls how I was brought up. I was raised like the two of you were—private schools, designer clothes—I had it all. But my parents were so strict with me, they never let me go anywhere or do anything.”

“Grandpa said that you were fast with the boys. Is that true?”

She laughed and her hands went up to her necklace again. “He thought so. But I wasn't. Most of those boys were just my friends, nothing more. But he couldn't see that. He was so afraid that I was going to mess up and get pregnant and not go to school like we all talked about. But then I met Paul.”

“How?”

“Paul and some friends came down to Houston for their spring break. He was a freshman in college. We met at Galveston Beach. We started dating, and when I introduced him to my parents, Daddy flipped out. He didn't want me dating, and he thought Paul was after my money. But Paul didn't even know that I had money, not until then, of course. I was so in love with Paul, I couldn't see straight. He asked me to marry him, and we eloped. When your grandfather found out he threatened to cut me off, but I didn't care. We moved to Memphis and we stayed with his mother, Gloria.”

“Go on,” I said when she stopped talking.

“You have to understand the way I was brought up, Mariah. I had everything done for me. I was accustomed to a certain way of life. To say that Paul had nothing was an understatement. His uncle owned a shoe repair shop and he worked there. I worked part time at a grocery store. A grocery store, can you imagine?”

“Oh, the horror,” I said flatly.

“For me it was. Gloria never liked me, and she punished me by making me hang clothes on the line to dry, or scrubbing floors and washing dishes—”

“So she made you work?”

“It was more than work—”

“No, Beverly. That sounds like work. And let me guess, your gentle spirit couldn't handle the strain of real married life and you went back home to Daddy?”

“Not at first. I really tried to stick it out. Like I said, I was in love with Paul and I thought his love would be enough—”

“But it wasn't, was it?”

She shook her head. “I started thinking of everything I'd given up to be with him, my family, my education, dancing. I'd been accepted to the Alvin Ailey School, but I passed it up because of him. So I started thinking that I didn't have to give up everything. I could have him
and
I could still dance. But by then it was too late. I was pregnant with you.”

“So I'm the reason you stopped dancing?” I said it like a question, but I knew the answer. My stomach churned and I rubbed it to get it to quiet down.

“By that time I was bitter and unhappy. Paul and I argued almost every day, and it didn't help that his mother was there in his corner for most of the arguments. I couldn't take it anymore and I left,” she said, quietly. “I called home and my father met me at the bus station.”

“You were still pregnant?”

She nodded. “I had you the next week. Paul didn't even show up,” she said bitterly.

“But Grandpa said he blocked him from seeing you—”

“I know, but I didn't find that out until years later. He told me after my mother died. You were three at the time and by then I already…” She hung her head.

“You already had started lying.”

“I felt like he was dead to me! He didn't try to see me, to see you. I was devastated. So when my father said I should tell you Paul was dead, I agreed. It was easier that way.”

“For who?”

“I know now what I did was wrong, but I was in so much pain. By the time I found out that he loved me and did try to meet me, it was too late. I was married to Anthony, Renee was here and I had made a new life for myself. I couldn't go back.”

“Did Anthony know?”

She shook her head. “No one knew.” She sighed. “The truth is, I'm glad you know. But I wish I would have had the strength to tell you. For years I tried to tell you, and he stopped me, telling me how much I would hurt you if I told you the truth. Now he has the audacity to tell you, and he looks like an angel while I look like…” She ran her hand through her hair. “Fine. You would think bad of me no matter how this turned out. I'm glad Daddy told you. I'm tired of the lies and the secrets. I know you came here for the truth and now you have it. I know what I did was wrong, but to me Paul was as good as dead.”

“Good as dead is not the same as
being
dead, Beverly. You cheated me,” I said. “Cheated me from a chance to have a father—”

“I didn't cheat you! You had Anthony—”

“He wasn't my father. I was tolerated around Anthony, not loved.”

“That's not true. He loved you.”

I shook my head. “How could you do this?”

She just stood there, her hands playing with the pearls around her neck.

“Answer me,” I screamed, snatching her hands away from her precious pearls. The necklace broke and her pearls hit the floor and danced around us. She went to the floor and tried to pick them up; her hands trembled as she collected the bouncing pearls around her.

“You're pathetic,” I said.

She looked up at me. “Paul gave me this necklace.”

My stomach burned, but I held her gaze.

“I did the best I could with you.”

“I know. And that's the part that's sad.”