CHAPTER 12

"I'm home! Mum!"

No answer.

Where is this woman who gave birth to me?

Oxygen was practically gone from my lungs, one would think that I'd been running for the Olympic Gold or something, but nope, I only ran the short distance from the bus stop to my house in my haste to hear the confirmation in person.

My dad's coming home? My dad was coming home.

I flung my keys on the kitchen countertop leaning against it too to catch my breath back. When was the last time I even ran that far? Urgh, I'm such a Fatty Freddie.

I stared back on the floor, curiously watching my keys lying there lifelessly on the red and white tiled floors of the kitchen. Now feeling bad for abandoning my keys, I asked myself how I would feel if I was a key and I was treated like that by my key owner. Yes, I'm the weirdo that thinks inanimate objects have feelings. I crouched down to rescue the keys and safely placed them in my coat pocket.

I walked into the sitting room, her presence was nowhere to be found.

"MUM! Are you home?"

"Child, I'm in my bedroom, stop shouting my name 'fore the whole neighbourhood think I done do something to ya'", shouted back my mum irritation clear in her tone.

Well if you had replied the first time, then I wouldn't be shouting out your name - obviously, those were my thoughts unless a bruised cheek was my ambition.

Sighing, I hiked up the steps to the top landing. I walked down the hallway, passing Bobby's room before reaching my mother's. I stood there in front of the door feeling awkward, because I rarely ever entered it and my insides were all tangled up in nerves, thinking if the context of the text message came to reality it would be the perfect Christmas present. I only hoped that whatever she had to say was good news and maybe we could be the happy family that we once were before drama started.

"Girl, are you going to stand outside all day or are you going to eventually decide to come in?"

Without further ado, I pushed the door ajar to see my mother sitting up in her bed, wearing her nightgown and headscarf to keep her short dreadlocks in place. Despite her work schedule, she had managed to keep her room pristine.

"Luciana, where d'you think you're going coming into my bedroom with them rank shoes on? You know the rules of my room."

How she knew that I had not removed my shoes without looking up from her book, I did not know but she did. Mother's intuition was not a joke.

It took me a minute to remember she never allowed anyone to cross the threshold of her room with footwear on. The last time I made the mistake of entering her room with my slippers on she yelled at me and made me get on my hands and knees to scrub the white carpet of her room with bleach- my eyes had felt like they were frying up. And it wasn't like I'd left any marks on the carpet, she must have had a severe case of OCD that day I guess. After that time, I damn well learnt my lesson and that's why I avoided going to her bedroom at all costs-except this time.

Huffing, I backed out of her room, bending down to slide off the converses from both my legs before re-entering the room.

I stood in front of her bedpost, still as a tree not really sure if I was supposed to do or say anything, I didn't want to get off the wrong foot with my mum. Absent-mindedly, I took in the surrounding around the room; three of her walls were painted white whilst the wall behind her bed was a soft lilac colour. My mum's oak wood wardrobe was plonked opposite my mum's medium sized bed. Her room was nothing special and nothing dull. It was just a room, specifically for her.

"Luciana, come sit down here and take a look at this," said my mum as she patted the empty side of the bed for me, beckoning for me to come.

Maya Carter telling me to sit next to her was something I had not heard in just over seven years. A part of me was reluctant to do so, we didn't have the best relationship. Truth be told, if I'd moved out the house we'd probably rarely be in contact. The thought alone was sad but true. Not wanting to further face the reality of my relationship with my mother I quickly scrambled unto her bed, all the while leaving a little distance between us.

I realised that it was her and my dad's wedding photo album that she'd been so fixated on when I came in. Both my parents looked so young and happy holding each other's arms as they stepped out of the church with their guests throwing rice at them. Where did time go? My mum looked so beautiful in her white long lace dress with puffy sleeves and my dad handsome as ever with his flat top hair and black suit.

"You're going to laugh when I tell you this. Two days before your dad and I got married we had a barbecue at my aunt's house - it was more or less a pre- wedding party. Your dad came up to tell me that his phone was missing and knowing the contacts he had on his phone and the kind of business he handled it wasn't exactly the ideal situation to be in. Y'know as smart as your daddy is, he could lose things in the stupidest places. I managed to find his phone, I don't remember where, but that's not important. He had an unread text message, so what did you think I did?"

"You read it."

"Damn right I did," she said snapping her finger and nodding her head up and down in confirmation. "One of your dad's ex-whores had texted him saying they were not going to give up on taking him away from me."

My mum was well deep in relieving her past but me not wanting the silence to stretch any further broke her from her memories. "What did you end up doing about the text message?"

A bubble of laughs sprang out from my mum's thick lips, as her head tilted back, before looking at me, with a mischievous smile on her face. "Even though I knew your dad wasn't messing around I was pretty mad at him that those whores still had a direct line to him. Aunt Alexandra always kept laxatives in her kitchen because she was forever trying to lose weight, so I put two doses of lax into your dad's drink and gave it to him and told him I found his phone but did not tell him about the message."

At that point both my mother and I were laughing so hard - I nearly forgot she hadn't finished telling the story until I heard her speak again.

"The next day I got a call from one of your dad's friends saying that he'd been going to the toilet all night and he was in pretty bad shape. Apart from the fact that we were getting married the next day, I was feeling seriously guilty so I decided to see your dad and tell him what really happened."

"And what did he have to say about what you did?

Nodding her head towards the photo album, she said, "A picture is worth a thousand words right?"

What was hilarious about the whole thing was that my dad still ended up marrying her. Clearly in my parent's case love excludes logical reasoning.

"Your dad ended up having to wear granny diapers to our wedding."

Not even a millisecond later, my mother's body trembled with laughter. I fought so hard not to laugh, but I just couldn't help myself. My dad in diapers - see these were the stories one saved for their children and grandchildren.

Light tears fell from our eyes as we finally settled down but with the odd giggle here and there escaping as she continued to flip through the photo album and I replayed the story in my head.

Theory proved: Maya Carter was crazy but Jay Carter was crazier.

"Last month, the court reviewed your dad's case and it's being a long process, but while I was at work this morning I got a call from your dad's lawyer's saying that your dad has been allowed to cut his sentence short. He's done the eight out of the twelve years he was supposed to do but will be on forty-eight months probation and report to a parole officer once a week. I sent you the text message at like twelve why did it take you two hours to reply back?"

I could barely register everything that she was telling me, but I managed to grasp the last part, "Oh, I was running some errands for Mr. Henriquez," I said nonchalantly, knowing I did very little 'errands'.

"Hmm-hm", was my mum's reply, pressing her lips together tightly and looking at me unconvinced.

Not wanting her to question me any further I asked, "Wh-when's daddy coming home?"

"Two days time."

"Two days time, that's like on the 21st?"

"Yeah, I know that's why we need to go grocery store, to stock up on food and Christmas stuff, y'all kids like."

"Well when can we go?" I asked, nearly bouncing up and down excitedly like a kangaroo at the prospect of seeing my dad after so long.

"Girl, wouldya calm down. Let me get dressed then we can go pick up a few things."

No lie, my dad was the heartbeat in the family - despite everything he'd done and everything we'd had to go through because of what he'd done.

I was waiting impatiently near the entrance door when my mum ever so slowly, walked down the stairs to meet me, which I bet she was doing on purpose, just to spite me. Not bothering to wait until she climbed down all the stairs down, I came out the house and opened the driver's side door playing the waiting game again for my mum to join me.

How did my dad ever cope with her, honestly?

Praising God Most High silently when she so humbly graced the car with her presence, I stuck the car key into the ignition only to have the car engines sputter and blow raspberries at me. Out of intense frustration at the damned car, I ended up banging my head repetitively against the steering wheel with my mum seated surprisingly calm next to me. "Guess we're not going anywhere for awhile."