Chapter 4
I HOPE YOU don’t have any overly active plans for the next few weeks.” A kind-faced doctor stepped farther into the exam room, tapping a sheet on the clipboard he held, full of all the details of Kenya’s unfortunate state.
“Let’s hear the man out first.” Her mama, ever the professional. She wore her no-nonsense, principal face. Mercy to the student caught on the wrong side of the rules and ending up face-to-face with Mrs. Justine Stewart. Too bad she was the one caught on the other end of her mother’s scrutiny.
“So, it looks like that dive of yours did a little damage. Was it the slide? Was it a pivot, a dip, a two-step?”
Kenya tried to smile alongside him, but the uncertain fate of her ankle made it hard to muster one up.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Looks like you have tearing in the anterior talofibular and partial tearing in the calcaneofibular ligament.”
Say what now?
“Otherwise known as a sprain, which is on the verge of getting worse.”
Kenya groaned, covering her face with her hands. She sensed the doctor stepping closer but couldn’t bear to open her eyes. Maybe it was a bad dream that would go away.
“Thankfully all three ligaments around your ankle didn’t tear or you would be looking at six to twelve weeks of recovery.
And possibly a date with a surgeon,” he continued, undeterred by her avoidance.
“Now, if it had been a clean break, this would be a little easier to deal with, actually, but at least I don’t have to put you in a cast.”
Kenya peeked at him through her fingers. “Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad. I can still wear normal shoes, right?”
He shook his head. “Not so fast there. What we do need is to wrap this ankle for support and for the swelling to go down. Then I highly recommend physical therapy that will help your ankle regain strength to prevent further injury.”
“But I don’t have the time for that.” Kenya tried her best not to reduce herself to elementary level, but her words still came out as a whine.
“As young as you are, take the time you need right now. There are too many older women and men like me who end up needing some form of surgery because of their weakened joints and muscles.”
Her mother nodded her head slowly as he continued to talk. Kenya’s thoughts grew louder, scenarios and solutions jostling to be heard over well-meaning but insufficient instructions from the doctor.
I can wrap this up tight, ice it at night, and then take ibuprofen to get through the week.
I’ll wear the zip-up booties that were a little too wide anyway to give me enough room for the wrap.
Dedra can make sure everything is set for the presentation, and all I have to do is come in, dazzle them like I always do, and this proposal will be . . .
“Did you get all that?”
Kenya blinked away her scurrying thoughts. No, she didn’t, but she gave the doctor a wide grin and a thumbs-up anyway. He tucked his clipboard under his arm. “All right, well, you sit tight.”
“No problem with that.” She grimaced.
“In the printout of instructions, I’ll also include a prescription for pain meds to dull the sharpness over the next few days, and then you should be good to go.”
Okay, she could work with that. Despite the throbbing in her ankle, she felt a little hopeful as the doctor exited.
Her mother didn’t look as convinced.
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
Mama sighed. At least now maybe some of the tension would release. Kenya blinked at the ceiling, the meds a nurse had given her earlier dulling the pain but making her nauseous in the process.
“I wouldn’t say it like that. That sounds a bit too dramatic for my taste.” The padded chair squeaked under her shifting form.
“So you’re not upset, but by the look on your face, are you a little bit?” She was a glutton for punishment.
“Frustrated, yes. I told you from the beginning those shoes would be the death of you.”
“Mama, they were for a wedding! Adanne’s wedding. Why wouldn’t I wear my favorite pair of shoes for my favorite cousin’s wedding? And before you said they would lead to a fall, you did tell me that you thought they were cute.”
Mama harrumphed and crossed her arms, her clutch-sized purse still dangling from its chain strap over her shoulder, as if they hadn’t been here for over an hour. They might have still been in the waiting room if Dr. Solomon hadn’t said whatever he had to the head nurse.
Kenya wished she hadn’t seen that exchange because now she owed him some thanks.
“Kenya, you know good and well no matter how cute those shoes were, they had no business on that dance floor with you.”
The words stung even though Kenya tried to mentally swat them away like flies.
“I understand your disappointment, Mama. I’m always falling short of expectations.” Kenya turned her head toward her mother, her expression deadpan.
Mama’s mouth twitched. She turned to face Kenya fully, shaking her head. “Now, you know that’s not what I meant.”
“I know, I know, but Mama, did you really have to go and have this man drive us to the hospital? Couldn’t you manage by yourself or let Daddy come?”
“I am quite capable of driving you, but you are the one who wanted your daddy to stay, and I wanted to be able to focus on you. That young man came out of nowhere but acted like he knew you from somewhere.” She pursed her lips, silencing the rest of the thoughts that were caught up in her eyes.
“I mean, would you rather I called an ambulance?”
Maybe.
“I didn’t know for sure what was wrong. The way everyone gasped and the unwomanly word you let roll from your lips alerted me to the fact that you were more injured than I thought.”
Kenya’s grimace wasn’t just from the pain. “Sorry about that. A few words left over from high school.”
“Hmm-hmm, you know how many times I’ve told you to expand your vocabulary. Sometimes you say things that are rude or downright inappropriate.”
Kenya wanted to say that she learned from the best because her mother could give someone a piece of her mind on the flip of a dime. The Stewart clan was not fooled by her outward professional demeanor.
But what she really wanted to say was swallowed up by the stinging truth of her mother’s words.
An expanded vocabulary was easier said than done.
She knew that more than most. Plus, with a mind full of creative methods and ideas for events, who needed to meditate on the dictionary?
Wowing her clients was better than worrying about a few unpolished words slipping out every now and then.
God knew her heart. And since he’d made her the inadequate way she was, surely he had mercy on her struggling soul.
“I just wish you would think through your actions a little better at times. Not put yourself up in the limelight so often. At least not so much that you fall hard.”
Kenya grinned, willing herself to focus on the pain in her ankle that seemed easier to bear than the weight of her mother’s disappointment. “Mama, you know I like to have fun. I may not be able to dance that well, but at least I try.”
“No Stewart child is born without rhythm.”
This Stewart child was born without a lot.
“I can move to a beat, but I—” Oh, how to explain what her mother should already know after all these years?
Ah, maybe that was why she fussed, because she did know.
Kenya sighed, leaning farther back into the pillows on the bed.
“I just get a little mixed up with directions sometimes.” Something else to put to memory, another pathway to form.
Her mother paused. For a moment, compassion flitted across her gaze, as if a memory danced through her mind. Before Kenya could linger there, her mother blinked it away, resuming her I-love-you-but-I-need-to-finish-fussing-at-you face.
“Well, it’s already done now. We just have to see what all is involved in your recovery. What are you going to do since you just moved into your apartment?”
“I’ll be fine. There are elevators, remember?”
“I do. And if it wasn’t for me pushing you toward that newer rental, you’d be lugging your sore foot and everything else up some outside stairs.”
“Go ahead and say I told you so. I know you want to.”
Her mother smirked, eyes sparkling in a mischievously triumphant way. “You should be grateful that I did tell you so. Now you don’t have to take your little sprained foot up those dangerous steps. And you can let yourself heal before the next time.”
The next time. Her mother already expected her to fall again.
What was even the point of her disappointment when she knew her oldest daughter would do something foolish to get herself in some kind of mess again?
Even this apartment move was because she’d initially signed the lease on a rental that she hadn’t fully vetted.
One too many issues later, and she had to call in some favors to get out of her lease.
So, like the responsible older daughter she tried her best to be, she’d moved into one of the more newly built apartments popping up all over town.
Kenya released a breath, her muscle memory settling her lips back into a self-deprecating grin. “I didn’t expect to end up with a sprained ankle when I started looking for apartments. I just wanted something that would give me a little bit more movement, built-in exercise. I call it multitasking.”
“Hmm, I call it a complication. But we’re not gonna argue over this right now. I just want to make sure we discharge well, get this foot wrapped up, and then I can see what’s left to be done after the wedding.”
Oh yes, the wedding. Thankfully, Kenya had a great team to help, but the leads of that team included herself and the woman sitting next to her in the chair, trying her best not to be annoyed with the daughter she seemed to always need an extra dose of patience for.
“Mama, I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to leave you with so much work to do. I’m sure that after another dose of pain meds, we can both go back over and make sure everything is where it needs to be.”
Her mother crossed her arms, her face steeled with determination. “Don’t you apologize. You were running around enough getting things ready, you might as well have the opportunity to lie down for a little bit. Maybe this will be good for you.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“Between your sisters and the others, it’s going to be okay. I just want to make sure your cousin and John are headed to their honeymoon without a worry. Who knows, maybe sometime soon you’ll finally be the one off to yours.” She winked.
That would be easier said than done. If she could so easily frustrate her mother, what in the world would she do to a man?
She was trouble waiting to happen for anyone who got too close.
Because that’s what she liked, a little bit of trouble to get her off and running.
And that seemed to make men run in the other direction.
Her mother turned to her phone, some tension loosening from her shoulders.
Even though she didn’t want her mother meddling in her love life in addition to everything else, she was thankful for the lift in conversation and couldn’t imagine anyone else here to help her manage all the mess she seemed to make.
Kenya gazed at her mother’s strong profile, so like her own in appearance. She just wished she could be strong in all the ways that counted. Like mentally strong. And book smart. And—
“Yesss, my little busted-up child?”
Her mother turned her head smoothly toward her, sensing her attention and maybe even her thoughts.
“Thirty-one-year-old grown woman, oldest child.”
“Hmm.”
“Thank you for being here with me.”
“Forever and a day, baby girl.”