Chapter 28
She’d sent it two weeks earlier. The damn results notification had been sitting in my email unopened for the same amount of time.
“You want me to read it?” Ishmia offered.
I shook my head. “No. I got it.”
It read:
Hello!
My name is Taneisha West. My maiden name is Taneisha Jasper. I think you might be someone I’ve been searching for. If you are willing, please call me at 555-555-4442.
Thanks,
Taneisha
I rubbed my forehead, reading and re-reading the message silently and then aloud. Then I felt Ishmia’s hand on my arm.
“Hey, you okay?” she softly inquired.
“I have no idea. I’m…I’m related to this woman. I have no clue how that’s supposed to make me feel. Up until now, the only person I’ve shared blood with is Lil’ Peanut.” Peanut was my nickname for our baby because that’s what they looked like to me on the ultrasound.
“All right, I get that. Are you going to call her? I mean, it’s late, so not now—well, there’s my answer.”
I had my phone and was dialing the number by the time she completed her statement. Yes, it was late but fuck it. I couldn’t wait. Waiting would send me to an asylum.
“Hello?” a groggy, feminine voice said. “Who is this?”
I stared at the damn phone, frozen like a motherfucker. Shit, maybe I should’ve waited. Thankfully, I’d put it on speakerphone, so Ishmia took my muteness as a sign to help me.
“Hi, Miss West? I’m here with Edmund Rapp. You sent him a message on the Discovered Roots site? You two share twenty-five percent DNA?” she articulated.
“Oh! Oh, yes! Hi! You say he’s there? Can we do a video call? I’d like to see him!”
“Why? Who do you think I am?” I finally spoke.
“Edmund?” Taneisha squeaked.
“Yes, ma’am. Who do you think I am?”
“My sister, Tierra…I think you might be her son.”
We were on Zoom, the dark-skinned lady on the screen staring at me as I stared right back at her, trying to find a resemblance. The lips. Our lips were similar. So was our skin tone. She was beautiful.
“Did you get the email?” she asked.
“I’m checking it for him now,” Ishmia informed her.
“Lord, wait until I tell my daughter I met Bianca Bambina and that her cousin is your boyfriend! She’s gonna pass out,” Taneisha prattled on.
Her cousin? Was I really her daughter’s cousin?
Ishmia smiled. “I bet,” she said to Taneisha, and then to me, “Here, baby.”
My eyes were still on my…aunt—question mark—as I took my phone from Ishmia, quickly dropping my gaze to the image on it. Taneisha had sent me a picture of her sister, my…mother?
She was stunning with a look similar to her sister’s. Dark brown skin, crazy bone structure like that one actress—Michaela Coel. I’d missed out on the bone structure, but I got the lips for sure. Her eyes were like her sister’s, tiny and round. Nothing like mine unless you count the sadness. There was definitely a sadness I’d seen in my own eyes mirrored in Tierra’s.
“She’s so pretty,” I muttered, more to myself.
“She was. She was very pretty,” her sister agreed.
“What happened to her?” Ishmia asked. “You said ‘was.’ Has she passed?”
Damn, I didn’t even catch that.
“Unfortunately, yes.” There was a beat of silence before Taneisha spoke again. “We didn’t have the easiest upbringing. Our parents were strict, too strict. We weren’t allowed to do much of anything besides go to school and come home. I complied. Tierra didn’t. Tierra was smart, always questioning things, never one to blindly obey. So, she was always in a lot of trouble. Living under our parents’ over-the-top rules was a miserable existence for both of us, but especially for Tierra.”
“It was just the two of you? No other siblings?” Ishmia inquired.
“Yes, just us two. I was three years older. I sure do miss her. But back to what I was saying. We weren’t supposed to date. My father didn’t believe in it. Tierra did.” Taneisha laughed before continuing her story. “And she picked the roughest, meanest guys she could find. I used to tease her about loving roughnecks. Anyway, when she was fifteen, she got pregnant. That was my first time seeing real fear in her eyes. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted the baby, no doubt. She was crazy about the daddy, but she was smart enough to know she wasn’t capable of supporting a child. Neither was her boyfriend. When our parents found out, they sent her away to a home for unwed mothers.”
“They still had those at that time?” I questioned.
“Oh, they still have them today. Those places are big with Christian extremists,” Taneisha informed me. “When she returned home, she brought a chocolate little baby boy with her, and my parents had a fit! See, she was supposed to put you up for adoption, but she refused, and she left that home. She said she escaped. Either way, she came back, and our parents didn’t let her have a bit of peace. They berated her, told her the baby had to go, that they weren’t going to support the baby or let her embarrass them. She couldn’t even leave the house with you.”
“I…I know we share DNA, but how do you know I’m not some half sibling you didn’t know about?” I asked.
“I just do. When that match popped up, I knew it was you. Now, I’m even surer. She was so brilliant, so free, and always so calm. I see that in you right now,” Taneisha replied.
“Yes, he’s all of that. Was your sister exceptional at learning? Orlan—Edmund is. He’s multi-talented, too!” Ishmia gushed, making me smile for the first time in hours.
“Yes! She was! There wasn’t much Tierra wasn’t good at. She was a good mother, too. I saw that firsthand,” Taneisha shared.
“I…she left me in a welfare office. That don’t match up with what you’re saying,” I bit out, unable to school my voice. “If she was a good mother, she couldn’t have been my mother.”
Ishmia began rubbing my back, but it didn’t help. Being abandoned like that hurt like a motherfucker.
Taneisha frowned. “What? Weren’t you adopted?”
“I was…after two years in foster care. I was found wrapped in a blanket lying in a chair in the waiting area of a welfare office in New Orleans,” I informed her.
“That doesn’t make sense. That’s not what they told her. She was told you were adopted by relatives,” Taneisha quietly said. “She took you to your father’s house, to his mother who said there was an aunt or something who wanted a baby and would take you. Tierra was relieved because she thought she’d be able to see you grow up.”
“She never checked? She never tried to see me?”
“Not right away because we moved. A couple weeks after she gave you to your other grandmother, our parents moved the family to South Carolina. Once Tierra turned eighteen and was out from under our parents’ rule, she got in touch with the grandmother. She said the woman acted like she didn’t know what Tierra was talking about. Tierra tried to find you for years before she passed away three years ago from a massive heart attack. I think her heart was broken. She never married or had any other kids. She was consumed with finding you. I wish she could see you now. You are beautiful.” She was crying, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to believe her story. It was easier to hate my birth mother than to pity her.
“I…I need to go. I can’t…” I stood from the computer, leaving Ishmia to end the conversation.