Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Rochelle
My whole life I’ve lived a lie and I didn’t even know it.
From growing up the only child of a single mother near Savannah, to moving to the West Coast and making a living trying to provide for me and Momma, and for what?
So I could stay in the little bubble she wanted me to live in and never venture out for fear I’d find out the truth?
That I am more than she raised me to believe I am. That I belong to something greater, to someone greater, than she ever let me believe in.
I worked like hell to provide for us, but she was already being taken care of by my father, a man who she kept hidden. A man she lied about.
She had cash. Lots of it. What she did with it, I’ll never know. The thought scares me a little as fear, the unspoken truth I’ve occasionally thought of but tried to avoid for years, starts to settle in my mind.
I wipe angry tears from my eyes. Never once have I ever questioned Momma. Never once did I ever believe she would double cross me. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think she was hiding something this big from me.
Clutching my sister’s hand tightly, I stare at her and watch as her chest rises and falls.
This ends now.
With a newfound hatred for all that is wrong in the world, I jump to my feet.
Throwing back my shoulders, I stand tall and know what I have to do.
It is now or never, before I lose the guts to do it.
With fierce determination in my steps, I stride across the room toward the exit.
Looking back briefly, I smile knowing that my road led me here for a reason and I alone hold the power to make it right.
Storming out of the room, I run into Hunter in the hallway.
I hear him call my name but I am too full of rage to listen.
Right now I need answers, and there is only one person who can give them to me.
He’s quick to follow. As I punch the button for the elevator he swings me around to meet his stare, “Where are you going?” He asks, concern lacing his tone. “You’re scaring me, Angel.”
I shake my head as I wait for the elevator to open. Looking up into his eyes, I watch as they fill with worry, then a panicked hesitance.
“I have to talk to my mother. I have to get answers. This all doesn’t make any amount of sense and I need to know…”
I trail off as his eyes tentatively search mine.
The elevator dings. Before I can say another word, he steps forward and grabs a hold of my shoulders.
“Then I am going with you.”
“No,” I say quickly. “Please no, Hunter. I need to do this myself.”
“But…”
I shake my head. “I know you don’t understand. For goodness sake, I don’t even understand. But that is why I need to do this alone. I need to face her, by myself.”
I walk into the elevator and push the button for the bottom floor.
“Angel..” he whispers, as the door begins to close. Brutally, he pushes it back open. “I need to talk to you first. I need to…”
I shake my head and he stops talking.
“I will meet you. At your place. I promise, Hunter. Just please, let me go.”
He stares skeptically at me before reluctantly taking a step back.
As the doors close, the last thing I see is his eyes.
Pleading. Worried. Anxious. But I can’t walk forward in life with him unless I have answers, and right now, the only thing holding me back is the one person I never expected. My mother.
* * *
Coming up the front steps of our little trailer, I slowly move towards the front door, as if I am afraid of what lies behind it. Which is crazy, because I know Momma more than I know anyone, or at least I thought I did.
I pause before opening the door. Taking a deep breath, I try and build myself up. Try and find my new strength and confidence to follow through with what I need to do. With my hand on the doorknob, I raise my head to the sky and say a silent prayer, hopeful that God will see me through this.
If Momma was so good at keeping this hidden, what else do I not know about, and just how far do her secrets lie?
Timidly, I pull open the door and step across the threshold. My eyes take a moment, adjusting to the darkness inside. When they do, I see Momma in her chair. Her arm is thrown off to the side and there is a look of death about her.
Quickly, I rush to her side. “Momma!” I shout, as she slowly rolls her head upright and tries to open her eyes.
“Roshie,” her speech is slurred. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming home until tomorrow?”
She tries to sit up straight in her chair but fails.
Has to be from the nap she was just taking, right?
Still, something about this whole situation strikes me as odd.
Pushing it away, I help her up and grab a pillow from a nearby couch.
Propping it behind her back, her head bobs a few times before she meets my stare.
Her eyes roll back in her head, and for a horrifying second, I could swear she’s not breathing.
“Momma,” I beg. She looks at me through hooded, dazed eyes. A sort of demonic expression graces her face.
I have seen Momma like this a few times before but never paid it any attention. Now, with the urgent need to get the answers I seek, I swallow over a nervous lump in my throat and don’t back down.
“Momma,” I whisper. Her eyes resemble Satan. She stares wickedly into my gaze. No soul. No feeling. No remorse. “I need to talk to you.”
She huffs angrily, before pushing back in her chair and shoving my hand from her thigh.
“About what?” She asks, then picks up her pack of cigarettes on the table next to her and quickly lights one.
I don’t dare chastise her for smoking this time. Instead, I try to focus on why I am here, and what I need her to tell me.
“Who is Victoria?” I ask quietly.
My mother’s eyes grow wide. Her face pales. She stares at me like she has just seen a ghost. She looks as if I just sucked all the life from her body with just that one question.
“Who?” She asks bitterly. Squinting her eyes, she violently leans forward. It takes all my courage, but I don’t back down.
“She’s my age, Momma. Victoria? I think you know her, and …”
“You have no clue what I know, Rochelle,” she hisses as she pushes me from her side and stands.
I go to help her, but she shrugs me off, before stumbling a few times on her feet and grabbing a hold of the kitchen counter.
She angrily looks back at me, on the floor, still kneeling by her chair, and I cower back slightly.
The look she gives me makes me feel for the first time like she never wished I was born.
Scrambling to my feet, I follow her into the kitchen, relentless in getting the answers I seek and needing to finally know the truth.
“I know you know, Momma,” I begin. She shakes her head, attempting to remove me and this confrontation from her clouded mind. “I met Edward. Edward Cunningham.”
Momma’s eyes grow wide. She stops walking and looks my way. Anger fills her features. She pushes past me with her cigarette in her hand and walks into her bedroom.
“Momma, why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you tell me the truth? Because I have a right to know…”
“To know what Rochelle? That the one man I thought I could count on, the one man I loved, more than life itself, used me, fucked me, got me pregnant, then refused to make an honest woman out of me? Is that what you want to hear? Because I don’t think it is.
I think you’d rather listen to the lies that Edward Cunningham is still spouting over twenty years later.
Well, let me tell you, his son, Hunter Alexander, the boy he raised that you fell in love with is no better than that lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch.
He’ll never stick around, Rochelle. He will leave one day too.
Leave you all alone and all you’ll have is me.
All you’ll ever have is me. So stop fooling yourself running around after a man that will only destroy you and remember your damn place in life. ”
She grabs an object out of her closet. It takes me by surprise. A bottle of whiskey. I look at it confused, before glancing back her way and trying to focus on what she just told me.
The lies. The whispers. The running.
I need to know the truth, and come hell or high water, Momma is going to finally give it to me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, as she slowly walks into the kitchen and pours herself a glass. “Momma, I said I was sorry.”
She looks back at me over her shoulder and releases an irritated sigh. Shooting back the liquid, I muster up the courage to stand beside her and gently put my hand on hers once she lowers the glass to the counter.
“But why? Why did you split us up? Why did you lie?”
She spins around quickly. “I never lied to you, Rochelle.” A sick smile spreads across her face. “Except for one thing.”
She pushes past me and walks back to her chair. Snuffing out her cigarette, she takes the box and lights another.
“What thing, Momma?” I plead as I make my way back into the tiny front living room. “I deserve to know. Why? Why did you give up Victoria?” She glares at me viciously, but doesn’t say a word. “Okay, then what did you lie about? Tell me. I deserve to know, damn it.”
“Rochelle,” she scolds, taking a seat in her chair. She shakes her head in disapproval of the curse that just fell from my lips. “I did not raise my daughter to talk to me like that. And your foul language, I didn’t raise…”
“Raise what, Momma?” I say, standing my ground. “Or should I say who? Because we both know you didn’t raise the both of us!”
She looks as if I just broke her heart, and it takes everything in me not to take back what I just said.
“There is more to it than you will ever understand,” she whispers, as a tear falls down her cheek.
She lets it ghost it’s way across her skin until it hides itself behind the shadows of her chin.
She doesn’t wipe it away. Soon, another falls.
Then another. I drop to my knees in front of her, saddened that it all has come to this.
“Then tell me,” I whisper. Shaking her head, she puts her smoke to her lips and takes a long drag. “Momma, please? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why did I have to find out this way?”
Anxiety, panic, despair, they build in her cloudy eyes. She looks frantically from side to side, lifts her drink to her mouth and takes a long sip. No sooner has the glass left her lips than she takes a long inhale of her cigarette and starts shaking.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she states angrily. “No one will ever understand.” Pointing her cigarette at me, she says bitterly, “But understand this, Rochelle. That boy is no good. He will leave you, baby. Just like they all do. Just like Edward left me. Just like your father…”
Her voice trails off. I stand slowly and look down pitifully on her. She’s the picture of what I used to be. Scared. Afraid. Assured that no one gets her. No one understands her.
But I do. She raised me to be just like her. Afraid to live for fear of losing everything.
“I’m old enough to know the truth, Momma,” I demand, determined to not hide in the shadows anymore.
She looks up at me furious. “I always thought you were smart enough to see, Rochelle.” Her statement stings as it works its way around my heart.
The hatred I witness ghost across her eyes for me, for her, sinks into my soul.
I tremble a little, scared of my own mother and just what she is implying.
I want to look away, I want to run, but the look in her eyes is so evil, so threatening, it holds me still.
Hostage. Unable to move. Just like I’ve always been.
Until him.
“See what, Momma?” My voice shakes. It comes out as a whisper at first before her heated stare deepens as she continues to glare up at me maliciously. “See what,” I demand.
I won’t back down now. I can’t. I’m not the shy girl I was before. I’m not the girl she raised to never ask any questions, be grateful for what little I had, and never ever ask for anything more.
She rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair. Taking a long sip again from her glass, my heart begins to accept defeat. I wanted answers, but somewhere through all the lies, I at least got her to admit a few tonight.
Victoria is my sister. Edward is my father. And she is not the mother I believed she was.
Turning, I take a few steps towards the door.
“That’s right,” she hisses behind me. “Go back to him. Crawl back to that boy that will only love you until something better comes along. I’m the one that has always been here for you, Rochelle. Not him! He’ll leave. They all do!”
Swinging around, I meet her depraved stare.
“There for me? I’ve had to take care of myself my whole life.
I grew up with nothing, no one, because of whatever it was you kept running from.
I stayed in the shadows, on the sidelines, confident that I didn’t deserve any more out of life because of the fear you put inside me.
The fear that one day, I’d lose it all. Just like we did when we fled Georgia.
Well not anymore, Momma. Victoria is my sister.
Edward is my father. And you, you’re a shell of the woman I thought you were.
You’ve only ever held me back. But not anymore.
I deserve answers. And if you aren’t going to give them to me, I know someone who will. ”
Storming out of the house, she yells after me to stop. But I can’t. I won’t go on living a lie. Not anymore.