1. Ember Heart
EMBER HEART
Fuck my life!
Every plan I had for myself went out the window long ago, and I had yet to shake away the feeling that I’d failed in life.
Instead of going away to college after high school like I thought I would, I struggled to raise a baby on my own.
Instead of getting a good, high-paying job, I’d barely been making ends meet working at Hidden Treasures Thrift Shop.
This was the first job I got after leaving school, and I didn’t expect to still be here at the age of twenty-nine.
It was supposed to be temporary, but that was another plan of mine that got diminished as time went on.
Going to a community college and upgrading jobs was part of the agenda, but, somehow, complacency and excuses took over my life, and I allowed it to.
I could hear my mother and father’s voices in my head now.
“Ember Heart, you’re a disgrace to this family!
How dare our only child have a baby right out of high school?
You have really messed up, girl, and after all we’ve done for you.
You’ll never make anything of yourself. Since you want to do grown-woman things, get the hell out of this house and go be grown! ”
I begged my parents to let me stay until I was able to get on my own two feet.
However, the pleading didn’t strike a nerve or anything.
Their minds were made up. Nothing I said made them budge in any way, shape, or form.
Not only did they give up on me, but that was also the day I learned they blamed me for their miserable marriage.
Claiming they only stayed together for me, and this was the thanks they got.
I still wonder if life would’ve been better or different if they had not stayed together ‘for their child’ and instead had chosen to put themselves first.
I hadn’t fully walked out the door yet before my mother handed my father divorce papers.
It was as if she had waited for something major to happen, something that would give her a reason to shove those papers in my father’s face.
What shocked me the most was when he hurriedly snatched the document out of her hand and stormed off to find a pen.
Yeah, I was having sex with my high school boyfriend, but despite that, I had no idea how to be an adult and didn’t know where to start.
Nonetheless, I had to figure it out fast, and that’s when I landed in Mr. Gross’s thrift shop, begging for work.
With a low-paying job and nowhere to lay my head, I went from couch to couch until my Aunt Patty, my father’s half-sister whom they considered the black sheep of the family, let me stay with her.
I remember going to my grandparents’ house throughout the years and seeing piles of unopened letters from Aunt Patty.
Somehow, I’d memorized the address on the envelopes without knowing I would end up at that same address one day.
She laid eyes on me that late evening, confused about who I was and why I was at her door, but when I identified myself, she immediately welcomed me.
My aunt let me into her home without knowing me, but no one would have known because she treated me no differently than she did her own children.
I instantly realized she wasn’t this horrible woman they made her out to be.
Aunt Patty turned out to be a blessing I didn’t know I needed.
Many days I asked her what went wrong between her and my father’s side of the family, and I quickly found out that the only mistake she made in life was being human…
just like me. She fell in love with a boy at the age of fourteen and had three kids by the time she was eighteen.
The family looked down on her, judged her, and made her feel like the worst person in the world.
My father and my grandparents never said more than a few words about Aunt Patty, so I grew up knowing I had an aunt, but I never knew who she was, nor did she know me until I showed up on her doorstep.
She didn’t ask any questions, but she made sure I was healthy and stress-free during my pregnancy.
Aunt Patty was at every doctor’s appointment and by my side, holding my hand, when I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Rhema Heart.
Aunt Patty may have been the black sheep in our family’s eyes, but in mine, she was a hero, my own personal superwoman.
My aunt had her children at a young age, but she hustled hard to provide for them, and she did it without a support system.
There was no father in the picture and no family to fall back on.
With all odds stacked against her, she didn’t let her circumstances hinder her from anything she’d set out to accomplish.
Aunt Patty struggled throughout her lifetime, but somehow, she still found a way to send all three of her children off to college in different states.
When they left, it was just Aunt Patty, my baby girl Rhema, and me.
She poured every ounce of love she had left into us until she took her last breath five years ago.
Coincidentally, Aunt Patty and I had a deep conversation not long before she died.
There was a question that stayed in the back of my mind since the day she opened her doors for me.
I wanted to know why she welcomed me with open arms, especially when I was nothing but a stranger to her, a pregnant one at that.
My aunt expressed that although she didn’t know who I was at first, when she found out I was her niece, she promised to never let me go through what she had been through.
She said she didn’t know how she would feed two more mouths, but she would find a way, even if it was the last thing she did… and she had kept every word.
Aunt Patty’s cause of death was pulmonary embolism from a blood clot that was blocking her lung arteries.
Her death was tragic… unexpected, and losing her put me in a deep depression I still hadn’t come out of.
After she passed away, her children never came back around.
They said it was too painful for them. Los Angeles held too many memories of their mother that they wanted to avoid, and those memories included Rhema and me.
Their decision stung, but I held no grudges anymore.
I forced myself to understand that we all grieved and coped in different ways.
I needed them near, smothering my baby and me with love, but they wanted to be far away from us.
My cousins had their own lives to live, so who was I to tell them how to handle their mother’s death?
If being around me and Rhema took them back to a place they were trying to heal from, I would willingly put my feelings and broken heart on the back burner for them.
Tears welled in my eyes at the memories that still felt like they happened yesterday.
“Ember, girl, snap out of it. Mr. Gross is on his way back here,” my coworker and friend, Cassie Phelps, nudged my side, quickly grabbing my attention.
Daydreaming had become my thing. It was my escape from reality and the only thing that got me through my long work shifts.
Cassie was now in my face, gripping my wrists. “You don’t want to give his ass another reason to fuck with you.”
Mr. Gross was a sixty-something-something-year-old pest, and having him always breathing down my neck was frustrating. When he wasn’t trying to make a pass at me, he was complaining about something I did wrong. At this point, I realized he was one of those old men who loved to hear himself speak.
I gave Cassie a half smile, but internally, I still felt the pain from thinking about my aunt. “My bad, girl, you know me,” I told her, hoping that simple answer would satisfy her.
“Sometimes I want to get in your head because them damn thoughts of yours be having you in an entirely different universe. Shit, I might need to escape there too,” Cassie said under her breath as Mr. Gross got closer.
I chuckled and resumed rummaging through a garbage bag full of used clothes that someone had dropped off, attempting to ignore my boss’s presence.
“All I know is that y’all better be tee-heeing about work. All that yapping and not enough looking through these damn bags.” Mr. Gross scowled; his gaze moved from the bags on the floor and returned to us.
That got my attention, and I could feel Cassie’s eyes piercing the side of my face. She knew as well as I did that all it took was Mr. Gross saying one thing to trigger me, and I’d get on his ass. “Do you ever get tired?”
He adjusted his tight, faded dress pants and parted his thin, plastic-looking lips. “Tired of what?”
It took everything in me to ignore Cassie’s facial expressions and keep my focus on Mr. Gross. This idiot had the right bitch today. “Tired of running that nasty, stanky, yuck-ass mouth of yours, nigg—”
“Okayyy, now, I think it’s about time for a break,” Cassie interrupted, pulling me far away from Mr. Gross before I could really give him a piece of my mind.
“Woman! You must be out of your damn mind, speaking to me like that!” His eyes bulged, and his lips quivered.
As we walked away, in the distance, I heard Mr. Gross say, “There are only so many times I’m going to allow you to talk to me crazy, girl! Keep trying me, and you’ll be out this door soon!”
“Cassie, I’ve had enough of that man,” I blurted as soon as he was out of my sight.
“I get it, I do, but remember you still need this job,” she stated, reminding me of my situation.
Cassie was right. I couldn’t afford to lose my job, and Mr. Gross knew that. Life was overwhelming, and for that reason, every little thing was setting me off.
We stood in front of the closed breakroom door.
Cassie reached for my hands. “Ember, one day you’ll be able to walk away from this job forever, and that’ll be the day when you can cuss Mr. Gross the fuck out.
When that day comes, I’ll be your biggest cheerleader, but only if you take me with you when you leave. ” A huge grin appeared on her face.
All I could do was laugh because the shit she was saying sounded amazing. Leaving this job and cursing Mr. Gross out was at the top of my list. “Sounds like a deal, Cassie. Thank you for always keeping me grounded.”
“Life is tough, but you’ll be okay. I know you will.”
I’d lost faith long ago, so I found it difficult to find truth in Cassie’s words that I’d be okay.
Instead of responding to her, I smiled. I hoped one day I would have as much faith in myself and in the world as Cassie did.
She believed in me more than I believed in myself.
Until then, I had to manage staying sane long enough to get me through the rest of my day.