25. Mommie Dearest #2
Sharon’s expression hardened immediately.
So I kept going. I had to ask all of the burning questions that lingered inside of me. “How much weight were you moving?”
Sharon wouldn’t respond.
“How long were you in the life?” Kenya added to the questioning.
Sharon chuckled, and the sound made my skin crawl.
“You really wanna know?”
“Yes.” The answer came immediately. I wanted every ugly detail.
Every truth.
Every lie.
Every piece.
I wanted to understand what kind of woman would look at her children and choose money anyway.
Sharon looked almost proud, as if she were reminiscing about a successful career rather than a lifetime of destruction.
“I started before either one of y’all was born.
Back when your daddy needed me like air.
He was so broken coming from a life in the system, and I was his lifeline in church.
I was content being a first lady for a while.
Your dad was charismatic and loving, and that made people give way above their tithes.
They loved to make an offering to the first family, but I’m sure y’all know more money means more problems. So shortly after Jared was born, I decided I needed more, and I used what your father and I built to clean my drug money. ”
My stomach twisted, but Sharon continued.
“I made more money than most men ever dream of seeing.” Her smile widened. “I moved enough product to buy neighborhoods.”
The casual way she said it made me sick. She wasn’t trappin’ to help pay for sick family members or to help my struggling Dad make ends meet. She got a sick high off being in power, and I could see exactly why Sharon turned on her family. Money was her religion. She sounded proud.
“I wasn’t trappin’ to survive.” Her eyes locked onto mine. “I was winning.”
The hatred that rose inside my chest surprised me with its intensity.
I didn’t hate my mom because she sold drugs or broke laws.
That would make me a hypocrite because I could never look at Xavier differently.
But I hated her because she had no remorse.
Sharon genuinely believed her deceitfulness was worth it.
Then Kenya asked the question neither of us could ignore anymore.
“When did you know?”
Sharon frowned. “Know what?”
“About me being in the life.”
“I knew you was trappin’ from the day you started.” Sharon’s smile only grew wider.
I think both Kenya and I were trying to decide whether we were more shocked that Sharon knew or more offended that she sounded proud of it. Sharon leaned back in her chair and studied Kenya with the same detached expression someone might use while discussing the weather.
“I knew from the beginning. You thought you were slick.” A humorless laugh escaped her. “You weren’t.”
Kenya’s jaw tightened. “Then why didn’t you stop me? Why not try to protect me?”
Sharon looked genuinely confused. As if the answer should’ve been obvious.
“Why would I? You wanted to prove you were fuckin’ grown, so I was watching from afar and watching how you got yourself out of jams.”
A bitter taste rose in the back of my throat. Because that was the truth. Right now, Sharon wasn’t hiding behind excuses or platitudes that parents give disguised as tough love. The naked truth was staring us right in the eyes. Sharon hadn’t failed us accidentally. She simply hadn’t cared.
“I knew you were making money,” Sharon continued while looking directly at Kenya. “I knew you were moving weight. Hell, I knew you were making enough money to feed your siblings.”
Her eyes shifted towards Kenya. “So why waste my hard-earned money paying bills when I could use the money you made to make sure the lights stayed on?”
I felt physically sick because the memories came rushing back.
The grocery bags that mysteriously appeared on the doorstep and my more fashionable school clothes were being laid out with tags on my bed.
All the things I’d convinced myself were miracles when I was in the middle of a deep depression fog while YaYa was in college.
I thought of all the things my sister sacrificed her childhood to provide, and I hunched over for a second, pained by the memories.
Sharon noticed my expression and laughed. “You look surprised.”
“You let her do it.” My voice sounded hollow. “She was a child.”
“So was I when I started.”
I finally understood something in that moment.
You couldn’t shame somebody who wasn’t ashamed.
You couldn’t appeal to a conscience that didn’t exist. Sharon had spent decades rewriting her own story until she became the victim in every version of it.
Instead of acknowledging she had it tough and doing everything she could to ensure a better life for her children, she intentionally made shit tough for us.
Nothing YaYa or I said was going to change that.
Sharon cleared her throat and began mocking us further, “And I knew y’all hoe asses would both end up with the King boys. I knew their daddy once upon a time.”
The room got quieter.
“I knew their Mama, too.”
“How?” I asked.
Sharon laughed. “Everybody knew everybody back then.” Her expression darkened. “Especially when you’re in the life.”
I exchanged a glance with Kenya, because suddenly every answer seemed connected to a dozen new questions. Sharon continued talking. She seemed to be almost enjoying herself now, like she was overjoyed to finally have an audience.
Then I asked the question that had haunted me for weeks. The question that sat at the center of everything and mattered to my siblings and me more than anything else.
“Why didn’t you tell us about Cameron?”
The smirk disappeared from Sharon’s face. For the first time since we’d entered the room, something other than gloating flickered in her expression.
“Because she wasn’t my problem.”