Chapter 19
Addison
Iexited the car without bothering to wait on Jerome. He was useless as a driver and I hated to admit it, but I would rather have Bruno here. I may not like the man, but at least he knew what the hell he was doing.
I mean, Jerome had gotten us lost after bragging that he grew up in Philly for the first twenty minutes after leaving Mr. Adalyn’s office. Mind you, according to our GPS, the hotel from the office was only 20 minutes. We had been in the car for damn near an hour before we finally made it to my hotel. If I wasn’t in my right mind, I would have called Mr. L to beg him to bring me Bruno back. Not that I wanted to deal with his shit, but like I said, at least I could get from point A to point B without being lost in the middle of nowhere.
“Do you need help taking your bags upstairs?”
Jerome asked, unbuckling his seat belt before rubbing his hands together.
“Hell no!”
I spat, slamming the car door closed.
I heard Jerome mumble a ‘fuck you’ but at this point, I didn’t give a damn if he was mad. Instead of trying to make his way upstairs in my space, he needs to learn how to follow the damn GPS, which shouldn’t be hard. The woman is literally telling him turn by turn instructions and yet he still got lost.
After getting checked into my hotel room, I jumped in the shower and finally washed away the day. Between dealing with Xavier, Bruno, Mr. L, Jerome and Mr. Adalyn, I was completely drained. My thoughts were running rampant, and my nerves were on ten thousand. I needed a drink.
My phone began vibrating on the side table next to the bed in the room. Checking my notifications, I saw I had a text message from Akira who was checking in to make sure I landed safely. I smiled as I sent her a quick message back explaining that I would call her in a few. As much as I wanted to tell my best friend everything that has happened to me since we graduated, I couldn’t. Not yet anyway. If I passed this so called test tonight with Mr. Adalyn and Seojun, maybe I can tell her what I was going through. Of course, I wouldn’t tell that I was pretty much hiring someone to unalive Mr. L, but at least she could know what I’ve been going through this past year.
After texting Akira, I sat on the bed and dialed my grandmother’s number. I hoped today she was feeling up to talking. Usually with her dementia, there are days when she’s not all the way with me. She thinks I’m either my mom or her sister who had passed when she was in her late thirties. Those days were hard for me.
My grandma was my first best friend, and I could talk to her about everything. When my mom was demonstrating her famous disappearing acts, my grandma stepped up to the plate. She taught me how to be a strong independent woman, but she didn’t teach me how to handle my mom without her. She didn’t prepare me on how to handle impossible situations like her getting sick and how to get away from people like Mr. L. The only thing I didn’t mind during her episodes was that I could confess everything that was happening to me, and she wouldn’t remember a thing.
I took a deep breath and called her phone. I briefly chuckled because my nana was one of those people who still had a landline in her home. After a few rings, I heard the line pick up.
“Henrietta Billingsley’s residence.”
A smile spread across my face as I heard the chipper voice through the line.
“Hey Ms. Yolanda. How are you doing?”
Yolanda was my grandmother’s caregiver. She was an older Jamaican woman with a no bullshit tolerance, but she loved hard. My grandma loved Yolanda and when she was in a better state, they would be sitting around gossiping and cooking like old friends. Yolanda was family and with her around, I never worried over my grandma. Even though I despised Mr. L, I was grateful that he allowed me to hire her with little input.
“Oh, Addison, baby! It is good to hear your voice. I am blessed, baby girl, but I owe you a congratulations on graduating with your bachelor’s degree.”
“Thank you! It was a lot of hard work, but I’m kind of sad that it’s over. I mean, I guess I liked the distraction.”
Yolanda hummed.
“Well, that is understandable dear. I know that you and Henrietta are really close and watching her having to go through this sickness hasn’t been easy. Just know that she is really proud of you – whether she’s going through an episode or not. Hell, I’m proud of you too. Not too many folk able to take care of their family while trying to go to school full time.”
Tears began to fall down my cheek. As much as I appreciated everything Yolanda was telling me, she didn’t know everything I had to do to walk that stage. She didn’t know how down bad I was and didn’t have two pennies to give towards my grandmother’s care until after I did what I had to with Mr. L. If she knew the truth, then she wouldn’t be so proud of me.
I cleared my throat and swiped away the tears on my cheeks.
“You are a treasure, Yolanda, and I am so grateful that you’ve been here with our family during this rough time. Before I forget, about your payment for next month-”
She playfully scoffed and I knew she was waving a dismissive hand in the air like she always did.
“We’ll talk about that later. So, do you want to speak to your grandma?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay, dear, but just know that she’s having a bit of difficulty with memory today so be prepared-”
“I know, Ms. Yolanda.”
I interrupted. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I already knew what to expect.
After a few moments, I heard Yolanda passing the phone to my grandmother.
“Hello?”
her fragile voice filled my ears.
“Hey, love bug,”
I said, swallowing a fresh batch of tears.
“Ruthie? Why aren’t you in school?”
I briefly closed my eyes and exhaled. Ruth was my great aunt. She was only a few years older than me when she passed away, but my nana still thought she was alive.
“Girl, I graduated yesterday!”
“What! Get out of here. Are you serious?”
“Yes ma’am. I am officially done with college.”
“Shit, I’m sorry I didn’t make it sis. It must’ve slipped my mind.”
My heart ached as I finally allowed the tears to run down my face.
“It-it’s okay, love. I knew you were there with me in spirit. Besides, I recorded it for you so you can watch it.”
My grandma huffed out a small chuckle.
“I knew you would. I can’t wait to see you Ruth. My daughter, Delilah has been acting up again, but my baby girl Addison has been my sunshine. She’s so sweet and smart, just like you. I reckon she’s about to graduate, too.”
A soft sob escaped my lips, causing me to quickly cover my mouth.
“What’s wrong, Ruth?”
My grandma asked, her voice laced with concern.
“N-nothing, beautiful. I’m just so happy to hear that Addison’s doing so well.”
“Oh yeah! She’s been working hard at school and doing everything she can to keep me comfortable at home. I just pray that her mom comes around and finally get to know her. I mean, she has an amazing daughter and she’s missing out on so much. Anyway, what else you been up to sis? Any new beaux after your hand?”
I shook my head in laughter.
“No, not quite. Well, there is this one man that wants me, but he just wants to use me because I’m still a virgin. I’ve tried to get away from him, but he has people following me and I don’t know what to do.”
“Ruth! I thought I told you to stay away from assholes like that.”
“I know I know. It’s just, he’s helped me with a few financial situations, but now he feels like he owns me.”
“That’s usually how they work. I’ve run across men like that back in my day, but luckily, I had Ernest there to scare them off. You remember how he used to snatch up them jokers by the throat every time one of them eyed me longer than three seconds?”
“What? You’ve never told me that grandp- I mean, Ernest got down like that.”
“Oh, yeah! Ernest lived by the rules of the streets. As the leader of the Reapers, he had to. He handled business and took out anybody that got in his way.”
My mouth hung opened as my grandmother continued explaining how my grandpa used to leave niggas bloodied up to protect her. I don’t remember much about him, but what I could recall was that Grandpa Ernest was always so sweet and gentle with me. He used to take me down to the convenient store and by me ice cream before taking us to the lake to go fishing. Never in all my twenty years of living did I suspect him to be a cold blooded killer. Hell, I didn’t know he was the leader of a major group back home.
“See, that’s who you need by your side, Ruth.”
my grandmother continued.
“Get you somebody who doesn’t mind sending a few bullets through his enemies to protect you. We wanted Delilah to marry within the crew, but she was to busy chasing after some knuckle head named Rico.”
“Rico?”
“Mmhmm. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. He was so controlling and needed to know Delilah’s whereabouts at all times, but he was her first love. She was blind to all of the red flags, but me and her daddy wasn’t and good thing we weren’t. We found out years later that he murdered his wife and then himself.”
“Shit,”
I muttered.
“Right, but Delilah’s ass was still pissed at us for forbidding her to speak to him years prior. She became so disrespectful, Ruthie. It was so bad that Ernest cut her off from the Reapers.”
Grandma exhaled a heavy sigh.
“I tried to stick up for her, but she got so out of hand. Stealing, sleeping with her father’s clients, exessive spending - we had had enough.”
“What did she do?”
“When we stopped paying for her destructive habits, she got pregnant by some wannabe rap producer. Unfortunately, he died from an overdoes. Delilah having Addison was the best thing that could have happened for her, but she didn’t care about that baby. She only cared about the next man that would take care of her.”
A knot formed in the pit of my stomach.
“That explains why she doesn’t want to come around.”
“Unfortunately. I mean, Ernest reached out to her with an offer to come back into the Reapers, but she’d have to work her way back up in order to take over, but she refused. I’ve been meaning to talk to Addison about that.”
My eyebrows shot up.
“Talk to me, I mean, talk to Addison about what?”
“Hmm?”
“You said you need to talk to Addison about something.”
“Did I?”
My shoulders slumped with realization that her memory was slipping again.
“Anyway, Ruth, it’s time for Yolanda to take me to my crochet club and then we are having a dance party after supper at Paul’s.”
“Oop! Ma’am who is Paul? Let me find out you about to get your groove on.”
“I don’t want another husband, but I don’t mind stepping my toes in the pool if you know what I mean.”
I burst out laughing.
“I didn’t need to hear that. Okay, I’ll let you go get your freak on. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I sat my phone back down and smiled. It felt nice talking to my grandma, even though she didn’t recognize me. I couldn’t help but wonder what she had to tell me. I shook it off with a shrug. I guess it didn’t really matter. Besides, after speaking to her, I felt a surge of confidence to handle whatever it was that Mr. Adalyn and Seojun were going to throw my way tonight.