Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
“Two times in less than thirty days,” Silas said more to himself than he did to me, referring to the fact that this was the second time I’d visited him in less than a month. “You must be startin’ to miss me.”
I pulled out a metal seat, not saying anything when I took my seat across from him at the stainless steel table. My father’s subtle smile faded, realizing this wasn’t just some I-was-in-the-neighborhood type visit.
Making the drive down to the prison had been a long one, giving me a lot of time to think.
I was taking walks down memory lane, remembering my childhood.
As a child, my father had a really interesting way of spending time with me.
Whenever I was with him, it always felt like I was there to learn something.
He would explain the things he’d do, why he’d do them, and then open the floor for questions.
It was like having a devoted tutor, dedicated to making sure that I knew what it meant to be a Montgomery.
Do this, not that. Say this, never that.
Be here, not there. My father didn’t believe in trivializing things to fit a child’s frame of reference.
He wouldn’t talk down to me; he required me to simply keep up.
If I had a question, Silas would answer it for me, always man-to-man even though I was clearly just a boy.
In hindsight, it was obvious that my upbringing wasn’t much of a childhood.
I was four when I began to notice that my family dynamic was different than everyone else’s.
My sisters all had mothers. Sometimes they’d come around the house when they were there to pick someone up.
As crazy as it sounds, in my four year old mind, I’d developed this sort of belief that only girls had moms. This was natural, though, because the only moms I’d ever met were my sisters’ mothers.
I was in Memphis one summer with my uncle Vance. Silas might’ve been out of the country securing cartel connects or something. So I was with Vance that summer, living it up at my grandmother’s house.
My grandmother was the toughest gangster I ever knew.
She didn’t kill anybody or carry a gun. In fact, it was rare to ever see her without a bible in her hands.
Grandma was a gangster because, even at the age of four, I understood that she had something that no one else had.
My grandmother was the only person I’d ever known who spoke to my father like he was…
a child. It wasn’t hard to see that somehow, that little old lady put the fear of God in Silas.
‘Grandma.’ That summer, I was four turning five, sitting at the kitchen table while she was making lunch. ‘How come my Dad is scared of you?’
She’d laughed at first, rubbing the top of my head with the palm of her hand and said, ‘Oh, Tariq…’
My grandmother called me by my middle name, never my first. She didn’t like my first name. It had something to do with the bible, but I couldn’t remember exactly what. All I knew was that in the bible, whoever was named Kain, was not a good person.
‘My boys respect me, ‘cause I’m they mama,’ she’d explained simply, turning on the kitchen sink behind her and pulling up a basket from her garden.
I didn’t understand. ‘But only girls have moms.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Well, I don’t have a mom,’ I pointed out.
My grandmother had paused at first, turning away from the kitchen sink where she was rinsing greens, and just looked at me. I thought her eyes looked sad. ‘Everybody has a mama, Tariq.’
‘Then where’s mine?’ I’d asked curiously just as my uncle Vance walked into the kitchen, having heard the private conversation. Something about my uncle’s sudden presence had made my grandmother reel back. I could sense the conversation coming to a close even though I hadn’t gotten any answers.
Grandma’s eyes cut to Vance, and a look was held between the two of them.
They knew something. Even at the age of four, I could tell that they knew something.
And in that moment, they seemed to silently agree to not tell me what it was.
When my grandmother’s eyes came back to me, she’d walked over and crouched down so that we would be eye level.
‘Your father will tell you one day,’ she promised.
After that summer with my grandma in Memphis, I had gone back to Miami and the first thing I did when I saw Silas was ask him where my mother was. Silas had shaken his head and simply said, ‘She ain’t comin’ back.’
For years I took that to mean she’d left.
Silas was a hard person to be around, and it wasn’t hard to imagine her just packing her things and leaving.
I didn’t miss her. How could I? I didn’t even know her.
Yeah, there was an empty feeling inside me for some time, feeling like a big part of who I was, was missing.
But I didn’t miss her. Over the years, observing the way my father treated the women in his life, I grew to appreciate the fact that wherever my mother was, she was far away from him.
There was a gnawing suspicion in me that something more sinister was hidden within the secrets of her whereabouts, but I didn’t try to explore that. Part of me wanted to believe that she was off somewhere living her life; safe. So I didn’t ask any questions that might diminish that belief.
“What’s this all about?” Silas questioned, analyzing my face and realizing this wasn’t some lighthearted visit.
I wasn’t angry, nor was I all that grief-stricken. Again, if my mother was dead, it was all the same to me. I’d never known her. Most of the reason why I was here today was for the closure, a straight answer once and for all.
“Remember when I was five and I asked you where my mother was?” I asked first.
The space between my father’s brows dipped, unsure of what direction I was trying to take us in.
He took a moment to think about how he would proceed, his behavior giving no indication that he was distressed about being made to talk about this.
Of course Silas would never falter and show me what he was really feeling.
I was like that, too, and I’d learned to be that way by watching him.
“Did you kill her?” I didn’t mince words—something else I learned from my father. All my life, I was taught to never beat around the bush when I wanted something. Silas used to say it all the time—real men don’t ask, they demand.
“Where’s all this comin’ from?” he questioned.
When Lauren had dropped the ball on me the night before, it sounded like this was something about me that she’d known for quite some time. Sending me into a state of disbelief, her revelation had effectively ended the discussion, after which she turned around and ran home.
I didn’t follow her.
It was never a good feeling to feel like you’re the last to know something about yourself.
I let her go because after she threw the information at me, clearly intending to inflict pain, I had nothing left to say.
Lauren was hurting. I understood that. In her fragile temperament, she lashed out, throwing all the ammunition she had my way.
One hit landed.
Which was why I was here today, looking for answers.
“Just answer the question, Dad.” I didn’t come here to fight. If my mother was dead, then she had been for over twenty years, and nothing I said would change that. I just wanted answers. “Did you kill her?”
“Did someone tell you that?” Silas asked. “Who told you that?”
“So, you did kill her.”
“No,” my father denied it. Silas had very few reasons to lie to me about this. I would’ve believed him right then and there, but Lauren had sounded so sure. “It wasn’t me,” he said in a way that implied that while she was dead, he had no hand in it. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Someone did, though?” My father looked down at the stainless steel table between us, nodding his head solemnly. “Do I know them?”
Silas’ shoulders fell, shaking his head as he replied, “The whole situation is a mess.”
“What situation?”
“Kiana was a good kid,” Silas informed. Was that her name? My father raised his gaze and affirmed, “She was real good. And she didn’t deserve to go out like that. But it’s… It’s complicated, Kain.”
I was losing my patience. “What the fuck happened?”
“Hey,” Silas interjected sternly. “It’s a lot of things that went down back in those days, but I’m still your Pops.
Don’t let nothin’ anybody tells you make you forget that fact.
I raised you on my own for years, and I will not sit here and have you cussin’ at me like I’m some nigga off the street, you understand me? ”
I couldn’t tell if the subject was making my father sentimental, or if prison had really just simmered him down. Here he was, reprimanding me like I was sixteen again.
“Dad, I need answers.”
“I didn’t kill her,” he stood firmly in that statement, meeting my eyes indignantly. I believed him. “It wasn’t me.”
“Then who?”
Silas forced out an exhale, eyes unblinking as he shook his head dejectedly.
There was something lifechanging about the words he was getting himself ready to say.
I could see it in the way he shifted in his seat uncomfortably, folding and unfolding his hands anxiously.
When my father finally did speak again, his voice was apologetic, which was rare for him. “It was Vance.”
***
The first thing Dr. Eloise said to me when I showed up for my noon appointment was, “What happened?”
Was what I’d been through this past weekend really that evident on my face?
“A lot,” I replied, starting from Friday night at Seven, moving onto the Saturday evening argument with Lauren, and then finally my visit with Silas on Sunday.
It had been a very eventful couple of days and by the time Monday had rolled around…
I was spent. “I haven’t addressed it with my uncle yet. ”
I didn’t know how. All my life, Vance was the one adult in my life that I felt had my best interests at heart. If what Silas had told me was to be believed—and I saw no reason for him to lie—then the Vance I knew was all a lie.
It was like multiple attacks were coming at me from different directions.
There was the blame I took for Lauren’s devaluing of herself.
Then there was finding out that my mother was dead all this time.
And lastly, finding out that the person who’d killed her was Vance, of all people…
That one was the cherry on top of a shit sundae.
“Let’s tackle the first one,” Dr. Eloise went down the list of attacks. “Lauren devaluing herself. How is that your fault?”
“She accidently told me that the guy she’s with has raped her before.
” I couldn’t shake the intense anger that filled me every time I thought about it.
It was the kind of anger that made me want to drive through Miami’s bougiest neighborhoods and look for somebody named Rashad.
“And in her mind, it’s not even that bad ‘cause it’s nothing in comparison to what I did last year. Or… what she thinks I did.”
“I see.” Dr. Eloise took notes. “And this makes you feel like you’re to blame.”
“If not me, then who?” I asked.
“Why don’t you tell me why you feel that way?”
“‘Cause I thought that I…” This was hard to talk about. “I thought that it would be easier for her to heal if I stayed away. Lauren would’ve never been able to recover from the emotional damage of learning what really happened that night. But I could never be with her unless I told her. So I stayed away, not wanting to have to hurt her that way so I could keep her. My decision hurt her, I know, but it was necessary. I didn’t realize, though, that by making that choice, I was setting her up to be accepting of men who don’t treat her right. And it… it’s my fault.”
“And what does that make you feel like you need to do?” I couldn’t answer Dr. Eloise’s question because I didn’t have an answer for her.
I didn’t know what to do anymore. My therapist tried to help me get there.
“You let Lauren think you betrayed her because you thought that was what’s best for her.
This weekend you got to see the lasting effects of that decision.
Answer me this, Kain, if this path of low self-worth and poor relationship choices is the path that she’s on, are you not simply trading one negative effect for another? Lauren is… Lauren is…”
“She’s fucked up either way,” I finished her sentence.
Finding Lauren sitting out on her front porch, crying alone on her birthday told me everything I needed to know about how good of a support system her family was.
I thought if I left her alone, she could have that much needed relationship with her parents again.
I was wrong.
They let her suffer alone.
“And so let’s talk about how she told you about your mother’s death.”
“She did that to hurt me.”
“Was she successful?”
I shrugged, my answer was neither yes or no. Finding out my mother was dead didn’t hurt me, finding out who killed her did. “Lauren’s going through a lot. So she lashed out.”
“That’s very forgiving of you,” my therapist acknowledged, bringing her pen to her teeth as she pondered for a moment.
I shrugged, not seeing the meaningfulness that Dr. Eloise saw.
Forgiving Lauren for her pain-fueled outrage was…
easy. Dr. Eloise shook her head, a faint smile in her eyes as she declared, “Sometimes it’s not the people who love us the most, or loved us first, that we need.
Sometimes it’s the people that love us the best.” Her head tilted to the side. “You love her so much.”
“Are you saying she needs me?”
Who would know this better than Lauren’s own therapist? Of course, Dr. Eloise gave nothing away. Regardless of who paid for Lauren’s sessions, patient-doctor confidentiality would always reign supreme.
Instead, Dr. Eloise asked for me to look for the answer inside myself. “What do you think, Kain?”
I didn’t have an answer for her. The gray-haired woman leaned back in her seat, sensing that she was about to hit a wall with me as our session was coming to a close. She chose a less emotionally taxing topic to finish up the appointment with.
“So what’s the word on Yale?”