Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
Holland
I ’d never seen Ma—I mean, Patricia—look so broken. I was still angry with her and didn’t want to call her, Ma, but she was the only mother I’d known. A good mother, at that. Yet, I needed time to reconcile everything that I’d learned.
“I want to know everything. Is there anything else you’ve kept from me?” I said the second she opened her hotel room door.
Her inhale was sharp and her exhale deliberate. “Come on in.”
I marched past her, through the narrow room with a king-size bed monopolizing the space, and straight to the window. Night had descended on us, and the view of the lights twinkling in the city landscape was halfway obstructed by the building next to us.
“C-can I get you anything?” she asked nervously.
“No,” I said, and threw in “Thanks” as an afterthought. “Please, just tell me about my family.” Folding my arms across my chest, I shifted my weight onto one foot and anxiously tapped the other. I had no idea what I was about to hear. “And don’t leave anything out.”
Pulling her robe closed, Ma sat on the bed and brought a cup of tea to her lips. She was stalling. I waited. I had all night, and she wasn’t due to leave until the morning. She looked at me, her expression pleading.
“This was why you never let me go anywhere when I was younger, why you wouldn’t let me go away to college, wasn’t it?” I couldn’t handle the silence. “You were always afraid I’d find out.”
Ma turned away, resting her eyes on the mess of sheets on the bed. She smoothed a random section.
“Your grandma, Clara, was my best friend growing up. When your mother was born, she made me her godmother.”
I tried to catch my breath, and blinked back the stinging in my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, but my emotional barricade couldn’t stand against the blow she’d just delivered with her confession. And she was just getting started.
“You were like my own grandchild. I was there when your mother got sick, then your grandma. Goldie was never around. When she ran off to be with that singing boy, Clara and I were only around twelve, maybe thirteen.” She shrugged her shoulders, trying to recall the age. “The family barely saw her at all. Then Jonah died. His band broke up and one of the girls started singing for bigger acts. She got Goldie a gig and that changed everything for them.”
I remembered from the journal that my aunt Goldie’s mother threw her out because she sang “the devil’s music.” She couldn’t come back.
“No more bars,” Ma continued. “They were big-time, singing backup for the biggest rhythm and blues stars at places like the Apollo. She came home a few times a year. That was it. When Clara’s mother got sick from her diabetes, I helped Clara take care of her. Not Goldie. She was…” Ma looked up at me. My eyes met hers squarely. “Gone all the time.” She stood and slowly walked across the room. “We did everything without her. Y-you needed somebody—” She stopped abruptly.
The way Ma spoke of Goldie like she wasn’t family made my blood run hot. I couldn’t stand still any longer, so I paced the small patch of carpet by the bed. But I understood Goldie. She wanted, no, needed more than a small town like Aiken could offer. Her desire to leave had been even bigger than mine. Only she was brave enough to leave her small nest, which made her an outcast in her own family.
“Then Clara met Charles. He ran off when she told him she was pregnant with your mama. Yona was a beautiful child.” Ma shook her head slowly, smiling at the memory of my mother. She remained quiet for a moment.
“I’d gotten married, but that didn’t last after we found out I couldn’t make babies right.
“Clara was right there to help me through my grief when I kept losing my babies.” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “The doctor told me not to try again. Everything was all messed up down there. I made money babysitting for the working people in the neighborhood. I guess all those babies being around all the time was some kind of reminder. He left. Moved North for work.”
Ma sat back down and huffed.
“Your mother went off to school up in Virginia. She came back pregnant in the middle of her junior year, had you, and finished her schooling at home.”
“Where was my father?” The words rushed out.
“Somewhere up North. He didn’t know. She refused to tell us who he was. Said she could take care of her baby on her own just like her mother took care of her. A few years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. That’s when she finally gave Clara his name. Told your mother that he moved out of the country but later said, his big dreams didn’t include an unexpected baby and she didn’t want to stand in his way. By then, the only thing Clara could focus on was taking care of Yona, but it was too late to save her. Clara’s cancer came back too, but after losing Yona, she didn’t try to fight it. The illness and heartbreak took her out less than a year later.”
Streaming tears pooled under my chin. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. So much loss, sadness, and grief.
She huffed. “I thought I was doing the right thing by Clara by not letting you go to New York. You’d spent more time with me than your aunt, and you had already lost so much. You knew me better than her. Goldie came around on holidays and special occasions. Until your mother got sick, you were at my house almost every day.”
Ma turned to me with pleading in her eyes. At first, I couldn’t speak, and then I was able to mumble, “And then what?”
“I went to Florence, moved in with my cousin, Amy’s ma, and changed my last name. Had a friend help me register a new name and start over—become somewhat untraceable.”
I stepped closer to her. “So when that letter came from the lawyers in New York, you knew what it was about.”
Tightening her robe, she looked away. “They found us. It was time.”
My body trembled from the dangerous cocktail of rage and anguish whirling inside of me. A damn broke in my chest, and I crossed my hands over my stomach as if I could hold in the pain thundering in my gut.
I cried for my mother, Grandma Clara, and Aunt Goldie. I cried for the father I never had a chance to know. I cried for the love, loss, and grief that was a constant presence in their lives. I even cried for Ma’s lonely, dejected existence and the fact that the only family she could claim was one she had to steal.
Ma held me. Slid to the floor with me. We cried together.
“I’m so sorry, Holly. I never meant to hurt you.” She sobbed. “Please forgive me.”
I wanted to tell her how much pain she caused me—scold her about everything that she took from me. But I knew she already understood. I was the one thing she was able to hold onto, until now. It was no wonder I’d felt like I needed to break out of the life I’d been living. I thought about my sister Patience. Was she stolen too?
I sat up and wiped the wetness from my face. “What about Patience?” I locked eyes with her, to see the truth regardless of what she said.
“Patience is different. She was a foster child. I adopted her through an agency. Legally,” she added. “I love her. I love you. You’re my babies. All that I’ve ever really had that loved me back.”
I unfolded myself from her and got up from the floor. Pacing, I ran my hands through my hair. My emotions were a tangled mess of yarn. If I tried to pull at one string, I would completely unravel.
It was time to go.
“Bye, Ma.” Her quiet sniffles followed me to the door.
When the Uber rolled up in front of my house, I wasn’t ready to go inside. I didn’t want to be alone.
I found myself walking up to Noble’s door. I rang the bell and tapped my feet nervously until he came to the door. No shirt. Just sweats. The light from the television flickered behind him, bathing him in a halo. I could have used the company of an angel.
Life as I knew it was a lie, but the way Noble made me feel was real. I wasn’t disillusioned by my pain. I wasn’t trying to bury it with a vice. I knew exactly what I was doing. He had been a salve these past few nights, and I desperately needed soothing right now.
“Hey,” he said, with lips molded perfectly for kissing.
My eyes locked with his. Noble raised both brows. I didn’t bother with greetings or salutations. I stepped in, snaked my hands around his neck, and pulled him to me. My elixir. I moaned into his mouth. I saw the fireworks and felt the explosion. Numbed the pain. Noble squeezed me in his arms, deepening our kiss with a hint of desperation. I pressed my body against his and felt his erection blossom immediately. A heat wave swelled around us.
Noble lifted me without breaking our kiss, wrapping my legs around his muscular waist. He steadied himself and then kicked the door shut, closing off the sounds of the living city. My back against the wall gave Noble leverage. Clinging to him, I lifted my chin to catch my breath. He kissed my neckline and then found my lips once more.
“Baby,” he panted. “Holland.” He was breathless. “Are you—”
“Shhhh!” I put my finger to his lips. “I just need you.”
Noble’s erection became a boulder. I swirled my hips against it.
Securing me in his arms, he carried me to his bedroom. Laying me gently on his bed, he sucked my lips. I yanked my tank top over my head and shimmied my shorts down. Standing, Noble grabbed a condom from his side table and reappeared in front of me so fast that it seemed like he had never moved.
Handing me the condom, Noble slid his sweats down, letting them fall to his ankles. He pulled down his boxer briefs, his erection springing free. My breath hitched.
I tore open the wrapper and smoothed the condom over his shaft. He groaned toward the ceiling. Heat and desire twinkled in his brown eyes when he looked down at me.
I scooted back on the bed, making room for him. Crawling toward me with the grace of a panther, he captured my nipples between his teeth. First gnawing, then licking, and finally suckling, he continued until they pebbled against his tongue.
Ready to feel him inside, I wrapped my greedy hand around his stiffness, relishing in the girth.
“No,” he whispered. “I want to take my time with you.”
His words were deliciously agonizing—torture to my burning desire to have him inside me. Noble started his kisses at my lips, then moved down to my navel. Steam rose from every kiss, leaving a sultry blazing trail from my neck to the inside of my thighs, while his hands massaged my breasts. He left no parts uncharted. Noble kissed, sucked, nibbled, and licked me everywhere.
I writhed and ached with need, squirming under his fiery touch until I could no longer stand it.
“You okay?” he breathed.
I loved that Noble checked on me. I nodded vigorously, wanting him to hurry back to what he was doing.
“Ready?” he asked.
I wrapped my hand around his rock-hard erection and guided him toward the slickness waiting between my legs. That was my answer. Noble hissed, lifted my legs over his shoulders, and entered slowly, filling me up with friction so delectable, tiny bombs burst throughout my body. I drew a breath so sharp, it nearly choked me.
“Mm,” I groaned. “Ahh!”
Noble swallowed my cries into his mouth. His strokes were deep and deliberate, each driving me further into euphoric bliss. He released my legs and cradled me in his arms, burying himself even deeper inside of me. His moans were baritone and guttural.
I’d never felt pleasure this profound. Noble found my lips again. He reared back, gazed into my eyes, and kissed me again. Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes, trickling down the sides of my face. Our moans were drumbeats. Our loving—rhythmic. Raising our hips, we collided in sync until we lost our rhythm and control. Noble bucked against me. The most ferocious release I’d ever felt exploded over him. Suddenly, I felt weightless. Noble gathered me in his arms and held me for the longest time. He gave me just what I needed. And then I wanted more.