STRINGS of COLOR (20 page)

"I just heard on the radio about the loss of your husband, I'm so sorry."

Naya didn't respond. Her arms didn't move and she didn't wipe the tears away.

JK was the first one to open his mouth.

"What are you doing here, Monà?"

Monà shot him a nasty look.

He didn't care. He wasn't going to back down.

"I was wondering that about you. What, are you trying to play daddy now?"

"No more than you trying to act like a real mother now."

Monà moved toward JK.
Two more steps toward him are all I need
.

"Stop it! Stop it, both of you!"

They both froze.

The driver tried to silently raise up his window. One thing he had learned about working for rich folks—is that you
always act like you don't know anything, didn't hear anything, and won't ever tell anything. It keeps the bills paid.

"I don't want you here," Naya said in a whisper.

"I'm sorry, Naya; I didn't plan things to happen like this."

"How could you not? You were sitting in your car outside my home."

"I had come to get Simone."

"What? She was here?"

"Yes. She wants to meet you. I had come to talk her out of it."

"Why?"

"Because, the past is the past and none of us can change it."

"You mean that you don't want it changed?" JK interrupted.

Monà shot him another nasty look.

"Stay out of this, JK."

"Sorry, not going to happen. Not tonight or tomorrow."

Naya stepped in between them. She stood right in front of Monà.

"So you didn't come here to see me?"

Monà was afraid to respond.

"I thought you were dead."

Naya felt her emotions coming back to her. Her mind was in full gear and she was ready.

"Yeah, I heard that had been told to you." Monà stared at the ground.

"Why didn't you want me?" She waited for a response.

"Why did you leave me with him? "

"You knew."

"Answer me!"

Naya's tears really began to flood down her cheeks; she could feel every part of her body shaking.

"Naya, this is not the time to discuss this."

"Answer the questions!"

"Which one shall I answer?" Monà tried to calm herself down. "I'm going home. I'm tired. It's been a long day."

"You aren't going anywhere!"

Monà stood still.

"You have been living here in New York all this time and now that you are standing in front of me, all you can say is that you want to go home!"

"I just…I just don't want to do this here, not like this."

"When did you want to do it? Tomorrow, next week, next year, when!?"

"Never! Is that what you want to hear? I never wanted to do this!"

Naya took a step back.

"Monà!" JK shouted.

"This is all your fault!" Monà fired back at him. "Look at what you did to us. Look at this. You're trying to stand there like you're innocent! None of this would have ever happened if you hadn't…" She couldn't get it out. "I'm leaving. I can't do this right now."

"No, you're not leaving!" JK screamed. "No, I am not innocent. Yes, I did the unthinkable. I was the beast." He beat at his chest. "You're right, it is all my fault. I admit that! I have lived these eighty-plus years with that very fact glaring in my mind every night. I will die with that fact. But I tried, Monà. I begged you to forgive me. I have spent the last fifty-plus years begging for forgiveness."

"Forgive! You will never get forgiveness out of me! If you hadn't had done what you did, she wouldn't be…."

Naya cut her off.

"I wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be my mother. Is that what you were about to say? Well, I've got news for you Monà. I am here. Regardless of how horrible it all happened, I am here! I'm standing right now, at this very moment in front of you. So deal with it!

"Do you want to know what's so ironic about all of this? You blame everything on JK, but in reality, you had a chance to change everything. You had a chance to stay. I needed you. I needed you so much. Mothers are supposed to protect their children, aren't they? Where were you? Where were you?"

"I was a child myself. How could I protect you when I couldn't even protect myself? I just couldn't."

"Didn't you ever think about me?"

"Not a night went by that I didn't think about you. Why do you think I raised Simone? I did it for you."

"No, you did it to clear your conscience!"

"How dare you?"

"What? Tell the truth? Isn't that what this is supposed to be, a moment of truth? A moment when a never-to-be mother, stands in front of her never-wanted daughter, and they have a moment of truth with each other?"

"It's not that I didn't want you, Naya."

"Oh yes, I forgot…how did you put it—you were a child yourself."

"You don't understand. After what happened to me, I had to get away. Even you got away. You left. Why is it so hard for you to understand how I felt?"

"Because you left me with him!"

"You stand here and judge me when you yourself made a similar decision. Tell me, did you go looking for Simone and Jonathan after you left JK's house? Did you? No, you lived your life! Don't judge me, child, for doing something that you did as well."

It took all Naya had to restrain herself.

Monà knew she had her. She knew she was right.

"What was a fifteen-year-old girl going to do with a newborn baby, no job and no place to live? Tell me Naya, how was I supposed to explain whose child you were? They would have taken you from me anyway. I did what I did, because I wanted to give you a fighting chance. I didn't think he would do what he did to me, to you as well.

"Do you know what I regret the most?" Monà asked. "I regret not telling somebody when it happened. I regret not having him locked up. That is what I regret.

"I have admitted my mistakes. Lived with them, but I'm not going to say that I regret all of them. I didn't want you in no foster care, or in the home of someone that might not have loved you at all. It was a tough decision for me to make but I had to make it!"

Monà's cane was shaking.

"When they put you in my arms, I saw something in you that I didn't have. Call it whatever you want to call it, but look at you now. If I hadn't done it, you might not be where you are today.

"You think that I left because I didn't love you. Girl, you are a fool! I have loved you since the day I gave birth to you. Yes, I did have a guilty conscience. I admit that. But I raised Simone so that I could give her the love that I never got a chance to give you."

"You kept her from me; both of you did," Naya spat back.

"I didn't even know that she was a part of me until a few months ago. She was my daughter…my daughter. All this time, I didn't know."

"How could you have not known you gave birth to twins?"

"I…I was under so much medicine. I remember hearing a second cry after Jonathan was born but I thought it was the drugs they had given me."

JK spoke up.

"It was me. I was the reason you didn't know. The nurses were paid to take her away immediately. They weren't even supposed to allow you to see Jonathan."

Naya stared at JK in disbelief for a moment or two before turning her attention back to Monà. She swallowed hard and begged her hands to stay at her side.

"How did you get Simone? Were you at the hospital that day?"

JK spoke up again with much shame on this face and in his voice.

"My parents arranged for Simone to be transferred to another hospital, one closer to Monà here in New York. She was kept in another section of the hospital until that could happen. They agreed to take Jonathan as you know."

Naya's heart was moaning. Remembering the past was too much for her to bear. She thought about all that she and Chris had gone through to find Jonathan. There was too much hatred and too much ugliness in her life. She just wanted it all to go away. Her heart couldn't carry it all anymore.

No more
, she thought.
No more
. She took a few steps back.

"My Chris always tried to shield me from the pain, but you can't shield yourself from the pain of your past. You have to face it. Better yet, you have to get over it. You see this…this is my heart. It aches from all the pain that you and JK have caused it. It aches from all the lies, all the bitterness, and all the sorrow. It aches because I lost the love of my life."

"You're right, this was not the place or the time, but it is, what it is. We all have to put it all out on the table, right now. No more hiding. No more. I can't take it anymore. Who can live like this? I can't and I don't want to."

"Here is truth for each of you. I have hated you both. I have loved you both. Right now, I just want peace."

Naya turned toward JK.

"You have been with me today and I can't tell you what that has done for me. I can't act like it hasn't meant something. It has. I'm still a long way from ever looking at you as my father. Right now, I'm just trying to find a place in between."

Naya then turned back to Monà.

"The decisions you made didn't put me where I am today. I did. I won't give you credit for that. You see this house, you see my name out there in the papers, that was all me! I went through mess and back. You hear me. Mess and back. But here I am."

Struggling through tears she continued.

"I do want to thank you for raising Simone. But know that every decision you made, every decision JK made, affected not just me but her and my son, Jonathan."

Naya took a deep breath.

"We all have to fight to put this family back together again. Jonathan has children, my grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. Simone, I hear, is getting married. I won't have this mess carrying on. It ends right now!"

Naya found herself screaming, she couldn't control it no matter how hard she tried.

"All three of us are going to go inside my home and we are going to talk. I mean really talk because in another day or so, I have to bury my husband. I want to bury this as well. All of it!"

She turned to walk back to her car.

"Wait."

Both JK and Naya stared at Monà.

Monà braced herself.
She said she wanted the truth so I might as well give it to her before we go in that house to "talk". My truth just might change all of this foolishness
.

"You have a sister."

JK almost hit the ground, literally.

Naya didn't stop. She continued to walk toward her car. There was a rage boiling over inside of her and she could feel herself calling out for strength. Calling out for the courage to face whatever situation she was about to walk into.

When she reached the door, she looked at Monà.

"Get in, both of you."

"Because, when she was a little girl I saw her and that woman Freddie called his wife, going into a clothing store one day. They were all smiles. She had on good clothes, didn't look like she wanted for nothing. She got that because of me! She can't say I didn't give her that."

H
er body was stiff, her heart was racing and the tears were flowing. The curtains were still drawn shut and the sunlight was still begging to get in.

The walls braced themselves. The chandelier gripped itself to its hook and the bed waited.

The tape recorder lay off to the side on the nightstand. Worn out and tired.

Shocking words, heart-breaking secrets, and agony shook her until her very bones hurt. The reality of it all caused her to open her lungs and let go of the pain.

Over and over again, she felt herself releasing the sorrow that dug deep inside like a flame that she could never put out.

When there was nothing left, when there was nothing trapped down inside of her, she pulled the covers off and sat on the edge of her bed.

She stared at the tape recorder and then she reached over and turned it on again.

It gave in. For the hundredth time, it played what she needed to hear, those words. Those shocking words that always point her back to one valid reality….