The Pleasure's All Mine (31 page)

She already had the things she wanted packed in the trunk of the car. Since Ms. Henry couldn’t stand Janetta’s thieving behind either, Raven had moved the gifts that were too large for the trunk to Ms. Henry’s house.

During her scavenger hunt, Raven had found Kayla and Manny’s school and medical records, a certificate from the Governor of Illinois citing her mother’s thirty years of service to the Illinois Department of Employment Security, as well as her mother’s school records and birth certificate—all things that could never be replaced. They were now safely tucked away in her car, along with her pictures, the clothes she had purchased for her mother that she wanted to give to a women’s shelter, as well as her aunt’s cookware and television and Uncle Ted’s toolbox. She would make sure everything was returned to its rightful owner.

“I want that,” Janetta demanded, pointing at the dress in Raven’s arm, which still carried the price tag.

It took every effort not to slap the woman silly. “I’m dropping this at the funeral home.”

“You can buy her something else,” she said, grabbing the hemline of the dress.

Raven took a deep breath. If she’d moved a little faster getting things done she wouldn’t be caught in the coming bitch storm. But once she had started, she’d kept finding new things she needed to protect. And she’d had to make a quick run to the currency exchange to get that release notarized. The dress in her arms was actually covering the more important documents in her hand: court papers awarding her mother custody of the children because of Janetta’s incompetence and negligence. Those documents and the supporting evidence alone should be enough for Ava to do her work.

Janetta moved back as Drew followed, just as he’d done when they were younger—rarely did he stand up for Raven when his “real” sister was involved.

“She loved this, and
I
bought it for her,” Raven said, barely keeping her disgust in check. “And like I said, I’m taking this to Ms. Sullivan. Get in my way and you’ll know exactly how gentle Maurice was with you.” Raven paused for effect. “Hot water anyone?”

Janetta winced.

Raven strolled toward the open door when Janetta grabbed the dress again. Raven went suddenly still. All her life she’d had to fight these two for her mother’s love while taking the snide remarks about her mysterious parentage. She’d be damned if she’d have to fight for this—a dress she’d purchased for their mother. “Janetta, get your grubby hands off before I show you how low I can go,” she said in a deadly tone, her eyes narrowed at her sister. “I might talk proper and have more class, but I was raised right here in Jeffery Manor just like you. I will grease up and whip your ass.”

Slowly, cautiously, Janetta dropped her hands.

Raven placed items from her mother’s purse into her brother’s hand. “Here’s the house key. The van keys are also on that ring. They’re all yours now. Remember how much stuff you have upstairs before you let too many people have access to the house. There’s about, what? Ten thousand music albums? Most of them are collectors’ items.” She looked at both of them. “I don’t want anything else. And this sheet of paper right her says exactly that.”

She gave each one of them a copy of the document Ava had helped her put together—a release from any interest in her mother’s estate. Both of them scanned it quickly, as she had expected, signed it and gave it back.

As Raven walked out the door, her brother said, “I’ll call you later. We’ve still got things to pay for.”

“Has the funeral been covered?”

He looked over at Janetta and shook his head.

“Well, my dear boy, seems like
you’ve
got work to do.”

“And you’re just gonna leave it like that?” he hollered after her.

“
She
can help you,” Raven said calmly, pointing at Janetta. “You’ve always listened to her. Don’t change on my account.”

“But that will take
all
the insurance money.”

“As well it should,” she said with a wink as she opened the car’s door. “There’s always the pension. Don’t forget that.”

Raven peeled out of the driveway and hightailed it to her bank.

One of the keys she had taken was to Jaylon’s safe deposit box.

Raven pulled up to Royal Bank, showed her identification and was shortly escorted shown downstairs. Inside the box, she found her baby pictures, another birth certificate—which differed from the one she had in the car—a letter addressed to Eric, and others to her brother, niece, nephew, Lorrie and Anita, Janetta, but no letter for Raven. She tried to ignore the small stab of disappointment. There was a locket with a picture of Raven inside, wearing long ponytails and a toothless smile. Underneath lay the jewelry that Raven had bought her mother for every birthday for the last five years. Some of it her mother had never worn. Those pieces would go to Kayla one day.

Earlier at the house she had found a large silver box that contained every card and letter Raven had sent from college, along with every newspaper clipping from Raven Armand’s career, the first edition of each of her books, autographed specifically for Jaylon Ripley. But here, inside the steel box in her hands, she found a note scribbled in her mother’s longhand under Raven’s author photo:
My baby girl’s a star!!! I knew she would make it. She was always the strongest one. The most beautiful and the most loving.

Raven put a hand over her mouth to muffle her sob. That little note was better than any letter! She sat that way for nearly an hour reading it over and over. Her mother had thought she was strong. And beautiful. And loving. She could not stop crying at that thought.

She was glad she had hounded her mother to let her procure this box for her valuables—especially since Janetta was light with her fingers. Raven was the only other person who had access. She would never know that most of what Jaylon considered valuable had to do with Raven alone.

After searching through some of the papers at the house, she found the house on Merrion Avenue was near foreclosure. Mama had refinanced it with an aggressive second-rate mortgage company that had a reputation for taking a house rather than working with the owner when the going got tough. Raven flipped through the letters—the nastygrams, as Ava called them—from bill collectors threatening to do one thing or another. With all this stress, plus a runaway grandchild and an addict daughter, her mother’s last months must have been hell.

Evidently, Jaylon hadn’t adjusted to living on her pension, half of what she had been making when she worked for the State of Illinois. Raven had sent money every month, and now she wondered why her mother hadn’t told her she needed more.

Right now, Jaylon Ripley was probably in shock—and possibly giving someone in heaven pure hell over her early departure. All Raven knew was, with no will left here on earth and with her sister and brother’s tight bond, she had best protect Manny and Kayla’s interests, and divorce herself from any confrontation. Now, Drew and Janetta had all legal rights to any property and possessions of her mother’s that were still in the house. Ava would file the document in court, opening a probate case, so Drew and Janetta alone could settle their mother’s affairs.

She shuffled through some more paperwork, and then she saw them—pictures of a man with ivory skin, wavy hair, lips just like hers, and brilliant, dark brown eyes. He was handsome and obviously Latino. She had never seen him before. Her fingers trembled as she thumbed through the rest of the photos. She found one of her mother smiling up at the man, looking as if she were the happiest woman in the world. She had never looked at James Ripley that way. Or Anita. Was this her father?

Raven flipped the picture over, saw the name Roberto Cordoso, and the date, then counted back to the time when she would have been conceived. The timing would have been about right. This had to be her father. What had happened to him? If he loved Jaylon so much, why didn’t he stay? Was this why James had been so angry with Jaylon all this time, because Jaylon had loved anybody, everybody, but him? She had even given that love to a woman—which had to punch old James in the gut.

Raven took everything except the letters to the others—and closed the box. She’d give the key to Drew. Later she’d put the jewelry and other important items into two safe deposit boxes in her own bank, with Manny and Kayla as the co-owners. When she got home, she gave Eric his letter and watched as he read the first few words. Soon he blinked to clear his vision. He failed in an effort to smile. “She loved me, too.”

Those simple words from a young man who’d felt the same separation as Raven, lifted her heart and spirit.

Eric sprinted out of the room and closed the door to his bedroom. She could hear the sounds of gentle sobbing coming from his room, the first time he’d shown any grief over Jaylon’s passing. Raven waited outside his door, giving him a moment of privacy and trying to bring her own emotions under control. When his cries subsided, she knocked and paused.

“Come in.”

Raven sat on his bed, hugged him, and they grieved together, silently and completely.

“I always thought she didn’t like me,” Eric whispered hoarsely.

“That wasn’t it.”

When Raven became pregnant with Eric at nineteen, Jaylon tried to work her way back into her life, insisting that since Raven was so young, and still in college, she should be the one to care for the little boy.

“It still felt like you all had some custody fight over me or something.”

Raven stroked his hair. “Well, sort of. When you were born she wanted to take over—you know Mama was like that.”

He nodded.

Eric had always been intuitive, and when he became old enough, he had commented on his grandmother’s lack of involvement, questioning once before if there had been a custody battle for him when he was younger. Raven, who’d never been one to lie, had told him a sliver of the truth in a way she believed he could understand. He said he did, but then he managed, with a few well-written letters, to bring Anita and Lorrie back into the picture after years of estrangement.

With that success in mind, he sought opportunities to bridge the gap between him and his biological grandmother. When his attempts at communication fell on deaf ears and a hard heart, resentment against her mother stirred again in Raven.

“I wanted to raise you on my own, especially seeing how my brother and sister turned out with too much indulgence and no discipline. The fact that I didn’t want Mom to take over didn’t sit too well, and she pulled back—all the way back—and didn’t have much to do with you at all.” Raven stroked his hair. “I didn’t refuse her help or advice, but she wanted the whole job of raising you when I was perfectly capable of doing it myself. I’m the reason she didn’t have much to do with you—”

“Mom, it’s not your fault,” he whispered, leaning his head on her shoulder. “It was still
her
choice. Things are what they are.”

For the first time Raven opened up to him, telling him what it was like for her growing up, telling him about the tumultuous relationship between the two women, and the husbands that had torn them apart.

“As heart-wrenching as the decision was, Anita moved out of the house and I didn’t hear from her in years. Mom was unwilling to give up the money James was giving her for the house…” Raven quieted a moment, leaving out the fact that she had been left to bear the brunt of her mother’s ire and James Ripley’s abuse.

In writing her second novel, Raven had taken all the hurt, pain and confusion, along with her emotions surrounding abandonment, and transformed them eloquently into words. When it was finally printed, she waited to give Jaylon a copy, afraid that the truth would put an even bigger wedge in an already unstable relationship.

She needn’t have worried. A couple of months after the book hit the shelves, while Anita was in Chicago visiting Eric and Raven, Jaylon invited Raven and Anita to dinner. When Raven walked through the door and saw a copy of her novel lying on the dinner table, her heart sank. She waited for Jaylon to lash out, hit her, do something. Even though Raven had changed their names to protect them, she still had exposed the women’s secret relationship. To her pleasant surprise, Anita pulled her in for a hug, begging her forgiveness. Right there, she poured her heart and soul out. Soon there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Jaylon asked Anita to forgive her, and Anita asked for understanding, if not forgiveness. A house that had once brought so much joy, then so much pain, finally became a place of healing. If her books never hit the bestsellers list, her writing, and Eric’s perseverance, had given Raven something money could never buy—peace.

All had been fine—until her sister Janetta came back on the scene, addicted to heroin, sleeping with anyone who had the money to support her habit, and trying every way possible to destroy the new relationship between Jaylon, Anita, and Raven. She almost succeeded. OJanetta had dropped her children on her mother’s doorstep without a word of please, thank you, or I’ll return for them soon because she thought DCFS might take them away. Then when she found out that they were getting money from the state, Janetta wanted to cash in—and had given Jaylon hell because of it. Another stress factor in Jaylon’s life.

Eric reached up to wipe away Raven’s tears as she said, “As I grew up, so many people called my mothers all these nasty words:
dykes, lesbos, perverts, sluts
. They didn’t understand that in trying to be mean to my mothers, they were hurting me more. I stopped going to church for a long time. Those people were the most hateful and judgmental. It pushed me away from wanting to know God—especially since some of those same churchgoers’ own secrets made them bigger sinners than they believed my mothers to be.”

Raven took in her son’s sad brown eyes, lips set a grim line.

“I didn’t think anything could compare with that pain—until I had you, and your dad decided he didn’t feel like being a father. You know the rest of that story, how he stayed away, never paid child support, shunned your attempts to get to know him, and only recognized you as his son once you became a bestselling author.” She sighed softly before saying, “Do you remember your reaction when he showed up that day?”

“I didn’t want anything to do with him.”

“That’s putting it mildly. You showed your independence that day, and I wondered if it was genetic. I knew I was in trouble when you never bothered to learn to crawl—you went straight to walking.”

Eric grinned. “Hey, I was in a hurry to get grown.”

Raven turned serious. “When he came that day, you were grown beyond your years, Eric. You’re already a better man than he could ever be. Do you ever regret that you turned him away that day? That you didn’t have a male role model?”

“Mom, I really think it’s more important that you raised me to be an honest, compassionate, and productive person—male or female. I never had a dad. I didn’t need one then and don’t need one now, at least not one like him.

“But I also saw the tears in the corners of your eyes,” she whispered, stroking a hand through his hair. “And I knew you felt the pain of rejection, and I could do nothing about it. I knew you were feeling many of the same things I did when I was young, but you were too proud to admit it.”