Page 92 of Riot

I climbed the steps slow, each one feeling heavier than the last. Not because my legs were tired, but because I already knew this wasn’t going to be a casual visit. Whatever waited for meinside that house, it wasn’t the version of my mother I’d grown up with.

I used my key and opened the door. The air felt thick and heavy. The windows hadn’t been opened in days. Despite this home being grandiose, something about it felt suffocating. The weight of the house sat on my chest making it difficult to speak.

I heard the floor creak under my boots, heard the way it echoed too loud in a house that used to be full of noise. This home was once filled with laughter, arguments, Sunday dinners and Holiday parties. But ever since my father’s death, there was nothing.

Creed was already there, posted up by the fireplace. He was looking down at his phone with that look on his face he always wore when something was eating at him but he didn’t want to be the one to say it out loud.

I dropped my keys on the foyer’s table and glanced around. “Where is she?”

“Upstairs,” he said. “She’ll be down in a minute.”

He looked tired. He didn’t look this way at work. It was as if being in this house zapped something out of me. And I could relate because it zapped something out of me too.

I sat down on the arm of the couch, elbows on my knees. “Talk to me.”

Creed exhaled through his nose, rubbing his thumb along the edge of his glass. “Doctor said it might be early onset Alzheimer’s. They’re not sure yet, but they see the signs. But it would explain her crazy ass moods. How her memory is slipping. It would explain the strange speech too.”

I didn’t say anything at first. I let it sink in. Let the words echo.

He added, “They wanna run more tests soon. We’re getting them ordered.”

“We’ll get the best doctors for her.”

“Of course we will. She deserves it,” he replied.

I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “It ain’t Alzheimer’s though.”

Creed frowned. “What do you mean?”

I looked at him. “It’s guilt, Creed. She’s folding under it. This ain’t medical—it’s spiritual. Emotional. All them years keeping secrets. Playing blind. Letting shit go unsaid ‘cause it was easier to pretend.”

Creed’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t argue. Just watched me, waiting.

“She might not have known everything,” I said, voice low. “But don’t act like she didn’t know something. You don’t live with a man like Silas and be affected by his bullshit.”

“She loved him,” Creed said, almost defensive.

“Oh, I know. And look where that got her.”

He shook his head. “You think she could’ve done something to prevent it?”

“As far as the kids? I really don’t think she knew about it. But she saw how evil he was to us. That nigga has almost killed us numerous times and we were his flesh and blood. If he’ll do that to his flesh and blood, what would he do to strangers? Then all the times he cheated on her? She just took him back because of his name and his money. And now that shit is eating away at her.”

“You might be on to something,” he said.

We sat in silence, both of us chewing on the truth.

I didn’t hate our mother. That would’ve made this easier.

She’d been the one who held us after our father’s rages. The one who whispered promises in the dark that things would get better. And I think part of her believed them. But she was also the one who stayed. The one who saw enough and stayed quiet.

Now her silence was cracking.

And we were watching it split her apart.

“I just…” I sighed, running a hand down my face. “I don’t know how to feel. One minute I wanna protect her, and the next I wanna scream in her face. Tell her we didn’t need someone to save face, we needed a damn mother.”

Creed stared at the floor like it held all the answers he never got.

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