Page 1 of No Remedy for Love

Remi looked down in the casket and smiled at her father’s cold, lifeless body. Almost ten years of battling cancer had him looking like a shell of his former self. Six years ago, Remi made the not so tough decision to quit her job, pack up and move to Phoenix with her father, Reid, so that he could be closer to a treatment facility. MD Anderson was an amazing cancer center that boasted some of the best results she’d ever seen. Reid’s lung cancer diagnosis was what prompted her to become a pulmonary nurse practitioner. The six-figure salary was a huge plus, but her father was her real motivation.

Remi graduated high school at only sixteen years old, the same year that her father was first diagnosed. She graduated with her nursing degree at twenty and moved to Phoenix two months later with her father. She developed a friendshipwith one of the nurses at the treatment facility and that’s what prompted her to go back to school fulltime to become a pulmonary nurse practitioner.

“They did an amazing job,” Tracy, Remi’s best friend, said as she stood next to her, wrapping her arm around her waist.

“Yes, they did. He looks like he’s sleeping.” Remi’s heart was broken but she knew that it was for the best. Her father was no longer in pain, nor was he suffering. The selfish part of her just didn’t want to let him go.

Remedy Mason was both her parents’ only child but she would always and forever be a daddy’s girl. Reid was her heart in human form. When he and her mother, Lollie, divorced when she was five, she had a hard time with him not being under the same roof with them anymore. She alternated weeks with her parents but that still wasn’t enough. Reid eventually fixed that issue when he purchased a home five doors down from his ex-wife and her new husband’s recently obtained property.

Thankfully, her parents didn’t have a bitter divorce and they got along great. They were high school sweethearts who drifted apart over the years. According to them both, they should have been divorced a long time ago, but they tried to make it work. They didn’t even have her at the time, so she wasn’t the reason. When Remi came along, they tried even harder to be a family until they just gave up altogether. They both promised to always put her first and remain friends for her sake if nothing else. Their co-parenting was made easier by their genuine friendship and mutual respect.

Lollie remarried when Remi was seven and her father remarried when she was ten. Her stepmother, Marva, who she affectionately called Mae, didn’t have any kids. She had fourstepbrothers by her stepfather, Omar, who had also passed away a few years ago. Reid was all that Marva had, so Remi had to make sure that she took good care of the woman who treated her like her birth child. Reid made sure that everything was left to his daughter since he and his wife didn’t have any other kids to leave it to.

“Hey baby. Some of the staff from the hospital just walked in,” Lollie said when she walked over to her daughter.

Remi was so grateful for her mother, who stayed by Marva’s side the entire time she’d been there. Her stepmother was lost, but Remi would go to her grave making sure that she was straight.

Remi turned around and smiled at the people who made her father’s last years on earth as comfortable as they possibly could. She had formed a bond with most of them but none like the one she’d formed with Monique, her father’s day nurse. Monique was the one who encouraged her to go back to school and further her nursing education. She had become one of Remi’s best friends, but Tracy would die if she ever told her that. Remi had gotten close with one of the interns too but that was more of an intimate thing. They weren’t a couple or nothing like that. They helped to relieve each other’s stress with no strings attached.

“Hey, boo. Thanks for coming.” Remi pulled Monique into a tight hug.

“Don’t insult me, Remedy. Where else would I be? But, seeing them here is a first for me. They must have really loved your father.” Monique discreetly nodded towards some of the doctors who were there to pay their respects. They stopped to greet Marva, who looked just as torn up as Remi was.

In all the time that Monique had worked with the doctors at the facility, that was her first time ever seeing them attend a patient’s funeral. They’d lost lots of patients to the horrible disease and they always seemed desensitized by it all. But, for some reason, Reid was different. He had an aura about him that pulled them all in. They loved to listen to his stories about his favorite place, New Orleans, where he was born, raised and resided before moving to Arizona for his health. Remi had the same light surrounding her, and Monique was instantly drawn to it.

Some of the doctors had been to New Orleans just to see some of the places that Reid spoke about, and Monique was intrigued. They always came back and excitedly replayed their vacation details to Reid, and he loved to hear their experiences. Sometimes, they even came back with praline candy and a few other New Orleans originals. Monique spent most of her life in school and she had never been anywhere outside of Phoenix. Sadly, she was taking her first trip to New Orleans the following day, but it wasn’t for pleasure. She wanted to be there to show her support to the woman who had truly been her best friend for the past six years. Monique was gonna be lost without Remi but she knew that Arizona was never gonna be her permanent home.

“That’s so sweet of them. You remember my bestie, Tracy?” Remi introduced the two women again.

“I sure do. Hey boo. I knew that you and Ms. Lollie were gonna be here if nobody else.” Monique stepped up to give Tracy a hug.

“Yes honey. My sister knows that I’m here for whatever.” Tracy flipped her hair as she spoke, letting the other woman know where she stood in Remi’s life.

Although they referred to each other as besties, Tracy was much more than that. She was the sister that Remi always wanted and recently got ten years ago when Tracy decided to start living in her truth. Tracy was actually born a man twenty-eight years ago and was the fourth and youngest son of Remi’s stepfather, Omar. At only eighteen years old, Tracy, who was given her name at birth, decided to come out of a closet that she was never truly in. Everyone knew from an early age that she was gonna be different. Tracy loved fashion as a child, so no one was surprised when she became a seamstress and stylist. The very first wedding dress that she sewed by hand was sold to a wealthy family in New York for over fifty thousand dollars.

Tracy was only sixteen years old at the time when the family flew her out for their daughter’s wedding to make sure that it was tailored to fit her perfectly. Two years after that, Tracy had made a name for herself and decided to live her life as the woman that she always felt like inside. She was never into the pronoun thing and she didn’t get offended easily. Tracy had been called he, she, it, and a slew of other names that were too offensive to repeat. The decision that she made was for her and nobody else. Her family respected her choices and they respected her the same.

Tracy’s mother passed when she and her brothers were young kids. Their parents were in the middle of a nasty custody battle that their mother’s side of the family initiated. Meeting and marrying Lollie was the best thing to ever happen to Omar and his boys. He got another chance at having the family that he always wanted, and Remi became the daughter that he never had. His boys loved Lollie like she was their birth mother and that’s exactly how they were treated. Tracy’s maternal family hated when they started calling Lollie mama but she was the only mother they knew.

When the doctors walked over, Remi thanked them for coming as well as taking such good care of her father. Reid’s services were gonna be in New Orleans in two days, but she had a viewing in Arizona to let the people who had grown to love her father pay their final respects.

“I’m gonna miss you, boo. You’re gonna be the reason that I finally leave Arizona.” Monique pouted as she looked over at Remi.

“I’m gonna miss you too girl, but I’m definitely coming back to visit.”

Arizona wasn’t a place that Remi ever thought she would ever even visit, but she was grateful for the experience of living there temporarily. Phoenix was much slower than her fast-paced home town, and she sometimes enjoyed the quietness. Monique was always her tour guide for wine tastings, hot air balloon rides, and lots of other things that she had never experienced before.

“You too, Tracy. It’s always a good time when you’re here and I get to see glamour up close and personal.”

Although she could be territorial at times when it came to Remi, Tracy was cool. She was the first person to do Monique’s makeup and she fell in love with cosmetics because of her.

“It’s really nice here and a much slower pace than what we’re used to. I would love to come back.” Tracy smiled.

Being transgender had her leery about the kind of females that she associated with but Monique passed the vibe check. A lot of her other trans friends weren’t so lucky. They’d been ridiculed and talked about by some of the same females that they tried to emulate. For that reason and many others, most of the trans community remained a tightknit family amongstthemselves. Remi was an exception to that rule because she had been around since they were kids.

Remi sat in between her mother and Marva as people trickled in and out of the funeral home. Once the viewing was over, she spoke with the funeral directors before they all left. Her father’s house had been empty and on the market for over a month. Once they learned that his prognosis was getting worse, he called his lawyer and got the ball rolling. Remi didn’t want him to buy a house in Arizona at all but Reid, being as optimistic as he was known to be, didn’t believe that dying from cancer would be his fate. He was always good with his money so everything that he owned was purchased outright. He still had a lot of houses in various parts of Louisiana that Remi had to deal with.

As sweet and humble as he was, Reid Mason was a no-nonsense businessman who once flooded the streets of New Orleans with any kind of dope that would get a person high. As wrong as it was, the community loved him because he showed them a lot of love in return. Reid had a yearly back-to-school drive, a community center with homework assistance, and hot meals for the kids. He paid bills when single mothers needed help and the list went on. He never spoke on what he did and he never wanted recognition when people found out. Even the police loved him, which was why he was so successful in the dope game. He used his dirty money to clean up and serve a community that the government had long ago forgotten about. He funded programs designed to keep young black boys off the streets and get into college. They knew that every A on their report cards meant a fresh hundred dollar bill from Mr. Mason and they went hard in the classrooms to get it. A lot of young men went to college thanks to him, and Remi got showed a lot of love because of him.

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