Page 20 of Happy Is On Hiatus
“You sure you’re okay?” Jemel asked while Tariq continued to eye the cards Sharae had inadvertently revealed.
Cursing, Sharae began gathering the cards back into her hand. At the same time, not waiting for a response, Jemel stood and came around to her side of the table.
“I’m good,” Sharae said, but her voice hitched on the last word, and she cursed.
“We’re taking a break,” Jemel said.
“There’s no breaks in Spades,” Tariq complained.
“Shut up!” Jemel and Ivan said simultaneously.
Jemel took Sharae’s arm, easing her up from the chair. It would’ve been no problem to pull away, continue to protest that she was fine, and keep on playing. That was why she’d come here tonight, to get sucked into a card game and familiar family banter. It’s what she’d sworn she’d needed all week long—to cleanse her mind from the haunting memories and irrefutable reality. But Sharae was a realist: that plan wasn’t working.
Following Jemel out of the room was probably best. She should’ve called her and told her earlier this week. Then, maybe by now she would’ve found some distance from this situation. As it was, she currently felt like she was drowning in pain, guilt, and obligation, and she didn’t like it one bit.
They were at Aunt Rose’s house—a row house on Northern Parkway with a stone front porch and a yard full of healthy patches of hostas that the Aunts spent at least half an hour looking at and commenting on whenever they were all here. Rose Johnson had never married or had any children of her own, but Sharae, Rita, and Jemel had spent many weekends with her.
The card tables had been set up in the living room, but now Jemel marched Sharae into the dining room, stopping at the door that led down to the basement. Aunt Rose was a pack rat but kept her stash limited to the basement, which was full of boxes and bags of stuff—new and old—that she probably didn’t need and most assuredly didn’t use. If she’d ever bothered to clean out that space, they could have card nights there instead of in the living room, already cramped with her bulky three-piece floral-print furniture set.
“What’s going on with you? And don’t you dare tell me nothing, because you’ve been acting weird all week.” Jemel folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head as she surveyed Sharae.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Sharae replied.
“Well, good.” Jemel nodded. “Because I knew the other night when you didn’t want to come over for drinks and to press Rita for answers on how she was doing, that something wasn’t quite right with you.”
She had blown that off on Wednesday night and not just because she’d worked a twelve-hour shift on Tuesday. Memories of Jazzy and Destiny had lingered way too long in her mind after meeting and turning them over to social services. Then, when she and Malik had finally talked to Alicia Watkins, who was in a rage on Thursday afternoon when she found out they’d taken her children, the woman had given them an alibi that they’d spent most of this morning trying to nail down.
But, for Sharae, talking about her emotions wasn’t her favored pastime; that was Rita and Jemel’s. Those two would talk about a zit on their noses and act like it should be a headline story. Sharae preferred to keep all her heavy personal stuff—and some of the lighter fluff that she just didn’t want to deal with—to herself. It wasn’t because she didn’t trust them. They were the closest to sisters as she was ever going to get, and she loved them. She just never wanted to burden them, not in the way she’d become a burden to her aunt Vi and the rest of the sisters after her mother died.
Sharae leaned back against the burnt-orange painted wall. She let her head fall back and sighed heavily. “What’s the one thing I never, ever talk about, to anyone?” she asked.
“What exactly you do to pleasure yourself, and why that’s your preference to real dick,” Jemel replied without a second’s hesitation.
Sharae’s eyes popped open, and she lifted her head so she could stare at her cousin. Jemel seemed serious even though her response was ridiculous. “Really? That’s your answer?”
Jemel shrugged and blinked with aWhat?expression.
“Her father,” Rita said as she entered the room. “Sharae never talks about her father.”
“Sanford,” Sharae corrected. He may’ve provided the sperm that created her, but all he’d ever been was a burden. A bottomless black spot that marred her heart and brought tears to her eyes in the dark of too many nights to count.
“What about San?” Aunt Vi said, following behind her daughter to enter the dining room.
Rita was wiping her hands on a black-and-white-checkered dish towel while her mother carried a glass bowl filled with potato salad. Aunt Vi set the salad on the table, and like clockwork, Aunt Ceil and Aunt Rose came through the kitchen door seconds later, the two of them stopping behind where Aunt Vi now stood staring at Sharae. They looked like an assembly line of gorgeous and formidable Black women, or a firing squad, depending on how you came at them.
“What’s going on?” asked Aunt Ceil, who became the youngest of the Johnson sisters when Sharae’s mother, Justine, died.
“San did something to Sharae,” Aunt Vi said.
Sharae stared blankly at the Aunts for a few seconds. Aunt Rose had the darkest complexion, with her deep-mocha skin tone, which coincidentally Sharae shared. Like the other two sisters, Aunt Rose had a full face, but deep dimples punctuated her cheeks when she smiled. Aunt Vi had been married to Uncle Hale for over forty years. She wore her golden-blonde-streaked hair in a chin-length bob and never left the house without a complete face of makeup. And Aunt Ceil, who was quick to laugh with her cap of silver-gray hair, had married right out of high school and traveled the world with her military husband, until he’d decided a wife and kid weren’t in his future plans.
“Oh, baby.” Aunt Rose’s voice snapped Sharae out of her thoughts as she came close enough to put a hand on Sharae’s shoulder. “What’d that evil spawn do to you?”
“Now, Rose, heisher father.” Aunt Vi was always ready to chastise. It was as if she thought being the oldest and having the title of first lady of NVB gave her the authority to keep everyone she knew in line. Theapple didn’t fall far from the tree where Rita was concerned, but Rita had a softness that Aunt Vi rarely showed anyone that wasn’t family—and even then, Aunt Vi’s gentle side was shown sparingly.
“He’s also a homicidal maniac,” countered Aunt Rose, the blunt one.
Aunt Ceil, the only one of the six women standing in this room who had a naturally forgiving spirit, shook her head. “He’s paying the price for that now, Rose.”
