Page 57 of Leave It to Us
Was she going to die?
Would her mother know if Tami came to the hospital or not?
Would she survive if her mother passed away?
She couldn’t breathe now, could still hear the incessant thumping of her heart, but it sounded so far away, like she was in a dark tunnel andrunning so fast, just running and leaving everything behind. Leaving this pain that had snuck up on her so fast and ripped through her chest like a sharp, familiar blade.
Familiar. This felt all too familiar. It felt like the night she’d been called to the hospital because her father had died.
Daddy had been gone for twenty-one years, and she’d continued to live this life with just one parent. The parent who’d never loved her like her father had. Who most likely hadn’t loved her at all. What was she going to do if her mother died? Who would she be then: the orphan who hadn’t been enough to keep her father in the house with his family, or the daughter who’d never been good enough for her mother?
A loud crackle of thunder jerked Tami awake, and she shot up in bed. Through barely open eyes, she saw the bright slash of lightning as it ripped through the sky and brightened her room momentarily.
Sometime after she’d fallen asleep, it had begun to rain. When she’d been out today, she’d seen Ms.Janie on her way back from some meeting she’d had at the church. Cora, with her sourpuss face, had been with her, but Tami had stopped to talk to both of them anyway. Ms.Janie had mentioned that rain was coming even though it had been a bright sunny day. Well, it seemed that along with being a great cook, Ms.Janie could also predict the weather.
Rain pelted the windows as Tami sighed and dropped her head. Residuals from the dream still weighed heavily on her mind. Why was it the best dreams—like the one where she had her legs wrapped around Michael B.Jordan’s waist and was screaming his name like a banshee in heat—never stuck with her after awaking, but the worst ones hung around like ghosts haunting an old mansion? She rubbed at her eyes, hoping to scrub away the urge to cry all over again. Like she had the night she found out her mother had had that stroke. She’d cried and cried for almost an hour over the woman who’d never given her anything but heartache. Then she’d washed her face, gotten dressed, and taken her ass to the hospital. And Freda had lived.
She lived and breathed only to keep taunting Tami with her disapproving gazes and hurtful words. But Freda wasn’t here now. She’d never been at the summerhouse when Tami had been there. When Grandma Betty had been here. Her grandmother was gone now, and Tami hadn’t cried for hours. Not since she’d been here, and not when she’d received the call over a month ago.
Yes, she’d been heartbroken, and she’d shed some tears, but what she’d done not even an hour after hearing of her grandmother’s death was pull up one of her old albums on her phone and listen to it. That had been her comfort. It had been her reminder of something Grandma Betty had said to her after her father’s death: “I’ll never leave you, Tami. You don’t have to worry about that, because you’ll always carry me here and here.” Her grandmother had tapped her jeweled fingers over Tami’s heart and then her ears that sunny morning at the church.
So the loss of her hadn’t hit her like the loss of her father had, or like the almost loss of her mother had, because Grandma Betty was still with her.
Another long roar of thunder was followed by a fierce crackle of lightning, and Tami jumped again. But this time, she threw off the blankets and hopped out of bed. She didn’t even stop to put on her slippers—just ran for the door, opened it, and darted down the hall.
She knew exactly where she was going and exactly why she was going there. Her hand was on the knob of the bedroom door, and she immediately turned it before pushing the door open. Then she was across the room and hopping onto the bed and under the covers before the next rumble of thunder came.
“What the ...” Yvonne rolled over, slamming a pillow into Tami’s face.
“Hey! Stop it! Stop it! It’s just me!” Tami yelled with her arms up, covering her face.
“What ... Tami?”
“Yeah,” Tami said, and then pushed away the pillow Yvonne held just inches from her face. “It’s me.”
“What are you doing in here? What time is it?” Her sister turned to look at the lighted screen of the digital clock on her nightstand.
“I don’t know,” Tami said. “But it’s thundering and lightning, and you know I don’t like storms.”
Yvonne pushed the pillow she’d been using as a weapon back behind her head and lay on it. “It’s three o’clock in the morning, Tam. And you’re twenty-nine years old, not nine.”
“And the sky is blue, and the Yankees are a better team than the Red Sox—tell me something else I don’t already know.” Tami turned on her left side and pulled the covers up to her neck. “We can go back to sleep now.”
Yvonne sighed. “Really? With your grown ass sleeping in the bed with me?”
“Mm-hmm. Night night,” Tami murmured.
Behind her, Yvonne sighed again, but she didn’t say good night in return. She suspected her sister just pouted as she lay there, attempting to go back to sleep. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon because there was another clap of thunder and, seconds later, another round of footsteps coming down the hall.
“Scoot over,” Lana mumbled when she came into the room on Yvonne’s side of the bed.
“What? You’ve got to be kidding me? Both of you are still afraid of thunderstorms?” Yvonne asked as she huffed and puffed and scooted her ass over to the middle of the bed so Lana could get in.
“And thundersnow,” Lana said. “Basically, anything with thunder wrecks my nerves. I can’t stand it.”
“Me either,” Tami added.
“You’re both goofballs, and I hate being in the middle.” Yvonne groaned.
