Page 81 of Leave It to Us
“You don’t have to go running every time she calls your name,” Tami said, and Yvonne felt those threadbare bits of patience she’d had a death grip on break.
“It’s my mother!” she yelled, closing the distance between her and Tami. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“She knew, Yvonne! Didn’t you hear what Sallie said? Mama knew about her, and she never said a damn word!” Tami roared. “Not. One. Word!”
Okay, so they were really stuck on this thing with Sallie. “What woman wants to tell people that her husband had a baby outside of their marriage?” Yvonne asked.
“What woman takes her anger at her husband having a baby outside of their marriage out on their youngest child?” Tami retorted. “That’s the thing I’m struggling with right now.”
“Look,” Lana said, stepping between them and waiting until Tami turned and walked a few steps away from where Yvonne stood, chest heaving. “Ms.Rosalee is there with Mama now. She said Mama’s stable, right? Now, we left Mr.Cab’s house so that we could talk about this, and we have. So maybe you don’t have to run back right at this moment. Maybe we can get a cup of coffee or whatever and go sit on the front porch to just be for a few minutes. We all need that to figure out what we’re going to do about Sallie.”
“Sallie, Sallie, Sallie!” Yvonne yelled. “How am I supposed to focus on Sallie when my mother is hurt?” She turned away, rubbing her hands over her face. It didn’t stop the rampant beating of her heart or the throbbing in her temples. Her skin felt hot all over, and that dizziness she’d been trying to ignore almost had her swaying on her feet. “Okay,” she said, trying desperately to find some control, to keep from completely buckling under all the pressure. She turned back to face her sisters. “So Daddy had an affair with some woman who was also vacationing on the island. That woman got pregnant but didn’t tell him. Then she came back to the island and dropped the baby off here, on Grandma’s doorstep. Only for Grandma to turn around and give that baby to the man who was in love with her and his wife. If that isn’t the wildest shit I’ve ever heard.” She sighed. “But truth is often stranger than fiction. So what now? What the hell am I supposed to do with all that information? It has nothing to do with me or my life in the city.”
“It has everything to do with our family,” Tami said. “This legacy we’ve been here this summer trying to preserve. Sallie’s a part of that. You said it yourself when you saw Grandma’s picture hanging on Mr.Cab’s wall—this is why she brought us here. To not only fix up the house but to fix the mess that had been made of our family.”
Because those words sounded too damn close to the truth, Yvonne gasped, and then she bit back a sob. “So what? Are we splitting the proceeds of this house in fours now? When only our names are on the deeds? I thought we just decided that wasn’t going to happen,” she said.
“It’s not just about the house, Yvonne,” Lana added.
“No, dammit! None of this is just about the house. It never has been. The three of us coming together to do anything was never going to work. Because just like always, you’re leaving me holding the larger share of the responsibility.” This was spiraling out of control—shewas spiraling, and she was deathly afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop it. She wouldn’t be able to remain the sister with all the answers, the epitome of calm, cool, and collected. She wouldn’t be able to be everything she’d ever known how to be.
“What are you even talking about now?” Tami asked.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Yvonne snapped. “I put out the extra money to keep this renovation moving. I’ve been taking care of Mama while the two of you have been living your life. Now I’ve gotta go back and take care of Mama again while you two sit here and have tea with your new sister.”
“Yvonne,” Lana said, “that’s not what we’re saying. And it’s unfair of you to throw that shit about the money back in our faces. We didn’t ask you to take out a loan for the renovations or to help Isaac.”
She shook her head. “No, you didn’t ask me, but I did it because I’m always the fixer. I’ve always been the one to do whatever was necessary to keep this family going. And I’m tired, Lana. I’m fuckin’ tired!”
“Then don’t do it!” Lana yelled back. “There’s no law saying you’ve got to be the fixer, Yvonne. You picked up that mantle a long time ago, and you’ve been waving it like a sympathy flag in our faces for as long as I can remember. That’s what I’m tired of. Take responsibility for the shit you decided to do, and stop playing the damn martyr.”
“I take responsibility for me and my mother,” she said. “What about you, Lana? Can you say the same?”
“Why should I say the same when you’re always so fast to jump up and doallthe things? You don’t let us decide what, if anything, we want to do to help Mama because you’re always there doing it.”
“Because y’all never did. All y’all did was complain about this and complain about that.”
“We complained about her mistreatment of us,” Tami countered. “Just like every other child in the world. That didn’t mean we didn’t love her just like you did.”
“Well, you have a funny way of showing it,” Yvonne shot back.
Tami waved a hand in dismissal. “Why try to show someone something they don’t want to see? All Mama ever wanted to see was you. And now, the way you keep saying ‘mymother’ like she didn’t give birth to two other children, is proof of that.”
Yvonne didn’t reply.
Tami fumed, her fists clenched at her sides, and Lana rubbed her temples.
It was a pointless conversation. Nothing was ever going to change. “I’m leaving,” Yvonne said. “Y’all can do whatever you want—or rather, just keep doing what you always do.”
“I told you I can be there in a few hours,” Deacon said over the phone.
“And I told you, it’s okay. I’m fine.” Yvonne wasn’t fine, but he didn’t need to know that. Nobody needed to know how broken she felt at that moment. How utterly helpless and confused she was as she sat in the waiting room, alone.
Grandma Betty used to say that people couldn’t be expected to act a certain way when they didn’t have all the information. And that seemed to make sense; she couldn’t expect her sisters to react differently toward her if she didn’t tell them everything that was going on with her. Soshe had. She’d told them about her health struggles and how stressful it had been dealing with their mother alone, and what had they done at the very next sign of trouble? The exact same thing they’d always done: left her holding the bag.
It had taken her all day to travel from Daufuskie back to Boston, and by the time she’d arrived at close to nine on Saturday night, the doctors had just decided to take Freda into surgery. So she was sitting in the waiting room alone because she’d sent Ms.Rosalee home with instructions to get some rest and not come back until tomorrow morning. Yvonne was ready to settle in at the hospital for the night.
“It’s okay to not be fine,” he said.
