Sanchez Jamal Adrian Thompson. That was his full name, and the one his mother gave him when she'd had him at sixteen. A well-trained girl who'd grown up in a Christian home, but had ended up running with the wrong crowd, she met and fell head over heels in love with a thug twice her age. He got her pregnant and then disappeared. A year after she'd given birth to Sanchez, she had his sister, A'moree, fathered by a different thug who'd shown great potential as a father, but had been gunned down before his daughter was born. Unfortunately, both Sanchez and his sister never knew what it felt like to be raised by the men who'd planted their seeds in their mother.
Sanchez described himself as a young man who made things happen and did not wait to see where the chips might fall. Growing up on the island of New Providence, a.k.a, Nassau, was not a picnic. He had his struggles, especially growing up in an area where violence and crime ruled. Even the Bahamian police were terrified of coming through his corner. If his mother hadn't moved to another neighborhood, and hadn't changed his school, he was convinced he would have either been in jail, or six feet under the earth. But he worked hard, excelled in his education, and received a partial scholarship to study in the USA.
He'd recently finished his B.A. in engineering and was currently in the market looking for a job. His part-time job as a telemarketer helped him pay the rent, but it wasn’t enough to handle everything else. If it weren’t for his sister helping him out every month, he would have been pulling the hairs out of his head by now. He didn't plan on going home to the Bahamas any time soon, but planned on working for a while in order to get some experience, and if things went the way he wanted, he might get married and raise his family in Tampa. It was not that he didn't love his home in the Bahamas, but in the United States, opportunities were much easier to come by.
His sister, A'moree, was coming in from Bahamas the next day to spend the rest of the week with him and he was excited about it. He hadn't seen any of his family in two years and he couldn't wait to catch up on old times. Her arrival reminded him, his truck was down, and he hadn't any means to pick up A'moree from the airport except to ask Dominic. He reached for his cell phone and texted:
Dom, I need a favor. My sister is comin in from Nassau tomorrow morning. She’ll need a ride from the airport. Let a brutha know if you down with that.
9:22a.m.
The sweet scent of cinnamon subtly found its way up the wooden stairs of her mother’s two-bedroom suburban cottage and brushed beneath Michelle’s nose – awakening those desires she’d stanchly suppressed for two years. Her eyes popped open, and she was suddenly surrounded with a sense of unfamiliarity. The flying swans in the tattered wallpaper and the jarring paint of the room’s décor, however, immediately reminded her of her decision to abandon the warm mattress that belonged to her and Leroy. She sat up at the sound of her mother’s humming voice.
“Child, you stubborn like your father. I want you to know God don’t like ugly.” Delores pushed a tray of cinnamon biscuits, bacon, and eggs in front of her daughter. “Take my advice; go home to that man and patch things up before that woman show you how it’s done.”
Michelle refused the tray of food. “That’s unhealthy.”
“I don’t have the energy to fix something else.” Her mother dropped the tray on a dresser.
“Most times I skip breakfast. What time is it anyway?”
“I don’t know, child. I don’t keep up.” She sank down into the rocking chair that was next to the bed. “You know how it is around here. Work, work, work.”
The sparkle in Michelle’s mother’s eyes had long since faded, leaving behind a mist of nostalgia. The years of hard work she’d endured from taking care of a husband and four children had finally taken its toll. And for a while, her father’s sudden death had left her mother in a state of despondency. Delores had always told her children that their father had been a good man.
“But, I’ve told you repeatedly, you don’t have to stay here by yourself,” Michelle said to her mother. “We have enough room in our home to give you your privacy.”
Delores waved her off. “I’m seventy-one, Michelle. I’m on my way out of this world.”
“All the reason for you to be near your family.”
“No, child. I’m gonna die right here where I’ve lived the last forty years.”
Michelle grew silent. She didn’t like when her mother brought up the subject of dying.
“Don’t look so grim,” her mother said. “You don’t expect me to hang around here forever. That’s why you should make everyday count. Leroy is a good man and you had better start treating him as such.”
“You would say that; you always liked him.”
“That man has taken care of you and those children from the day he took you out of our home.”
“Mother, I have never doubted Leroy’s ability to provide for his family. He handles his responsibilities quite well.”
“Then what’s the problem, child?”
“Everything is a problem these days.” Michelle looked into her mother’s eyes, now creased in crow’s feet. She held back from her mother some of what really bothered her. “What do you think I should do?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. Do what is right for those boys.”
“Easier said than done.” Michelle became uptight all of a sudden. “You should have heard how he defended that woman to me. He practically bit off my head for her. I think he’s lying to me, mother – you know, about the affair.”
“I’ll tell you the truth, I don’t blame the man,” Delores deadpanned and then pointed at Michelle. “You’re a fool for letting him get away with it.”
Michelle raised her eyebrows, shocked by her mother’s candidness. “I’m confused. Which side are you on?”
“Your father, crazy as he was, warned you about those Paxton men, but you still went ahead and married one of them. So deal with the blows as they come. These days you can’t afford to trifle.”
“Mother, I am not going home until Leroy calls and apologizes to me! He owes me that much. He spoke to me as if I meant nothing to–”
“Room for the devil, my dear child, room for the devil! I would have called you a moron, but you’re my daughter.”
“Mother! Your words are mind-boggling.”
“Good. That outta knock some sense into you. Call those boys and let them know what’s happening.”
“I’m sure Leroy told them where I am.” Michelle was not sure that was true. She looked to her mother again for confirmation.
“Don’t look at me!” Delores said.
“Okay, mother, I’ll call!”
Chapter Seven