“You, bitch, you!” Jude screamed. “All of Jon’s life, all you’ve ever cared about is yourself. Look at you now. Jon asked the two of you to help her and what do you do, start fucking again and talking about marriage as if that will solve something. Well, fuck all of you!”
“Jude, try to calm down,” I said, walking closer to her and putting my hand on her shoulder. “Let’s just sit back down and talk about this calmly.”
“No, hell no! Hell fucking no!” Jude started pacing the floor. “I decided to come out for one reason and one reason only, to inform all of you that you can’t win. You’ll never win!”
“Why are you doing this?” Meredith asked, on the brink of tears. “Why are you doing this to my baby?”
“Your baby?” Jude put her hands on her hips. “Jon never mattered to you, not really. All you cared about was putting up a pretense. You wanted everyone to think that you had the perfect marriage and the perfect little daughter, even though you didn’t. You only care about material things, just like your two fucking sisters.”
Meredith started crying harder. “I can’t take this. I love Jonquinette. I always have. You’re sick.”
“I’m not sick, you bitch!” Jude sat down in the middle of the coffee table with her legs spread open facing them. She lifted her skirt and started fingering herself. “Does this make you sick, bitch? I decided to be a whore just like you. The only difference is your golddigging ass has been fucking men for what they can give you all these years and I fuck them for the hell of it.”
Henry stood up and headed for the door. “I won’t sit here and watch this a second longer.”
Jude said, “What’s wrong, Daddy? You can’t handle it so you’re just going to cut and run out on us like you did all those years ago?”
Henry turned around and glared at Jude. “This is all your fucking fault, wench! You set me up! I never even met that prostitute.”
Jude started laughing. “Okay, fine. Since you’ve all figured it out already, I confess. I did it and I’m damn proud of it, too. You tried to get help for Jon, which meant trying to get rid of me, and I had to do something to stop you.”
“Is that why you stabbed me?” He got all the way up in Jude’s face. “It was you who stabbed me, wasn’t it?”
An expression of fear came across Jude’s face. It was brief but I saw it. I’m not sure if Meredith and Henry even picked up on it.
Meredith stopped crying and looked from one of them to the other. “Stabbed? Henry, what are you talking about?”
Jude took two steps back from him. “Yeah, what do you mean by that?”
“Don’t get cute with me, you cunt!” Henry started unbuttoning his shirt. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” He took his shirt off and pointed to a tiny scar over his shoulder blade. “I’m talking about this.”
Meredith stood up, came over to him, and touched it. “That’s where you accidentally cut yourself with a pocket knife. I remember when you came home with it bandaged up.”
Henry smirked. “That was the story I made up to cover up for who I thought was Jonquinette. Now I know it wasn’t her at all.”
“What are you talking about, Henry?” Meredith prodded.
“I didn’t want the police to file charges against her. I knew that after all the incidents in her past that they’d allowed to slip through, one more might cause them to lock her up in juvenile detention.”
Jude hissed at him. “You’re a lying bastard! I never stabbed you!”
“You showed up at my office one day, stormed in like a hurricane, and started talking crazy. Just like you are now, as a matter of fact. I told you that it was time to get you some help. Your solution was to pick up a letter opener off my desk and stab me in the shoulder with it. I bet you were aiming for my heart but I moved out the way just in time.”
We had definitely reached a crossroads. I remained silent and allowed the situation to play itself out.
Jude grabbed my shoulders and started screaming. “I didn’t do that, Marcella! I didn’t!”
I didn’t respond. I just pushed her away from me. Part of me wanted to embrace her but I needed her to get angry. I had to allow whatever was destined to happen to occur.
Meredith grabbed her chest and looked like she was about to faint. “My baby stabbed someone! Her own daddy! Oh my God!” She fell on her knees and started crying all over again. “This is my fault. I should have listened to you, Henry! We should have gotten her help way back then!”
Jude yanked Meredith back up off the floor by her hair. “Get up, Queen Bitch! He’s lying through his teeth. It never happened. He cut his own ass with a pocket knife, just like he said. He’s just trying to fuck with me for some reason but I won’t tolerate it.” Jude shoved Henry, practically knocking him back onto the chaise lounge and repeated, “I won’t tolerate it!”
“Jude!” I called out to her. “Jude! Look at me!” When she turned to face me, I said, “What if he isn’t lying?”
“But he is lying,” she insisted. “I didn’t stab him and Jonquinette sure as shit didn’t. She wouldn’t have the nerve. Besides, I’ve always been here and I would know if she’d done something like that. Hell, I would’ve been happy about it. I’m telling you, if I’d stabbed the bastard, I would admit it in a heartbeat. In fact, if you have a letter opener, I’ll stab him now. He deserves it for lying on me.”
“Look,” Henry stated angrily. “I’m telling you that Jude stabbed me. It’s all water under the bridge now and I still have no intention of pressing charges but this all needs to come out. I’m sick of lying.”
Something changed on Jude’s face. A calmness came over it. Then that was replaced with fury. “Sick of lying?” She faced Henry. “You’re sick of lying?”
“Yes,” he responded. “The truth needs to come out.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” she said in a voice that I didn’t recognize.
Henry didn’t seem to notice the voice change but Meredith did.
“What happened to your voice?” Meredith asked.
Jude smirked at her but didn’t respond.
“Nothing happened to her voice.” I walked up behind her and whispered in her ear, “Who are you?”
She turned, gave me a smile that was more scary than pleasant, and brushed past me. She sat down in the armchair where I had been sitting and pressed the Stop button on the tape recorder. “We won’t need this anymore.”
I wanted to make a move to turn it back on but decided against it. It was obvious nothing critical would be said as long as it was on.
I asked again, this time louder, “Who are you?”
Henry exclaimed, “You mean there’s another one?”
“Shh! Don’t say anything!” I cautioned him. “Why don’t you tell me your name? I know you’re not Jonquinette and you’re not Jude, so who are you?”
She rubbed her eyes like she was tired. “I don’t have a name,” she finally responded.
“Everyone has a name,” I insisted.
“Not me.”
“Then make up one,” I said. “I need to call you something.”
She thought about it for a moment and said, “Just call me Jetta. I think that sounds mad cool.”
“Okay, Jetta. Tell me, were you the one who stabbed Henry in the shoulder?”
Jetta grimaced. “Damn right, I did it.”
Henry asked, “Why did you stab me?”
Jetta ignored him and started staring at Meredith. “You thought you knew everything that was going on in your house, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Meredith asked. “Please tell me what you mean.”
“Did you ever suspect?” Jetta kept her eyes fixated on Meredith but nodded in Henry’s direction. “Did you ever realize that he was a pedophile?”
Henry collapsed onto the chaise while Meredith pulled herself up off the floor. She walked over to us and got close enough to smell Jetta’s breath. “Pedophile?”
“Yes, you know wha
t that is, right? A person, or sick fuck as I prefer to call them, who has sexual desires for children.” Jetta glanced at Henry. “Now he’s sitting over there trying to play the pitiful act; probably thinking of a lie to tell, some excuse for why he did it.”
“What did he do, Jetta?” I asked, realizing we had finally made progress.
I had always felt there was at least one more personality living inside of Jonquinette. Jude professed to be all-powerful but something or someone had to be keeping her from taking over Jonquinette’s life completely. Now I knew her as Jetta.
“He molested Jon. What do you think he did?” she replied. “That’s why I allowed Jude to do what she did. I don’t even think she realizes what he did to Jon. She just hated him because he was trying to get rid of us. What she did was actually ingenious.” Jetta chuckled. “Wish I had thought of it. Instead, I tried to stab him to death but that didn’t work and I’m glad it didn’t. After it was over, I realized my mistake. I didn’t want Jon to end up in prison, along with Jude and the rest of us in tow, so I’m glad I missed his heart.”
Meredith looked at Henry in confusion. “Henry, is any of this true?”
“Yeah, Henry, is it true?” Jetta asked sarcastically. “Tell her the truth, Henry! Tell her about the bath-time fun when Jon was just four years old. Tell her about the fun in the shed in the backyard. That’s what you used to call it, right? Fun?”
Henry broke down and started sobbing. I went over to the chaise and sat beside him, rubbing his bare back. “By helping Jonquinette, you can also help yourself.”
“God help me!” he screamed out. “God help me, I did it!”
Meredith gasped. Jetta appeared sated and sat down.
“I molested my baby,” he continued. “But I couldn’t help it.” He pleaded with Meredith with his eyes. “Meredith, baby, I know I can never make up for what I did, but I tried. I did get help. I went and talked to someone and he helped me. That’s why I was trying to get you to get some help for Jonquinette, too.”
Meredith suddenly jumped on top of Henry and tried to choke him, knocking both me and him off the chaise. I tried to pry her hands off his neck. He was just willing to sit there and take it.
“This is totally your fault!” she screamed. “I’m going to kill you!”
Henry continued sobbing, Meredith continued choking and I continued trying to get her hands off him. “Jetta, help me,” I said. “You know this is wrong. It can’t all end like this.”
The situation seemed hopeless. Henry started gasping for air and I was stuck underneath him with all his weight on me trying to accomplish an impossible task.
The next thing I knew, Jetta screamed out, “Momma! Momma, quit!”
It wasn’t Jetta though. Jonquinette was back.
She pulled Meredith off Henry by the waist. “What are you doing, Momma?”
“Meredith, it’s Jonquinette!” I yelled out. “It’s Jonquinette. Don’t let her see this. She’s been through enough.”
Meredith’s eyes became glazed over as she let go of Henry’s neck. She collapsed backwards on the floor and whispered, “God help us! God help us all!”
39
jonquinette
After I was filled in on what had happened when Jude took over in Marcella’s office, I couldn’t find any words to express my feelings. I heard the tape, which cut off at the point where Jetta decided it would be cut off. Jetta? Things were getting more confusing by the second. But I wasn’t so much shocked about Jetta as I was about what she had accused Daddy of doing. In fact, I tried to defend him but he admitted that he had molested me as a child.
He said that his father had molested him, which is why he never took me to visit my paternal grandparents. After the Thanksgiving Day fiasco, Daddy came to the conclusion that he deserved to be alone and that karma had caught up to him. He returned to North Carolina and reopened his father’s auto repair shop as a means to punish himself for his own sins. A constant reminder of his sins would be his fate.
Marcella, Momma, and I listened intently as he described everything he had been through. He said it was a vicious cycle because his father, my grandfather, had been molested by his own uncle as a child. I still couldn’t imagine not remembering the things my father related in that therapy session. How he would do things to me when Momma wasn’t around, mostly when she was out spending money on things we didn’t need.
Marcella explained that Jetta had taken the abuse for me and Jude had become my protector, even though Jude never knew about the abuse. She also speculated that while she rarely made an appearance, Jetta was the one who really controlled things. She prevented Jude from making me completely disappear.
My main concern wasn’t even for me but for Flower. Daddy assured me that he hadn’t molested her but admitted that he had experienced some urges. Marcella told him that he had no choice but to come clean with Allison, Flower’s mother. She told him that there was always the chance that he would relapse in a moment of weakness and shatter yet another young life.
Needless to say, Momma called the wedding off. She left, stating that she was catching a cab home so she could take a tranquilizer and lie down. I told her that I would come by later to check on her. I couldn’t take any more for one day either. I told Daddy and Marcella that I had to leave. Marcella asked Daddy to stay behind so they could talk.
I also caught a cab home since Daddy had driven to Marcella’s office. When I arrived, Mason was just returning home from work. He saw me get out of the cab and must have been able to tell that I had been to hell and back. He came to me and I collapsed into his arms in tears.
Mason and I spent the next few hours talking about everything that had been revealed earlier that day. As usual, he wasn’t judgmental at all. On the contrary, he cried when I told him about Daddy and the pedophilia. He also expressed concern for Flower and I told him that I would go to my grave protecting her, if I had to. In fact, I planned to call her mother the next day and tell her everything myself. I didn’t want to risk leaving it up to Daddy.
Mason pampered me by running me a bath and giving me a deep tissue massage afterward. I was steadily learning that he was a man of many talents. Mason made love to me slowly from behind up against my bedroom wall—so passionately that I wept, because I couldn’t imagine him still wanting me after finding out yet something else devastating about my past.
It was late when I had Mason drop me off at Momma’s condo, close to two in the morning. I used my key and entered without knocking. She was knocked out in her bed and I stood over her for a moment, listening to make sure she was still breathing. For a second, I was scared that she had taken an overdose. That, I would not have been able to handle.
I climbed into bed and took her into my arms. She woke up, saw me, and asked, “Is it you, Jonquinette?”
It was a shame that she had to ask. “Yes, it’s me, Momma. Get some rest.”
We both fell into a much-needed sleep.
• • •
The next morning, Daddy was banging on the door by nine. He was taken aback when I answered instead of Momma. His eyes fell to the carpeted hallway. “Jonquinette, I’m so sorry, baby. How can I ever make it up to you?”
“You can’t.” I turned and he followed me into the living room. “Momma’s still sleeping and I have no intention of waking her up. The longer she stays asleep, the longer she doesn’t have to deal with reality.” I rolled my eyes at him and sat down. “I guess I’m an expert at that, huh? Falling asleep, or rather letting someone else take over, so I don’t have to deal with reality.”
Daddy sat down across from me. “I just wanted to come by to say that I’m leaving today. I planned to stop by your place next.”
“Well, now you don’t have to waste a trip,” I stated sarcastically. Then I caught myself. “Daddy, I won’t pretend that I’m not angry. That would be nothing but a performance. I am angry but, at the same time, I understand that you are just as much a victim as me.”
“That’s
still no excuse,” Daddy said. “I hurt you and that’s unforgivable.”
“In time, I hope that I can forgive you, but I know that I’ll never forget. At least, now that I know.”
We sat there in an uncomfortable silence for a moment.
“Daddy, I want you to know that I plan to call Allison sometime today and tell her everything.”
“Please, let me do it,” he stated in a desperate tone. “I should be the one to tell her.”
“Maybe, but I have the right to tell her. I have to make sure that nothing happens to Flower. While you mean well, I have to do this so that I have peace of mind.”
He nodded. “I understand, Jonquinette.”
“I’m glad that you do.”
“Can we still spend time together?” he asked. “We lost so many years. All I want is a chance to get to know you again.”
I shook my head and sighed. “Daddy, I need to get through this first before I can answer that. I thought about it long and hard last night and I think being in constant contact with you would hinder my healing process. We both need to heal separately before we can heal together.”
“Marcella alluded to the same thing after you and Meredith left her office yesterday. She gave me the contact information for several doctors in North Carolina. I plan to find one who can see me immediately.”
“That’s a wonderful thing.” I stood back up. “Daddy, I don’t mean to be rude but I can’t think of anything else to say to you right now.” I glanced at the bedroom door. “Plus, I don’t think it would be wise for you to be here when Momma wakes up.”
He stood and headed for the door. “I agree.” When he got to the doorway, he turned and said, “Would it be too much if I asked for a hug? Just in case it’s the last one.”
I hesitated at first and then embraced him tightly. “Good-bye, Daddy.”
When he let go of me, I spotted a tear in the corner of his right eye. “Good-bye, Jonquinette.”
I watched him saunter down the hallway and closed the door as he pushed the call button for the elevator.
40