Chapter 3
Though they’d returned from Switzerland a little over two weeks before, Raven hadn’t spoken with Charlene yet. That morning, Damien offered to watch Royael after school while she attended the first day of the new semester at school. Raven had tried to understand Liam’s situation, but he’d been gone much of the time since their return. He hadn’t even been there that morning when Royael made the transition into first grade.
Anyhow, while in one of her photography classes, Damien had texted and forewarned Raven that her mother had returned from Los Angeles. Her stepfather was the most perceptive person she knew, and it seemed that he was aware his stepdaughter ran every which way Charlene did not go. He wasn’t the type to shy away from having a serious conversation with Raven, but they both knew that when it included Charlene, all bets were off. Mother and daughter were learning about each other after over twenty years of being apart.
Now, Raven let herself into their mansion, she tiptoed toward the staircase since there was a very big game room upstairs. But stopped in her tracks upon hearing a husky voice—almost as thick as Annette’s, except Granny would say the chick had a potty mouth—carried along by the aroma of breakfast. When’s the last time I ate?
Charlene stormed into the hallway, placing a dramatic manicured hand at her chest. “Where have you been, Raven? I was worried!” Giving her daughter no time to respond, she exclaimed, “You tell me that you’re being,” Charlene’s screech turned into a whisper, “blackmailed in a voicemail while leaving for another country! What was I supposed to think? I imagined you dead, or … raped, or raped and dead, lying somewhere in a brook with your naked rear in the air.”
“Mom, calm down,” Raven whispered, suspicious of them being overheard.
“Calm down? Do you not remember anything? You went with me to see Royland Alder! Hello? He raped me at the age of fifteen and left me for dead!”
Raven breathed a deep and seedy breath of anger, not needing a reminder.
“I had good news. I wanted to tell you about the restaurant we’re opening, and you, Royael, and Liam disappear for almost two months—”
“What restaurant?” Raven perked up. “What do you mean by ‘we’?”
Charlene regained her happiness. “Momma, you, and I are opening a restaurant!”
“We?” Raven cocked her head in confusion.
“Yes. We should’ve talked about it at Christmastime. Why do I have the feeling you blocked my calls? None of your cell phones were working.”
“I know you were worried, and it seems like I just neglected my priorities, but I had to get away,” Raven said.
Charlene nodded, taking a deep breath. Her high-pitched tone decreased. “Thanks for acknowledging that. How much money does he or she want?”
“$50k.”
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Charlene mouthed, enunciating every syllable. “But—”
“You’re a little bitty thang.” The raspy voice caught Raven off guard. A woman of similar size to her grandmother came down the hallway. She was dressed in a jogging suit and would have seemed more like Charlene’s age if not for the extra weight and lack of interest in her attire. “Your momma said you’re pregnant, but Char mustn’t been feeding you.”
“I’m only ten weeks,” Raven replied, patting her belly.
“Raven, this is Teresa, my sponsor,” Charlene made introductions to her AA sponsor and Raven. “I’ve known Teresa for about six years.”
Raven calculated that it was the same timeframe in which an eighteen-year-old Liam and herself went to hunt down her estranged mother.
“Char, c’mon. We gotta feed this child. Raven about the same size as that woman that my bastard husband cheated with.” Teresa turned back to her. “Don’t take offense, because you’re much cuter.”
Raven sat on a stool. When Charlene finished making her plate, Teresa went back and added more. Raven smiled her thanks for the snowy mountain of grits.
Raven picked around her food for a while. The blackmailer said time is running out …
Teresa slid into her thoughts with man-bashing her own husband. Literally, man-bashing, since Teresa had caught her husband cheating and went postal on him. The story included a single red-brick from the front yard and a mad black woman. Teresa stopped ranting as her phone vibrated on the counter. Picking it up, Teresa walked to the door. “Excuse me. It’s my good neighbor, must be calling to tell me how my bastard husband is currently out of the hospital and trying to get into our house.”
The sound of the clock on the wall oven ticked. Tired of being silently scrutinized, Raven said, “So, her bastard husband sounds charming. Does she have any other nicknames for him?”
“Sometimes she calls him her bastard—ass-husband. We can’t drink, so a sailor’s mouth is Teresa’s vice, shopping is mine.” Charlene smirked. “Let’s go get Royael ready for ballet. But Raven …” Charlene stood slowly; she’d reclaimed that soothing tone of hers. “If someone wants money, we should give it to them. I’m sure that’s nothing to Liam.”
Perceiving every notion of horror behind her mom’s eyes, for Charlene’s sake, Raven nodded. She walked out the kitchen with her mother on her heels.
“Now—” Charlene looked around the lavish open floor plan as if there were some unknown horror hidden beneath the Persian rug as they went up the stairs “—tell me why?”
“I don’t know.” Raven stopped on the second landing and looked into Charlene’s eyes. Making eye contact made the story authentic—at least, she hoped so.
“Where’d everybody go?” Teresa voiced.
They turned to see Teresa in the hallway, face bewildered.
Raven rushed upstairs as Charlene replied to her friend. She heard them head back into the kitchen as Teresa reiterated the day’s news of her husband's recovery. Down the hall, she went into a room with pink-and-brown polka dots. Damien rocked back and forth in a wood chair with her half-sister, one-year-old Trinity, on his lap. Trinity’s chubby hands flailed; she attempted to tear at the popup book he kept just out of reach.
Royael sat with her curly-haired bear, Mookie, and Trinity’s stuffed elephant. Mookie was treated like a king, as usual, with a plastic teacup and sugar cookie. The elephant’s teacup was turned over, his saucer had broccoli. Royael hated broccoli. Mookie hated broccoli.
“Hey, lil’ sis.” Raven took her half-sister from her stepdad and kissed the toddler's cheeks.
“Just the girl I’ve been looking for.” Damien stopped rocking.
“What’s going on?” She feigned innocence.
“Oh, you know I couldn’t talk freely while I met you at the school for Royael’s first day. Then you ran off, with the excuse of being late to class.”
“I might have been late, if I had dawdled.” Raven shrugged. “Besides, it was the first day of school for me too.”
He smiled, though not entirely convinced. “Your mom’s been worried about you. Is her excessive anxiety justified?”
“Aw, Dad, you know Mom.” She turned away from him to help Trinity sit at the tea table.
“True.” He took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “She’s my drama mama and you’ve always been secretive. Is there something we should know?”
Lightening up, she plastered on a playful smile. “Is this gang-up-on-Raven day?”
“Answering a question with a question will only increase my notion that you’re hiding something.” His dark brown eyes challenged hers to turn away.
She didn’t blink as she replied, “Nope. Everything’s perfect.”
***
Teresa offered to do the dishes. Charlene found Raven getting Royael ready in the lilac bedroom she’d decorated for her granddaughter after Raven’s car accident. Royael sat at the canopy bed, pulling on ballet slippers. Charlene took in the contours of Raven’s stiff shoulders as her daughter packed Royael’s pink Nike bag. Her heart yearned to go out to her child, but how to go about learning the secrets behind Raven’s frosty eyes?
Without words, Raven followed her to the office. Charlene closed the door and thought of the best words.
“I, uh.” Charlene bit her lip and walked toward the desk. She pulled out the top drawer and snatched a pre-written check out. “It’s only half of what you requested. I can’t get more without alerting Damien.”
“I appreciate it.” Raven glanced at it with that unreadable face Charlene always hated.
“Now, who’s blackmailing you?” Charlene placed her hands on her hips.
“Mom, Royael has less than an hour to get to ballet class. It’s rush hour right now and on the opposite side of town.”
“Raven, please.” Charlene reverted to the ultra-calming tone. “Let me help you.”
“You’ve helped a lot.” Raven smiled, tapping the check in her purse before turning to leave.
“Wait! Take one more step and I’m calling Dr. Stanton,” Charlene ordered. She reached over the desk to grab the house phone. Her hands shook as she put it to her ear. “If I have to go there, I will. I’m doing this for your own good!”
Arms folded and head cocked to the side, Raven stared her mother down.
“Tell me what’s going on!” No reply followed the order, so she resorted to the next best thing and made a threat, “I know Dr. Stanton’s number by heart. You’re backing me against the wall, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Mom, make this easy on the both of us. Just stop!”
Fingers trembling, she mashed numbers. “I love you. I couldn’t forgive myself, if some—”
“You mean if I slit my wrists and make the pain end?” Raven folded her arms. “You’ll are just waiting for me to snap. Unfortunately for some people who are waiting, I’d never kill myself.”
“Raven, please … It’s my job to keep you safe. You can’t be under this pressure.” She began to dial the number.
“Correction! It was your job to keep me safe as a child, but you abandoned me.” Raven pointed to herself, teeth gritted. “You left me at an orphanage in Iowa. Only to be picked up by Granny and live in Bellwood with a bunch of people to gossip at how a teen runs away then her baby magically appears. Mom, you didn’t even have the decency to come get me when you made it!”
Charlene hung up as the receptionist repeated ‘hello.’ “I th-thought y-you forgave me.”
Raven’s lips barely moved, but the words spoke volumes, “Forgiving is not forgetting.”
Stunned beyond belief, Charlene watched her daughter tear up the $25,000 check. She sat, hands gripping the armrests as she cried. Raven had refused her aid, and glared at her with a world full of mistrust. There was only one more option left, and she wouldn’t back down. “I must save my daughter …”