“Are you actually being nice to me?” Marquita couldn’t believe this.

  “I know you got in trouble last week, but I can tell that you’re trying to do something different, and I wanted to help.”

  “And you’re being for real? This isn’t some scheme to get me in trouble for reading at my desk?” Marquita wasn’t about to give Eve another chance to run to the supervisor’s office and tell on her. She was almost positive that Eve was the one who told on her. She had to think about Moochie and building a future for the both of them.

  “I wouldn’t do that. I’m not as bad as you think,” Eve told her.

  Marquita gave Eve a fake smile. “Okay, well, thank you.”

  “Or why don’t you get some headphones and attach them to your cell phone if you’d rather listen to music?”

  Eve didn’t sound like she was on a mission to sabotage a coworker. She didn’t look like the type of person who got off on doing stuff like that. “So this is for real. You’re just trying to help?”

  “I really am. I’m also sorry about how I’ve been treating you. I wasn’t raised to treat people like that.”

  That comment intrigued Marquita. “Did your mom quote Bible scriptures at you and tell you to treat others with respect while you were growing up?”

  Eve smiled, looked as if she was remembering some sweet memory. “Your mom was like that too?”

  “Girl, bye. My mom is a complete wreck. She don’t respect nobody, and she certainly hasn’t read the Bible. But my son’s other grandmother has been talking to me about respect, and I’m trying to follow her lead.”

  Eve stuck her hand out to Marquita. “Can we start again?”

  “I think I’d like that.” Marquita shook her hand. The phones started ringing.

  “I’ve got to get that,” Eve said. “We can talk more on our break if you want.”

  “Works for me.” Marquita put her headphones on and answered the call coming into her line.

  After that, the rest of Marquita’s day was like the start of something special. By the end of the week, her supervisor came to her desk and said, “Hey, I just wanted to thank you for taking heed to our conversation last week.”

  Marquita was grinning like the sun was shining down on her and Pharrell Williams was singing “Happy” as she walked to her car.

  Once she got in the car and started to head home, her cell phone rang. It was her mother. Marquita instantly tensed, wondering what might have happened. Praying that Mark and Kee Kee were okay, she answered. “Hey, Mama, how are you doing?”

  “Not too good,” Gloria told her.

  They just moved into their rental home. She couldn’t be having problems already, Marquita thought. Come on. Please say it’s something else. “What’s wrong?”

  “I haven’t seen my grandson in a few weeks, and I’m trying to figure out why you’re keeping him from me.”

  “What? I’m not keeping Moochie from you. There’s just been a lot going on.”

  “I used to keep him for you while you were at work. Now, all of a sudden, you don’t need me no more and I can’t see my Moochie.”

  Marquita almost reminded her mother of the day she told her to go find her baby’s daddy. Well, she found him, and he don’t mind watching his kid. She took a deep breath. “I’ll bring him to see you this weekend.”

  “I’m not going to be home this weekend.”

  “Then why are you getting on me about this, when you don’t even have time to see him right now?”

  Gloria started screaming through the phone: “Because you ain’t right, and I called to tell you about yourself!”

  Her week had been going so well. Honestly, she would rather have not heard from her mother at all today. She would have stayed happy and could have continued to think of herself as someone of worth, someone who could make a change. But could she really have changed if she was this angry over a conversation with her mother?

  Her mother hung up on her and that feeling of wanting to scream until she could scream no more came over her again. It was too much, so she screamed and then screamed again.

  Chapter 28

  Drives seemed to calm her mother, so Vivian had become Alexis’s ride-along as she picked up the kids each day. When the kids got in the car and saw their grandmother, their eyes would light up. The oddest part about it was that Alexis was also enjoying herself with Vivian.

  They were out on another drive when Vivian put her hand over Alexis’s and said, “Thank you.”

  Smiling at her mother, she asked, “What are you thanking me for?”

  “I enjoy spending time with you and the kids. I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to hang around.”

  “Mom, we are happy to be around you. You don’t have to thank me for that.”

  “You haven’t always wanted to be around me and you know it. Even yesterday, I could tell you were upset with me.” Somehow, thinking about yesterday tickled Vivian’s funny bone, and she threw her head back and cackled like her mind was half there and half somewhere else.

  Alexis didn’t care about that anymore. Let people stare. They would never know the true essence of Vivian Cooper. They would never know what a wonderful woman she was despite the mental illness that captured her mind so long ago.

  Alexis didn’t even care about the fit her mother threw in the house last night when it was time to take her medicine and she didn’t want to take it. “I’m sorry, Mom. I wish I could go back in time and redo some things. You are truly a wonderful woman, and I am blessed to know you.”

  “You’re doing fine, daughter. No need to redo anything. No time for regrets either.”

  “I just wish . . .”

  Vivian patted Alexis’s hand. “You know what we should have done last night, right?”

  Alexis couldn’t think of anything else they could or should have done. She had tried to do as many things as she thought Vivian would enjoy. “What else would you like to do?”

  “We should have made our chocolate-cookie trifle.”

  Alexis laughed out loud like she hadn’t in a very long time. Her mother knew she had acted out last night, but she also remembered what she used to do for her daughter after one of her episodes. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we pick up the items we need while at the grocery and then go home and make the dessert for the whole family?”

  “The kids will love it,” Vivian said.

  They picked up the items at the grocery and then went home and got busy in the kitchen. Ethan entered the kitchen as they filled the jars.

  “Awesome!” he shouted. “You’re making those chocolate things again.”

  Alexis turned to her mom. “Ethan’s the reason I only had one trifle that day at the nursing home. He ate all but the last one.”

  Vivian pinched Ethan’s cheek. “I’ll make sure you get an extra trifle tonight too.”

  “Thanks, Granny.” Ethan skipped out of the kitchen, excitement in his eyes because of the extra dessert.

  “Mom, you’re spoiling these kids even worse than Michael and I do. I don’t know how I’m going to get them in line after—” Alexis had a sudden intake of breath. The last thing she wanted to think about was her mother’s death. Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts.

  “You don’t have to be scared, Alexis. Death is a part of life. Some people do great things with the life they’ve been given. Up till now, I’ve just been existing.” Vivian did a tap-tap on her forehead. “Can’t get this thing to work right. But you and my grandchildren have a chance to do great things, and that makes me happy.”

  Alexis didn’t know what to say to that. Her mother had been doing so much better with the new medication. Maybe Vivian was the one who would do great things. She just needed the time to do it.

  When Michael arrived home, they ate dinner and then enjoyed their dessert. Vivian went to her room to lay down and the kids took off before they could be asked to help with cleaning up.

  “Everything was delicious, hon.” Michael wrapped his arms around her as she placed the dishes on the counter, getting ready to put them in the dishwasher.

  Michael’s hands around her used to make her feel so special, like the world couldn’t spin on its axis without their love. But at this point in their marriage, she was questioning everything. “Did you have any luck finding Kee Kee?”

  He released her and moved her away from the counter. “I’m not the bad guy here, Alexis. All I did was provide for our family.”

  “I’m just thinking about Kevin’s family. Doesn’t his daughter deserve to be provided for also? Could you have ever imagined that you would do something like this to a friend who basically gave you the key that jump-started this wonderful life we have?”

  “Can we please stop arguing for one night? I’m really getting sick of it.”

  She wanted to tell him that he started it, no matter how childish she might sound. He had, in fact, started arguing with her from the moment she brought her mother home. “Forget it. If you don’t care, then I don’t care.”

  “I didn’t say that I don’t care. I’m not saying that you aren’t right. I have been trying to find Kevin’s daughter, but I haven’t had much luck so far. I even hired a private investigator.”

  Okay, at least he was trying. Alexis put the dishes in the dishwasher and then sat down in the family room with Michael to watch the evening news.

  “How is your mother doing today?”

  Alexis side-eyed him, wondering why he would even ask about her mother—as if he cared. Then she remembered the scene Vivian made, screaming and running away from her last night. “She’s been calm today. She enjoyed our drive. We’ve been apart for so long. She just wants to spend time with us.”

  “That’s how you feel now, isn’t it? Like I’ve kept you from your mother for years?”

  “I’m not upset with you for that, Michael, because I had a part to play in putting my mother in all those homes too. I could have said no. I could have walked away from you and kept living life as I knew it, but I wanted everything being with you offered. I can admit that. And now I have to live with the choice I made.”

  Michael turned to her. He lightly rubbed her arm. She used to get goose bumps when he did that . . . Nothing.

  “We have a good life, Alexis, don’t forget that. You were all I ever wanted and, even after thirteen years, that hasn’t changed for me. Has it changed for you?”

  She shook her head. “I still love you, Michael, but I’m not the same girl you married. I want different things, and if our marriage is going to survive, you have to accept that.”

  “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you and your mother since she’s been in the house. I have to admit that, except for a few off-color things she’s said to the kids and all the screaming she did last night, she hasn’t been much trouble at all.”

  Alexis heard every word Michael said, but something on the local news caught her attention, so she couldn’t respond. A reporter was holding a microphone and standing inside of a school auditorium, but that wasn’t what caught Alexis’s attention.

  Trish Robinson was standing next to the reporter, and John Robinson was seated in his wheelchair. The reporter said, “You gave a very impassioned speech about distracted driving. Can you tell us why this is so important to you?”

  “Yes, of course,” Trish said as the reporter put the microphone in her face. “Distracted driving matters to me because it almost destroyed my family.”

  Trish looked to John and continued, “My son was in college on a football scholarship when a car accident with someone who had been distracted by their cell phone took all of that away from him.”

  The reporter asked, “Are you bothered by the sparsely attended event?”

  John took the microphone and said, “Not at all. My mom told me that if she could convince just one of these students not to use their cell phones while driving, then she might have helped to save a guy like me from a wrecked future.”

  “And what does the future look like for you, young man?”

  With a huge smile on his face, John Robinson took the microphone again. “If you would have asked me that a few months ago, I wouldn’t have had anything good to say. But the future is bright for me. I’m more convinced than ever that despite my circumstances, I’m going to survive. No, no, strike that. I’m going to thrive.”

  Trish bent down and hugged her son. “I’m so proud of you, Jon-Jon.”

  Michael turned the television off as he paced the room. “How dare they be out there shooting their mouths off about the accident. I just paid those people seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and they have the nerve . . . I’m calling my attorney.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m taking them to court for breach of contract.” Michael reached for his cell phone.

  “They did not mention my name, and how can they be in breach of contract if I am in total agreement with what they are doing?”

  “You can’t be. They are going to ruin everything.”

  Alexis couldn’t believe she was standing her ground about this, nor could she believe the next words that came out of her mouth. “Trish did not say my name during that interview. So they aren’t in breach of any contract. But they won’t have to say my name because I am joining her at the next event, and I will tell my story to the audience myself.”

  The way Michael looked at her made her feel like she was in a Martin Scorsese movie and Michael was about to ask if she was going against the family. But she had to stand her ground. She had to do what was right.

  “You don’t care what happens to me anymore? Is that it? You’re so anxious to get back at me that you’d sabotage my company and your own children’s future?”

  “No, you’re not going to lay that at my feet.” Her pointer finger jutted in his direction. “You sabotaged the buyout of your company when you stole Kevin’s idea and acted like it was yours.”

  “Really, Alexis? That’s how you see me? I’m a thief in your eyes?”

  Folding her arms around her chest and giving him an I-don’t-know-who-you-are-anymore staredown. “Find that little girl, give her what you owe, and I’ll never say anything like this again. But until then, I don’t know what to think about you.”

  Michael threw up his hands and left the room.

  Alexis sat exhausted from the fight with Michael. She exhaled as she watched him walk toward his office. She was making things worse for him. That wasn’t what she wanted at all. She loved her husband, but she couldn’t keep sweeping things under a rug and acting like everything was fine.

  Things were not fine and probably would never be again—at least not in the delusional, “hiding secrets to make everything better” kind of way that they had been living. Michael strived for perfection, but they didn’t have the perfect family. Life could still be good if they worked at it.

  With this last stand, Alexis didn’t know if Michael would be able to forgive her for what she needed to do. She needed to talk to someone before making the decision that could cost her the very thing she thirsted for when she said yes to putting her mother in a nursing home.

  Alexis went upstairs to her mother’s room. She opened the door. Her mother appeared to be asleep. She looked so peaceful that Alexis almost backed out of the room. Just as she was about to close the door, she noticed that her mother’s chest didn’t have that slight up and down movement of sleep.

  Tiptoeing over to the bed, Alexis had this strange feeling that she shouldn’t be tiptoeing, but rather stumping and shouting. Her. Mother. Wasn’t. Breathing.

  She touched Vivian’s arm. It was warm. Alexis grinned. She was just being silly and imagining things. Her mother was fine. Alexis shook Vivian’s shoulder, “Mom, are you okay?”

  No response.

  No! No! No! This wasn’t happening. Tears sprang to Alexis eyes as she shook her mother again. “Wake up, Mom. Wake up! Wake up!”

  They’d had such a wonderful day. Everything had been good. Vivian had been calm. They even made their favorite dessert. It wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over. “WAKE UP!” Alexis screamed as she shook her mother’s shoulders once again.

  Ella ran into the room. “What’s wrong, Mom? Why are you screaming?”

  Alexis swung around to see Ella’s eyes wide with fear. “Call 911. She won’t wake up.”

  Ella ran out of the room, yelling and screaming all the way down the stairs.

  Alexis climbed on the bed next to her mother. She wrapped her arms around Vivian and held onto her, never wanting to let her go. “Mom, oh, Mom, don’t do this. Don’t go now. I was just getting to know you.”

  Tears streamed down Alexis’s face and fell onto Vivian like a sudden rainstorm. “Please, Mom, please stay here with me. Wake up. I need you.”

  Ethan and Ella stood at the foot of the bed crying and begging their grandmother to wake up.

  “Grandma Vivian, don’t go,” Ella said.

  “We don’t want you to die,” Ethan said.

  Michael came into the room. He put his arms around Alexis. “The ambulance is on the way, baby. I’ll stay here with you. Get down from the bed and sit in the chair, okay?” He was talking slow like he thought she didn’t understand normal speech.

  “I don’t want to leave her, Michael. I left her alone for so long. I can’t leave her anymore.” She turned to face him. Her face was wet from the storm. “Can you understand that? I can’t leave her.”

  He nodded. “I understand, and I’m so sorry, Alexis. I’m so sorry for everything. I never meant to hurt you like this.”

  Michael was crying with her. He held her as she held onto her mother. “Mom, remember Purple Rain?” Alexis asked as if she would get an answer. “I was so ashamed to ride in that van that you loved so much, but I really did enjoy singing that song with you in your purple van.”

  Drizzle ran from her nose, mixing with the tears. “I didn’t understand you back then, but I do now. That’s why I want you to stay. We’ve had so much fun. Don’t go, Mom. Don’t go.”