To take her mind off the song that meant so much to her mother, she focused on the beautiful standing sprays on either side of the casket. Some had lilies. Others had white carnations and yellow roses. The fragrance from the flowers filled the small room, and Alexis breathed it in. She had no idea who ordered the sprays, but she was grateful.

  The funeral repast was held at Alexis’s home. Alexis sat on the sofa and watched the people mill around. Almost forty people had helped her celebrate her mom today. Food covered the kitchen island and the table. Michael made sure that her mother’s favorites were a part of the spread: the chocolate-cookie crunch trifle, macaroni salad, club sandwiches, green bean casserole, and on and on. Everyone was smiling and enjoying themselves and the memories Vivian had left behind.

  Uncle Douglas came over to Alexis with a slice of pie in his hand. “Mind if I sit with you for a little while?”

  She patted the seat next to her. “I’d love some company.”

  He took a couple bites of his pie, then said, “Thank you for allowing me to visit with Vivian. I don’t know how I would have felt about myself if I hadn’t made the effort before she passed.”

  “She was so happy to see you, so I’m the one who owes you a debt of thanks for bringing a smile to her face during her last days with us.” Alexis sighed as she watched the people milling around.

  “I wish I had come sooner,” he admitted. “Vivian and I didn’t get along when we were younger. I just didn’t understand her. The one thing I always admired, though, was how she watched over you. Vivian loved you more than anything and she fought like the dickens to keep you with her, which is why she moved away from our town.”

  “What?” It felt like Uncle Douglas was revealing some new information to her. She turned to him, wanting to understand what he was trying to tell her.

  “You were young when it all went down. Vivian and my mom were very close. However, when Vivian gave birth to you, Mama didn’t think she was responsible enough to raise you with the way she was living. Mama didn’t want to do it, but she contacted Child Protective Services.

  “When Vivian found out, she blew a gasket. She packed and left the farm, and we didn’t see her again until Mama passed. I’d never seen Vivian so distraught as she was at Mama’s funeral. I think she regretted leaving the way she did. But to keep you with her, I think she still would have made the same choice, even if someone would have told her that she would never see Mama alive again. She just loved you so much.”

  “Thank you for telling me that, Uncle Douglas. Now I understand the full reason Mom never took me back to visit when I practically begged her to when I was a kid.”

  Uncle Douglas nodded and squeezed Alexis’s hand. Alexis excused herself and went to her bedroom for a moment of solitude.

  Knowing the reason for Vivian’s choices didn’t rest easy in Alexis’s soul. It made this whole thing so much worse for her. The repast was still going on, but Alexis retired to her bedroom and laid down with her sorrow. Her mother moved away from her whole family so she wouldn’t lose Alexis.

  Vivian’s greatest fear had been that her mother would take Alexis away from her. Even when her mind was reeling and conjuring up all sorts of weird things, Vivian had not lost sight of her end goal, which was to keep Alexis with her. Her goal cost her the relationship she had with her mother.

  Alexis knew that Grandma Joyce’s absence in her mother’s life had hurt. That was why her mother had conveniently forgot that Grandma Joyce had died years ago. But Alexis never knew that Vivian destroyed that relationship because of the love she had for her little girl.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom. I spent years being embarrassed by you, while you gave up everything to be with me.” Alexis sobbed. All the years she spent ashamed of her mother should have been spent celebrating and championing her hero. She’d told herself that she volunteered as a human services assistant to pay it forward for her mother, but that wasn’t the whole truth.

  Truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It didn’t always go down easy or come up smelling like freshly cut lilies and carnations. The truth was Alexis had turned her mother away—the same mother who walked away from the only family she knew in order to keep Alexis. The same mother who hugged her and made her dessert to help her feel better. She had turned that woman away because she wanted and needed the life Michael offered.

  Through tears, Alexis vowed from that day on she would live her truth. She would no longer be ashamed of the flaws that defined her. She was Vivian Cooper’s daughter, and she would live her truth even if it cost her everything.

  The door opened, and Michael peeked his head in. “Do you need anything?”

  The one thing she needed Michael couldn’t give her. No one could. “No, I just want to be by myself for now.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you some time. I’ll come back to sit with you once the guests leave.”

  Alexis sniffed, grabbed some tissue from the nightstand, and blew her nose.

  Michael closed the door, but just as he promised, within thirty minutes he was back in the room with her. He handed her a chocolaty treat. “The kids are cleaning up some of the mess. I’ll finish whatever they leave behind.”

  “Thank you.” She had the treat in her hands. It would be so easy to soothe her pain with sugar, but she put the dessert on the nightstand and turned away from it. Just didn’t seem the same without her mother.

  Michael climbed into the bed and pulled her into his arms. They lay that way for a long while, neither saying anything. They just rested in what they knew for sure: they loved each other. After a while Alexis sat up. Her back was to her husband when she said, “I don’t understand you at all.”

  “I love you, Alexis. Isn’t that enough?”

  She shook her head. “Not anymore. I want the truth from you. I need to know why I could never have my mother around for holidays, birthdays, or any of the events we had in this house throughout the years.”

  Michael repositioned himself to sit next to his wife. He lowered his head, but Alexis lifted it with a finger.

  “Talk to me,” she said as her eyes bore into his, imploring him to give her everything she needed.

  “I-I was uncomfortable around her.”

  “Why? She never did anything to you or against you.”

  “But she wasn’t right.”

  “You mean, she wasn’t perfect,” Alexis challenged.

  “If you want to say it that way. Vivian didn’t portray the image I want for my family.”

  “I used to think I understood you, that I knew what made you tick. I tried my best to do the things that kept you in this happy place you constructed for us. Then I discovered that you stole from someone you called a friend and never even gave the man credit for his work.” Her hands rubbed at her elbows as if she’d felt a cool breeze. “That doesn’t square with the person I thought you were.”

  “I’ve questioned myself about that decision for years now. Why do you think I kept his daughter’s photo for all these years?”

  “I don’t know, but I wish you would tell me.”

  He stood. Hands in pockets. “I tried so many times to come up with an app on my own that would sell in the marketplace, but nothing I came up with was worth much. I kept hearing my dad say, ‘Son, you can do anything in this world, just don’t fail at it.’ Kevin was gone, but I had his app and it was better than mine.”

  Michael swung away from Alexis. “With my dad, it was all about winning. Earning a B on a test wasn’t good enough because winners got As. My silver medal in swimming wasn’t good enough because gold medalists went to the Olympics.”

  Alexis knew that Michael’s father was a narcissist from the first day she met and held a conversation with the man. His father had a great deal of influence on him, but she didn’t realize that influence had caused Michael to become someone unworthy of the place he had claimed for himself.

  “How could I admit to my father, or myself even, that Kevin was better than me? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t put Kevin’s name on the app.” His voice broke as his shoulders shook. He put his hands over his eyes, wiping away tears. “I just couldn’t deal with being a failure.”

  “If you had it all to do over again, would you make the same decision today?”

  Leaning against the wall, Michael looked at Alexis. His eyes were still full with sorrow. “I don’t know if you will believe me about this or not, but being married to you has made me a better man. I still want to win, but not at all costs.”

  “Thank you for finally opening up to me, Michael.” She laid back down and tried to put her mind on something else, but Michael wasn’t done.

  “I admire how you care about other people. To you, a person’s life really matters. You’d do the right thing to help someone else, even if it means that you’d come out on the losing end.”

  She sat back up. “But that’s just it, Michael. I don’t believe that helping others means I come out on the losing end.” She then told him about her mother’s great sacrifice.

  “Wow,” Michael said. “Your mother really loved you. I wish I had given her more of a chance, but I’m glad she was able to spend time with the children.”

  “I was thinking about that when you came to see about me earlier. My mom kept me away from my grandmother so that I wouldn’t be taken from her. In the end I think God gave her time with her grandchildren to heal her heart from all the lonely years she spent missing her mother—and the years she spent missing me and the kids.”

  “I would have never seen it that way. The kids were happy spending time with her. I’m glad you didn’t listen to me and send her back to the nursing home.”

  Now she was ready to tease him. “Oh, so are you actually admitting that you were wrong about something?”

  With the humbleness of a man who was beginning to see the light, Michael said, “I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. I don’t even know how you’ve put up with me all these years.”

  “It hasn’t always been easy, Michael Marshall. But I know you love us, so I keep reminding myself of that.”

  “I’ve disappointed you. I know that, Alexis, but I wanted to talk to you about something else.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I didn’t tell you this earlier, but the Robinsons sent a standing spray for the funeral.”

  “Which flower arrangement did the Robinsons send?”

  “I think it was the one with carnations and roses.”

  Alexis liked Trish. Even after what Alexis had done to her son and how she blew her off about the distracted driving program, Trish still went out of her way to send flowers. “I’ll call Trish tomorrow to thank them. I also need to speak with her about the distracted driving program she started. I think she needs my help, and, even though I don’t want to argue with you about this, I am going to help her.”

  Michael lifted his hands in surrender. “I don’t want to argue with you about this anymore either. As a matter of fact, I want to help also.”

  “Help?” Did somebody spike the punch at the repast? Did her husband actually say he wanted to do something to assist someone else?

  “Yes.” He moved away from the wall and sat back down next to Alexis on the bed. “Distracted driving is a very big problem, especially since the invention of cell phones. My company does have apps that are used on cell phones, so it might be good PR if I paid for an ad campaign against distracted driving.”

  Alexis’s eyes lit up. “Are you joking? Is this for real?”

  “You have gotten behind any and everything that was important to me. Now it’s my turn to do the same for you. Talk to Trish and see if she’s on board. I think an ad campaign would bring more awareness when they speak at schools.”

  Alexis teared up. “I kept waiting. Somehow I knew that you would do the right thing.” She wrapped her arms around her husband and kissed him.

  Chapter 31

  It was Saturday, and Trish had a meeting scheduled with Alexis in about an hour. At the moment, she sat in the family room holding Moochie and talking with Jon-Jon and Marquita. “I’m so happy that you registered for the fall semester, Jon-Jon. I know it isn’t the college of your choice, but you can always transfer after a year.”

  “I’m good, Mama. I need to be close by so I can help out with Moochie.”

  “If you want to run back to that old college of yours, don’t let us keep you, but you know how you get amnesia when you’re not around.” Marquita rolled her eyes.

  “Girl, your eyes are going to get stuck like that one day.” Trish laughed at her.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but Jon-Jon needs to stop playing.” Marquita’s arms wrapped around her chest like she was trying to protect her heart. “He knows he wants to leave us again, so just do it.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to leave y’all. And for the record, I have never left Moochie.”

  “I know,” Marquita snapped back. “Just me. I’m the one that didn’t mean anything to you.”

  Moochie had fallen asleep. Trish stood. “I think I stumbled into a private conversation, so I’m going to lay the baby down and then get things ready for our meeting with Alexis.”

  “It’s cool, Mama. You can sit with us. Marquita is just tripping.”

  Trish shook her head. “No, son. A wise man taught me to get out of grown folks’ business and let them handle things on their own. So I’m going to let the two of you talk.”

  Kissing Moochie on the forehead, she laid him down on the bed. She then whispered in Moochie’s ear, “Your parents need to get their act together.”

  Trish didn’t have time for Jon-Jon and Marquita’s drama, so she went to her room and grabbed her laptop, a couple of notebooks, and some pens. Trish was so excited about her meeting with Alexis that she didn’t know what to do with herself. She had only imagined speaking at a few high schools and colleges to bring awareness to how harmful distracted driving can be. Only five teenagers attended her first event. After the first event, Trish started praying for fifty attendees at her next speaking event.

  When Alexis called to tell her that her husband wanted to sponsor an ad campaign against distracted driving, needless to say, Trish was dumbfounded. They were going to do a commercial, design postcards, post billboards, do interviews, and speak on campuses and in corporate America. Kids weren’t the only ones texting and driving. These high-powered executives thought they couldn’t wait until they turned off their car to read a text message either.

  Trish’s excitement had quickly turned to dread when Marquita’s mother showed up at the house acting a country fool, screaming and hollering outside, disturbing the neighbors until Trish let her in the house. Even that didn’t satisfy her. Once in the house Gloria started ranting and raving without so much as a “How you doing?” Her car was parked in front of the house, and Trish noticed two teens in the car. She wanted to invite them in, but with the way Marquita’s mother was acting, Trish didn’t want to do anything to prolong this visit.

  “Look, Ms. Lewis, you can’t come up in my house acting like this,” Trish tried to tell the woman.

  “You got my daughter in here, and y’all done kidnapped my grandson, so I can come in here acting any way I want,” Gloria told her.

  Marquita came running out of the family room. “Mama, please stop. The Robinsons have been good to me, and here you come trying to ruin everything. You can’t stand for me to have anything good in my life.”

  The doorbell rang again. Trish wished that she could snap her fingers and make this whole ordeal stop, but this woman was not ready to give up yet. Trish couldn’t leave Alexis on the porch, ringing the doorbell. She opened the door, getting ready to apologize for all the yelling, when she noticed a young man and teen girl get out of Gloria’s car and come up the sidewalk, heading toward her house. “Alexis, I’m sorry for all the noise,” Trish said. “If you can give me a minute, I’ll take care of this and then we can get on with our meeting.”

  “It’s no problem. I think I heard Marquita’s mother as I pulled up. I met her a few months back. If you don’t mind, I might be able to help you with this situation.”

  Shock appeared on Trish’s face. Why on earth would this woman want to enter a home with this much commotion? “Be my guest. If you can get that woman to quiet down, I’d appreciate it.”

  Alexis walked into the kitchen where Gloria, Marquita, and Jon-Jon were going at it. Trish turned to the two young adults at her door. “Can I help you?”

  “My mom is inside with my sister. Can we come in?”

  “You’re Marquita’s brother and sister?” Trish extended a hand. “Hello, I’m Mrs. Robinson, or Mrs. Trish, whichever you prefer.”

  “I’m Mark, and this is my sister Kee Kee.”

  As they entered the house, Gloria was saying, “I kept that baby for you free of charge. Now you act like you can’t bring him to see me even though I told you I wanted to see him. That ain’t right, Marquita.”

  “Look how you act, Mama. I don’t want all of this drama around my baby anymore. Can’t you just leave me alone and let me have some peace in my life?”

  “Don’t say things like that, Marquita. Mama loves you. Mark and I love you too.”

  “I’m sorry, Kee Kee. I love you and Mark too,” Marquita said.

  “Oh, but you don’t love me? You don’t appreciate nothing I’ve done for you. Is that what you’re saying?” Gloria stepped closer to Marquita.

  “I just want peace, Mama. The way you act is too much for me.” Eyes rolling and hands flailing in the air, she said, “I look at you, and I see everything I don’t want to be. I don’t want Moochie to be around you anymore because I don’t want him witnessing all the drama that you’ve put me, Mark, and Kee Kee through all of our lives. Can you just leave me alone?”

  Shocked, Trish’s mouth hung open. She couldn’t believe the way Marquita spoke to her mother. In all her days and as much as her mother got all up in her business, she never would have had the audacity to say something like this to Sister.

  She looked over at Alexis. She claimed she could help cool this situation down when she came into the house, but Alexis was barely paying Gloria and Marquita any attention. She was staring at Kee Kee with her mouth hanging open, as if she was in a daze or something.