Tameka was quiet as she considered her words.
“Intellectually speaking, I know you’re right, but emotionally, frankly, I’ve had enough of pain. I’m not sure if I want to open myself up to more,” she confessed mournfully.
Meka. Her name was sighed. If relationships were all good, they’d never grow. Life is hard. It takes a strong love to survive it intact. Just as nature requires a good ratio of sunshine and rain to grow and flourish, so does love. Too little of one or the other and plants wither and die. Love is the same way. Trust your heart. Better yet, trust God. He’s the one who brought this man into your life.
“I’ll do that, Ma...” she broke off as the door swung inward.
NeeCee walked in with one of her overnight bags over one shoulder and a bag of aromatic food in her left hand. She looked around the room, a puzzled expression on her face. “Who are you talking to?”
Tameka glanced guiltily at the phone still in its cradle. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she muttered after the silence had thickened to uncomfortable proportions.
NeeCee placed the bag at the foot of the bed right below her feet and the food on the lap table. “Try me,” she encouraged.
“I’ve seen and heard a lot of strange things in the last year.” She shook her head. “You’ll think I’m crazy.” Her sister laughed. “You? Crazy? I know better than that.”
“Sometimes I wonder, with all that’s happened recently,” Tameka said on a sigh.
NeeCee paused while removing Styrofoam containers from the bag. “Meka, you’re the sanest person I know, other than Momma E.”
She watched her sister’s expression closely as she admitted,
“That’s who I was talking to.”
“Oh? Did she answer back?”
Something about NeeCee’s posture and stillness caused Tameka to cautiously confess, “She initiated it.” Her shoulders relaxed and she let out a deep breath. “Oh, thank God. I’m not the only one.”
“You hear her, too?”
“Oh yeah,” NeeCee said with feeling.
“What does she say to you?” Tameka asked eagerly before cautiously adding, “That is, if you don’t mind my asking.” When she was younger, NeeCee would tell her everything without prompting. The one standing before her might not be as open.
NeeCee shrugged. “Typical Momma E. She shows up for one of her little heart-to-heart chats whenever I’m struggling with something important or to warn me. That’s how I knew about you. After she told me you were in the hospital, I immediately called Mom to confirm.” She paused, then continued a bit awkwardly, “What about you?”
“A few days ago was the first time I heard her and each time it’s been about Chad.”
“Warning you off?”
“Just the opposite. Encouraging me to give him a chance.”
“Even though he’s white and a werewolf?” Tameka’s back straightened as she jerked to attention. “You know?”
“Yeah. Heard them talking when I arrived yesterday and confronted Bull. He admitted that he and...and...”
“Chad,” Tameka supplied the name she was searching for.
“Yeah, that they were both werewolves.”
“And you believed him?” Tameka asked skeptically.
NeeCee was a lot more accepting than she.
“Kind of hard not to when he changed in front of me.
Scared the crap out of me.” NeeCee shuddered.
“I can understand my being afraid, but you love dogs, especially big ones.”
“Dogs? What are you talking about?”
“Dogs, wolves, same difference. They both have four legs, are covered in fur, and have fangs,” Tameka stated with a shrug of her shoulder.
“I don’t know what you’ve seen, but a wolf is not what I saw. He turned into a monster straight out of a Lon Chaney movie. Over seven feet tall, a muzzle, fangs, and his face was covered in fur. You want some of this food?”
“I’ve already eaten.” She tried to figure out what NeeCee had seen, glad that’s not what Chad had showed her. And she’d thought his turning into a wolf was frightening. She’d have wet herself if he’d done what Bull did. This whole thing was so confusing. She’d be glad when Carol and her husband arrived.
The questions were just piling up.
“According to my doctor, I’m one of them now,” she said quietly.
NeeCee paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. “How do you feel about that?”
“I haven’t decided. Right now I have more questions than answers. Someone’s stopping by today to provide me with some.”
Silence fell between them while NeeCee devoured her food.
She still had a healthy appetite. Good to see that hadn’t changed.
She waited until NeeCee was almost finished to ask the question pressing on her mind. “Why are you here, NeeCee? I thought you hated my guts,” she finished softly.
NeeCee looked at her then glanced away, just like she used to when she was little and was caught doing something wrong.
After a tense moment, she set her fork down and sighed. “I said a lot of mean, hateful things to you, Meka, and I’m sorry. When you asked me to come live with you, I thought you were trying to take me away from Mom. That’s what she said when I mentioned it to her, and I, fool that I was, believed her. I didn’t know about...” her voice trailed off.
Tameka sat silently, waiting for her to continue, knowing she had to do this her way.
NeeCee took a deep breath, then said in a rush, “I didn’t know about the men...the drugs,” she finished softly. The eyes she raised to Tameka had a tortured expression in them.
Tameka wanted to close her eyes as the pain rushed through her, but didn’t want to send the wrong message to NeeCee.
Instead, she pushed it down to be dealt with at a later time and asked, “How did you find out?”
“When you first left, things were great. Mom spent a lot of time with me. We went everywhere together—shopping, the movies, out to eat. And we talked. It was...nice,” she sighed, a rueful smile of remembrance crossing her face. The smile faded to be replaced by a grimace. “Then, after you’d been gone about a year, she started bringing guys home with her. Men, in and out of the house, coming and leaving at all hours of the night. I was so angry. ‘How could you do this to us, to Daddy?’ I screamed.
‘I’m just having a good time,’ she said. Ain’t nothing wrong with havin’ fun.’ NeeCee swallowed hard. “‘I’m telling Daddy,’ I warned. She was only too happy to tell me Dad had his own thing going, but sometimes he joined her and they all played together. When I stood there with my mouth hanging open, she said, ‘I don’t know why you’re so concerned about a man that’s not even your father.’” NeeCee blinked rapidly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“Oh, Nin-Nee, why didn’t you call me? You know I would have dropped everything and come running.” A small smile briefly crossed NeeCee’s face at the old nickname. When she was little, Tameka used to call her ‘my Nin-Nee Pooh.’ “I think I know that now, but back then I was devastated. Both you and Momma E were gone. I didn’t know how to handle the pain so I acted out. Took Mom’s word for it that what she was doing was ‘fun.’” She wiped at the tears that escaped. “I stole some of her happy pills, but didn’t like the sick, woozy way it made me feel. The alcohol made me nauseous so I gave sex a try. One of Mom’s boyfriends had a taste for tender young things, as he called it. He liked breaking them in. Offered over and over to ‘do me just right.’ One night when Mom was stoned and Dad was out doing his thing, I let him have me.” Tameka sucked in a sharp breath. Damn it, she’d spent years helping other families but hadn’t been there for her own when she was needed.