Wildflower (Chapter 12)

A Chapter by Britiney Harper

...chapter 12...

Chapter 12

“What brings you by today?” Wildflower asked her mother. They went into the kitchen to talk; she knew her mother was mad about something.

“You didn’t think you should tell me you lost your job?”

“I quit,” she said trying not to be bitter about it.

“Brooke’s aunt called and she told me that both of you no longer have jobs. Why is that?” Her mother asked.

“We no longer agreed with the way the management was running things,” she shrugged. She did not want to talk about this, she wanted to forget it and Nicolas almost distracted her enough so she wasn’t angry.

“What do you plan on doing now?”

“I don’t know, I was thinking of working on planning my wedding and spending time with the kids since its summer. Sammie and Evan have been saying that I need to spend more time with them,” she said. A summer without any responsibility was what she’d been dreaming of her whole life.

“So that’s it? You don’t plan to work anymore?”

“For now no, I’ll just be around here,” she said. The look her mother was giving her confused her. Why did she even care? It wasn’t like she was still living with her paying all of the bills.

“You’re going to just be a rich man’s wife? I thought you aspired to be more than that? I knew from the start that this was where you were headed,” her mother said shaking her head. She had the nerve to look at her disappointed.

“That wasn’t what you were saying when you encouraged me to move in with Nick and you weren’t saying that when he bought you a house. Or when he bought clothes and shoes for your sons and they got to have new things for once in their lives,” Wildflower said annoyed. She knew she shouldn’t argue with her mother and she had an idea why she was acting this way.

“I raised you better than this, I don’t need help from this man that owns you. Don’t you know you’re just an object to him?”

“For one thing you didn’t raise any of us and why are you off your meds?” She asked, there was only one reason her mother would be angry with her for no reason and that was because she wasn’t medicated.

“I do not need that medication any more,” Marguerite said.

“Clearly you do, can you not be here saying crazy stuff when there are other people around? Nick’s family is in town I would rather they not see you like this,” she said. It was hard not to be annoyed at her mother.

“That’s all you worry about? You want to be perfect for your new family and then you’ll forget us.”

“Mom, I love you but I’m going to take you home and we will find your pills,” she told her calmly. While she spoke she sent an SOS text to Ivan on her phone. It would be nice for this to go over well but she knew it wouldn’t.

“Hey, Mom I didn’t know you were here,” came Evan’s voice. He walked in the kitchen completely oblivious and went over to the refrigerator.

“She’s about to leave,” Wildflower said. If she could prevent this disaster before it happened, especially in front of Evan.

“Why do you want me to leave? Am I an embarrassment to your new family?” Their mother asked, that got Evan’s attention. He just stared at her confused.

“Don’t do this in front of Evan,” Wildflower whispered to her mother.

“Do what? Tell him that his sister is nothing but a w***e? That’s why Nicolas wants her. You being a w***e is why Daisy died,” she said bitterly.

“What’s wrong with her?” Evan asked.

“Don’t worry about it, just go back to what you were doing,” Wildflower told her brother. “I can handle this.”

“Why did you kill her? I always wished it was you,” their mother said.

“She’s off her meds again, isn’t she?”

“Yes, please Evan just go,” she told him. But of course he didn’t move.

“Why would she do this again? Everybody was happy and everything was normal for once. Why won’t she let us be happy?” He asked, she had been asking herself the same question her whole life.

“I don’t know Ev,” she admitted.

“This is why I don’t want to live with her; this isn’t the way a mother should behave. She ruins everything,” Evan said glaring at their mother.

“I never wanted you anyway,” Marguerite said. “But your father wanted him another boy; I did everything I could to keep from having you. Then he had the nerve to die and leave me pregnant with 11 other kids. Do you know how hard it was for me to not just leave you somewhere?”

“She doesn’t know what she’s saying Evan,” Wildflower said. She got up from the table and took her brother’s hand and pulled him out of the kitchen. “It’s not true; you know that’s not true, right?”

“I don’t care if it is anymore,” Evan said. There was hurt in his voice but he was trying not to show it. “There’s no way in hell I’m going back to live with her.”

“You don’t have to,” she told him. “Stay here, I’ll take care of you, like always.”

“Your mother is doing this on purpose; every time she feels the need for attention she goes off her meds and acts all crazy. I’m done with her.”

“Honey, it’s going to be ok,” she said. She pulled him into a hug. The front door opened and in came Ivan and Jay, she’d never been happier to see them. Especially since she could hear their mother ranting about something in the kitchen, even though she was alone in there.

“Where is she?” Ivan asked, he looked tired and annoyed.

“Kitchen,” she replied. Without another word him and Jay went to retrieve their mother. “Ev, why don’t you go out with the other or something?”

“Anything so that I don’t have to see her,” he said then he went upstairs.

“She said something to Evan?” Ivan asked while Jay was dragging their mother out the front door.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Thanks for coming.”

“My job, and well I didn’t think you would be happy for your new family to know you’re mother is crazy. Not that I care much for your lover,” he said.

“I know, but I just wish she would quit doing this, she was ok for awhile,” she sighed. “Evan is so upset, I can handle it but it’s hard for him.”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to him later,” Ivan said. He hugged her and kissed her forehead and with a wave he left.

It was sometime after Evan was born that her mother had a breakdown. She had to be hospitalized and that was when it was discovered that Marguerite was bipolar. From that moment on everything in the lived of the Laiez family changed. At first they lived with their father’s mother but Marguerite couldn’t keep herself together and eventually had a falling out with her. After that she wouldn’t let her children see their grandmother. Eight years old Wildflower was taking care of her baby brothers while their mother was running around with her erratic behavior. Ricky was the oldest so he quit school to work and take care of his siblings.

When Marguerite was on her medication she was fine and could function at a job and taking care of her children. The only trouble was that more than a few times she went off her medication and her erratic behavior started up. One Christmas she spent all the money for the boys’ gifts out drinking at a bar and she disappeared for a week. There were incidents where she would show up at school in a bathrobe screaming for whatever child she was looking for that day. More than once or twice she embarrassed all of her children. The all tried to do everything they could to take care of each other and their mother and keep her on track.

Today was just proof to Wildflower that there was never going to be an end to this. It had been over a year since the last incident. There was no way she was going to have her mother over to meet Nicolas’ family, not this week anyway. It wasn’t for entirely selfish reasons, right now Marguerite needed to be away from any type of stressful situations. And Evan was not going to be ok if he saw her again any time soon. That made her think of Corey, Tony and Dom; they would have to be in the house with their unstable mother. This was just a very bad, first her job now her mother. And she knew that she was going to have to go stay with her a few days to help her. She was so tired of doing this, of being a mother to her brothers because he mother couldn’t be responsible and take her medication. Maybe her mother needed to stay in the hospital where she wouldn’t be stressed out or have to worry about anything but getting herself better. It shouldn’t have been a surprise after the fire, but she just seemed ok.

Wildflower dragged herself upstairs, her first instinct was to tell Nicolas and have him make it better. But the fact that her first thought was to go to him was a problem. She’d been completely self sufficient since she was 7 and she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. He wanted to take care of her and part of her wanted that too, but she was never going to be completely dependent of another person. Unless it was Ivan, he was the only person she could be so vulnerable with. What Nicolas wanted was a woman that could take care of herself and was strong, that was who she was. So she went into their bedroom instead and laid down. She was drained; it had been a long day, so she closed her eyes and slept her problems away.

Evan was annoyed at his life and his mother. Why had he thought things would be different now? He paced in his room; he wasn’t going to go back to her, not this time. Wasn’t his life crappy enough without his mother being crazy? Sometimes he wished she had given him away or she had an abortion, then he wouldn’t have to deal with her. Most of his life he wished he could runaway and pretend he wasn’t apart of this family.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Sugar asked when she came in the room.

“Nothing,” he said. He did not want to talk about this.

“See the news? My step-daddy is being accused of having sex with a 17 year old girl,” she told him. She laid down on his bed. “See I told Katrina he was watching me get dressed and in the shower. That dumb w***e said I was trying to seduce him. I hate that b***h; she deserves this, public humiliation and another family scandal.”

“And I thought I had issues with my mother,” he said lying beside her.

“I think I’m going to ask Uncle Nick to adopt me, he acts like a father might and keeps me from having fun. It’s been a week since I’ve done anything fun,” she said.

“You think if he adopted you he would let you out? Didn’t he tell you that you couldn’t go out before?”

“Yeah but your sister would let me out, she knows what its like to need to party.”

“She told me I can live here,” he told her.

“Really? I so need to beg them to let me move in too,” she sighed. Then she rolled over to look at him.

Being a lone in a bed with Sugar was a dangerous thing; he knew that for a fact. Especially when she had on a tight tube top and booty shorts and she had that look in her eyes. His sister was going to marry her uncle; they were going to be related. So having sex with her again would probably be bad. She was the one who crawled over to him and got on top of him. If his sister found out she was going to kill him.

“Sug, we really shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.

“When they get married you’ll be like my uncle,” she said. “I’m horny Evan.”

“You are always horny,” he shook his head. Telling her no would be the smart thing and the right thing, but he didn’t feel like being smart. So he pulled her down and kissed her.

The ringing of her cell phone woke her up, it was dark out now. Wildflower dug in her pocket for her cell phone, she knew who it was. And she was pretty sure she knew why she was getting this call. Before she could answer her phone the door opened and Nicolas came in. She did not want to talk about this in front of him. But she didn’t have a choice.

“Hello,” she said into the phone.

“You have to come over here now,” it was her brother Corey.

“What has she done now?”

“Breaking things, I think the neighbors are going to call the cops. You’re good with her, she’s like trying to kill Christina.”

“I’m on my way,” she told him and he hung up.

“Something wrong?” Nicolas asked her while she was looking for shoes.

“So many answers to that question but none of them I can give you,” she said.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with your mother?”

“And that guess would be right,” she paused. “Mom is sick.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I can’t talk about this right now,” she said. She got up and went in the closet, she took off her shirt and put on an old t-shirt of Nick’s instead.

“Tell me what’s going on,” he said. It was definitely an order and she really wanted to yell at him about that but she didn’t have the strength.

“My mother is bipolar and she hasn’t been taking her pills for who the hell knows how long and she’s doing something crazy,” she told him.

“I’ll drive,” he said surprising her. Usually he would ask questions and want to know everything, she was thankful he didn’t want her to explain. “Meet me downstairs I have to get something in my office.”

“Ok,” she nodded and he left the room.

The drive over was mostly in silence, she really needed to think. Maybe she just needed to have her mother go into the hospital again. She hated having to be the responsible daughter; Iris pretended there was no problem. Ricky basically gave his life to taking care of them and their mother. That was why he never moved out on his own, he felt like he had to take care of her. Unfortunately the police where already there when they arrived and some of the neighbors were outside in their night clothes.

“Let me handle this, ok?” Nicolas said before they entered the house.

“If you want to,” she replied.

Inside the house her mother was screaming bout something and the cops looked like they were afraid to go near her. Christina stood off to the side of the disaster that was once the living room with Tony and Jay beside her. Dom and Van stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen. Ricky had been talking to the police and Ivan and Isaiah were standing near their mother trying to calm her down. The whole thing was a familiar scene and not one she wanted to deal with right now. Corey was missing so she assumed he was somewhere with Ariela.

“Why don’t you get your younger brothers and Christina out of here?” Nicolas whispered to her and she listened. He spoke to the police in a hushed voice.

“I’m sorry you had to come,” Christina said to her.

“Not as sorry as I am,” she murmured.

When she heard her mother start yelling again she turned back to see Nicolas beside her on the couch. Ivan and Ricky were holding Marguerite still and Nicolas stuck a needle in her arm. At first she fought then she was still and silent. What had just happened? Then Nicolas was walking the police out and the room was silent. This was definitely not what she was expecting to happen.

“What did he give her?” Christina asked. The boys were in the kitchen now so they didn’t see what happened.

“Just a mild sedative,” Nicolas answered. “I promise it won’t hurt her, just something my company makes.”

“I’m going to check on Ariela,” Isaiah said walking out the sliding glass doors with Christina behind him.

“There is no reason we should still be doing this,” Jay said.

“She needs to go back in the hospital,” Ricky said.

“All she’ll do is check herself out,” Ivan said shaking his head. He came over and put his arm around Wildflower.

“Why don’t you let me make a call? I know a place where she can get some proper care,” Nicolas said.

“Why are you always trying to help us? Did it occur to you that we don’t need you to come to our rescue?” Jay asked, all three brothers were staring at Nicolas.

“We’re family now, and I take care of my family. I’m just trying to be helpful,” he shrugged. “If you don’t want my help then its fine.”

“Shouldn’t you be helping your sister with her child molester husband?” Ivan asked, it was a challenge and Nicolas just looked amused.

“That is not my problem; he needs to be in jail far away from my niece.”

“What can you do?” Ricky asked, if he was on board the others would be too.

“Your mother can go somewhere nicer than a county hospital for one thing. I know of a facility that can give her special attention, it’s a good place,” he told them.

“Alright,” Ricky nodded. Then Nicolas went outside to make a phone call.

“He really has a hero complex,” Ivan said and she pinched him.

“Nick is just trying to be helpful,” Wildflower said.

“Good thing, because I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Ricky said. He looked tired from the inside out; this was what 16 years of taking care of everything did to him.

“Ricky,” she said slowly getting closer to him; she hugged him around the waist. “You get to be off duty and just take care of yourself. Corey and Tony can stay with me and everybody can just live for once.”

“It would be nice for this to be the last time,” Ricky said. He kissed her forehead and there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes for the first time in years.

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