Chapter 13

The steady patter of rain outside the window was balm for taut nerves. Its' loamy scent permeated the house. Occasional flashes of lightning and claps of thunder reminded them that a Severe Thunderstorm Alert remained in effect for the next few hours as afternoon turned to evening. Their sleep that night would be deep and restful.

"Ain't you getting too old for tats?" Karisma queried scrutinizing her mother's chest.

Indianapolis was only 120 miles from Louisville, so even after she returned there, if something told her to go home to check on things, she could do so easily over a single weekend. Ibrahim continued to keep the bills paid, but it was Karisma who actually looked after Dorinda and Hayvn. It had become routine for her to arrive late Friday evening and leave early Monday morning. 

"You wish." Dorinda said fiddling with the strap of her tank top. "I'm like fine wine. I only get better with time!"

"You barely look like somebody's mother let alone a grandmother." Karisma shook her head although she knew well that her mother looked very good for her age, nowhere near 40, and she should be thankful that her mother was not strung out on crack or chasing dick instead of raising her children. No-No had never enjoyed being seen in public with her youthful mother  and she was the only one Dorinda would even consider tamping down her flamboyancy for, dressing somewhat conservatively so she could attend the little girl's award's ceremonies and other school functions. 

"You know what I call ya'll." Dorinda smiled with an almost tender expression on her face. "Your brothers are the only mens' names that I will ever put on my body."

She did know. Her mother referred to her children affectionately, when speaking of them collectively, as the "Five Loves of My Life". On her chest, just above her heart, were the full names of her children minus surnames, their dates of birth, and something she had hoped she would never have need for, dates of death, all written in beautiful calligraphy beside a key under that title. The addition of the dates was what had drawn Karisma's attention. Dorinda might not have looked like anyone's idea of a mother, but she had been known to be a fairly good one and considered herself blessed to have her five, especially the last two, who had been all hers' and hers' alone. 

"Flavio posted on No-No's page saying how sorry he was and asking how you're holding up." Karisma tried to sound casual though her eyes were glued to her mother and she held her breath in anticipation. 

"You mean he decided to be civil for a change?"

Karisma breathed a sigh of relief. Her father had been a thorn her in mother's side for quite a number of years throughout her childhood. The Brazilian national had threatened to run off with baby Karisma to Brazil when Dorinda had filed to establish paternity and asked him to pay child support. In the end, the then 19 year old, had made the wise decision to take her infant daughter and get on with life as best she could manage. Time and again, Karisma had been invited to Brazil by Flavio, and every single time Dorinda saw through his scheme and made it clear that her Kansas born daughter hadn't lost anything in Brazil and would thus be staying in the United States. His contact with Karisma was restricted to mail, phone, and most recently internet. They been living in the same house with the same phone number for almost 13 years by the beginning of 2010 since she was 8 years old and he knew precisely where to find her.

"Victor contacted me too and asked if I needed anything." Dorinda broke the silence after several seconds.

Victor Diaz was the twins' father, whose birth had caused a scandal in the small backwoods Georgia town Dorinda was raised in and been the driving force behind her decision to join the Army. She wanted to get far away from the deeply religious mother who in one breath cursed Victor as a filthy w*****k rapist and in the next, labelled their sons as abominations that would never be welcome in her home. With the assistance of Victor, more than 10 years her senior, 17 year old Dorinda and her twin sons had gotten out of dodge the moment she graduated from high school. Victor had never been a deadbeat, willingly supporting his sons and seeing them as often as he could, so the former lovers remained on good terms over 20 years later.

"He's probably hiding Isaac in Puerto Rico or New York someplace." Karisma retorted.

Police had carried out a raid on Isaac's residence in Florida after a months' long investigation, that had quickly turned into a major drug bust, during which undisclosed evidence regarding Amaris's death and Machlon's disappearance had been uncovered. The detective who called Dorinda had been annoyingly vague and was promptly hung up on after admitting Isaac himself had slipped through their fingers. Most of what the family knew had come from online newspaper articles since Dorinda subsequently refused to communicate with the police department that she insisted was the most corrupt and ghetto she'd ever heard of. None of them were pleased with the shameless exploitation and mass dissemination of misinformation about the children in their family. Wild claims that made no sense.

Local Drug Dealer Busted, Linked To Suspicious Death Of Local Teen, And Disappearance Of A Second Transient Teen

"Hiding him?" Dorinda sounded genuinely shocked. "Child, please. He wouldn't condone Isaac's madness."

"It's his son." Karisma pointed out. "He's very proud of his sons."

"He said if he knew where Isaac was he'd call the police and turn him in himself." Dorinda disagreed. "He got on to me too and said I should've kicked Isaac's a*s out of my house and let him stay gone, way back when I first suspected he was selling drugs." 

The life paths of the twins had begun to diverge during the latter years of high school with Ibrahim graduating high school early before he'd turn 17 and humbly working an honest part time job, something both Dorinda and Victor agreed was a good way to keep a young man occupied and out of trouble. He was the good son, did what his parents asked, and enjoyed keeping busy. They were so proud when he earned a full ride to college in Texas. Isaac, on the other hand, had proved himself allergic to hard work and had only obtained a part time job because Dorinda herself filled out various applications, chose his clothes to make the right impression , and took him to his interviews to make sure he went. There had been so many afternoons she would come home to find him there, neatly dressed as if he hadn't broken a sweat all day though he was supposed to be working on a construction site, playing video games or talking on the phone, yet he always had money for expensive things. She would ask Wissy and No-No how long he'd been there and they often told her, he would return shortly after she left in the mornings. 

He had also lost interest in his education during his last two years of high school and greatly disappointed his parents when he did not even bother to apply to any colleges. It was Victor who had been the one to say after that announcement that Isaac could not stay in his mother's home anymore since she had two young children and an infant grandchild to worry about. Isaac had left to Florida shortly afterwards claiming he was going to stay with some relative of Victor's and they hadn't heard much from him for over a year until No-No had her mishap with the stairs that landed her in the hospital with an inexplicably ruptured pancreas requiring emergency surgery and a blood transfusion which Dorinda refused to allow. Ignorant doctors with an ingrain prejudice against Jehovah's Witnesses had accused her of abusing and wanting her own child to die, though she'd freely consented for them to use any bloodless alternatives they deemed necessary during the surgery and begged them to save her little girl's life.  He was like Robin Hood when he returned to Louisville without being asked to, offering to care for his youngest siblings until CPS got off Dorinda's back, and making many promises, when in reality they now suspected he was merely attempting to outdo his twin who he seemed to resent. 

"I wish you could have saw how Isaac was acting when you wasn't around." Karisma sighed. 

"Don't tell me no more about what Isaac did to my babies right now." Dorinda said tersely. "I know none of this s**t should've ever went down, but ain't nothing I can do about it now and won't nobody tell me what I really want to know!"

Karisma left it at that, especially since she had made the promise not to discuss No-No and Wissy until they got justice for them. The door to their bedroom remained firmly shut as she had left it the day Dorinda passed out and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Much as it hurt, she tried to keep the guilt under control and what she had witnessed that Dorinda and Ibrahim had not, to herself. Had she not told her mother the true origins of the mysterious bruises on Wissy while she'd been battling with the close minded hospital staff to let her see and be there for her own hospitalized child, then Dorinda would have never collapsed. 

After several minutes, Karisma decided to try to cheer her mother up. 

"Well I got some news that you might like to know." 

"What?" Dorinda barely glanced away from the new crime show she was watching called ironically enough 'Disappeared'.

"Hayvy has a little cousin." She tried to sound cheerful.

"From?" 

Hearing the hardness in her mother's voice, she knew she probably should have kept quiet about what she had recently discovered during her Facebook research. Leah, Isaac's broad who Silah had suggested she looked up ,had a little boy around 2 years old and it without saying who she had tagged as her baby's daddy. She'd saved a picture to her I-phone and this is what she now pulled up to show her mother. "Meet your grandson!" 

The device was practically ripped out of her hand.

"Whose baby is this supposed to be?" Dorinda demanded hostilely. "I know it ain't yours' and I know damn well it better not be No-No's!

"If it isn't mine and it's not hers' then it must belong to one of your sons..."

"If you say it's Wissy's I'm fixin' to...." Her mother started to get her feet agitated.

"Sit down before you blood pressure gets up again!" She reached out to take her phone back. "It's Isaac's by that Trick Rabbit Squirrel as you put it."

"Well that cracked out s**t better not think we're going to claim or do anything for her little b*****d. If Isaac had any kind of f*****g sense left in his head he wouldn't be claiming that TPT's baby either without no DNA test." Dorinda declared decisively. "I've only got one grandchild and she's right down there by G'Mama's feet." 

Hayvn smiled adoringly at her grandmother in turn. 

"And she better not have no pictures of my children holding her b*****d either!" 

An afterthought that came to mind looking at her granddaughter. Wissy and No-No had never handled or held a baby or toddler prior to Hayvn's birth. They had been the babies and toddlers that their older siblings practiced on as children. She was visited in the hospital after the birth of the former by two 5 years old and nearly 4 year old. On the morning after she finally brought the latter into the world, her first visitors had been two 7 year olds and a 5 1/2 year old with flowers in one hand dragging a petulant 20 month old by the arm. She'd cuddled and placated her toddler, who was mad at her for going into the hospital and leaving him, while her older children eagerly passed her newborn from arms to arms asking what their new baby sister's name was. Pictures from those births were some of her most treasured memories as were those of the two youngest, then 12 and 10 years old, with their newborn niece, welcoming the little one into their formerly insular family.

"Your kids think like you." Karisma took her phone back from her mother's slack hand while she had the chance and swiped to another picture that she held out knowing it would be funny to both of them. 

Dorinda glanced and instantly the look on her face changed, softening considerably. "Look at No-No's face....she's just like Mommy!"

The second picture, captioned 'Chillin' Wit Da Fam', was of Isaac's woman with the kid clad solely in a pull-up, No-No, and Wissy seated on a couch in what was assumed to be Isaac's living room. Only the woman was grinning, obviously proud of her little boy. Wissy was fiddling with his cellphone mindful to keep considerable distance between himself and her. No-No was on his right, comfortably leaning against his shoulder and casting a contemptuous look in the woman's general direction. To anyone who knew her well, the look meant she was thinking this is some straight up bullshit! 

"See? Even she knew that trick and her baby wasn't their family!" 

With the atmosphere light again, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. 

"That's Mama's Baby right there. And my prince looking so much like his daddy I can't even be mad." 

Karisma was taken aback by the last remark.

Sebastian Gessinger didn't get mentioned hardly any around their household, unless it seemed he was attempting to disturb the children's lives and interfere with their vital need to have their mother near them in order to function properly. Dorinda had said and meant it with every fiber of her being that he and his wife would lay claim to the children she brought into the world, only over her dead body and still likely not then, since she had vowed then they were very young, to take her prince and princess with her to sleep in death before she risked leaving them to such a sordid fate. Her children needed her and only her. Period. Nobody could claim that a mother as devoted and possessive as Dorinda Lewis didn't love or want her children!

Karisma deleted the baby pic and reposted the fake family pic to Amaris's memorial page with a new and accurate caption.

Wissy&No-No Trying To Figure Out Who These Strangers Are!

Under it, she added an old picture she'd recently uploaded to her phone, which needed no explanation, yet garnered over a hundred 'likes' in less than an hour.

Tears came to her eyes as the old studio portrait brought back memories of what was and what never would be again.

Dorinda, expressive cocoa brown face alight with true contentment and joy, was seated on a bench with No-No, no more than 2 or 3 years old in her arms to keep her soothed, and Wissy, not yet turned 5, on her lap. To her left stood Ibrahim and on her right was Isaac, both leaning in to give her a kiss on either cheek. Karisma was seated primly at her feet. Well dressed, well groomed, and well nourished children with their happy and proud mother.  

Other pictures were of the house Dorinda had been equally as happy and proud to purchase with the assistance of her VA benefits to raise her children in. Karisma was not trying to brag, only give evidence to her counterclaims, that her mother, imperfect as she may be, had done the best she could. Outsiders talked about her younger siblings as if they were neglected and rejected orphans, which simply was not true. Their ignorant accusations and assumptions knew no bounds.

For all of you haters, THIS right here is the loving mother and family my little brother and baby sister were born to and lived with uninterrupted from birth till May 2006. THIS is the HOME they lived and THRIVED in from February 1997-May 2006. THIS is their bedroom, right next door to their hypervigilant mother, where they were cruelly dragged from their beds AGAINST THEIR WILL in the middle of the night while they were asleep by Isaac in December 2006, never to spend another night in their own mother's home. I have said it before and will say it again....Wissy&No-No were hostages in Florida and both would still be alive today if Isaac had just left them alone where he found them.

At the end of the weekend, Karisma returned to Indianapolis to the normal drudgery of daily life as an LPN at a local hospital thinking she had finally managed to set the record straight in a way that made sense. She ignored the strange feeling she had and threw herself into her work. An open workbook was never far from her hands when she had a spare moment as she began to realize the need to refocus her attention on her nursing studies. 

The phone call she received during her late night shift on Thursday from an incensed Ibrahim completely caught her off guard.

"What the f**k do you think you're doing?" Ibrahim, usually a man of very few words who hardly ever raised his voice, bellowed. "What on Earth possessed to you to tell those motherfucking ne'er-do-wells where our mother lives?"

Struggling to process her eldest brother's venomous words, Karisma ducked into an unoccupied conference room and dropped heavily on the couch. In doing so she realized she had become light headed. She had been holding her breath without realizing it.

"Isaac f***s with all kinds of dangerous shady characters and you're so damn simple minded that you thought it was a good idea to tell these goons on Facebook exactly where to find our disabled mother and a helpless 5 year old child?" Ibrahim's voice rose several decibels until he hardly sounded like himself.

Unable to say anything that might calm him, she held the phone away from her ear and waited for him to wear himself out. 

"If Isaac didn't have something vengeful in mind and hadn't already told them Mama's whereabouts, they as sure as hell know now thanks to your ignorance!"

In all of the 21 years she had known him, Karisma had never once heard Ibrahim speak like that to anyone, especially not a female in his own family. He had always been the rigid sort who expected his advise, orders, and warnings to be followed by his younger siblings but still he never got anywhere near this irate. The lump in her chest grew bigger as his words sank in. 

"I just wanted people to leave Mama alone about what kind of mother she was." Her words were choked with panic as she found her voice at last.

"Great f*****g job, Loud Mouth!" Ibrahim berated her. "Now, leave her alone is the last things that folks are going to do!"

Sure enough, when Karisma made the trip down to Louisville for the weekend the next evening, she was greeted with the dreaded news. 

"The news wants to interview me!" 

Author's Note

Any comments or observations appreciated.

Reviews

[SweetNutmeg]

I'm finding out a lot of information I didn't have before, lots of back story. Specifically, you are telling me a lot of stuff, rather then showing it to me. One example of what I am talking about is the phone conversation between Ibrahim and Karisma. You start out by telling us she was caught off guard, quote Ibrahim, then tell us how unusual this kind of language was, then , finally, at the end, show us a bit of what Karisma was feeling with the lump in her chest. I think it would be possible to mix showing how shocked Karisma was by mixing physical sensations right from the beginning, and peppering the rant with more physical sensations, instead of waiting for the end to show is a little of her reaction. You can break up the rant as much as you like, to insert physical sensations. For example:

The phone rang and Karisma felt X. Ibrahim said, "blah blah blah." Karisma felt X. Ibrahim went on "blah blah blah" and Karisma felt Y. His words continued "Blah blah blah" as Karisma did X

That's just one example. Your habit is to have people say things, reflect on what was said and tell us a lot of stuff, then at the end, show us some emotions and sensations. You need to grab us at the beginning with sensations and vivid images, rather than waiting until the end.

If you want more examples, let me know.

[MeratheRestless]

Thank you for your very sagely observation. I never noticed that my writing follows a noticeable pattern. When you say the reader needs to be grabbed at the beginning with vivid imagery and sensations, what would you expect to experience or see?

[SweetNutmeg]

I'd be very happy with an image of what the character is looking at (the rug, the phone cord, the tree outside the window) or a physical sensation (such as a shiver or a lump in the chest, or the inability to swallow) before jumping into dialogue or monologue. It anchors your reader in the environment and helps them identify with the character, to see and feel what the character sees and feels. Does that help?

[MeratheRestless]

Yes, thank you again.

[MeratheRestless]

Thank you again for your suggestions. I tried them out when I updated this chapter and will keep them in mind as I continue writing.

[SweetNutmeg]

Wow, the change is dramatic. I am there with Karisma, at work, in the conference room, feeling as shocked as she is. Good job!