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I finally got it down and unbuckled the box. It was dusty as I opened it. There were some papers in it and a green pendant was lying on them.
With a smile on my face, I took the pendant in my hand and caressed it. Dad loved giving mom beautiful gifts. Did she keep it because of what he did to us?
I dropped the pendant and checked the papers. From my school certificates to my hospital papers, to the house papers to another copy of my birth certificate. I was certain my mother planned to sell out my birth certificates with the amount of copies she had.
She was a really paranoid person. Even when there was no reason to worry, she would stress so much and be irrationally suspicious and anxious.
Sometimes she would even warn me not to eat at Jayden’s house when we were young, because it could be ‘dangerous.’
He was my best friend and he ate at our place. I thought it was fair to eat at his place too, especially since his dad was my dad’s best friend. But according to my mother,‘only know your heart.’It turned out she was right though because I thought they’d never hurt us, yet they did.
I searched further and unfolded all the stash. I found my dad’s insurance papers from one of the documents I unfolded, and his voter's card fell from it. With a wide grin on my face, I wrapped the details together with the voter's card, and kept it in my chest purse. Chan might need the voter's card too, so I was going to take it away.
There was no way I was returning the box up, it would be way too heavy to lift so I would leave it. She should burn it; they were things that weren’t needed anymore, but my mother would never do that. She could keep it for another ten years and even make more photocopies if she had a dream where anything went wrong.
Ready to leave, I walked to the other end of the makeup table to drag it back to its former place and that was when I noticed a dent on the floorboard, where the table had covered before. It was a —not so obvious— broken floorboard, and out of curiosity, I bent and tried to lift the floorboard.
It removed easily like it was just placed there to cover something, which it was. I saw an old black book, a journal actually, since the wordsLAURA’S JOURNALwas embossed on it with gold.
That was my mother’s name. All desire to send the insurance paper to Chan flew out the window as I curiously picked up the dusty journal.
I was sure it was a forgotten journal.
My mother was really good at keeping things, but did she really need to keep this one? She could just burn it, but like I said, she would never burn anything. She would rather keep them for life.
Maybe she had some things in there that she felt would be important. I was surprised I hadn’t seen a photocopy of the book lying around. I dusted the book on my hand and coughed.
I opened it and even though it was rough and dirty, I could see that the first page was writtenLAURA’S JOURNALby my mother herself. I opened the first page which was dated March 12, 1997.
Hey journal, I met him again… I started.
22
ALEXIS
March 12, 1997.
Hey journal, I met him again. Yes, I did; but he is apparently my husband’s best friend. It turned out the person he always told me about was who I am now married to. He is married too, he is married to a woman who has birthed five boys for him. It has been seven years since we’ve separated, when my parents told me not to marry him because of his family’s line of work. And even though we had both been very sad and angry about it, I had to listen to my parents. When Chris introduced us, Cedric acted like he didn't know me, so I kept my mouth shut as well. I didn’t expect to ever see him again, at least not so close to me. What should I do?
Confused and dumbfounded, I turned to the former page to confirm whose book I was holding. I saw it again, ‘Laura’s Journal.’ The book did belong to my mother. Then what was I reading? If the book said ‘he is apparently my husband’s best friend,’ that means she was talking about Cedric Antonio.
I ran my hand down my face. Was I drunk or dreaming? Mother knew Cedric from the past and not only did she know him, they dated? ‘My parents told me not to marry him.’ What the actual fuck was I reading? Jayden’s father and my mother almost got married?
But mother and Cedric never acted like they knew each other. In fact, they barely talked. Jayden and I once talked about how we felt like my mother and his father hated each other, and we laughed it off because it was funny.
In fact, I once overheard my dad telling my mother to try to get to know Cedric because he was aniceman. How would my dad feel if he knew this, how would he feel if he found out that he was actually trying to matchmake two people who had been intimate before?
1997. Jayden and I weren’t even born then. My mother kept this from everyone for twenty six years. She moved this book with her from house to house all because she didn’t know how to throw things away or burn them.
I was ready to turn the next page. I was going to read this whole book even if it took me forever, which it wouldn't. It would probably take me three to five days, if I didn’t stop in the middle to travel to South Africa and confront my mother about the shit she did and still wrote down in a book.
I abandoned the box and table, still disorganized, and left for my house.
* * *
I got home and after taking a shower, I arranged my room and ate a granola bar. With a pair of reading glasses, hot chocolate, an extra small jotter and pen to highlight important things, I sat on my bed ready to dive into my mother’s secrets.
I wrote down ‘Mother and Cedric used to date’ on the jotter and turned to the next page.